The Great Cedar Eradication of 2021 has begun!

John Paul

Well-Known Member
After listening to the Land and Legacy podcast for a few weeks I started looking at all the cedars on our property funny. Well I’d had enough and started cutting today. I’ll burn this spot next Spring after putting in some fire breaks on two sides. It was a lot of fun but man it feels like work sometimes!

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They can be a pain taking over fields but they do provide late winter browse and good protection in snow. I always find lots of deer beds beneath them late winter. I don't cut mine, just push and break over with tractor bucket. Easiest before spring sap. They don't survive abuse. Makes for good small game habitat.
 
They can be a pain taking over fields but they do provide late winter browse and good protection in snow. I always find lots of deer beds beneath them late winter. I don't cut mine, just push and break over with tractor bucket. Easiest before spring sap. They don't survive abuse. Makes for good small game habitat.
Please no offense but I think if our deer are having to resort to eating cedar branches as browse in late winter I’m not doing my job as a habitat manger! I do agree they make a good snow break for the deer and animals though. Good news is I have plenty of them to go around and I’ll be long dead before I could cut every one off our property!
 
I like the fact they are relatively easy to grow and kill. In Kansas, they are the quickest way to provide cover taller than 10’. I’ll always have at least some warm season grass/cedar bedding on our property.
 
I am going to spade some out of my NWSG to move but planted 20 new ones.I too have beds by just about every cedar
 
Yea they certainly are not a preferred browse but if one looks late Feb when foot or two snow covers the ground I think they certainly make use of them on a small scale. Especially in non ag heavily forested areas. Cedar is a preferred browse in the western states but diff situation and more so white cedars.
They do take over abandoned fields w a vengeance mainly because they are indicative of poor soils which is why they typically are interspersed w native grasses of Broomsedge.
Part of the problem is they are notorious in abandoned farms that ran cattle because the cattle eat anything that gives variety and the fact most cattle farmers have covered the landscape w the diverse plant smothering fescue.


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Yea they certainly are not a preferred browse but if one looks late Feb when foot or two snow covers the ground I think they certainly make use of them on a small scale. Especially in non ag heavily forested areas. Cedar is a preferred browse in the western states but diff situation and more so white cedars.
They do take over abandoned fields w a vengeance mainly because they are indicative of poor soils which is why they typically are interspersed w native grasses of Broomsedge.
Part of the problem is they are notorious in abandoned farms that ran cattle because the cattle eat anything that gives variety and the fact most cattle farmers have covered the landscape w the diverse plant smothering fescue.


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Exactly what is going on with this field I’m messing with. Cattle used to mow this field to the ground years ago. Poor jack land soil that was overgrazed. We fenced out a creek so the cows could not sit in the water anymore and this is in the other side of creek that has gone fallow.
I have friends up north who talk about deer yarding up on their place for the winter and how late season they brows the cedars with feet of snow on the ground. Saves the deer lives some years I’m sure.
 
Removing cedar is some of the best ways to promote native grasses and forbs. We try to kill a batch every year. The worst are older cedar that block all light and create a tight canopy.
 
I will say one of the best places I’ve ever hunted had patches of cedar so thick you could hardly walk into them. I think they were safe havens for bucks during gun seasons.
Triple C once showed on the old forum making his split rail entrance fencing from split red cedar. Still remember how great it looked. Would like to do the same some day.


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We don't get the seemingly vast expanses of cedars here as seen in pictures from other areas. We cut cedars down only when they compete with an apple tree. Other than that they get to stay. The deer often bed near them and prefer them for making rubs. The cedars for us break up the white monotony of winter views adding some green color out there. It never ceases to amaze me how different our properties are from one another. Here it is close to impossible to manage the deer herd in a way that keeps the population in line with the habitat. With 78 does living on the property (2018 numbers )and a better than 1.5 fall retention rate, population control just isn't doable unless one would want to give up buck hunting and didn't mind working around the game laws some years.
I am actually planting white cedars this spring to add some cover and winter feed. The cedars will need permanent caging around them here or they wouldn't survive the deer attention. Good luck with your project John Paul. It will change the view. Am looking forward to following your progress as you transition from cedars to I presume different types of shrub browse.
 
We don't get the seemingly vast expanses of cedars here as seen in pictures from other areas. We cut cedars down only when they compete with an apple tree. Other than that they get to stay. The deer often bed near them and prefer them for making rubs. The cedars for us break up the white monotony of winter views adding some green color out there. It never ceases to amaze me how different our properties are from one another. Here it is close to impossible to manage the deer herd in a way that keeps the population in line with the habitat. With 78 does living on the property (2018 numbers )and a better than 1.5 fall retention rate, population control just isn't doable unless one would want to give up buck hunting and didn't mind working around the game laws some years.
I am actually planting white cedars this spring to add some cover and winter feed. The cedars will need permanent caging around them here or they wouldn't survive the deer attention. Good luck with your project John Paul. It will change the view. Am looking forward to following your progress as you transition from cedars to I presume different types of shrub browse.

I have to assume that is not normal for most parts of NY to have that high of a deer population that you are seeing on your place Chainsaw? That is a pile of does and you are correct that’s a lot of mouths to feed.

We are excited about walking the property with Matt Dye in early April. Ready to actually get into more habitat projects than just food plots. Lots of TSI coming our way I’d imagine. Here is an overview of the work sight below one of our Foodplots. There are tons of beds and trails in and around this spot in the open areas of 3-4’ tall grasses but the thick cedars that have canopied the area it’s a wasteland underneath. And plenty of cover to the East in the pines.
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That is correct John Paul, the population here is not the norm on most properties in NY. In fact the DEC told me it was not possible. They gave me the name of their most active camera person and we went over every detail of my camera setups and methodology used to calculate the population and from that he agreed the numbers were arrived at correctly. He was working about thirty miles north of me and was seeing a 1.41 fall recruitment rate which is also higher than most areas.

Looking at your map as you say, you won't run out of cedar trees to cut. With us we skipped most of the TSI as there was a lot of ash and a lot of junk trees. Giving dying ash trees and hundreds of junk trees more sun and space to grow just didn't make any sense. It was that cutting extra hard over a three year period that produced a large flush of new growth food and cover that upped our population so quickly. Again every property is different and what was right for this property would not be right for many other properties. With a more healthy and productive forest, a slower TSI approach would have been the path we might have chose instead.
 
That is correct John Paul, the population here is not the norm on most properties in NY. In fact the DEC told me it was not possible. They gave me the name of their most active camera person and we went over every detail of my camera setups and methodology used to calculate the population and from that he agreed the numbers were arrived at correctly. He was working about thirty miles north of me and was seeing a 1.41 fall recruitment rate which is also higher than most areas.

Looking at your map as you say, you won't run out of cedar trees to cut. With us we skipped most of the TSI as there was a lot of ash and a lot of junk trees. Giving dying ash trees and hundreds of junk trees more sun and space to grow just didn't make any sense. It was that cutting extra hard over a three year period that produced a large flush of new growth food and cover that upped our population so quickly. Again every property is different and what was right for this property would not be right for many other properties. With a more healthy and productive forest, a slower TSI approach would have been the path we might have chose instead.

We don’t have to worry about ash on our property for much longer; they are all dead. 1000s of them dead as a door nail. Only worry now is all the ones that are still standing about to fall on cattle fencing! I’ll be repairing a lot of fences the next 5 years as they start to come down.
 
That is correct John Paul, the population here is not the norm on most properties in NY. In fact the DEC told me it was not possible. They gave me the name of their most active camera person and we went over every detail of my camera setups and methodology used to calculate the population and from that he agreed the numbers were arrived at correctly. He was working about thirty miles north of me and was seeing a 1.41 fall recruitment rate which is also higher than most areas.

Looking at your map as you say, you won't run out of cedar trees to cut. With us we skipped most of the TSI as there was a lot of ash and a lot of junk trees. Giving dying ash trees and hundreds of junk trees more sun and space to grow just didn't make any sense. It was that cutting extra hard over a three year period that produced a large flush of new growth food and cover that upped our population so quickly. Again every property is different and what was right for this property would not be right for many other properties. With a more healthy and productive forest, a slower TSI approach would have been the path we might have chose instead.

Very interesting your take on the almost “too good” of improvement y’all made over the 3 year period. If you build it they will come right?
And I echo your comments about how different everyone’s property is, no size fits all for sure in regards to habitat management.
 
We don’t have to worry about ash on our property for much longer; they are all dead. 1000s of them dead as a door nail. Only worry now is all the ones that are still standing about to fall on cattle fencing! I’ll be repairing a lot of fences the next 5 years as they start to come down.

Luckily we don’t have cattle fencing to worry about but we did rent a skytrak to lift me to the top of the dead ash trees, in a forklift basket, to piece them down around our cabin.

We didn’t get them all though. CAFABDB0-D93F-422A-8FB4-2440B61A9880.jpeg
 
They do make a great tree to put a stand in though. You can disappear in the branches. I wouldn't get rid of all of mine because they do have some really good uses. But, you can also have too many. I see them as just another tool to be strategically used for all sorts of things. I'd hate to have vast expanses of them, but I sure would hate to not have any. Wish I could move mature ones around like chess pieces.
 
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