The Great Cedar Eradication of 2021 has begun!

[Native Hunter]

I was always taught: "There is a place for everything, and everything should be in its place....." This is especially true of cedars.

You don't want them taking over your good fields, but a big cedar fence row or a cedar thicket on rough ground is a gold mine in habitat. Shown below is where I recently mowed back the native grasses from one of my cedar screens for turkey season. In a few days this will be full of turkeys. In the winter when the grasses are tall, it is full of deer. What more can a guy ask for?

 

[George]

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.

true that!

I would like to have some cedar thicket here in Ky, I have a few individuals here and there.

G

 

[John Paul]

I was always taught: "There is a place for everything, and everything should be in its place....." This is especially true of cedars.

You don't want them taking over your good fields, but a big cedar fence row or a cedar thicket on rough ground is a gold mine in habitat. Shown below is where I recently mowed back the native grasses from one of my cedar screens for turkey season. In a few days this will be full of turkeys. In the winter when the grasses are tall, it is full of deer. What more can a guy ask for?

In the field we are working on I’ll have probably a dozen cedars on 5 acres and they will all be really big mature cedars. Hunting turkeys under them and deer out of them will be nice once we are finished!

 

[George]

so not exactly an eradication.

G

 

[John Paul]

so not exactly an eradication.

G

Nope. The ones I’m leaving are HUGE and I really don’t feel like cutting them down. And I agree with Benallgood I love putting hang ons and ladder stands in big cedars.

 

[John Paul]

We are making a dent on them.

 

[John Paul]

Going to be interesting to see what Matt Dye suggests what we do with this area. I’ve had daydreams about doing one part in old field management and one in switch grass. Going to be fun. We hit an older fence line and originally stopped by we started going again.

 

[George]

What is your plan for managing the carcasses?

G

 

[Kurt]

Curious about that as well. Probably make a heck of a burn pile.

On another note regarding cedars. If a guy finds some 1'-2' little guys growing where they shouldn't be, do they transplant well at all? I could see moving a few around if they do on my place.

 

[Gravel Road]

Curious about that as well. Probably make a heck of a burn pile.

On another note regarding cedars. If a guy finds some 1'-2' little guys growing where they shouldn't be, do they transplant well at all? I could see moving a few around if they do on my place.

Yes, they transplant very easily when they are that small. I moved some that size a few years ago and had over a 90% survival rate without any weed suppression or watering.

 

[George]

Hard to kill a cedar by transplanting it.




G

 

[catscratch]

Yep, transplant easily.

 

[John Paul]

What is your plan for managing the carcasses?

G

That’s a debate we are having. We had piled in the past but I like the idea of leaving in place and burning the fields early fall or next Spring. I know we wouldn’t get the best burn by not piling them up but have never do it this way before and might try.

 

[John Paul]

Some drone photos Matt from Land and Legacy took while on the farm of the cedars we started cutting.

You can see Foodplot on right with cedars south and East of the food plot.