Adding shrubs to my CRP

dtragsdale

New Member
I've owned this property for about 4-5 years and have been enrolled in CRP for about 3 years now. I'm now looking to add some shrubs for habitat/food/bedding. I'm new to habitat creation, so looking for ideas on how to layout my shrubs. Will be adding about 1200 shrubs of various species. Total CRP is about 24 acres so I can only add about 1.25 acres of shrubs in a couple different spots. The map attached (if it works) is my land. Yellow lines are common deer paths, blue circles are current deer stands that can be moved if needed, and the red lines are my current access points to the fields (field drives). Access points can change too. The bottom (south) 3rd sits high with a ridge running east/west, just north of that pond. Any thoughts or suggestions greatly appreciated!
 

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I have a lot of experience with shrub planting and recommend keeping maintenance in mind. If you live in a place where trees will eventually take over a field, you will have the same issue with trees eventually shading out your shrubs. That means either mowing of maintenance with hand tools to keep succession from eventually destroying what you have created. A field is easy to mow, but a shrub planting may or may not be depending on how you lay it out.

My other recommendation is to stick with shrubs that thrive in your zone and soil type/s. I've had great luck with everything except red osier dogwood. I have some places that are wet enough for them, but they don't thrive here like they do in the north.

Depending on your deer density, you might have trouble with your shrubs being eaten and killed before they can get down sufficient roots. I had this problem with some varieties, so I ended up caging them. However, after a few years I was able to remove the cages, and now with the help of the birds, I am getting more of those shrubs in fence rows and other spots. Fence rows are great for shrubs. Ditches and other waste areas can also be good. Some of my best spots are places I sprayed and killed undesirables and saw shrubs pop up in the aftermath. Best wishes.
 
One popular method for shrub planting in a field and woods layout like yours, and instantly came to mind as a perfect fit when I looked at your map, is to plant a straight row of shrubs along your field edges, parallel to the woods, with a narrow mowable strip between the row of shrubs and the woods. This creates a lot more "edge" which is critical for deer management, and gives access cover for deer and hunters, and provides field edge bedding for deer, while being easy to manage.
Doing this would increase the attractiveness of your fields to deer bigtime.
 
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Good points. I have spoken with the conservation office that helped with my CRP plant and also with the local DNR forestry officer and have a handful of species that will work based on my soil types. Good tip - I'll look for some cages or covers of some sort to protect against early deer browse since population is pretty strong. Thanks
 
I can only speak from experience in my area and here in SW Kansas I like American plums. I am not sure what would work in your area in Iowa. My main focus is to manage for quail, but in doing so I also manage for pheasants and deer. Upland birds chicks need a diet of insects and pollinators in the CRP pollinator mix provide insects from spring to fall, but lack early blooms and that's where the plums come in. I have plans to add a double row of plums along a drainage with a pollinator mix between the shrub rows and the drainage. The main reason is to provide a protected travel lane for deer and an additional benefit for the quail.
The shrub rows will be planted with a tree planter, then covered with a follow up operation with weed barrier installed by machine. These operations require planting straight rows, so any rows that require a curve would need to be planted in straight sections. In this semi-arid area(17.5" annual rainfall) I plant buffalo grass between the shrub rows. We keep it mowed between the rows and the short buffalo grass is a maintenance saver. Our deer density are not that great and I have never had excessive browse, but state forestry recommends Plantskydd a spray-on deer deterrent(which I have never used).
I wish you much success in your plans.
 
Oh boy, if you're in Iowa, I'd see if dwarf chinkapin oaks will grow there. They were all the rage years ago, and now nobody talks about them. They're too weak to grow up by me. I wonder what happened to all of them that were planted 5 and 10 years ago.
 
Oh boy, if you're in Iowa, I'd see if dwarf chinkapin oaks will grow there. They were all the rage years ago, and now nobody talks about them. They're too weak to grow up by me. I wonder what happened to all of them that were planted 5 and 10 years ago.
Growing oak trees by planting is apt to end in failure for a fair percentage of the uninitiated, mainly due to planting the wrong trees for the local soil and climate. Chinkapins are of the whiteoak family but like moist alkaline soils, while true whiteoaks like the opposite. We grow a lot of oak trees, but we propagate what's already there, letting them reseed themselves. Chinkapins also get a host of different diseases if things aren't right for them, whereas our whiteoaks are almost bulletproof against disease.
The following thread is an interesting read on whether trees are all the rage or not :)
 
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