Improving Soil on Wooded Habitat Trails

M

Matt Galati

Member
We have made multiple habitat trails recently on our property in Upstate, NY. These habitat trails cut threw bedding areas on mountain sides. Some areas the soil quality is better than others. Soil PH is below 5.

We have spent so much time in the past worrying about what forage to plant in our foodplots. Within the last year weve stopped worrying so much about what to plant and just making sure that we had the most variety possible on the property as opposed to just one plant.

I want to try to incorporate this strategy into our habitat trails. Right now we have them seeded with rye, oats, white dutch clover, alsike clover and crimson clover.

We have been fertilizing with 18-18-18 and are looking into switching over to liquid fertilizer for the trails. Hauling all of that weight up the mountain can be difficult.

Was wondering what techniques, forages, fertilizers etc other people have used in extremely poor soil conditions to improve both there hunting and improve soil.

Not really interested in throw and grow techniques etc. We plan on layering or plots with as much variety we can to provide full season attraction and build as much organic matter as possible.

Would love to hear what you guys are doing
 
I would look at spreading a whole lot of lime on the trails. With a PH below 5, you will have a hard time getting anything to grow very well.
 
Limited sun light is one of the biggest hurdles on our narrow trail 'plot" trail plantings. We went with a mix of clovers as you did in our more narrow and new trail plantings but with chicory and winter rye and no fertilizer. It will be mowed about July 15 to help keep weeds down. Meanwhile it is on the list to cut more trees on south sides first, then east and west.
 
Winter rye and alsike clover both do well enough on low-pH soils, although a little lime never hurts. I would say you've got this well in hand. :)

A couple things to be aware of:
1) Having food on trails means deer will linger there...which means you should not leave scent there, yourself. You described them as "habitat trails", so if they are there for the wildlife, you're in good shape. If you plan to use them to access stand locations, having them planted to food sources is generally a bad idea.
2) Many folks are anxious to plant old trails and roads because they have so little open ground to work with, in terms of food plots. However, creating many small plots, or trails of food plots, can scatter deer feeding activity, making hunting more challenging. You may stop seeing deer where you always had before (in your existing plots, during daylight, for example). Deer love food sources that are secluded and near escape cover...so much so that if they have sufficient access to such, you may find that your efforts to improve their habitat will greatly hamper your hunting efforts. (Ask me how I learned THAT lesson! :) )
 
I think that is an excellent point. Personally I prefer all my trails, sidewalks, roadways to be dirt and I spray them so that not much grows on them. I don't want them delayed on the trails.
 
I'd quit with the fertilizer and just haul lime until you have that handled. If it's just trails, I'd spend the money on pell lime. After that is done. I'd just get a phosphate fertilizer and skip the N and K. Of course, the easiest food is made with a chainsaw and sunlight.
 
Sounds like you have a good soil building mix planted. And others have already advised lime.

On a shady mountain trail, don't do any tillage if you want to hold your good soil or amendments.
 
manure and lime. Yes you will have weeds but that is what spray is for. Ph 5.7 on 1/4acre last year, after 600lbs ag lime and 2100lbs manure (bagged fleet farm stuff) the PH is now 6.4 . That's 60bags of manure and 12 bags lime $150-160 full store price. Lot of work but it was mainly for experiment and I believe it worked as I had hoped (n-p-k levels are great now). Just spending the money on lime probably would have gotten same results but who doesn't like shoveling poo for a while
 
Matt Galati said:
Chainsaw

Did you try any crimson clovers?
Click to expand...
No I did not try crimson clover. The one I saw for sale was listed as an annual (don't know if all crimsons are) so I passed on it. I did plant mammoth red, 3 whites--kopu2, jumbo ladino 2, ladino and Real World clover/chicory mix(ladino white and Real World white and chicory). This year I added dutch clover to the inventory to replace the mammoth red. Dutch clover I am told by local farmers is the white that grows naturally here. A check in my plots show very little Mammouth red left visible from a 2014 planting. I wouldn't mind having a different red in the mix if there is one that lives long like the whites but am happy with the whites as is also.

As Jason and Buckly stated, Planting trails does spread out the deer somewhat and can make hunting them more difficult. On the other side of the coin, planting trail sections where deer normally cross and a stand is set up for the crossing can lead to more chances at relaxed standing shots. And it can help keep the deer on your property longer which could result in a deer or two reaching older ages. As in many things we do there are pluses and minuses.

I don't plant any of our property perimeter trails.
 
We have been frost seeding clover on our 4 wheeler trails for the last few years. The farmer uses the trails for evening wheeler rides and crusining around his property. We have added lime when we could and we are starting to see some clover take hold. These trails are generally around our food plots or very close by and many of our stands are on the trails and the trails lead to the food plots. Our hope is the clover in the trails will slow the deer down a bit on their way to the plots. Our other hope is to hold more deer on the property, provide clover for fawns, does and bucks growing horns. In our section, every neighbor I know has at least 1 food plot, many of the neighbors have multiple food plots and as google updates it images, I see more food plots going in.
 
That's all we have for food plots. Last year was our first year. We took old overgrown logging roads and cleared them First we sprayed, mowed, resprayed, disced and seeded. We did the full LC mix minus the peas with very satisfactory results. This year we opened the trails up to a little more sunlight, did soil tests, amended appropriately and are moving forward from there. This year we'll be doing the same mix but will be adding the peas. One of the trails will be staying in clover and I'll probably spread some radishes in there to cover any open spots just for fun. We tended to,stay off the trails for the most part after they were seeded and we hunt with a low impact approach staying in the edges of the property looking in. I say go for it and see what happens. We didn't kill any record book deer but we harvested three deer off of 36 acres and had a good time working on the trails.
 
Matt Galati said:
We have made multiple habitat trails recently on our property in Upstate, NY. These habitat trails cut threw bedding areas on mountain sides. Some areas the soil quality is better than others. Soil PH is below 5.

We have spent so much time in the past worrying about what forage to plant in our foodplots. Within the last year weve stopped worrying so much about what to plant and just making sure that we had the most variety possible on the property as opposed to just one plant.

I want to try to incorporate this strategy into our habitat trails. Right now we have them seeded with rye, oats, white dutch clover, alsike clover and crimson clover.

We have been fertilizing with 18-18-18 and are looking into switching over to liquid fertilizer for the trails. Hauling all of that weight up the mountain can be difficult.

Was wondering what techniques, forages, fertilizers etc other people have used in extremely poor soil conditions to improve both there hunting and improve soil.

Not really interested in throw and grow techniques etc. We plan on layering or plots with as much variety we can to provide full season attraction and build as much organic matter as possible.

Would love to hear what you guys are doing
Click to expand...

I had a big thread on utilizing two tracks for easy extra forage on the QDMA forum. Shame that is gone. :(

Long story short - use existing roads to create summer forage with white clover. KoPu2 has worked great for me.

Disk, lime (!!!), fertilize, cultipack, seed, then cultipack again (perhaps twice).

The lime, fertilizer, and seeding are very easily accomplished with a cheap plastic drop spreader intended for lawns. Drop spreader is vital if just seeding the center of two track. Might get away with broadcast spreader if you are seeding entire road width.

Have a friend drive a pickup or SUV slowly while you sit on the back with the spreader and drive the trails. You'll quickly figure out the proper drop spreader setting to truck velocity ratio.

NOTE -- Not all drop spreaders work in reverse, which is what you'll need sitting on the back of a truck. Check before buying!
 
Last edited:
Chainsaw said:
No I did not try crimson clover. The one I saw for sale was listed as an annual (don't know if all crimsons are) so I passed on it. I did plant mammoth red, 3 whites--kopu2, jumbo ladino 2, ladino and Real World clover/chicory mix(ladino white and Real World white and chicory). This year I added dutch clover to the inventory to replace the mammoth red. Dutch clover I am told by local farmers is the white that grows naturally here. A check in my plots show very little Mammouth red left visible from a 2014 planting. I wouldn't mind having a different red in the mix if there is one that lives long like the whites but am happy with the whites as is also.

As Jason and Buckly stated, Planting trails does spread out the deer somewhat and can make hunting them more difficult. On the other side of the coin, planting trail sections where deer normally cross and a stand is set up for the crossing can lead to more chances at relaxed standing shots. And it can help keep the deer on your property longer which could result in a deer or two reaching older ages. As in many things we do there are pluses and minuses.

I don't plant any of our property perimeter trails.
Click to expand...

I agree entirely regarding not planting perimeter roads. Too much risk of poaching, or advertising large deer to neighbors.

Regarding spreading deer out, in northern Michigan (USDA zones 4/5) the clover is most often dormant by gun season. So it serves as spring and summer forage only. Deer will concentrate on your other plots when hunting season approaches.


Sent from my iPad using Deer Hunter Forum
 
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