Recreating a Deer Woods

[Steve Bartylla]

Dave, when you sent me the email to check this out, I had very high expectations, s you have earned them many times over in our discussions and what you've shared soooo freely with others....WOW did you ever somehow exceed the heck out of those expectations!

I'm afraid I have extremely little to add, as you are talking PhD level apple talk here. We don't have a lot of wild apples in most of the areas I work. I have released them on two properties I can remember, over the years. Frankly, without really knowing better, I accidentally did essentially the same thing you do for releasing. What I can say is that your area isn't normal, compared to the grounds I've been on, in its abundance of apple trees. Your history lesson on apple cider makes sense as to why (thanks, found that and this entire thread beyond fascinating).

The one thing I can add is already old news. On one of the first pages, I think it was dogghr remarked something about opening the canopy like you had in one of the earlier shots would result in a MFR explosion. He's right, FOR HIS AREA, just like you have a surplus of wild apples, but I don't. It's merely regional differences. In IL, MO, IA, that latitude belt, MFR goes nuts with most any kind of aggressive logging efforts, including when hinge cuts open the canopy. Now, get much into WI, MN, MI, ND and the parts of Canada I've worked and MFR is a nonissue. Instead, you get berries, which are more good than bad, unlike MFR, which can be nasty on every level, IF allowed to get too thick and nasty.

In my experience, some MFR is fine, but it can and does in some instances get sooo thick and nasty that nothing much bigger than a rabbit steps into the stuff. In those situation, if you ever have a dozer on the place, you can clear a ridiculous amount of MRF in a day's work...Same applies to Autumn Olive. These guys that go out there and try to control large patches by hand of either, more power too ya, but you may want to seriously consider renting a dozer or dozer and operator for a day. In my experience, you can get 3-4 week's worth of hand work done in 1 day with a dozer, while creating trail systems and blockades for deer at the same time.

Other than that, all I can say is thanks again for expanding my knowledge. The entire group here humbles me with your insights, knowledge and willingness to help others, far more than you all realize....thank you

 

[Chainsaw]

Thank you Steve for catching up on this thread. Your insights are very valuable to all of us.. Thanks to Dogghr the potential for an MFR explosion is constantly on my mind. Already this year I have identified a couple of MFR plants and have sprayed them. It may be too early in the year to kill them but they will be watched and sprayed like heck whenever they appear. It is a huge area but I plan to be very diligent about this.

As to our willingness to help others the late Paul Knox showed us all that giving everything just to give without expecting anything in return was a full reward in itself. And you have followed in his direction very well, we completely understand your new path but we miss your presence just the same.

 

[Chainsaw]

Youre right, Chainsaw. I would have hinged those apple trees and called them boxelder.
How old are they?

Fish, I cut a dead branch two days ago(march 3,2017) off of one of the pictured unreleased 6 inch sized main stem apple trees. The branch measures 2 3/4 inches across and has a 21 growth rings visible. It was a lower branch so chances are the tree itself was a year or two older than 21 when the branch died. The branch looks to have been dead for about four years. I know a lot of guessing and surmising but I'd put the six inch DBH apple trees in the pictures at about 27 years old. That's the growth we get when the sun is blocked out by competing trees and grape vines. In full sun and not in a regular under water spot I would expect a 6 inch tree that was protected from deer to be 8 to 10 years old.

 

[Fish]

That is very cool, Chainsaw. Hard to believe a small branch can be that "dense". Pardon me if i missed it somewhere in your thread, but are these apple trees from an abandoned orchard? Or just reseeded and growing willy nilly?

 

[Chainsaw]

That is very cool, Chainsaw. Hard to believe a small branch can be that "dense". Pardon me if i missed it somewhere in your thread, but are these apple trees from an abandoned orchard? Or just reseeded and growing willy nilly?

Yeah the growth rings were extremely tight to each other.The entire neighborhood/town was apple trees every where for making cider through the late 1800's. The two to three thousand apple trees on the property(2,000 plus counted and released) are reseeded descendants of those days and are growing throughout the property.

EDIT-Decided to add to this as while I answered the question there is more to it. Yes the wild apple trees grow Willy-Nilly across the entire property. They are scattered just as the black cherry, hickory, poplar and even beech and pine are. There are some wild apples seemingly everywhere on the property. Think of them as a timber tree though not as an orchard. As a timber tree it tends to grow in bunches, even stands so to speak.

Early on in our releasing days Dad and I noticed that the largest paybacks in releasing the apple trees was in doing them in large bunches where the apple trees were either the dominant or co-dominant tree in the stand. In addition we released the trees in hedgerows and field edges because they grew the best there and likely because they were easy to get to. Further some stands had larger trees that produced the most apples so those stands got a lot of our attention.

The result of all of the twenty-five plus years of releasing apple trees is now seven or eight stands(apple tree stands--not hunting stands) of predominately released apple trees. The apple tree stands are shown with groups of the small red squares on the property in the above picture.The stands are not orchards as they grow like woods trees some close together some not, some shaped perfectly, most not and surprisingly they are mostly all different in every way. The released stands are predominately apple but are not pure apple. In addition to those released apple tree stands there are still an uncounted number of apple trees scattered willy-nilly throughout the property that are unreleased. NOTE-Unreleased trees produce very few apples and sometimes even none. It is not unlike oaks where without a large crown few nuts are produced. Likely many overcrowded oak stands would benefit from releasing as much as these wild apples did.

In addition to the current stands of released apples there is some work ongoing to release apples around our redneck blinds. The last two Rednecks put out are in the woods off of food plot corners. I have marked the apple trees around those two Rednecks and will cut out shooting lanes that incorporate releasing some apple trees on the shooting lane edges.

I hope that betters answers the question--in a nutshell, yes wild apples grow willy-nilly across the landscape but generally only produce apples where we chose to release them.

 

[shedder]

Same tree as in post # 103

Would you prune the limb marked?

It comes off at a sharp angle. When I posted this before I thought the limb was the top of the apple and the main trunk a larch. It has an odd branch pattern and is peppered with sapsucker holes.

I also found this clump of shoots that I didn't know was there. Should the clump be reduced to one?

http://eatonrapidsjoe.blogspot.ca/2017/03/reading-landscape-apple-trees.html

BTW I found this interesting.

 

[Chainsaw]

Shedder, I have had limited success in pruning wild apple trees and am not a skilled apple tree pruner As to the bird pecks I have seen trees produce apples for many years with bird pecks in them so that wouldn't make me cut the branch. Most of the wild trees here have branches that are not perfect but they are producing apples so I leave them. If it wasn't producing apples and it was on its way out I might consider it dead and cut it. Branch cutting can result in lots of suckers though so I don't often cut them unless there is good reason. Note--dead is a good reason for cutting off a branch as the branch acts as a roadway for bugs, rot and disease to enter the rest of the tree. In the first picture I'm not sure whether the apple tree is the one on the left or the right. The one on the left looks like a larch and the one on the right looks like a poplar or even a birch(my computer screen needs replacing for sure). I would cut the non-apple down as those two trees are just too close to each other. Any other trees that were inhibiting the apple tree from getting both four sides of light and four sides of growing space for the apple trees' crown would be cut as well.

I'm presuming the second picture shows stump sprouts I have one of those occasionally and just let them grow. They produce a huge amount of browse which is readily eaten in the winter/spring by the deer. Eventually they even produce apples as well. If I wanted to turn it into a apple tree with the sole purpose of producing apples, I'd pick a couple of "U" shaped connections versus "V" shaped connections from the stump and cut all the rest as explained in "Crop Tree Management In Eastern Hardwoods" Published by the US dept of Agriculture. It is written for growing timber trees versus apple trees but the methods would apply. Having so many apple trees I just haven't messed with trying to raise them so much as working to keep alive what is already grown so my experience in growing stump sprouts into trees is so limited to not be of much value to others.

Thanks for the link. I enjoy reading most everything related to apple trees.

 

[Weasel]

I've been fortunate to come across a good many apple trees while doing my spring TSI each year. This year is no different. All of the apples I have released to date have been your standard, run of the mill wild apple tree. I found this beauty yesterday, buried in the shadows of the choking maples & tupelos. The first crabapple I have found on the property. As you can see, I gave her lots of sunlight. She's about 30' tall.

It's like someone has been pruning her all her life

 

[Weasel]

This is more typical of what I find on my place. I triple girdled the tupelo growing next to her and the maple to the right.

 

[Chainsaw]

That 30fter is a real beauty! it will likely produce many tons od apples over the years.

 

[shedder]

In the first picture I'm not sure whether the apple tree is the one on the left or the right. The one on the left looks like a larch and the one on the right looks like a poplar or even a birch(my computer screen needs replacing for sure).

Yes the one that looks like a larch (black line) looks like an apple with the "yellow" branch. it is a strange apple growth form. The birch is south of it so it may have been competing for light and grew high. I will cut the birch.

 

[Chainsaw]

That sounds good Shedder. You've probably noticed what I have regarding releasing. Many of the trees I've released over the years have been three sided releases leaving the north side unreleased. This has resulted in saving the trees, expanding their crowns (the part of the tree with all of the branches and leaves) on three sides and the production of more apples. Of course the crowns on the three sided releases had no room to grow on the unreleased side so the crown was not expanded on that side(usually the north side). The thinking was since the sun doesn't hit there releasing it was almost a moot point. However was I wrong on that thinking; the trees that were released on all four sides expanded their crowns and fruit production ON ALL FOUR SIDES!

So now if possible I release the apple trees on all four sides enough to let the full sun hit the tree and to give the crown of the tree space to grow. The crowns of the mature apple trees here seem to grow up to three inches a year with a lot more on some branches and less on others. Using three inches as a fairly optimistic all around crown growth measurement guesstimate a tree released with space all around it for two feet could need releasing again in three years. This would be assuming the competing trees were also growing their crowns out at 3 inches per year and of course that is even more of a wild card/unknown without measuring crown tree growth of various species on ones property. Thus I try for much larger room to grow cuts from releasing apple trees.

The numbers are neither solid nor scientific but the point is the apple tree crown and the crowns of the remaining trees can and do fill the new room to grow space in quite quickly. Do your observations over the years follow what I've seen here?

 

[Chainsaw]

My third annual winter population survey has been done, sheds have been searched for using as much time as I would like to and the property has been walked enough to define the winter kill to date. Note-additional winter kill is not expected but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Here is the population status of this property;

There were 64 deer on the property two weeks ago when I did the population count. The methodology used was to first count the deer seen at one time in the 10 acre triticale field observed from the sun room averaging observations over a week long period which was 32 at a time.. This was one corner of the field.



Then the remaining twenty-five acres of triticale/barley/rye fields were walked and compared deer sign in the snow to the ten acre field; The remaining fields combined equaled the sign in the 10 acre field so from that there was estimated to be an additional 32 deer or 64 deer in total on the property for that week.

It appeared that deer were not traveling from field to field but rather were hanging close to the fields they were feeding in. We also do not know how many of these deer may be from away or even just from a neighboring property and may return to where ever they may have come from. Thus 64 is likely the maximum number of deer feeding on the property for that week observed. It doesn't mean we have a population of 64 deer and it is just one measurement.

The two pictures below show the sheds found on the property in 2016 on the right and the sheds found in 2017 on the left. Due to the early snow melt the 2017 sheds are a lot fresher. In 2016 we found 6 and in 2017 only 5. The 2017 sheds though are slightly larger. Why we find such few sheds is a mystery to me as many bucks are seen in the fields throughout the day during shedding season. Still 2016 and 17 are the most sheds we have ever found. Note--I liked both pictures so included them both though they each show the same thing.




The total number of deer kills found was seven; none appeared to be starvation kills but were likely either fall shot from off the property or coyote kills. Each one was eaten by coyotes and birds so there was very little sign of the deceased deer left. The evidence of winter kills is so fragile and short lived that if I were to check the entire property today I would likely only find one or two. So those who check their property now and haven't in the last month likely would not get an accurate view of winter kills.

 

[Paradise725]

Nice sheds Dave! Maybe I need to come up there and show you how to find the small sheds. Then you can show me how to find the big ones!


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[Chainsaw]

Nice sheds Dave! Maybe I need to come up there and show you how to find the small sheds. Then you can show me how to find the big ones!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Forgot to mention the two bigger sheds of 2017 were found by--you guessed it-Anne

 

[Elkaddict]

Those are pretty nice sheds Dave. Congrats. Haven't found a thing yet this year.

 

[Triple C]

Dave, think I'd leave those sheds just the way you have them displayed. Really good looking display. Love your thread!

 

[Chummer]

Dave,
My dad told me today that the State is circumventing the DEC and passing a law for APR's state wide. Three on a side over an inch long. I can not find any info on this. Have you heard anything?

 

[Chainsaw]

Dave,
My dad told me today that the State is circumventing the DEC and passing a law for APR's state wide. Three on a side over an inch long. I can not find any info on this. Have you heard anything?

Jeremy, No I have not heard that;also checked the DEC website and found nothing about it.
Thank you Elk and Triple C, we got lucky this year that we had a snow-less period just after antler drop;it usually doesn't happen that way. I'd like to find more antlers but the last two years are our best ever;either I don't see them or the bucks drop them off the property. And C as you can tell; I'm quite fond of the antler display as I use that same background each year. However we are redoing the barn so next year I'll need to come up with a new antler display area.

 

[shedder]

I am glad it worked out. I read it years ago so I reread the apple and marijuana chapters last night. I had forgotten most of the apple chapter except for the Kazak bit which was the most interesting to me. I was surprised at how much of the marijuana chapter I forgot which was ironic since marijuana's role in forgetfulness was a theme of the chapter

https://www.amazon.com/Apples-Frank...id=1487518154&sr=1-1&keywords=APPLES+browning
https://www.amazon.com/Apples-Uncom...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=VTDEW4RAB65H9QP874K2

https://www.amazon.com/Holistic-Orc...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=MYR89PX9WA5EHJRP0QSC

These had good reviews so I am getting them from the library.

I have been reading the first two, waiting on the third.

Good books.

The Browning book covers Kazak apples in some detail and also the mythology and history of apples in world culture. More to it than you might think.

The Jacobsen book is a fun witty read on apple varieties with a lot of info. It describes apples like fine wine and is he into them!

The above in the Ozark Gold bit surprised me. I didn't know MO was big into apples, 100 years ago. WA has taken over now.

They talk about cider a lot but I saw no mention of the "ice wine" apple juice you tried last month.