These are very good questions Dogghr and I appreciate your candor and don’t ever consider your insights to be derailing. Luckily for me we are not as far apart in our approaches as the two pictures of where the buck was taken shows.
The deer density in the old pic labeled as taken in 2001 in my files was about in the peak of the brush growth and the peak of the deer population. Off subject but it was shot at about 12:15 pm. It was common to see 25 to 35 deer in a good in the woods ½ day sit pre rut. The DPSM was likely a hundred or more. Over the last five years the DPSM has ranged from a low of maybe twenty to a high of 60 on this property. However most surrounding properties had and have significantly less. The most recent after winter browse survey showed enough preferred browse left so that no one was left hungry.
We do have significant black berry growth and the deer eat the leaves regularly throughout summer and early fall. MFR is not a problem here on most of the property. Each spring I find some and kill it. Some places I expect a fern problem and they will be sprayed each late spring; in many areas there is a buckthorn problem and they will be sprayed where they affect apple trees.
All of the oak trees on this property have been saved—all five or six of them, all of the apples trees have been saved—all 2500 or so (the majority of apple trees are clustered together in three to four acre sections) and many hickory clumps have been saved and are scattered throughout the property in the locations thought to be the most deer popular (remember this is where the deer find hickory nuts to be a preferred food). In addition along drainage's, hemlock and cedar are saved. Some poplar stands have been clear cut while others are saved to be clear cut at later dates as a way to ration winter browse from the resultant prolific poplar root sprouts that occur after a poplar stand clear cut. Here is a picture of poplar sprouting which occurred five weeks after cutting down the poplar stand and a second picture of one of the poplar stands left standing.
The area where the deer was shot was a mixed stand of pasture grown type hard maple and ash which consisted of less than 2% cherry and beech. Beech trees with disease were cut while healthy beech trees were saved. There weren’t many beech stands throughout the property and the beech here seldom have nuts here but they do have their day some years.
Probably I may have cut harder than you have in mind but not as much overall as represented in the picture of where the deer was shot. As you can tell I’m going for the maximum amount of beneficial early succession growth while maintaining many of the mast trees that the property has in place. I would say that the difference between what I’m doing and what you are doing as I hear it is that I am cutting heavily for food and cover and leaving small clusters of trees and all apple trees wherever they are while you will be cutting small clusters for food and cover here and there and leaving all of your mast trees (which are significantly more heavily stocked than mine) wherever they are. So it sounds like I am definitely cutting harder than you by a lot yet am not cutting as thorough completely throughout the property as your neighbor did.
I’m not certain of the exact re-growth plants in the pictures of where the deer was shot. Here is a close up of a re-growth picture taken fairly close to there of new growth a few weeks old.
As you can see there is a variety of things germinating. I’ll cover a lot more of this as I go along with the thread. I thank you for sharing your thoughts and look forward to learning how your cuts make out as well. After three years of logging I still have one more year’s worth left to cut.
