Timber stand improvement question

[MaxMO]

I have a question about TSI. I'm understanding the benefits of it. Removing the competing trees, getting sunlight to the ground, more food for browsing, good low cover, etc. That all makes sense to me to attract more deer to the area during the spring and summer months. Maybe into the fall. I can see the benefits during the growing season. My question though, what about during the fall and winter? Would all that low cover all die back and it becomes just open timber? Would you see less deer in that area because there is no real thick cover for bedding or as much edge habitat?

 

[Native Hunter]

During the first couple of years the downed tree tops themselves from the larger trees will help provide some cover. This is especially true if you hinge cut rather than just cut the trees down. Starting shortly after cutting, you will get tree saplings and other vegetation shooting up from the sunlight hitting the ground. This new flush of growth is what gives you the new cover. Even though the leaves die back and fall off in the winter, the shoots and limbs themselves should provide a lot of cover. They also provide food, because the deer will browse this new growth - especially in the winter months.

To specifically answer your last question - I doubt you will see less deer. If in some way you have actually caused there to be less cover the first year, it might happen, but that would be an unusual situation. I could see that being the case if you cut down only small trees at the end of the growing season; however, by the end of next year you should be in business, and it will continue to improve for several years.

 

[weekender21]

I’d guess Native nailed it in the second paragraph. The only way to make the timber more open in a mature hardwoods stand is to remove understory and mid-story trees while leaving the mature trees. A key component to TSI and definitely FSI if you’re wildlife focused, is removing a portion of the mature trees. The more you remove, the greater growth response you’ll have at deer level.


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[George]

TSI/FSI is how you/I hold mature bucks in the fall and winter.

G

 

[Flatiron75]

You could also plant a few clusters of evergreens like spruce, Fraser fir, or if you don't have fruit trees that would be affected by CAR, you could plant some red cedars in areas you timbered. We've done several large TSI cuts and clearcuts at camp over the years, but we planted clusters or lines of spruce to add some thicker cover for when leaves drop off deciduous growth. Sunlight = new growth at browse levels for a couple years, but having additional evergreen cover in spots can provide security & thermal cover when other leaves drop.

 

[MaxMO]

I always see the pictures or the videos of a property with TSI during the spring and summer and makes sense that it attracts deer. I guess in my mind, once winter hits it would be wide open. But I'm probably wrong. I'm used to hunting in the thickest places a deer can still navigate through. A lot of public land, thats where I've seen they go to.

 

[yoderjac]

Keep in mind that a TSI covers a lot of territory. It can be hinge cutting to create cover. It can be removing less desirable trees to improve the commercial value of the timber stand. It can be the level of thinning of a pine stand. It can be a herbicide application to remove competition. It can be removing poor producing oaks that are using resources that proximate high producing oaks could use to improve acorn production.

One of the best thing we did to improve deer habitat was to increase the thinning rate of our pines, creating small 5 acre clear-cuts in strategic spots, and then executing controlled burns.

One last thing to consider is that sometimes improving habitat for deer can make hunting more difficult. When deer have quality food in cover, thee is less need for them to expose themselves and can become more sensitive to hunting pressure.

 

[weekender21]

I always see the pictures or the videos of a property with TSI during the spring and summer and makes sense that it attracts deer. I guess in my mind, once winter hits it would be wide open. But I'm probably wrong. I'm used to hunting in the thickest places a deer can still navigate through. A lot of public land, thats where I've seen they go to.

It could appear wide open the first year if you only hack and squirt or girdle the trees and don’t fell any. Even then, if you kill enough trees you’ll have a 4-6’ thicket by year three.


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[buck]

Most property projects you should allow yourself 3 years of patience to see the rewards. Additionally, most property projects won't have a major negative impact on the deer during the 3 years of waiting so waiting isn't a big deal.

TSI results in a thicket 3-5' seedlings in 3 years. The first year your woods will be a bit more open but from my experience it didn't have much impact on how deer use the area in the fall/winter because prior to me performing the TSI, the woods wasn't thick enough at deer eye level to be bedding anyways.

In the 1st year, one nice thing you can do is make brush piles with the trees you've chopped down. Prior to TSI, in the winter, you could still see all the way across my woods. I used the brush piles to create visual blockers so that isn't the case anymore.

Unless you are going to maintain the cut area every 1-2 years, I would highly suggest NOT doing hinge cuts. Yes, they do provide nice browse and an instantaneous visual blocker. But, 2+ years after you do the hinge cut, the sprouts off the tree have grown 3-6' so all the sprouts are no longer within browse reach. Then, you have a low timber value and low browse value tree and its massive "hinge" that is blocking a bunch of sunlight for productive seedlings to sprout up. We did hinge cuts on our property years ago, there isn't a single hinge cut tree that I look at now and think that was a good idea--many of which I have now cut down completely. I wish I would've just cut/trimmed the trees and let the sunlight+seedlings create the thicket.

 

[Mennoniteman]

I've done a lot of deer management including watering holes, fields, food plots, feeders, fruit trees, hinge cutting etc., and TSI performed by bringing in a logging crew is by far the best thing I ever did by any parameter you measure it with.

 

[Flatiron75]

After seeing what some "failed" loggings looked like on state land near camp, we did a few things differently with our loggings at camp. We brought in private foresters to assess and give us a plan that would improve the woods for both game and timber value in the future. We sprayed for ferns, barberry, stilt grass, and then did hack & squirt & basal spraying treatments on our TOH that had sprung up all over. Beside letting nature take its course on new seedlings, we put cages around some of the cut stumps to get FREE stump sprouts, and we planted a variety of oaks, black cherry, quaking aspen, balsam fir, Norway spruce, white spruce, ROD, and Washington hawthorn seedlings (WH's only along the edges). We caged most of the seedlings individually, but in our latest logging project, we fenced the logged area to keep deer out of the regenerating forest area.

So far, we've had good results - not 100% - but probably about 80 to 85% success.