|
Post by wentzler on Mar 6, 2015 6:58:24 GMT -5
Envious, a bit... on the track machine, Greyphase I'll throw in a bit of my 'cents' here on the topic. Don't know if it'll amount to two cents worth, tho' MFR, AO, honey suckle, barberry are NOT friends of wildlife..but the bane thereof. Yes deer will eat the growing tips of MFR, but only takes one really good growing season, and the tips are out of reach, often Smothering the next layer up in the canopy. Yep, grouse, smaller birds and turkey do eat the 'hips' but believe given natural choice would sooner have indigenous 'fruit'. Autumn olive, always good to have a FEW, here and there...but let's be honest fellow sportsmen...there's not much to be said about utopia when looking at 5-? acres of the stuff. Honeysuckle, poisonous to many species, yep some birds do eat some of the multi-seed fruits. A clue would be...rabbits will not eat the bark in winter, and here around us...the rabbits we have natural selected our area to not much more THAN honeysuckle in what fence rows are left. HS does keep aerial predators off critters underneath it, but about the only thing grows well under it is PI..Poison Ivy Barberry, modest or less in food values, carries Cedar Rust virus which affects your apple tree eforts, grapes, and members of the cedar and Juniper families. If one studies the efforts and practices of wildlife 'enhancement' for a century or more...one could, reasonably draw the conclusion the majority of introduced species would have been better left..UN-Introduced. MHO
|
|
|
Post by timberdoodle on Mar 6, 2015 8:09:59 GMT -5
barberry, MFR, carry fruit well into winter allowing feed availability when others have long since been gone. Can't beat MFR for cover. PERIOD. if ya don't believe me ask any rabbit. Also allows rabbits to eat bark, as does AO. And as far as tips being out of reach for deer I have never seen MFR grow straight up and out of reach. Bends brambles all over the place.
The bush honey suckle also allows for deer browse, and as fast at this stuff spreads something has got to be eating the fruit...(birds) and the fruit also hangs on dry during the winter months. But of all introduced bush honeysuckle is probably my least favorite.
It would be wonderful to have strawberries apples and acorns and fresh leaves and clover year round...but alas, there are times when marginal nutrition is better than no nutrition. Watch a turkey in a sumac tree come February, saw a flock of hens just yesterday trying to get what they could from cattails... I bet some fruit from MFR or barberry would look mighty tasty to that crew.
and that is MHO
|
|
|
Post by fleroo on Mar 16, 2015 14:41:43 GMT -5
Why I believe we have a big BINGO ! from the Tumblerdiddie camp. *thumbsup* I'll add, Ailanthus (non-native) is a real pain in the rump to try and control. But it is THE MOST prolific, fast growing tree I have ever met. Luckily for me, once it reaches uber-maturity, say 16-18-20" in diameter, it seems to get a disease and dies off on my place. Penn State actually was tabbed to come down to my place, and study the groves of Ailanthus I have and their die-off, but it never transpired. Never heard if they figured out the cause or not, but they knew they were contracting a disease. Point of all this I'm about to make. I cut young to mid-age Ailanthus on a hillside above my home. My Satellite Dish "runway" was thickening up, mostly with this garbage tree. Garbage being relevant and species dependent I reckon. This was a mid-spring cut, and within 2 days, every tree down was stripped of it's leaves completely from Deer. Add to that, Rabbits LOVE the bark, and I basically love their girdling the younger trees as a result. Ailanthus... bad for a timber management plan, yet seemingly beneficial to many types of wildlife.
|
|
|
Post by Dutch on Mar 16, 2015 21:10:49 GMT -5
Use drill and kill on ailanthus.
Idiots at my former gun club had CREP fields full of ailanthus. Their solution to "control" it was to just cut it down. Well, when you do that, you end up with a hundred root suckers.
I went in, cut them off, then squirted them with Roundup. Kills the roots, generally.
Had those fields pretty darned clean. 18 acres.
|
|
|
Post by galthatfishes on Mar 16, 2015 21:17:57 GMT -5
Use drill and kill on ailanthus. Idiots at my former gun club had CREP fields full of ailanthus. Their solution to "control" it was to just cut it down. Well, when you do that, you end up with a hundred root suckers. I went in, cut them off, then squirted them with Roundup. Kills the roots, generally. Had those fields pretty darned clean. 18 acres. You, your brothers and crew did a great job.
|
|
|
Post by timberdoodle on Mar 16, 2015 21:45:50 GMT -5
bunnies did a number on the autumn olive at my place this winter... hope they didn't kill them as I munch on the fruit in the fall, that is if the birds leave me any badday
|
|
|
Post by Dutch on Mar 17, 2015 5:24:51 GMT -5
Use drill and kill on ailanthus. Idiots at my former gun club had CREP fields full of ailanthus. Their solution to "control" it was to just cut it down. Well, when you do that, you end up with a hundred root suckers. I went in, cut them off, then squirted them with Roundup. Kills the roots, generally. Had those fields pretty darned clean. 18 acres. You, your brothers and crew did a great job. Only had help one time. The lazy bird hunters that wanted the fields cleared, offered no help......
|
|
|
Post by fleroo on Mar 17, 2015 6:45:08 GMT -5
I spoke to you on anothee website about this some years ago. I did the hack-n-squirt method with "ok" results. I remember you telling me I should have performed this in the summer as opposed to Feb. if I wanted optimal results. Makes sense to have the toxic delivery heading to the roots.
|
|
|
Post by Dutch on Mar 17, 2015 11:59:31 GMT -5
Yes, don't do it in the spring, when the sap is flowing up. Do it summer or late summer.
I've cut ailanthus in the spring and the sap almost bubbles out of the stump at that time, pushing the Gly away.
|
|
|
Post by galthatfishes on Mar 18, 2015 10:47:52 GMT -5
You, your brothers and crew did a great job. Only had help one time. The lazy bird hunters that wanted the fields cleared, offered no help...... Nope, they didn't. I always likened some of them as the welfare recipients of the club. I asked several times for the pheasant pen to be cleaned up- never happened and it fell. Then, some wanted the CLUB to foot the bill for their special interest pen. Came down to rip it down time, and only ONE of them was involved. Some left their beer cans for others to clean. Others cut the wood and stacked the wood for their benefit. No one else really uses the place in the winter. The club paid for THEIR fields to have strips mowed. Its a welfare drain. They should have paid EXTRA to belong to their little elite group- at least enough to cover what the costs were.
|
|