It's importance is often overlooked for deer

https://youtu.be/ZGycrd9k490

I'm going to look into some Wildlife shrubs. I've never bought any

no need to plant anything, just break out the chain saw and thin the overstocked forest.


If your woods has a low stocking rate and the woody browse is pretty thin maybe you have too many deer.
Deer can and do alter the habitat especially when they get overpopulated.

That fella needs to get a few lessons in tree cutting before he gets a tree in the face. Very bad practices going on in his video.

I take cuttings from Red Osier Dogwood every year for browse plots, a lot of good videos on propagating it. I look for stems about 14" long with (4) nodes, I scrap off the last (2) nodes and pot them in sand, I have a nice root system developed by the time I transplant in May. I've also had success without potting and transplanting direct after cutting.

Back in the UP days the DNR paid me to do wildlife cuts on State lands near deer yards anything over 4” at chest hight was cut but den trees, nesting trees along with fruits and nut trees got a pass or thinned a bit. The plan was creating maximum growth for the coming years to feed the deer yards in the winters.

The first few years the growth was so thick with popular whips it was tough to walk through even that also made for the biggest raspberries that had to grow through the ground cover with less competition over the years.

The DNR biologist Frank said the browse gets them through winter and the digestive track has to change over to digest it then in the spring then change back to digesting greens again. He said balsam was terrible feed as it provided little nutrients but cedars did provide more benefits to the deer. He also told me that during the switch to greens in the spring the deer stir go down hill during the change over period.

Cleared out a few cotton woods before spring leaves and only a couple hours later this cow shows up
She has been regularly feeding on it. Glad to help it out

There is no moose in kodiak. This is my other place on the Kenai peninsula

Your point is well taken but if not done right I'm afraid that I could lead to too many briars

If you have popular trees cut some they will shoot up whips like crazy no planting required just sunlight.

Poplar trees? The whips that shoot up from some cut hardwoods is called "coppice wood."

What I believe Law Dog was referring to was Popple, or Aspen. Cut it and they will send up sprouts all around. Not from the stump but just random shoots here, there and everywhere.
They clear cut the stuff, the shoots grow 2-6 ft/yr. Makes great cover for Grouse, deer, woodcock and other stuff.

Popple/Aspen doesn't like shade tho, you have to cut enough so there is lots of light.

Yes Poplar trees/aspens sprouts so thick you can’t get through a fresh grown area that love clear cuts.

Back to Op's original idea.
If your going to buy stuff and plant it I think its a fools errand. It'll never amount to much as the deer will browse the young stuff and more than likely kill it after several years.
If your going start from shoots it might make more sense but the end result will likely be the same.
But I think best would be a chain saw and judicious thinning.
I have lots of briar stuff, mostly Blackberries. If they get lots of light they will take over and not much else will survive.
The deer do eat blackberry bushes, the new shoots and leaves get nibble some but not enough to knock them back.

Its a delicate dance, not enough light and you'll get little growth except for more shade tolerant stuff like sugar maple, too much light and you'll run the risk of Blackberries, goldenrod and some non-native invasives.

If you have Popple/Aspen that would be the best bet for getting lots of browse. Make small 1/4-1/2 acre openings in the woods.

You could also cut red maples so they resprout, the deer will love the sprouts popping out from the stump. Cut all the smaller red maples under say 8". You'll get more light for existing stuff and you'll get resprouts.

The DNR had me cut several acres then if I could get to the spots I’d get a firewood permit and haul some firewood out on the way home when I could.

I don't know if there is a safe way to hinge cut a tree. It's not a practice I would recommend. I guess there's a time and place for it though. The Foresters I've talked to generally frown upon it.

I leave the tops because it helps keep the deer away from trees that are in the process of regenerating.

I talked to a forester recently who told me the top 2 wildlife shrubs for deer are hazelnut & red osier dogwood.

Yeah, I suspect Law Dog is referring to the tendency of Aspen to sprout from their own root system. Aspen, or Popple as my old man calls it, is a clonal species. In some instances an Aspen forest is really only one organism with thousands of stems growing off one original root system. These shoots tend to respond more vigorously to scarification, so if you can expose bare soil wherever you want to grow browse then you should see a better response.

Interesting related link:
https://pandopopulus.com/pando-the-tree/#:~:text=Pando%20the%20Tree%20%2D%20Pando%20Populus,connected%20through%20one%20root%20system.

Do you guys ever tube/fence your wildlife shrubs?

I have some two ft tubes I used for shrubs in high traffic areas. Leave on a couple years and then remove. More to prevent them from taking to the ground in the first couple of years. Once roots are established, they seem to tolerate browse better.

Thanks

Don't under estimate raspberries for winter browse for deer either.

Briars I suppose is essentially what you are talking about. It's amszing to me, but deer do seem to like them.

Greenbrier is a favorite and very nutritious for deer. Burning helps control it when it gets thick.
We have buckbrush and bitterbrush for browse, they will utilize sagebrush too if really necessary- deep snow.

Some briars are ok but I don't like it when they get too thick. I haven't found a good way to remove some yet.

Mulberry is by far the favorite food tree for deer in my area. Many fields, that have mulberry in the fence rows, look like they were carefully pruned by a master gardener. There are no thin branches, that a deer can reach standing on their back legs, left.

I've got a deer, probably a tame buck, that I hate, that a neighbor raised, that is starting to damage a lot of my trees. I had trouble with it last year. It was raised with German shepherds and likes dogs. My dogs therefore ignore it. I've hit it with rocks and sticks and it won't leave until I chase and get near it. I have not seen it, but noticed new tree damage each of the last 3 days. I'm going to get a nuisance permit and kill the offending deer with the best military grade, night vision optics Beretta Groups makes, with their retired CEO, who is my main fishing buddy.

Keith

I might have to look into some red mulberry, thanks.

Here's some mulberry branches a deer just started working on.




I don't mind the mulberry so much, but likely the same deer was the one that stripped several hundred cherries and new apples.

The branches will regrow leaves and fruit, but often the deer will come back and work the very same branch again. Being predated on does make the mulberries put out more fruit, but the sugar content usually suffers.

Keith

I have hazelnut, the deer never touch it.
A deer's diet varies from place to place.
A few red Oiser dogwood, more grey dogwood and pagoda dogwood tho.
Again, the deer don't really mess with it.
In my place Red Maple and Oaks are probably tops browse.

I am thinning my woods heavily and planting the opened areas with native grasses and forbs that favor open woodlands.
I then burn yearly to keep brush and seedling trees at bay.
I am not doing anything to purposely attract or encourage deer, I have too many as is.
The woody browse is almost non-existent after I go thru an area.
I'll tell you tho that from March to June I have deer all over the place.
They love all the flush spring growth that open woodlands and burning encourage.

Nice. What kind of seed are you planting?

When plant bushes and trees for CRP we’ve had the best luck with planting them as thick as we can and it seems like the deer don’t bother them as bad.

Here's one of my mulberry trees from today. There are a few hundred mulberry trees on my farm. I don't think there are any birds or mammals that don't eat mulberries, that are on my farm, except humming birds. Even the small seed eating birds eat mulberries. If you coppice the trees, they put out tremendous amounts of woody browse.

I ate mulberries right off the trees earlier today. I grilled brats on mulberry wood for supper.

Keith

I got an e-mail from the WDNR nursery. It's already time to start planning the order for next year. I have to decide what wildlife shrubs to plant for ~deer next year.

I might try to find a nursery that sells red osier dogwood cuttings

That makes sense. I like that strategy.

Have you tried this place? I ordered from them last year and was very pleased. My 2025 order is already in too.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13-MhRwIWsCe5v9uQZEFHSdB9gtUnWL6Q/view?usp=drive_link

they had really nice ROD last year, around 4' tall whips...these go in fast, so planting 100 doesn't take long

I have not, but I will consider. Thanks

I've always said freshly mowed or tilled ground is the best food plot for deer. Probably depends more on the climate you have in your area as our grasses still stay green all winter, more or less as some do go dormant. If you ground stays under snow most of the winter then having woody browse would be more helpful through the winter

Hinge cutting have its place for creating overhead cover in making bedding areas if your woodland needs them for deer. It has worked for me in bringing deer into bedding in places where they weren't before where I wanted them. Mostly does and yearlings, Bucks seem much more critical of where they bed, at least in our pressured hunting zone.

I've never tried hinge cutting.

Hinge cutting is great for funneling deer movement, creating bedding, and creating browse. Only difference between the three is the height at which you hinge the tree, and there’s absolutely overlap between the three.

I’d just caution that people don’t go hinge cut their woods all willy nilly. Know your tree ID, understand trees that sucker well, and avoid cutting mast trees. It can be a powerful tool when used right.

Yep, most times hinge cutting just makes a mess of you don't have a clue or a plan.

'Anyone planting woody browse this spring?

I have some Autumn olives getting thick and tall so under them is fair dirt from shading Used to rum my goats on rotation in there for years so they are not to thick underneath. I have been thinking I need to lay some of them over to allow light to hit the ground, support for vines and cover for small game.

It's something I thought about and think would be an improvement but never really educated myself on it. Like most of my habit management I do what males since to me and it typically works out well. I could benefit form more education and planning I'm sire.

Yes. The smooth sumac and roughleaf dogwood I put out is very happy. I got red osier dogwood cuttings on etsy and they've rooted nicely in pots on the deck. We planted a few last weekend and they're still happy. Most of the ROD is still in pots.

We also poked 3 corkscrew willow cuttings straight in the mud by a spring. We have corkscrew willows in the back yard at home. 2 of them are leafed out nicely and getting trimmed by the deer to the top of the tube. The third hasn't leafed out yet, but the stem still looks alive.

Do you tube/fence your new wildlife shrubs?

There's an island in a local lake that you can see the browse line from the banks. Looks like somebody went thru with a machine and cut off everything up to 6 ft high.

Dogwood is great too

This^^^^ is correct info.

No matter what part of this Country you're attempting to manage.

If you’re getting lots of undesirables then run a little fire through it as well.

That's tough to do.

seems like another benefit to fire lanes that have stopped being maintained in many areas

it opens up the canopy , lets the brushy stuff grow , gives fire breaks , can fairly easily be brush hogged when the stuff along the sides gets to thick.

should probably get cleared to 30-40 foot wide with the middle 12-16 feet brush hogged annually
then from the center right clear to the full width at 5 years then do the center left when that is growing back up.

you would have perpetual graze , a fire brake , grass in the middle and it would be fairly easy to clear with machinery

Too thick already?

Fire breaks are recommended at 1.5 times your maximum flame length, so if the existing vegetation is tall and dense you’d need a large break to burn safely.

I burn my woods or at least sections of it every year, spring and fall.
I have some areas that are more open, understory is all grasses and forbs, practically no brush or winter browse.
Other areas that are more like your typical woods, very little growth on the ground other than small seedlings and some brush. Too shady.

I have trails thru my woods that I use as fire breaks. About 5-6 ft wide is all. Lawn tractor/small compact tractor gets driven on them.
I mow the trails a couple of times a year. Mostly just to keep them from getting over grown.
I walk the trails quickly before burning with a leaf blower opening up about a foot wide down to the bare earth.
As I drive the trails enough nothing of significance grows where the tires run.
The narrow strip of earth used with good burn practices is all I need to keep things in control.

Conditions are king when burning, gotta be dry enough, a light breeze is best, low humidity.
The days for good burning are much less in a woods than a prairie.
A woods takes much longer to dry out than open grass land.
The fire is much smaller and easier to manage. I'll burn large sections myself.
Something I wouldn't dream of when burning my prairies.


Fire will easily kill most all types of trees and brush depending upon the size of them.
Maple seedlings are easily killed with a good fire, a oak seedling will top kill but resprout.
Not all trees/brush react the same to a fire.
Pretty much all grasses and forbs are unaffected.
In the end there is a balance between the more grasses/forbs the hotter the fire, hotter fire means more killed brush less resprouts. Its rare a woodlot has enough grasses and forbs tho. Mostly your burning dried leaves.
so the fire isn't hot enough to do alot of damage.

A wider trail as GreencountyPete suggests would be a good habitat break. But with one that wide I'd still worry about mowed grass burning. I've seen fire cross mowed lawns. Best insurance against a fire is bare earth.

A 200 lb deer has eaten a lot of twigs.

Dirty D, what activities are you seeing that are most successful in promoting the winter browse?

I don't do anything to promote winter browse for deer.'There are too many deer as is.


For me if I wanted to create more browse I'd heavily thin small areas, say 1/4 acre or less.
Leave a few larger oaks in these openings.
Also randomly cut smaller trees here and there that deer will browse the shoots.
For me that's Red Maple and Popple (aspen).



Make sure the forest floor has a couple of hours of sunlight per day.
Anything that is shaded all day is to thick.

After a tornado went thru my place I had knocked over trees in small pockets.
These pockets had no trees left save a handful of small stuff.
Sun was hitting the forest floor pretty much all day.
These areas had logs laying Lincoln log style all over the place.
The deer loved these areas. The had their fawns in there, bedded there in the winter due to the sun getting on the ground and logs/brush blocking the wind.
They browsed the young tree and brush shoots during the winter and hit the grasses and forbs in the spring and summer.

A woodlot with small openings that are thick with woody browse and a healthy ground layer of grasses and forbs with a few oaks is ideal.

all you need is a chain saw.