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?