Experimented, nope, but I bet on my parents 9.5 acres of woods we've hinged over 200 trees over the past 3-5 years. Biggest tip I have is a pull over tool (people make them) or use a rake will help you cut less and more trees live. Think like a builder too, hinge bigger trees first and build upon them depending on what you are attempting to accomplish...bigger ones on small ones will snap em. Log before you hinge if logging is a thought. Also, height of the hinge can greatly impact deer use or travels...low is for blocking, high is for bedding...both accomplish food.
Here in the upper midwest the best tree to possibly hinge cut is a box elder tree, you can't kill it you will only encourage it. I also think ash trees must be a good candidate as well I say this because there is a field right by where I work and they took out a strip of ash trees when they tiled the field they used a dozer and got the rootball intact and kinda just shoved the trees in a loose pile, the leaves stayed all summer though the trees lost half the leaves and there were suckers growing out of the rootballs before the end of the summer.
Hinge cut from this spring in MI. Turned a park scene into a thick wall of young maples and other 4" to 6" trees that i hinge cut. Had new growth within two months of cutting.
We have a good amount of ash in our river bottoms, so I think I'm gonna try to hinge some of them this winter and see how it goes. I have experimented with hinging a bit, I made the mistake of not using a tool to pull the tree over. About 70% of the trees I wanted to live, did. Unfortunately we are trying to timber the land in several years for hardwoods and other valuable trees so I am going to try to stay away from the maples oaks and walnuts even though oaks and maple are some of the trees I want to hinge the most.
One of the issues with timbering after hinging is hinges will be broken, just accept that ahead of time if you hinge now and harvest timber later.
Yea I kinda figured, we are already a few years into our forestry plan so we know where we can hinge and alter the land without impacting the immediate forestry plan.
If done right hinge cutting can be a great tool. I wouldn’t overlook Native Warm Season Grasses for permanent field edge screening or for bedding areas. There are also some great annual type screening and cover mixes that do a great job.
Buying pre-bagged mixes with a buck on the bag are out there...but I'd honestly talk to your local seed co-op or feed mill, be worth looking into it and asking them what they can get and what is native grasses in your area. I am a fan of grasses but not an entire thick stand of say switchgrass as it doesn't give the key word: diversity. I am incorporating switch into my bedding areas this next year but not at a thick rate and will mix other shorter grassess as well...and encourage native seed beds by discing up the ground and allow seed bank to explode.
Re-read and my comment seems negative about the pre-bagged stuff.....which wasn't directly my point. They are awesome but you pay a premium for the convenience...up to each person to way whether it's worth it or not.
Grandpa Ray Outdoors has a annual mix called Fortress that works very well. They also have a NWSG mix called Perma blend. [URL="www.grandparayoutdoors.com"
Is it smart to plant the native and taller grasses around clusters of scotch pines with clover in the clusters
It definitely allows great diversity in cover, but pines won't provide as much diversity as including other things. I have clusters of cedars at the property I just bought in the 5-8 acre sanctuary...and I'm not gonna cut them down but encourage other bushes and native brows as well as perhaps including some grasses as well. Plan is to include some hybrid willow shoot cutting clusters as well...and switch and even "shrub" like trees like nineberry, sumac and others.
How well will this mixture of grasses grow in open sunlight as apposed to an area with more of a closed canopy? We have sparse autumn olive bushes on our property which I know are great for cover and food but they can take over a property. So my next question to everyone is what are good shrubs/bushes to plant to offer cover as well as food for deer? Doesn't have to be just for bedding.
Yes works great... if your interested in doing this i would recommend reading the book extreme deer habitat by Jim Brauker there's a lot of good info in there Sent from my SM-G935R4 using Tapatalk
Yup Jim is an awesome guy and a great habitat manipulator! As for clustering evergreens with grasses I am a huge fan, however eliminating canopy is always going to yield better results then asking anything to grow through shade.
