Which is all I threw at it! Sound advice I will evaluate this weekend and see if anything can be taken out or cut back.
I hate to ask, take no offense, do you know what species you have in there? Trees are a funny thing. ie, we have a hard wood mix. Maple, oak, beech, hophorn, pignut, blk cherry, ash. But also areas of poplar,hazelnut,river birch and basswood, blk locust. We timber so. certain trees are more valuable than others. Even with the maples, striped maple aren't as good as the sugar maple. Two trees don't get touched unless thinning is needed, oak and ironwood. My shade plots run through the oak flat. The beech go when disease hits hard. Same with the ash. Beech are a big food here for deer ,turkey, grouse. But the hop horn are a candy tree. As well as hop horn pods. I've watched deer walking around on their hind legs for the longest time eating hop horn droups in the fall. Digging locusts pods out of the snow. You can't beat bass wood as a rub tree for bucks. Popalar get cut when big. Our grouse population is down and cutting mature popular cause root sprouts that grouse depend on and deer and turkey love. A problem is the same happens when you cut beech and the sprouts are bad and everywhere. Locusts are another one that root sprout but easier to control.
I’ve got quite a bit of white oak and quite a bit of Sycamore along the creek. But I’m not the best at identifying trees - it’s literally out my back door. I will do a little research and post back. I’m not offended - enjoy the conversation. I’ve planted many of successful foodplot and am fairly well researched on the topic. I just haven’t had much experience with shade - so Im enjoying the conversations. I’ve had this property for coming up on 5 seasons now and have only hunted it maybe 3 times. I haven’t had to hunt it and don’t have to now - but I want to find a way to make it productive. That is my goal.
Thats great, I try not to over step on things guys may or may not know about woodlots. Your lucky to have whites all mine save the gobbler oaks I planted are reds. Sycamore are one of those weedy type trees. Now they will smoother a plot. Can be a irritant to skin and lungs, but make great butcher blocks. Really big ones can be bear dens and great honeybee trees because the tend to hollow out due to fungus attacks. Massive root systems as well.
My affection for them is my alma matter Indiana State are the Sycamores and furthermore around here you can usually find a good mess of morels by finding Sycamore trees first!
Without seeing soil sample readings currently the hunch of the ONLY factor being sunlight would be a partially ignorant stance for me to take. That said from the pictures and expecting leaf out canopy to be typical of such trees in size and maturity if sunlight isn't an issue I'll be shocked honestly. Plot boost will never enhance anything much more than like giving someone morphine...the smile may return but the doom a dying person has before them is unchanged. Protecting it won't change the biggest factors to a plots success and that is the soil and the sunlight. Without that the pressure received in my opinion at least isn't worth worrying about. Look forward to seeing how it progresses fellow hoosier!
Those plots look pretty good! Cool photos. Thanks for sharing. Checked in on mine today. Looking decent. Hopefully I didn’t overseed too much - looking like I might have got a little too aggressive on my seed rates.
A factor I had not considered aiding this plot is years of crop field fertilizer run-off. Everything kind of drains into this bottom - I wonder how much that will help this plot?! I didn’t do a soil sample. I imagine everything would test really well. For illustrative purpose the blue lines are “roughly” how the property drains from the crop fielde. The area to the left of the furthest blue line is high ground timber - everything drains away from it. Yellow X is food plot.
Lime idea important because acidic soil binds nutrients so roots can't take them up. Other nutrient deficiency will show signs in the leaves. A professor gave me this tip. Acidic soil will smell acidic, has a sharpness to it. Grab a hand full and give it a good sniff. Sweet soil ( higher ph) will have a mild earth smell. Not scientific and soil test should be done, but that and baking soda will give a basic idea whether to bother or not planting until lime can be put down. Acidic soil will cause a soil baking soda slurry to foam. Yes that does look a tad thick..lol. Soil looks nice and rich though. If you have turkey thats a good thing..if you have rabbits and wood chucks even better.
Hows that plot coming along? mine are looking good, but I got way behind. Turkey season, weather ,garden ect,ect will have me changing to late summer plots. Also what I assumed was to be corn on one farm, looks to be peas. I assumed they had over seeded the ww next door in clover but nope. That will be a mystery this summer as well.
Growth hasn't been the problem - weed competition has. I was just afraid the area wouldn't get enough sunlight but the weeds have really choked out a lot of my clover stand. I am not sure if mowing it will help it or matter - some spots are still looking good (will update with photos later) but over half of it is losing out to some weeds.
Expensive but depending on weeds white tail institute have good stuff to kill the weeds not the clovers .
