Natural Resource Management TipsApproaches and tips landowners can use to help effectively management their land. |
Natural Resource Management TipsApproaches and tips landowners can use to help effectively management their land. |
Do-It-Yourself Habitat8/4/2014 Sometimes all you need is a chainsaw. Managing your property's forest is just as important as food plots when it comes to improved habitat for deer and other wildlife. With the use of a chainsaw and some field time, there are four simple projects any landowner can do. Releasing Producers Mast tree release treatments are an approach to encourage better production from oaks and hickories by eliminating competition for food, water and sunlight. Selects large, healthy oak and hickory species in an area and cut smaller undesirable trees around them to create growing space. Result - increased acorn production and growing space for regeneration. Corridors Felling trees and removing understory growth provides a means to direct deer movement to areas that will provide for a better shot or move deer to designed feeding areas. Remove undesirable small trees and brush and use the cuttings to create brush piles to direct wildlife movement. Result - wildlife movement directed to stand locations or feeding areas Hinge Cutting Hinge cutting is simple. Cut trees 4-5 feet above ground and saw through them just enough so that the tree tips over and just leave it. This approach creates bedding habitat and also terminal crown growth will continue creating great browse for deer. Result - more browse for deer and habitat structure for all wildlife The Bedroom Providing all aspects of an animal's needs (food, water and cover) is critical for better hunting. Bedding cover on a property is needed to keep deer. Find a small area (1-5 acres) and remove all trees, with the exception of a few large mast trees, to allow sunlight to reach the forest floor. Result - regeneration will quickly flood the cut area to create a thick mess for bedding Two important concepts to keep in mind are always start property management with a plan and practice safe chainsaw operation. A chainsaw can be one of the most important tools for habitat management. Utilizing it with the four concepts above can dramatically improve your property. Summer Food Plot Success6/18/2014 Fall food plots provide the opportunity but early year plantings provide the deer. Often overlooked, summer food plots are necessary for quality nutrition leading to a healthier herd and bigger bucks. Summer months are the most demanding due to hot and dry conditions. The majority of the high protein forage has been eaten or has dried out, leaving relatively few nutritious plants available to deer during June, July and August. This situation is problematic to a herd's health and antler development. The nutritional demands of lactating does are high and lack a quality forage limits fawn growth potential. This is also the time of peak antler growth. If deer are limited by forage availability, the herd health is reduced and buck potential is reduced. Not a great combination leading up to the hunting season. The solution in many cases are planting warm season legumes in the spring so they are peaking in early to mid summer months. Soybeans and peas provide a cost effective, versatile and easy to plant solution to maintain a high nutritional forage during a herd's prime growth stages. The limiting factor with warm season legumes is the amount of acreage required to effectively grow them. Soybeans are browsed heavily by deer so plots of 5 acres or more are desired to maintain enough suitable forage for your local herd. Peas are more browse tolerant and can be planted on smaller sized food plots. Summer food plots are critical for managing the deer herd on your property. Quality and available forage is a necessity during the main growth period in the whitetail's life cycle. Having a summer food plot strategy produces healthier mature does, better fawn growth and larger bucks. Not only will providing quality forage on your property increase the available nutrition resources for deer, it will also draw more deer to your hunting grounds.
It All Starts With the Plan6/12/2014 Many landowners have objectives for their property. Some want to improve hunting opportunities by increasing wildlife habitat while others wish to manage their timberland for economic reasons. Few landowners, however, have a clear path developed to accomplish these objectives. Resource management planning, either for wildlife or forest resources, is a process that helps you identify the resources and opportunities available on your property. What do you want from your forest land? How do you see your property in the future? What is most important to you? These are a few of the questions where the planning tool can be used to identify what can be done to enhance and protect the values and aspects of your property that are most important to you. Whether it be wildlife, recreation, timber management or estate planning the first step in managing a property should be developing a plan. The first step in the planning process is determining and defining your objectives. Start with broad goals like long-term sustainability and then define more specific objectives such as increased deer habitat, more hunting opportunities or improved timber quality. Next, your property resources need to be accessed through comprehensive resource inventories and evaluations of habitat types and vegetation composition. Resource evaluations provide information on the quality, quantity and types of habitat components on your property. These evaluations include property and habitat mapping, species composition and management unit delineation. Complete assessments are desired as your objectives may change over time making the additional information necessary for future management of your property. The final stage in planning is identifying a list of recommended practices describing what to do and when to do it in order to meet your objectives. Recommendations are relayed as a schedule that lays out the practice, where it is to be implemented, the amount and details on how to install the practice.
The management plan should be a detailed written, living and breathing document. Changes over time are expected as objectives change and as the property grows. The key to successful management is to clearly define your objectives, determine your available resources and develop a clear outline of practices that will in time improve your property. |
​Pennsylvania forestry consultants, wildlife managers and agricultural conservationists managing and improving properties across the Keystone State and the Northeast since 2009. |
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