Great Reading: Farming For Wildlife

I recently came across a great article on planting hard mast (oaks, hickories, chestnuts, etc.) trees for wildlife, written by our friend Dudley Phelps for Mossy Oak's "Farming For Wildlife" magazine. Here's the link: farmingforwildlife.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=90&Itemid=64. Dudley has some great thoughts on taking topography & wind direction into account when deciding where to plant mast trees.

I love reading things that make me smack my (every increasing) forehead and say, "Why didn't I think of that?" Among several such points that Dudley makes in his piece is this gem: A few rows of mast trees can have benefits for influencing travel patterns of deer on your property long before the trees every begin producing acorns. That's because the tree row creates an edge, and deer always prefer to travel along edges. It reminded me of a remarkable thing a landowner once pointed out to me: He had a field where 2 different plots - one was a millet food plot and one was a prairie grass area - joined each other. The difference in height between the 2 types of vegetation was just a few inches (you had to look twice to even notice the difference when the plants were dormant). But sure enough the deer knew the difference and used that edge as a travel corridor from one stand of timber to another.

So when you're planting hard mast trees, soft mast trees, and shrubs keep in mind that your planting can pay dividends long before the planting begins bearing fruit & nuts... if you think in terms of creating structure, edges and travel corridors.