In this episode, we enhance an acre of timber that border my food plots. One food plot is being converted to a short prairie mix (rich in forbs). The acre of timber this video is focused on is full of swamp white oak, but also elm. So, we did cut stump on the elm to help promote early successional plant communities by allowing sunlight to hit the forest floor. The elms will provide more nutrition to whitetail deer through the stump sprouts which we can continue to top kill via fire. So, we can set back the elms from becoming a full tree again by continuation of prescribed fire. Finally, the piece of resistance of the stand: the swamp white oak. We preformed Crop Tree Release to help enhance the hard mass (acorns) production for fall browse for not just whitetail, but for all wildlife. Plus, we will adjust the fire regime when we start seeing higher oak regeneration in the stand.
So, this little acre became more browse and bedding by dropping undesirable trees using the canopies as temporay bedding or cover. Overtime the early successional community will become thicker to provide better cover and browse while also increasing the swamp white oak regeneration increasing the quality of the stand dramatically.