My Lil Slice...

[Hoyt63]

It will be all i plant this year. Next year i will plant more when the cuttings are free..lol..Right now i have a balance of 500 poplar to be planted and 300 willow plus the spruce which will be planted first weekend in may if weather permits. I have a tree planter for the spruce..I planted 30 poplar today and laid out and staked 75 sheets of plastic for tomorrow's planting.

[DEERSLAYER]

You seem to have made some solid choices. It's somewhat of a bummer you had to go with the black spruce due to their slow growth rate, but if your soil is too wet for a faster growing spruce there isn't much you can do. Are you planting cuttings for the popples and willows? Have you or are you going to plant any Schuettes oak's to get some early acorns? How many acres of cover are you planning to have when your done?

[Hoyt63]

Actually i went with sawtooth and swo's for a couple reasons..Sawtooth for screening and late season acorns..I know deer will eat them last and thats what i want. I have approx. 4 acres of mature white oak acorns producing nuts plus the swo's i am planting and the sawtooth i planted last year. I also planted 24 apple trees last year.Dolgo and semi dwarf honeycrisp.All the poplar and willows are cuttings. they are suppose to grow 6-8 ft the 1st year and 10-12 ft a year after that.Time will tell.As far as spruce i didnt have much choice i got 1000 for high ground and 1000 for wetter soil conditions.Toatal when all done should be about 75 acres cover with 2 ponds and 2-5 acre food plots.

[DEERSLAYER]

Did you buy you Sawtooths from a northern source? Sawtooths often struggle up here in the north and a northern source can make a difference. What rootstock did you use on your apples? If you decide to get anymore spruce for the higher ground I would consider Norway's because they typically grow 2-4 times faster than Black spruce. Do you have plans to put in any other hard or soft mast trees like Chinese chestnuts, pears, hazelnuts, etc? What do you mean when you said you didn't have much of a choice on the type of spruce?

It sounds like you should have a very nice piece of property when your done.

[Hoyt63]

I get all my trees from wisconsin or a state with the same usda zone as mine.I got the sawtooth really cheap so thought i would give it a try. I plan on planting 36 Dunstan Chestnuts next year. Dolgo were b118 stock and honeycrisp were g30. I have a couple pear trees out and they just drop and rot and never get touched.I had to get black and white spruce because I'm in wetlands..that leaves norways out..headed out to plant now...

[DEERSLAYER]

I like the B118. The G30 is a little small but good. Just make sure to permanently stake it because the wood is brittle. I would skip the Dustan Chestnuts. They were developed in Florida and despite what you may read they often don't do well in northern regions where they can die back after a real cold winter. Sometimes to the stump where they may or may not grow back. I know a chestnut grower in SE Iowa that has had this problem and knows of others that have had the same problem. What kind of pears do you have? If they are wild pears they may be too bitter and you may want to try grafting other varieties onto them.

[Hoyt63]

Yes they are a cheap wild pear. Alot of guys from Michigan and Minnesota on the QDMA forum have planted Dunstans and say they do great. Just need well drained soil and a slightly acidic soil from what they say. Will check into it further..They get theirs from real tree at the local Wal-Mart.

[DEERSLAYER]

Yes they are a cheap wild pear. Alot of guys from Michigan and Minnesota on the QDMA forum have planted Dunstans and say they do great. Just need well drained soil and a slightly acidic soil from what they say. Will check into it further..They get theirs from real tree at the local Wal-Mart.

Realtree lists them as zone 4-9, but just because they have been grown in zone 4 doesn't mean they are actually hardy to that zone. Zone charts cannot show microclimates within a zone and they are based the coldest winters expected over time. So you may be golden for 10-15 or maybe even 20 years before one of those real cold winters comes along and kills your trees. Maybe right after they start producing. It also depends on which version of zone chart you use. The new version is based on global warming. I want a plant hardiness recommendation that uses the old version so I know I will be safe. This is why you may see a certain variety of apple listed as zone 5 on one website and zone 4 on another website. I would say zone 6 is more realistic for Dunstans.

I did a lot of research on chestnuts this past year including Dunstans and I have found there are better choices. In fact I am receiving some high grade commercial chestnut seed in a week or so. You can make a very good living farming them too. About $80,000 a year off ten acres once the trees come into full production (twelve to fifteen years). More than ten acres would be tough for one person to handle. Equipment costs are in the hundreds of $$ not thousands like most types of farming. Plus the demand is immense and will remain high until after I'm dead. Anyway, I'm getting off topic.

Thats my two cents.

[Rubline]

Hi Dave, Welcome to the Beast. Thanks for sharing what you are doing to improve your land
with all the plantings. Part of the fun with this deer hunting is habitat improvement.
Planting 2000 spruce, hope you have an auger...