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Pine or Cedar?

C

cmruff

Guest
I am in the process of buying some land that is half steep pasture and half timber. I want to palnt a few acres of the steep pasture into good cover. What would be better to plant white pine or red cedar? Also has anyone tried soaking cedar or pine seeds before planting to crack the shell? Any information on this would be great.

Thanks,
Deerstroyer
 
You do not need to soak either pine or cedar seeds and cedar would be better to plant ... although the white pine would make a real good, uneconomical food plot ... deer candy right Old Buck!
 
If your planting a food plot, try the white pine.
I have wild cedar growing here and other than rubs the deer dont bother them. I planted roughly 1500 white pine in the last two years and I guarantee you the deer will not alow them to grow unmolested. You would be lucky to get them to maturity from what I have seen. Deer candy is a good name for white pine!

I wish I knew then what I know now, plant cedars!!
 
If you're planting trees for cover don't plant white pine. Pines lose their lower branches once they mature. I would plant Norway Spruce for cover. Norway Spruce grow fast and deer browse is low. Cedar's grow much slower but I would still plant some of them as well.

Tim
 
I will be replanting my white pines with cedars
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Nothing left of the white pines but stumps. I might throw in some spruce as the deer haven't tore them up as bad as the white pines.
 
The other nice thing about the Cedars is they naturally self seed and spread rapidly.

It's hard to beat a good Cedar patch for a deer's shelter and security needs.
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I've planted both plus red pine, white spruce and Norway spruce.

I like the way white pine look and feel. Once established they can put on three or more foot of growth in the right spot. Deer absolutely love to eat them. Every one of mine is caged. White pine are found native in NE Iowa are our only native pine.

Red cedar seem to grow about anywhere. Sometimes they are about the only thing that will grow in very poor or abused soil. They are not a prefered deer food though if the populatoin is too high they can destroy young cedar in great numbers. This usually occurs in late winter when deer become stressed. Red cedar provide great cover for deer. Along with shingle oak they are my favorite trees for whitetail and other wildlife cover once other trees have dropped their leaves.

I'd recomment you go with red cedar.
 
Old Buck...you mention Shingle Oak...my favorite. Talk about deer and turkey candy!!!
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These trees are great to include in your deer habitat plan. The deer and turkey love the small sized acorns they produce. They are also a very "brushy" tree providing cover and the low hanging branches usually have a scrape under them.
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They are one of the last trees to shed their leaves and usually hold them into late Winter/early Spring.

A mix of Cedar, Shingle Oak, native grasses and multifloral rose makes for great bedding habitat.
 
It's neat to read about such topics like this for myself as there are such differences in our habitat, I find it interesting. The only type of pine that grows where I am is Jackpine and deer definately don't eat it, nor does it provide a hell of alot of cover when it is mature. They will use the white and black spruce as cover when old man winter hits........like now. They seem to eat the lichens on the lower branches of the black spruce when there aren't any good food sources nearby. Thick mixed cover such as spruce, tamarack, and black poplar seem to be the best cover up here. I guess it doesn't matter too awful much b/c most of the year they seek the areas with the most underbrush, alders, willows, pincherries, chokecherries, saskatoons etc.. Those are what they browse on as well. I'd like to come down there just to look at the different trees, I love trees.
 
Ghost- What site do you visit for tree ID?
I'm at the very north edge for post oak and it seems that those trees are a favorite in addition to the shingle and swamp whites at my place. Have never got around to planting white pines yet and don't know why. Have always been impressed with them since reading Sand County Almanac.
 
Pharmer, Post oak will grow in VB county. I've seen a couple bruisers.
 
Thanks for the information guys...

Old Buck what do you make your cages out of to put around trees?
 
I'll let Old Buck answer for himself, but I use old farm field fence. If you take a drive in the country, you'll most likely see someone tearing out an old fence line. Even if it is in pretty bad shape, you can still fashion a "basket" out of it. I have wired two togethor for added height or else suspend it on two or three steel fence post driven around the tree. Kind of time consuming but lasts long enough to give the tree a good start. You could run a wanted ad in the local paper or farm bureau spokesman for old fencing. I'm sure someone would be happy just to get rid of it.
 
Old fence like JNRBRONC says, works well. I've done exactly like he says, drive along and watch for roles of it where fence has been pulled out.
 
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