The Regeneration Opening (pic intensive)

[g_man]

On that bent oak tree - what do you mean by "copiced" ? I am not familiar with that tem. Thanks.

[SwampDonkey]

Cut down and stump sprouted.

[OneWithWood]

The trees with leaves in the understory are beech and red maple.  Two trees I try to eradicate on all slopes except the north, northeast and northwest aspects.  Because the beech and maples are shade tolerant they thrive and choke out the oaks.  I spray the beech and red maple stems with tryclopir (basal application) in early spring.  The leaves make them readily idenitifiable.
This area of Indiana is know as the Norman Uplands and tends to be an oak-hickory forest.  Much of the lands to the west of me are beech-maple so it is a constant struggle to keep them at bay.  A good contolled fire avery now and then is a big help but is hard to do given the pressures of the surrounding populace.

[Ianab]

On that bent oak tree - what do you mean by "copiced" ? I am not familiar with that tem. Thanks.

Coppicing is a traditional method of woodland management which takes advantage of the fact that many trees make new growth from the stump or roots if cut down

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing

In this case the general idea is that he has a bent sapling that's never going to make a sawlog. But cutting it off and letting it grow again from the stump it gets a 2nd chance, and the new sprout will grow much faster than a new seedling as it already has an established  root system.

Ian

[g_man]

SwampDonkey and Ianab thank you for the explanation. I have heard of the procedure but I can't remember ever knowing it was called coppicing.

[SwampDonkey]

Red maple and aspen are pretty much managed that way up here. Beech, yellow birch, white birch and sugar maple are mostly single stemmed from germination when they are thinned. Suckered beech is usually chewed up by the rabbits. Not much true commercial thinning in hardwood up here, just a select few stands. Most of the time the quality has suffered from high grades or poor ground.

[OneWithWood]

I am a bit tardy getting the March 21, 2012 pics posted here.  Mushrooms came in early so I was distracted 
 

 

The large opening.  All the bent oaks have been coppiced.  I took pics of a coppiced stem and stump but I'll be danged if I can find them 
 

 

The pond
 

 

The smaller opening
 

 

Some greenery is starting to poke through.  I expect to see a lot more in June.
 

 

At this point I was going to go around and prune back or deselect suckers coming up from the various stumps but the deer have severely pruned everything for me.  They have even topped all the aspen shoots!  I can see going forward my biggest challenge will be to keep the deer at bay.  I may resort to caging the oak stems that emerge around the stems I coppiced.

[WDH]

You cleaned up those openings very nicely.  Down here, the deer are not as bad as they have a good bit more to eat in the winter since it does not get as cold.  Do you expect the openings to grow up thick with weeds this year? 

[Raider Bill]

Robert, Does that pond hold water year round?
 In your spare time could you come down and tidy my land up a bit too?
You sure have done a lot of work there. It looks great!

[OneWithWood]

Danny, if this opening reacts like some others I expect a thicket of blackberry to take over for about 5 years or so.

Normally I would not have cleaned the site off to this extent.  The Indiana Fish & Wildlife folks stipulated no slash be left on it as it was going to be part of a longterm study.  Unfortunately I think their funding dried up.  My preference is to leave the tops.  The deer do not like to stick their heads in the tops and oak seedlings can get a good start.  As it is, I will be stocking the freezer with plenty of venison come fall.