Hinge Cut Planting

[Bush_84]

Hello all.  My dad has a 2 acre section of woods that was planted.  Lots of the softer hardwoods like elm, ash, maple, poplar, birch.  I believe that most of the deer bed around the border as that's where the most cover is due to all of the bushes and weeds.  Once you get to the interior you can see down the rows a long ways and I'm sure the deer there aren't fully utilizing the woods for bedding because of it.  So I want to do a series of hinge cuts this spring to develop more bedding opportunities.  I want to zig zag pockets of hinge cuts to allow for a nice thick understory and cover. 

So my question is how does one do this when the trees are packed in tight?  I don't feel like I'll be able to get a tree to fall.  It'll just lean up against the tree next to it.  Do I just keep cutting?  I've but plenty of trees but never specifically for this purpose. 

[deadeye]

Good question there, Bush_84.  I've never hinge cut but have "released" more desirable trees being crowded out by other trees. I simply girdled the others and after a few years they toppled on their own. I realize that may not work if your intention is to hinge cut. Ash will work well for hinge cut but not too sure about birch and poplar as I believe they will just snap off when cut. 

[Leech~~]

Hello all.  My dad has a 2 acre section of woods that was planted.  Lots of the softer hardwoods like elm, ash, maple, poplar, birch.  I believe that most of the deer bed around the border as that's where the most cover is due to all of the bushes and weeds.  Once you get to the interior you can see down the rows a long ways and I'm sure the deer there aren't fully utilizing the woods for bedding because of it.  So I want to do a series of hinge cuts this spring to develop more bedding opportunities.  I want to zig zag pockets of hinge cuts to allow for a nice thick understory and cover. 

So my question is how does one do this when the trees are packed in tight?  I don't feel like I'll be able to get a tree to fall.  It'll just lean up against the tree next to it.  Do I just keep cutting?  I've but plenty of trees but never specifically for this purpose.

You only have two acres of land or that is how much was planted out of more acres?  If you only have two acres and you hunt Deer.  Why not plant more attracting feed items and let the Deer bed on your neighbors land!

[Bush_84]

This is my dads place. Its 36-38 acres (can’t remember). It’s maybe 2/3rds ag and the rest is a mix of woods, grass, lowland. The section I plan to hinge is a little over 2 acres. If it were up to me I’d dump all of the field and turn it into a mix of switch/variety of trees and shrubs for bedding/food plots. But it’s not up to me and I’ve got to improve what I can. So hinge cuts in the woods is a low hanging fruit. Slowly working on convincing my dad that food plots are worth it. This is a baby steps sort of process. I’m hoping the things we do show improvement and convince him to do more. Plan is to hinge in spring and see if I can convince him to plant an acre of food plots. There’s a section that’s seasonally under water depending on the rain. It’s all useless grass. It’s an acre and will really compliment our stands but he views it as to much work and not worth it and wants to shave off a section of the field instead. Fingers crossed I get both lol.

As far as tree species goes I believe you are right. I’d leave the poplar and birch alone. The birch are already in a good sized cluster so I’m not sure cutting any of them will lead to significant expansion (they spread by their root system). The majority of the wooded area is maple and elm, which according to my reading should hinge nicely. So my plan was to hing those species.