IN THE WOODS, TIMES ARE GOOD AND CAN GET BETTER

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 7, 1992                   TAG: 9201070024
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
IN THE WOODS, TIMES ARE GOOD AND CAN GET BETTER
Now is an ideal time for woodland owners to take an inventory of their property, when the dormant hardwoods offer easy viewing against the winter sky.
I did that the other day, hiking well off the ease of the seeded road that snakes through our mountain property. After that, I spent time studying our 10-year management plan to determine where we stand: what has been accomplished, what hasn't; what is working, what isn't.
About 75 percent of the woodlands in Virginia are privately owned, their 11 million acres in the care of some 300,000 individuals. How well are we doing?
You might call this my annual report to the stockholders, not just family members, but also deer, bear, turkey, grouse, squirrels, songbirds, hikers, hunters, anglers - anything and everything that benefits from our place and the management we apply.
Twelve springs ago, we began planting several patches of white pines, in fields where the previous owner had pastured sheep and cattle. They were bare-rooted seedlings, 8 to 12 inches long, a burst of green needles wrapped around a small stem. You could put a bundle of 1,000 on your shoulder.
Our first and largest planting was 10 acres, and the trees, fighting for their space in the sun, now are thick and tall and even inhospitable to any human trying to push through their overlapping branches.
Some people consider the white pine to be a garbage tree as far as benefits to wildlife, but ours provide cover for a number of wildlife species, a place to rest and nest away from the prying eyes of predators, even those toting guns.
There is a trio of grouse that has escaped into them more times than I care to report, rocketing from adjacent hardwoods into what might as well be a bank vault.
Deer like them, too, pushing narrow, but well-defined, paths through branches that grow to the ground. The neighbor's youngster got a five-pointer this fall when the buck made the mistake of stepping into the sunshine. No telling how many haven't made that mistake.
Early on, we planted autumn olives and apples, Chinese chestnuts and gray dogwoods. The deer ate the apple trees the first year. We replanted them, and when they disappeared a second time, we planted again, this time in wire cages. We were learning whose place this really was.
No matter how laudable the effort, more than just a shovel and fresh nursery stock often is needed to establish food for wildlife.
One of the best approaches is natural regeneration through a management plan that involves some timber cutting and timber-stand improvement projects done with the assistance of a professional forester. The Virginia Department of Forestry will help you get started. Last year, it established its Forest Stewardship Program to provide technical assistance to private landowners with special interest in establishing conservation practices.
The agency, which has offices across the state, including Salem, even will sell you the trees needed for forestation and wildlife habitat. Now is the time to order them.
The key to accomplishing forest wildlife management likely will be the manipulation of the forest itself. You may want to build your woodland around a certain wild creature, but most species will do best where trees and other plants are grown in a variety of kinds, ages, sizes and shapes to meet the needs of wild creatures throughout their life cycle.
A turkey, for example, prefers mature hardwoods where mast is abundant. It also requires edge for nesting and open patches where chicks can find insects the first month of their existence.
Our best grouse population is in a section where we had a timber sale nearly a decade ago. We removed enough mature hardwoods to let the sun smile on the forest duff and stimulate the kind of plant growth this species needs for food, cover and escape from predators.
Deer are doing well in a timber-sale site that is about 6 years old. There is enough browse here for polishing antlers and filling bellies.
We have left hawthorns and wild grapes for soft mast, and plenty of snags for owls and woodpeckers. Songbirds like to nest and roost in our Christmas trees, and this fall a bear took a special interest in our apple crop.
Most of the stockholders appear to be happy, but there always is more to do if you own woodland.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB