Pollarded woodland to decrease deer depredation

So, I am working with a non-profit owned property in NW Indiana to put portion of their woodland under resprout management. We have some useful species and plans for the products that resprout management can produce. Those details aside, deer are going to be a problem, a big problem.  I am familiar with slash/brash fencing, tensile fencing, and three wire 3-D electric fencing options. Our desires for aesthetics will limit our choices slash or electric fencing. Each one of those comes with their own strong and weak points.  I am curious though about the possibility of pollarding as a potential mitigation step for deer depredation. I as it stands now we would still have to do a coppice cut, allow for regrowth, thin the stems and then begin the pollarding cuts high enough to mitigate deer browsing. This process would take years (or decades). We could not just go in and pollard because the specimens in the wooded areas are too large to just go in and pollard and expect healthy results.  The  question is, would work? Could it work. Have you heard of it working? One argument I heard against it was essentially “if it worked people in the past would have done it, they did not do it, so it does not work”. I do not think argument is compelling. There were a great many things that are different between modern times and the past when resprout management was more common, including more people living in or near the wooded areas and actively protecting the copses from the ungulates decimating them.

I like the idea of pollarded woodland though I don1t understand how this will decrease deer depredation.

Can you go into further details as why this might work?

"resprout management" as you term it is what I think would be called coppicing in the UK. The trees are cut to ground level and resprout from the stool, making multistemmed straight poles for fencing etc... Particularly prevalent in sweet chestnut and hazel woodlands.

From my direct personal experience, I'm not sure how effective polarding would be, largely because the root systems tend to be shallow and prone to collapse. I suspect that the altered weight distribution might change things. Maybe experiment on a patch for comparison?

Ian Thompson wrote:We could not just go in and pollard because the specimens in the wooded areas are too large to just go in and pollard and expect healthy results.  

I'm not sure about this. I thought that coppicing was more likely to lead to tree loss if he tree is more mature. I would have thought a mature tree more likely to survive pollarding than coppicing.

One argument I heard against it was essentially “if it worked people in the past would have done it, they did not do it, so it does not work”. I do not think argument is compelling. There were a great many things that are different between modern times and the past when resprout management was more common, including more people living in or near the wooded areas and actively protecting the copses from the ungulates decimating them.

I'm not sure where they are coming from here. Pollarding is certainly an anti-browse tradition in the UK and parts of Europe if not in the US. It's not done so much these days since the profit isn't in the wood in the same way - cheaper to clear cut softwoods or grow crops/animals for quicker payback on the land. Evidence of previous pollarding is extensive from willows along the Thames, to sweet chestnuts now in the centre of towns. It is still done in many places to reduce crown size in towns and for wildlife or tree conservation reasons. The whomping willow in Harry Potter film was obviously pollarded!


source
Apparently this 400 year old tree was the model for one of the whomping willows. Maybe it would still stand had the pollarding continued.....

Some links:

freshly pollarded willow

https://www.ywt.org.uk/blog/yorkshire-wildlife-trust/pollarding


some info from the british standard here

benefits of coppicing and pollarding: here

more info from the woodland trust

And an introductory video about pollarding from Norway:

Michael Cox wrote:"resprout management" as you term it is what I think would be called coppicing in the UK. The trees are cut to ground level and resprout from the stool, making multistemmed straight poles for fencing etc... Particularly prevalent in sweet chestnut and hazel woodlands.

From my direct personal experience, I'm not sure how effective polarding would be, largely because the root systems tend to be shallow and prone to collapse. I suspect that the altered weight distribution might change things. Maybe experiment on a patch for comparison?

Yes, it is resprout  management and coppicing are the same thing, but also includes pollarding for various products and ends.

I'm not sure where they are coming from here. Pollarding is certainly an anti-browse tradition in the UK and parts of Europe if not in the US. It's not done so much these days since the profit isn't in the wood in the same way - cheaper to clear cut softwoods or grow crops/animals for quicker payback on the land. Evidence of previous pollarding is extensive from willows along the Thames, to sweet chestnuts now in the centre of towns. It is still done in many places to reduce crown size in towns and for wildlife or tree conservation reasons. The whomping willow in Harry Potter film was obviously pollarded!

Right. I am familiar with all these concepts.  You correct, the older the tree (or the larger diameter the trunk, often age and diameter or correlated but not always). The less likely it is to take well to coppicing cut.  The diameters at which coppicing might harm the tree are generally 8 to 10 inches and larger.  Most of the trees I am dealing have not passed that 10 in diameter size yet.   I might be wrong, but it is my understanding that cutting a tree at say five foot is more detrimental to the tree than coppice cut, especially if those trees are approaching the 8 to 10 inch diameter stage.  If one wants to pollard, I believe it is better to begin the cuts much earlier in the tree's life with specific pruning cuts that promote a healthy pollard.  Some species may respond better to severe cut than others though.

Ian Thompson wrote: I might be wrong, but it is my understanding that cutting a tree at say five foot is more detrimental to the tree than coppice cut, especially if those trees are approaching the 8 to 10 inch diameter stage.  If one wants to pollard, I believe it is better to begin the cuts much earlier in the tree's life with specific pruning cuts that promote a healthy pollard.  Some species may respond better to severe cut than others though.

I'm no expert either - and this sort of thing may well be species and climate specific. Have a look at the link that quotes part of the British standard - the site was someone who was pollarding his trees for the first time. For some reason I thought that your trees were more mature.

Nancy Reading wrote:

Ian Thompson wrote: I might be wrong, but it is my understanding that cutting a tree at say five foot is more detrimental to the tree than coppice cut, especially if those trees are approaching the 8 to 10 inch diameter stage.  If one wants to pollard, I believe it is better to begin the cuts much earlier in the tree's life with specific pruning cuts that promote a healthy pollard.  Some species may respond better to severe cut than others though.

I'm no expert either - and this sort of thing may well be species and climate specific. Have a look at the link that quotes part of the British standard - the site was someone who was pollarding his trees for the first time. For some reason I thought that your trees were more mature.

Yeah , that British Standard piece has lots of good nuggets of info in it. It actually reinforces my belief that going in and pollarding right away would be a bad idea. The trees are too and their lowest living side branches too high to pollard in manner that would more fully insure their survival of the practice and produce knuckles that could be easily reached.

    I've been thinking about experimenting with some coppiced and Pollard trees.
    My only input regarding deer pressure is that a Pollard tree may have its new growth and foliage up over the reach of deer, but if the trunk is not going to be fenced, it will be exposed to deer attack. The risk of tree death may be higher if the trunk gets damaged.
    With coppicing, the risk of new growth and foliage being damaged may be much higher, but if the coppiced tree is able to spread and mature, the density of branches would prevent the deer from killing the tree as they would only browse on the exterior branches.
    I would put in fences either way. If I went coppiced, I would fence the perimeter of the expected new growth. I think fencing a Pollard would be easier. Only requiring, a fence around the main trunk below the Pollard cut.
   I guess once you get going with either method, you'll eventually have plenty of small diameter wood to make lots of fencing. Might need to buy a few hundred feet of hardware cloth to get started though.
    Good luck and keep us up to date on your project!

Anne Miller wrote:I like the idea of pollarded woodland though I don1t understand how this will decrease deer depredation.

Can you go into further details as why this might work?

Well, because pollarding cuts happen higher on the trunk, shoots are produced higher and well above the ground level out of reach of forest floor / pasture ungulates.  People use pollarding all the time in silvipasutre operations to keep the shoots above the reach of their stock.

Revo Smith wrote:     I've been thinking about experimenting with some coppiced and Pollard trees.
    My only input regarding deer pressure is that a Pollard tree may have its new growth and foliage up over the reach of deer, but if the trunk is not going to be fenced, it will be exposed to deer attack. The risk of tree death may be higher if the trunk gets damaged.
    With coppicing, the risk of new growth and foliage being damaged may be much higher, but if the coppiced tree is able to spread and mature, the density of branches would prevent the deer from killing the tree as they would only browse on the exterior branches.
    I would put in fences either way. If I went coppiced, I would fence the perimeter of the expected new growth. I think fencing a Pollard would be easier. Only requiring, a fence around the main trunk below the Pollard cut.
   I guess once you get going with either method, you'll eventually have plenty of small diameter wood to make lots of fencing. Might need to buy a few hundred feet of hardware cloth to get started though.
    Good luck and keep us up to date on your project!

I will definitely provide updates.  We started this year, coppicing willow, green ash, and cotton wood in an ephemeral  wet land area.  We planted some extra willow as well. The purpose of which, in this case, is to provide living stakes and fascines to help control stream bank erosion in a different location on the property. We piled brash around some of the more important clusters of stools to keep the deer away and make harder for them to reach, but did not have enough to encircle the area.  Deer are basically browsing everything they can reach.  With the pollarding, I know that the trunk will be vulnerable buck rubs, but in my experience rubs do not happen at anywhere near the frequency as browsing.  The only thing I have not seem deer nibble to nubs are some varieties of willow, catalpa and bald cypress.

Here is not interesting research I found on coppicing / copparding  / pollarding in relation to deer browse.  Basically, the higher the cut, the less deer damage.

https://conservationevidencejournal.com/reference/pdf/5913

Did the pollarded woodland work this summer?  Will this method be continued next spring/summer?

Anne Miller wrote:Did the pollarded woodland work this summer?  Will this method be continued next spring/summer?

We did a small area in in low lying / ephemeral pond area.  We coppiced primarily willow and cottonwood. In addition we planted more willow with the live stick method. The purpose of coppicing these species was to begin have several areas producing 6 to 12 foot long sapling-like material which can be used to make fascines and lots of live stakes to help control erosion along a stream bank along the northern edge of the property.  It was very evident that deer are going to be an issue. Every stool that was protect by piling sticks and branches over them (i.e. minimally thwarting deer browse have shoots that are over 5 to 6 ft tall). Everything that was not protected is knee high.