Is a Stand of Tag Alders Good Bedding Cover?

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Question
My family has 530 acres in central Wisconsin. We just bought it 3 years ago and have been managing it heavily. We have about 25 acres of food plots. Our land is fairly flat and doesn’t have any pine trees. It’s mainly thick tags, in the summer it is almost impossible to walk through it. We leave about 250 acres of the land untouched. Is this applicable bedding area all year long or what could we do to produce better bedding? We’ve been planting 1000 pine trees every spring.

Jake

Jake,

Tag alders can provide good summer cover. They do not provide as good of thermal cover as traditional winter deer yards, native warm season grasses, or relatively young pines. Cover is a huge component of quality habitat. Improving this portion of the habitat may really benefit your deer herd.

Growing Deer together,

Grant