here in kansas, osage orange is called a lot of things........................................ immediately after an explicitive!

imo---osage orange has served its purpose (windbreaks during the dustbowl)... we've always called it hedge, and it's fruit we call hedgeballs (real creative, huh?)... i cut all (but one) of the osage orange and locust trees i encountered in last summer chainsaw massacre (probably cut the tree population on our place in half)..... we sprayed the stumps w/ some industrial strength juice after felling the tree...... next month i'm planning to try the "barrel burner" method to finish 'em off. hopefully this will reduce the # of stumps i gotta' dodge on the tracter...
nothing will burn up a saw blade faster than osage o. and the thorns are usually everywhere.... they hurt like a bee sting (or getting finned by a catfish).......


anywho-----good riddance! when growing in groves, the straight limbs are cut into posts for fencing (our posts went to western neb.).... we actually made pretty decent $$ (as opposed to not making money on a weekend) by selling the posts... my buddy in the pic is a foreman on a 3-man bucket truck for a private tree removal contractor, so needless to say, he did most of the cutting and i stayed on the tractor...


here's what a locust looks like close up... real friendly-looking tree, huh?!?!?!


i'm going to plant 50 sawtooths, a few apple, and maybe a few pears (good idea, russ) in the clearings created last summer...
i'll plant the rest of the sawtooths along a fence row we pulled out a few years ago.... there's a narrow (50 yds by 1/2 mile) strip of native grass (switchgrass and indiangrass primarily) in between the fence row sawtooth plantings and the clearcut sawtooths planted... this tall grass should provide excellent cover and bedding areas...........




GREENTREE RESERVOIR
i think i might be confusing ya'...... i have 5-6 acres of lowland type habitat which drains around a large pond built by the w.p.a. years ago.
at some point in the future (?? years) the pond will have to be drained and 80+years of silt will need to be removed...... ya' gotta put all that silt somewhere.... the shortest distance the dozer has to push the silt the better (i.e. cheaper).... a new dike to facilitate draining will create a bypass ditch around the pond and the silt won't be able to wash back in....

with this in mind, i would like to plant 3 acres of oak trees next month (half area planted now and the other half after pond work is complete) in the lowland.... i'll will ultimately be able to control flooding in this oak marsh, but i only want to plant oaks that are classified as facultative wetland to avoid the frustration of a spring flood killing trees suited for upland settings (i.e. sawtooth oaks)...

Mallard Oaks

pin oaks (Quercus palustris) should be producing acorns within 15 years if managed properly..... the pin oak's acorn is a highly
desirable food for waterfowl probably b/c of its small size and late season maturation....

willow oaks (Quercus phellos) are also fast growers that produce annual crops of small acorns after 15 years of growth in optimal conditions...

i haven't decided which oak will be the third constitute in the greentree reservoir, any suggestions? i'd like an oak which was dropping acorns within 10 years of planting..

does anyone have any experience planting hybrid oaks?