Want to put more food on the landscape for the critters on your property? The crew at Chestnut Hill Outdoors is here to help with some great insight on what you should consider when it comes to hard vs. soft mast.
Planting a wider variety of mast makes a property more productive. The word “mast” typically evokes images of acorns and nuts – hard mast. Even the term is derived from an Old English word meaning nuts of the forest. However, it also includes a range of soft mast species that can benefit wildlife.
If the goal is to attract game species during the hunting season, hard masts will benefit wildlife once trees are mature enough to begin producing.
If, on the other hand, the goal is to achieve the year-round nutritional needs of deer and other wildlife, the soft mast can significantly widen the window of attractiveness while also filling in nutritional gaps.
Furthermore, many soft mast species begin producing at an early age and provide protective cover.
One crucial period that often presents a nutritional gap is mid to late summer. While all is lush and green, herbaceous plants are maturing and becoming less nutritional and palatable.
Meanwhile, dietary demands for growing wildlife are peaking. Early soft mast producers like plums and mulberries help them meet these needs by providing energy and protein and forming dense thickets that help conceal them from predators.
They will produce fruit with proper care and climate in two to three years.
Next come late summer fruits, like blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and grapes, filling this nutritional gap before the next one arrives. They, too, form groves of cover for young wildlife like turkeys and grouse and produce at an early age.
As the days grow shorter, the diets of deer and other species shift increasingly toward food that will help them fatten up for winter. Hard masts have yet to drop, but early fall soft mast species like persimmons, apples, and pears bridge the gap until they do.
Eventually, hard masts fall, but not all species produce simultaneously or in the same year, emphasizing the importance of variety. White oak acorns take only one year to mature and will provide hard mast annually if growing conditions are right, whereas red oak acorns take two years to mature.
Planting both varieties increases the odds that some hard mast species will always be available.
Adding Dunstan Chestnuts to the planting plan further ensures an abundance of nutritionally superior hard mast to attract and hold more wildlife. Because they flower later, they are less susceptible to late frost damage and produce annually.
It is not about one versus the other when comparing hard and soft masts. It is about how they supplement each other to improve wildlife habitat by providing food and cover throughout the year.
See more on the wide variety of planting options from Chestnut Hill at www.chestnuthilloutdoors.com.
