Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Newbie from Mississippi

Just stumbled on the site, lots of good info here. I'm a wildlife biologist/forester by education and trade here in the Mississippi Delta. Also own/operate an aquatic weed control business that operates throughout the state. I look forward to learning more about the magazine and forum.
Dan Prevost

Great to have you Dan! Look forward to seeing your contributions. Welcome to Pond Boss!

I stumbled upon this site and have learned more in an hour than I ever thought I would. What a wonderful wealth of information. Bob, your videos are awesome! It is so refreshing to see and hear someone with such love for what they do!

Can you please answer a question for me?
We have just dug a 1/2 acre pond on newly aquired land and a friend of ours who use to work in the tree business, said that we will have to cut down any trees that are near the pond because they will eventually drown, and the heavy equipment will have damaged the roots. He said it will take 3 - 5 years to see the damage, but he recommended that we take them down now before we build the house on the property. This was shocking due to the fact that we planned the pond around the trees....huge white oaks and pin oaks (about 7 - 10 trees). Can you offer me any insight regarding this?

I, too, built a half-acre pond, next to the house. Any tree at or above the waterline, we left. A small post oak died the first year. In the third year, a larger post oak died. It's about a 10 inch diameter tree. We left it. Over the next two years, most of the limbs fell off and now we have a "snag", as wildlife biologist Dan VanSchaik calls it. We actually love that solitary dead tree. Woodpeckers have feasted on it, birds land on it. I've seen vultures on it, Osprey several times...all kinds of predatory birds will land on it. I've seen a variety of hawks and kites as they migrate. Belted King Fishers spend quite a bit of time on it. Blue birds have tried to nest in the woodpecker holes, but I don't know how successful they've been. Bottom line...that dead tree is a pretty busy place.
If water infiltrates very far into a tree's dripline, that tree will be affected. It may not kill it, but it will be affected. If heavy equipment damage the roots, that tree will be affected. But, I'm opposed to removing trees using any kind of guesswork. Here's the catch. If the trees live, which many of them will, you win. If one or two die, you still win...you've got new wildlife habitat. If a tree (or trees) die that are problematic (unsafe), then you have to remove them. It ain't an easy task to cut down a dead tree in water.
Trees that will be submerged will die. I'd remove those. But, any that sit at or above the waterline, leave them be.
Figure out where your waterline will be, flag the entire periphery of the pond and then figure out what to do with the trees.
In my opinion, a pond with trees removed above the waterline doesn't look natural, unless it's a lawn next to a house.

Try to keep the heavy equipment off of the trees' roots, which extend at least to the drip line of the canopy. Don't add any soil on top of the tree roots, there is a good possibility of suffocating the tree, especially trees that are used to growing in upland soils.

Welcome to Pond Boss Dan and yea.buddy .

Thank you for your insight. The pond sits on the back acre of a 4 acre tract and luckily the ground is nothing but clay (great for ponds....no so good for gardening)so I hope there won't be much water saturation outside of the walls, and the pond was dug right outside of the canopy of most of the trees which are well above the water line so I hope that most of them will live. Although it will be more difficult to drop any dead trees later, I agree that now is not the time to start taking out 50 - 100 year old trees.

Thanks again....it is always helpful to talk with someone who's "been there, done that".

The backhoe operator is trying really hard not to pile any dirt on top of the roots and stay off of them, we will also have someone come in and level and drag dirt from around them with lighter weight equipment. Thanks for the insight.

I didn't know "pond fever" was so contagious!

Besides having a dead tree for woodpeckers, etc. I have one next to the pond I am going to drop into the pond for turtles and structure. So why not enjoy your trees and hope they stay alive but if they don't they have another pond use. In the mean time you could start some new trees to take their place should they die.

I visited a beautiful 3 acre pond yesterday, but was very surprised at the number of turtles. Are turtles good to have? How do u control the population?

I'm generally neutral on turtles. They are the buzzards of the pond and clean up dead and dying fish. They are omnivorous. If they become a pain in the butt, I sometimes remove a couple.

I can get a good count on the turtles I have as they come out to feed with the rest of the critters. Kind of funny to watch them feed and then a nice CC come smack one. I usually take them out as I can not stand to catch them, plus I figure more will come back later in the season to clean up any dead fish. I figure what ones my CC do not eat the turtles can have.

A few years ago the ducks were enjoying the food as well, this was November during deer season and they scared me to death when they took off. I had no idea they were there. Pretty neat site though.

I do not like to share with the Coons though, they already broke a few spinner plates.

Turtles are pretty harmless. Snappers you can light up.