Planting and Cutting for Ruffed Grouse

Written by Luke Ruffner Robinson, owner of Montana Fruit Trees in Missoula, Montana.

This one's about ruffed grouse in Minnesota, Montana, Idaho and North Dakota's Turtle Mountains and Pembina Hills, and it's as much about cutting as planting. Grouse habitat is mostly young aspen, and you make young aspen with a chainsaw more than a shovel. What planting adds is the stuff a lot of grouse woods are short on: hazel for winter catkins, and fruiting shrubs like hawthorn and mountain ash on the edges and in openings, with fruit that holds into winter. If you've got some aspen and a saw, a few dozen plants will turn it into a small grouse covert.

Why aspen matters so much

Grouse "eat 6 times more quaking aspen buds than buds from all other species combined" (FEIS). In winter, it's the flower buds on male aspen that matter most. The Ruffed Grouse Society says "Throughout the winter and early spring, grouse depend on these dormant male flowers (called catkins) as a survival food" (RGS, Ryan Lisson). In Minnesota, aspen flower buds and catkins "were typically the most important food item from mid-October to early May" (FEIS, Meyer 2011).

Gordon Gullion worked this out at the University of Minnesota's Cloquet Forestry Center over decades of research. He found grouse were eating the male flower buds of older aspens, and that "These buds were 20 to 30 percent higher in protein" (RGS). They're also fast food. "One grouse can tuck away 100 grams of buds in 15 minutes," Gullion told Sports Illustrated (Sports Illustrated, 1978). He also pointed to the hawks and owls that "sit up there and wait for a feeding grouse to come by," so a bird that fills its crop fast is a safer bird.

Different ages for different jobs

Grouse need aspen at several ages at once. Young stands are thick, "with several thousand stems per acre," and good grouse habitat runs from about 5 to 20 years old (RGS). Two- to 10-year-old stands are important brood habitat (FEIS). Older trees supply the winter buds: "Aspen trees 15 years and older provide the most important year-round food sources" (Michigan DNR). North Dakota Game and Fish breaks it down by age: aspen up to 10 years old for broods, 10 to 25 years for food and winter cover, and 60-plus-year-old trees for resting, drumming and feeding (ND Game and Fish).

From the grouse biologists

Gordon Gullion, associate professor of wildlife management at the University of Minnesota: "We can cut aspen stands on a rotational basis and provide a constant supply of food" (Sports Illustrated). He also said, "Now, the chain saw is perhaps the best tool we have in managing a forest for wildlife." (RGS)
Jesse Kolar, North Dakota Game and Fish upland game management supervisor: "Ruffed grouse are specifically focusing on eating buds of aspen trees," and "Male ruffed grouse find big, dead, downed aspen logs that end up being the perfect drumming sites" (North Dakota Outdoors)

Grouse in Montana and Idaho are a little different

Most grouse management advice comes out of the Lake States, where grouse live in big aspen forests. Out west, grouse country is more mixed. In the Bridger Mountains near Bozeman, a Montana State study found the major summer foods were "hawthorn berry, huckleberry and strawberry fruits," and "the winter diet mainly consisted of snowberry and huckleberry buds." In winter those birds preferred "conifer, hardwood-conifer, and hawthorn habitat types," and drummed mostly in mixed forest (Lehtinen 1983, MSU thesis). So in western Montana and Idaho, hawthorn thickets along creeks and edges, with conifers nearby, are a big part of the picture, and aspen is a bonus where you have it.

What grouse eat through the year

Season	What they're after	What to plant or keep
Winter (December to March)	Aspen flower buds are the staple. Hazel, willow and birch catkins too (MI DNR). Buds, twigs and catkins of aspen, birch, ironwood, hazel and cherry (MN DNR). In the Bridgers, snowberry and huckleberry buds.	Mature aspen, hazel, mountain ash fruit still on the tree.
Spring (April to May)	Males drum on logs, peaking in late April in Minnesota (MN DNR). Males keep eating aspen catkins until at least early May (FEIS).	Big downed logs near mature male aspen.
Summer (June to August)	Chicks need insects, which are most common in open areas (FEIS). Hens want dense young cover. In Montana, hawthorn berries, huckleberries and strawberries.	Young aspen, brushy edges, small openings, elderberry.
Fall (September to November)	Fruit: dogwood, mountain ash and thornapple (hawthorn) (MN DNR). Hazelnuts (FEIS). Hawthorn fruit lasts "well past first frost" (RGS).	Hawthorn, mountain ash, aronia, crabs on edges.

The best plants we grow for grouse

Plant	What it gives grouse	When	Hardy to
Aspen	The core food and cover plant. Starts a clone you can cut later.	Buds all winter, cover year round	Zone 1
American hazelnut	Winter catkins (MI DNR) and nuts eaten by ruffed grouse (FEIS). Shade tolerant, so it fills in under taller trees.	Catkins winter, nuts fall	Zone 3
Hawthorn	A major summer food in the Bridger Mountains study, and fruit that hangs past frost. Thorny cover that hawks can't get into easily.	Late summer into winter	Zone 3
Mountain ash	Berries eaten by ruffed grouse that "remain on the tree and are available to birds all winter" (FEIS).	Fall through winter	Zone 3
Aronia	"The fruit are eaten by ruffed grouse, sharptailed grouse and prairie chickens" (NRCS).	Late summer to fall	Zone 2
American elderberry	"Grouse, pheasant, and pigeons all eat elderberries" (NRCS). Thick summer cover.	Fruit July to October	Zone 2
Chokecherry and wild plum	RGS biologist Ryan Lisson put wild plum and chokecherries in the upland spots of his own grouse planting (RGS). Cherry buds are winter grouse food (MN DNR).	Late summer	Zone 2
Dolgo crabapple	Michigan DNR lists crabapples among the fruit producers to plant on woodland edges and in openings.	Late summer and fall	Zone 1b

Aspen trees are male or female, and seedlings don't tell you which until they bloom. Gullion's work points to male aspen flower buds as the prime food, so where you already have aspen, the old clones grouse are feeding in are worth knowing about. Keep big male clones and cut around them.

How to make a covert on a small place

Grouse need a lot of ground. North Dakota Game and Fish says grouse "seem to be tied to large expanses (over 640 acres) of aspen woodlands" (ND Game and Fish), and an Idaho study found birds "finding all they needed for food and cover within just over 100 acres of forest" (Idaho Fish and Game). You won't grow a grouse population on 20 acres by yourself, but you can make your 20 acres the best spot in the neighborhood. Minnesota DNR suggests landowners with under 40 acres work with neighbors and nearby public foresters on a shared plan (MN DNR).

If you already have aspen: cut it in patches

Aspen regenerates mostly from root sprouts (FEIS), and 20,000 to 30,000 sprouts per acre is typical the first year after the tops are killed. You don't plant those. You cut the old trees and the roots do the rest.

Patch size: RGS suggests "cutting a series of 1- to 5-acre patches every 5 years," which gives you four aspen ages in 20 years in a checkerboard (RGS). Minnesota DNR says keep cuts 10 acres or less and aim for 3 to 4 age classes about 10 years apart. Michigan DNR suggests clearcuts no larger than 2 1/2 acres in the interior of the woods. On a small place, go small.
Cut in winter when the ground is frozen.
Keep cattle out. ND Game and Fish says avoid grazing cut stands until the new trees are established, and to reduce tillage along woodland edges so aspen can sucker out into the field.
Leave drumming logs. Michigan DNR says one log per acre at least 10 inches across. Minnesota DNR says 1 to 2 logs per acre at least 8 inches across and 70 inches long, with a standing tree within 10 feet as a guard. In Minnesota, only 3 of 256 drumming logs were out of sight of a mature male aspen (FEIS), so drop logs near big aspen you're keeping.

If you don't have aspen: start a clone

Plant 3 aspen in a sunny opening or along a field edge. They'll sucker out over the years and give you a small clone to cut later. It's slow, but it's how every aspen stand started.

Where the fruit goes

Michigan DNR's advice is to "Plant fruit-producing shrubs (crabapples, haw-thorns, dogwoods, sumac, etc.) along woodland edges and within openings." When RGS biologist Ryan Lisson did his own planting in Minnesota, he set "the shrubs in clusters along habitat edges, trails, and in interior openings," next to spruce where he could for nearby cover (RGS). Mountain ash and aronia need sun to fruit (FEIS, NRCS), so put them in openings and on edges, not under a closed canopy. Hazel is the exception and does fine in shade. Give hawthorn a good spot too. Jared Elm, a forest wildlife specialist for RGS and the American Woodcock Society, says hawthorn "is a favorite late-season snack for ruffed grouse and other forest wildlife" (RGS).

We don't grow dogwood or spruce. For those, and for bigger numbers of shrubs, Minnesota landowners can order from the DNR State Forest Nursery, which sells dogwoods, nannyberries, cherries, white pine and white spruce, with a 300 seedling minimum (MN DNR). In Montana, the Montana Conservation Seedling Nursery in Missoula sells to private landowners for wildlife habitat, with a 150 seedling minimum for new plantings and bare-root stock in spring only (Montana DNRC).

Spacing and arrangement

Plant	Spacing	Arrangement
Aspen	Clustered, so the suckers merge into one patch	Sunny opening or field edge.
Hazel, aronia, elderberry	3 to 6 ft in the row, 6 to 10 ft between rows (UMN Extension)	Clumps of 3 along edges and trails. Hazel can go under taller trees.
Hawthorn and mountain ash	Wider than the shrubs, since both grow into small trees	Clusters in openings and on the sunny side of edges.
Crabs on full-size roots	About 20 ft. They reach 20 to 25 ft (NDSU).	Along field edges.

A sample covert for 10 to 40 acres

Cut a 1 to 2 acre aspen patch this winter, and another every 5 years.
Drop 1 or 2 big logs per acre near mature aspen you're leaving.
Plant a clump of hazel along the edge of each new cut.
Plant hawthorn, mountain ash and aronia in clusters along a trail or the sunny side of the cuts.
Keep or plant conifers on part of the place for winter cover.

Snow, conifers and winter cover

Ruffed grouse dive into soft snow to roost. "During winter, ruffed grouse spend nearly all of their time in snow burrows to stay warm and avoid predators" (MN DNR). They need snow "deeper than 10 inches and of a light, powdery consistency" (MN DNR), and Gullion found "plenty of soft snow means higher winter survival." When snow's thin or crusted, birds need conifers, and Minnesota DNR says "Conifers are considered essential winter habitat where snow depths typically preclude snow roosts." That's a lot of the dry West. Gullion himself was no fan of conifers in Minnesota aspen country ("If I had my way, I'd cut every pine and spruce out of this forest"), since that's where the hawks and owls sit. We'd keep conifers to small pockets in big-snow country. In thin-snow country, like much of Montana, keep a conifer patch next to the feeding cover. The Bridger Mountains grouse wintered in conifer, mixed and hawthorn cover.

Add woodcock while you're at it

Woodcock use the same young forest. "Woodcock heavily prefer young, recently harvested aspen stands where soils are moist and earthworms are plentiful" (Michigan DNR). If your place has wet, rich ground (this is mostly Minnesota), Michigan DNR suggests:

Singing grounds: small clearings "at least a half-acre in size for every 20 to 25 acres of young forest," irregular in shape.
Roosting fields of about an acre within a half mile of feeding cover, one per 100 acres.
Edge plantings of "apple or crabapple trees, fruiting shrubs like highbush cranberry and dogwood," plus "thickets of elderberry and sumac, and young-growth hazel, willow, cherry."

Planting and the first three years

Winter before: do your aspen cut on frozen ground and leave a couple of logs per acre.
Spring: plant bare-root stock in the clumps you marked. Clear a circle of grass at least 3 ft across around each plant (wider is better), and skip the weed fabric. Soak roots a few hours first, plant at the depth they grew, water in.
Same day: cage everything. Lisson found welded-wire cages worked better than mesh tubes in his grouse planting.
Year 1: run drip on anything in the open, especially aronia, which "is not drought-tolerant" (NRCS). Keep grass back.
Year 2: the cut patch should be a sea of aspen suckers. Keep cattle and plows off it. Elderberry and aronia may start fruiting.
Year 3: the suckers in the cut are getting thick enough for broods. Hazel is bushing out. Raise or loosen cages as plants grow.
Year 5: cut your next aspen patch.

Protecting the planting

Deer and moose browse mountain ash hard. It "is a preferred browse for moose and white-tailed deer" (FEIS). Hazel catkins and twigs get browsed by deer and moose too. Cage each plant with welded wire about 5 ft tall and 3 ft across. Where elk come through, MSU recommends an 8 ft fence with a top rail (MSU WARC). Tubes alone won't stop buck rubs. If elk are around, read the fencing notes in our elk guide before you plant aspen.

Rabbits and voles girdle trunks in winter. Put a 1/4 in. hardware cloth or plastic cylinder on each trunk. UNL Extension says it "should be at least 18 inches above the snow depth," if possible (UNL NebGuide G887), and UMN Extension says "The base should be buried in the soil or have a soil ridge around the base" (UMN Extension). Mow around the plantings and keep the grass short. Don't lay plastic or fabric weed barrier, because "voles often thrive under plastic weed barriers" around tree and shrub plantings (UNL), and "fabric sheets can reduce or eliminate the suckering ability of many shrub and tree species" (MSU Extension). Suckering is the whole point of planting hazel and aspen.

Timing it to grouse season

Montana's mountain grouse season (ruffed, dusky and spruce) runs September 1 to January 1 (Montana FWP). North Dakota's tentative 2026 ruffed grouse opener was September 12 (ND Game and Fish). Minnesota and Idaho set their own dates, and every state can change them, so check current regs. Fall is fruit season for grouse (dogwood, mountain ash and hawthorn, per MN DNR), and aspen buds take over as the main food from mid-October on. Hawthorn and mountain ash hold fruit right through the late season, so a covert with both fruit and aspen covers the whole season.

Once the covert is built, I'd leave some of it alone. A few small patches you don't walk every weekend should hold birds into the late season. Early on I'd hunt the fruit edges and the young aspen, and after the leaves drop and the snow comes, the conifer pockets and the hawthorn. That's my opinion from how the birds use cover, not research.

Grouse numbers also rise and fall on a cycle of about 10 years, and nobody knows exactly why (MN DNR).

Mistakes to avoid

Planting aspen instead of cutting it. If you have old aspen, the saw does more than any planting.
Cutting one big block. Grouse need several ages close together, so cut small patches over time.
Fruiting shrubs in deep shade. Mountain ash is shade intolerant. Put fruit on edges and in openings.
Grazing the cut. Cattle wipe out aspen suckers.
Junipers next to hawthorn, crabs, mountain ash or aronia (cedar-apple rust and its relatives).
Laying weed fabric. It shelters voles and stops suckering.
Skipping the cages. Deer and moose will find your mountain ash.

Safety and the law

Fruit draws bears. Montana FWP says "Bears are attracted to fruit-bearing trees and bushes" and recommends considering an electric fence around fruit trees (Montana FWP). In grizzly country, plant well away from houses and outbuildings. Chokecherry foliage can poison cattle and sheep, especially after frost (FEIS), so keep it out of pastures. Junipers carry cedar-apple rust, and its relatives (hawthorn rust, quince rust and juniper broom rust) also hit hawthorn, mountain ash, serviceberry and chokeberry (aronia). UMN Extension says not to plant junipers "within a few hundred yards of apples, hawthorns" and their relatives (UMN Extension), so keep them that far from this planting where you can. Growing plants is habitat work, but rules on hunting over fruit or nuts you pick, move or pile vary by state. Check your current regs.

Ready-made bundles for grouse

Ruffed Grouse Edge Planting: 3 aspen, 3 American hazelnuts, 3 hawthorns and 3 mountain ash. Catkins, buds, and hawthorn and mountain ash fruit that holds into winter. Zone 3.
Grouse and Songbird Fruit Add-On: 3 mountain ash, 3 aronia and 3 American elderberries. Add it to any planting to fill out the fruit. Zone 3.

Turkeys use the same hawthorn and crabs, so if you've got birds of both kinds, see our wild turkey guide. Check your spot with our cold hardiness calculator, and see all our wildlife orchard bundles.

More planting guides

Sources

Ruffed Grouse Society, Ryan Lisson, "The Special Relationship Between Grouse and Aspen": ruffedgrousesociety.org
Ruffed Grouse Society, Ryan Lisson, "Ruffed Grouse Habitat: Cost Share Planting for Private Landowners" (2019): ruffedgrousesociety.org
Ruffed Grouse Society, Jared Elm, "Know Your Cover: Hawthorn": ruffedgrousesociety.org
Ruffed Grouse Society, Anthony Giattino, "Gordon Gullion: Sage of the Ruffed Grouse" (2020): ruffedgrousesociety.org
Sports Illustrated, "A Firm Stand for the Quaking Aspen" (1978): vault.si.com
Minnesota DNR, Managing Your Woodland for Ruffed Grouse (2009): dnr.state.mn.us
Minnesota DNR, Ruffed grouse: dnr.state.mn.us
Michigan DNR, Managing Michigan Wildlife: A Landowners Guide, Ruffed Grouse: michigan.gov; Woodcock: michigan.gov
North Dakota Game and Fish, Ruffed Grouse Habitat: gf.nd.gov; Ron Wilson, "Drumming in a Deciduous Forest," North Dakota Outdoors (2022): gf.nd.gov
Idaho Fish and Game, David Musil, "Lessons Learned from Ruffed Grouse Research in Idaho": idfg.idaho.gov
Lehtinen (1983), Movements and Habitat Use of Ruffed Grouse in the Bridger Mountains, Montana, MS thesis, Montana State University: scholarworks.montana.edu
USDA Forest Service FEIS, Meyer (2011), Bonasa umbellus: fs.usda.gov
USDA Forest Service FEIS, quaking aspen: fs.usda.gov
USDA Forest Service FEIS, Sullivan (1992), American mountain-ash: fs.usda.gov
USDA Forest Service FEIS, Coladonato (1993), American hazelnut: fs.usda.gov
USDA Forest Service FEIS, chokecherry: fs.usda.gov
USDA NRCS Plant Guide, black chokeberry: usda.gov; common elderberry: nrcs.usda.gov
NDSU Extension, Kalb, Growing Apples in North Dakota: ndsu.edu
University of Minnesota Extension, shrub spacing: extension.umn.edu
MSU Western Agricultural Research Center, orchard infrastructure: agresearch.montana.edu
Montana FWP, hunting seasons: fwp.mt.gov; living in bear country: fwp.mt.gov
North Dakota Game and Fish, tentative 2026 season opening dates (Jan. 9, 2026): gf.nd.gov
University of Minnesota Extension, cedar-apple rust and other juniper rusts: extension.umn.edu; vole damage: extension.umn.edu
UNL Extension NebGuide G887, Vantassel, Hygnstrom and Ferraro (2011), Controlling Vole Damage: unl.edu
MSU Extension MontGuide MT201104AG, Menalled (2011), Weed Management in Shelterbelts: montana.edu
Minnesota DNR, State Forest Nursery seedling sales (Oct. 12, 2026): dnr.state.mn.us
Montana DNRC, Montana Conservation Seedling Nursery brochure: dnrc.mt.gov