Planting for Sharp-tailed Grouse: Low Shrub Clumps, No Trees, and When Not to Plant

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

If you want more sharp-tailed grouse on your place in Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota or Wyoming, start with the fact that they're grassland birds. Sometimes the best thing you can plant for them is nothing, and we'll tell you when. They use small patches of low, fruiting shrubs in draws and coulees, mostly in winter, but they avoid trees, especially near their dancing grounds. Plant short native shrubs in clumps, in the draws, at least half a mile from any lek, and never into native prairie.

Sharptails are grassland birds first

Montana FWP describes sharptails as depending on "diverse high quality grassland habitats distributed across broad landscapes" (Montana FWP). The Montana Natural Heritage Program, quoted by NRCS, puts it as "grassland interspersed with shrub and brush-filled coulees" (NRCS Montana). The Forest Service's species review says plains sharp-tailed grouse "occur in subclimax brushy grassland habitat" and in places like the Nebraska Sandhills and North Dakota sand dunes "are relatively independent of extensive tree cover" (Tesky 1994, USFS FEIS).

The grass is the habitat. Shrubs are a small part of it, and too many make the place worse for sharptails.

Why trees work against sharptails

Every spring the males gather on a lek (dancing ground) to display. Leks are open spots with "low, sparse vegetation allowing good visibility and unrestricted movement" (USFS FEIS). J.L. Tesky's Forest Service review says "An excess of woody cover can adversely affect leks." In a Michigan study, woody cover rarely covered more than 30% of the area of a lek, and the average distance from the center of a lek to dense brush was 690 feet (Tesky 1994, USFS FEIS).

The problem is mostly predators. ND NRCS: "Hawks, owls, and other raptors use trees as hunting perches and nest sites" (NRCS North Dakota). A Minnesota DNR handout says blocks and rows of trees "fragment open habitat patches" and provide raptor perches and predator den sites (MN DNR).

The best measurement of how strongly prairie grouse avoid trees comes from their southern cousin, the lesser prairie-chicken. In Kansas, hens were 40 times more likely to use areas with zero trees per hectare than areas with five, and use was 19 times higher 1,000 meters from the nearest tree than right next to one. Hens kept an average of 283 meters (about 930 feet) from the nearest tree (Lautenbach et al. 2017, Rangeland Ecology and Management). The authors concluded that "restoring grasslands through tree removal may facilitate conservation efforts for grassland species." It's a different bird, but a close relative in the same kind of country, and it lines up with what every sharptail guideline says.

The rules from the agencies

Half a mile from a lek. "Don't plant trees, especially conifers, within ½ mile of leks (dancing grounds)" (MN DNR).
Nothing over 15 feet. "Do not plant trees that grow higher than 15 ft. They become avian perches" (NRCS North Dakota).
Keep woody cover well under half. "Research shows that even sharp-tailed grouse will avoid grassland habitat once woody cover is greater than 50 percent" (NRCS North Dakota).
Never in native prairie. "Never plant trees in native prairie." Sharptails, prairie chickens and songbirds "depend on native prairie for survival" (NRCS North Dakota).
Short native shrubs only. For wildlife plantings on the prairie, ND NRCS names the species: "Species to consider include buffaloberry, chokecherry, and American plum."

When the best thing is to plant nothing

I'd rather lose a sale than sell you shrubs that cost you birds. Minnesota DNR's number four habitat tip for sharptails is "Remove excess woody cover & don't plant trees in open habitats," and the South Dakota NRCS sharp-tailed grouse project is about controlling invasive trees and improving grazing, not planting (MN DNR; NRCS South Dakota). Don't plant if:

The ground is native prairie.
You're within half a mile of a dancing ground.
Your place already has brushy draws, buffaloberry coulees or shelterbelts. You've got the woody part covered. Spend the money on grazing management or cutting volunteer trees instead.
Cedars, Russian olive or elms are already creeping into the grass. Cut them first.
You're in eastern Minnesota's brushland range, where the work is keeping things open with fire, shearing and mowing (MN DNR).

Where planting does make sense is open, grass-heavy ground (old cropland back in grass, CRP, big pastures) with few or no shrubs, where birds have nothing to eat or hide in once the snow gets deep.

What sharptails eat and use through the year

Season	Where they are	What they eat and need
Spring (leks, nesting)	Open leks with short, sparse cover. Most nests within 1 mile of the display ground.	Residual grass from last year for nest cover, "preferably among tall, rank grasses." Hens on northern mixed-grass prairie pick the tallest, densest cover around.
Summer (broods)	Dense grass and forbs, some shrubs.	"Woody cover is more important for broods than for nesting hens," and shrubs matter more than trees there because they give chicks cover and food.
Fall	Grassland, stubble, brushy coulees.	Grain, fruit, leaves. "Woody vegetative cover generally becomes increasingly important during fall and winter."
Winter	Grain fields, woody draws, riparian brush, snow burrows.	Grain when they can get it. Buds, catkins and fruit when snow gets deep. They dig snow burrows when there's enough snow.

Sources: Tesky 1994, USFS FEIS; USFS land management plan, Appendix H.

Winter is when shrubs matter

"Grains were preferred during winter, although fruits and buds were critical when snow became deep" (USFS FEIS). In one study, once snow passed 5.5 inches, sharptails used hardwood draws and riparian forest more. Sharptails "also dig snow burrows for shelter if snow depth is adequate," so the grass around your shrubs matters in winter too.

The winter foods named in the research:

Buffaloberry. Lora Esser's Forest Service review says "the fruit of silver buffaloberry provides the best native winter food source for sharp-tailed grouse" on the northern Great Plains, and "In Montana sharp-tailed grouse feed primarily on silver buffaloberry buds in the winter." Sharptail distribution in Montana increases where buffaloberry hits 10 to 15% canopy cover (Esser 1995, USFS FEIS).
Rose, snowberry, juniper. "Tree buds and fruits of buffaloberry, rose, snowberry, and juniper are common winter foods in many areas" (USFS Appendix H).
Willow, chokecherry, cottonwood. In North Dakota, willow buds are the most important single winter food for plains sharptails, "but chokecherry, cottonwood, and rose are major supplementary species" (USFS FEIS).
Aspen, birch, hazel, serviceberry, hawthorn. Aspen and paper birch buds are major winter foods where those trees grow, and hazel catkins, serviceberry buds and hawthorn fruit show up in the diet too (USFS FEIS). Mountain ash fruit, which stays on all winter, is also eaten by sharptails (USFS FEIS).

E. Donnall Thomas Jr., writing in FWP's Montana Outdoors, tells hunters where to look: "Brushy ravines with stands of buffaloberry, Russian olive, or chokecherry" (Montana Outdoors, 2023). That's the habitat you're copying, minus the Russian olive.

The plants we grow for sharptails

Plant	What it gives sharptails	Season	Hardy to
Silver buffaloberry	Best native winter food (fruit and buds), nesting cover, thorny thickets	Fall through winter	Zone 2
Chokecherry	Buds and fruit, a major supplementary winter food in ND	Late summer fruit, winter buds	Zone 2
Native American plum	Suckering thicket cover and fruit. One of ND NRCS's three recommended species. It can reach 24 feet, so plan on cutting it back.	Late summer fruit, year-round cover	Zone 2

All three are native and sucker into clumps that spread sideways. Chokecherry and plum can grow tall, so you'll keep them cut back (see "Keep it short" below).

What we left out on purpose: aspen, pines, junipers, cottonwood and anything else that grows past 15 feet. Rocky Mountain juniper and aspen are real winter foods, but they're trees in the wrong place on open grassland. If you're in Minnesota's brushland country with aspen and birch already around, sharptails will use their buds without you planting more.

How to lay it out

Site

Draws and coulees. Put clumps where the brush would naturally be, in draws, along drainages and on the lee side of low ridges. FEIS notes that in winter in northern Montana, "plains sharp-tailed grouse are commonly found in coulees bordering streams with 10 to 15 percent shrub canopy cover" (USFS FEIS).
Half a mile or more from any lek. If you don't know where the leks are, go out on a still April morning at dawn and listen from your truck or from a distance, or ask your state biologist.
Next to grass, not in place of it. The clumps should sit in a sea of grass they can run to.
Not in native prairie. Old cropland, CRP or tame grass only.

How much shrub

FEIS says "A minimum of 5 percent brush cover to total land surface is tolerable to sharp-tailed grouse in North Dakota." Montana distribution goes up where buffaloberry reaches 10 to 15% canopy, and ND NRCS says birds avoid ground once woody cover tops 50% (USFS FEIS; USFS FEIS; NRCS North Dakota). On plains ground I'd aim for something like 5 to 15% shrub cover across the piece, in scattered clumps.

If you need more than a bundle or two to hit that, North Dakota's Towner State Nursery sells silver buffaloberry, chokecherry and American plum in lots of 50 (100 tree minimum order, and ND customers get priority).

Clumps, not rows

A row is a fence line for hawks. Set each clump as a tight group of plants 3 to 6 feet apart (the shrub spacing UMN Extension uses for wildlife plantings; UMN Extension). One Sharptail Shrub Patch is 11 plants. You can plant it as:

One clump of all 11, roughly 15 by 20 feet, buffaloberry in the middle with chokecherry and plum around it. Best in one good draw.
Two or three smaller clumps a few hundred feet apart down the same draw, each with buffaloberry and either chokecherry or plum.

Because these sucker, a clump planted at 15 by 20 feet will widen over the years. Leave it room in the grass, and if one clump starts to run, mow around it.

Keep it short

Chokecherry and plum can both get taller than you want. NRCS describes wild plum as "a shrub or small tree 3-8 m (3-24 ft) tall" that usually forms thickets (USDA NRCS Plant Guide). That's past the 15 foot rule, so the plum goes in the draw clumps only, never anywhere near a lek, and gets cut back. If any stem starts heading past 15 feet, cut it back to the ground. It'll resprout lower and bushier. Same goes for any volunteer tree that shows up in the clump.

Planting and the first three years

Kill a patch of sod where each clump goes, the season before you plant.
Plant in early spring while the bare-root stock is dormant. Soak the roots, don't let them dry out, and plant at the depth they grew.
Mulch around each clump to keep grass back. Skip the fabric here. Montana State Extension warns "fabric sheets can reduce or eliminate the suckering ability of many shrub and tree species" (MSU Extension), and you want these to sucker. Fabric also gives voles a place to live (UNL Extension).
Run drip if you can get water there. Drip irrigation is the only watering we recommend for young plants. Out in a pasture draw that isn't always possible, so plant in the wettest part of the draw and water by hand the first summer if you have to.
Fence out cattle until the clumps are established. NRCS lists fencing (382) as a cost-shared practice in its Montana programs.
Keep the grass mowed or sprayed in a small circle around each plant for the first two or three years.

Protecting the planting

Livestock. Chokecherry leaves are toxic to cattle and sheep, and wilted or frost-hit leaves are the worst. Fence clumps that are in pasture.
Deer. Deer browse chokecherry, plum and buffaloberry hard. Small welded-wire cages on the chokecherry and plum for the first few years keep them alive. If mule deer share your draws, see our mule deer guide.
Rabbits and voles girdle young stems under snow. On suckering shrubs a girdled stem usually just resprouts, so we don't sweat it here like we would on a fruit tree. Keeping the grass short around each plant helps; Nebraska Extension says "Grass and weeds can be controlled around young trees and shrubs through cultivation, herbicides, and mowing" (UNL NebGuide G887).

Timing it to hunting season

Montana's 2026 sharptail season runs September 1 to January 1 (Montana FWP). North Dakota's tentative 2026 opener was September 12 (ND Game and Fish). Dates and rules change every year, so check current regs. Early season, birds are out in the grass and stubble. Once it turns cold and snowy, the brushy draws are where you'll find them, and that's when a buffaloberry clump earns its keep.

What to expect

These are slow. The buffaloberry won't be a winter food source the first year or two, and the clump won't be the 10 to 15% canopy kind of cover for several years. Meanwhile, the grass is what holds your birds, so grazing and haying management pays off right away. Minnesota DNR suggests light to moderate grazing that leaves at least six inches of cover, and notes lek areas can be grazed harder to keep them attractive to males in spring (MN DNR).

Buffaloberry comes as male and female plants, and these are seedlings, so we can't sex them. With five in a bundle, odds are good you'll get both. For buds and cover it doesn't matter, but for fruit you need at least one of each.

Cost share and programs

NRCS is the place to start. In Montana, the Roosevelt County Tree TIP pays to establish trees and renovate shelterbelts "in areas that would benefit from more habitat for wildlife, particularly sharp-tailed grouse," noting winter food and woody thermal cover as key needs (NRCS Montana). That's not a contradiction. In big open country short on winter food, a well-placed woody planting helps. On ground that's already brushy, or near leks, it hurts. South Dakota's NRCS sharptail project goes the other direction and pays for grazing systems, grass plantings and invasive tree removal (NRCS South Dakota). Your local field office will know which one fits your ground.

Mistakes to avoid

Planting a shelterbelt "for grouse." That's pheasant habitat. For sharptails it's raptor perches.
Planting anything that gets over 15 feet, or letting the plum get there.
Planting within half a mile of a lek.
Planting into native prairie.
Rows instead of clumps.
Fabric around the clumps. It keeps them from suckering.
Too much. Once woody cover gets anywhere near half the area, you're past the point.
Russian olive, cedar or caragana that spreads into the grass.

Safety and the law

Planting native shrubs is habitat work, not baiting. Rules on grain or fruit you pile or spread differ by state, so check current regs before you hunt.
Chokecherry is toxic to livestock. Fence it in pasture.
Stay off leks in spring. Disturbing birds on a dancing ground is a bad idea whatever the regs say.

Ready-made bundle for sharptails

Sharptail Shrub Patch: 5 silver buffaloberry, 3 chokecherry and 3 native American plum. Hardy to zone 2. It's the three species ND NRCS recommends, all native and suckering, and easy to keep short, sized for one good clump or two or three smaller ones. If you want more pheasants than sharptails on the same ground, read our pheasant winter cover guide first, because the two birds want different things from woody cover. Check your hardiness with our cold hardiness calculator.

More planting guides

Sources

Tesky, J.L. 1994. Tympanuchus phasianellus. USFS Fire Effects Information System. fs.usda.gov
Esser, L.L. 1995. Shepherdia argentea. USFS Fire Effects Information System. fs.usda.gov
Sullivan, J. 1992. Sorbus americana. USFS Fire Effects Information System. fs.usda.gov
USFS land management plan, Appendix H, Habitat Descriptions. fs.usda.gov/media/272582
Minnesota DNR, Top 10 Sharp-tailed Grouse Habitat Management Tips. files.dnr.state.mn.us
USDA NRCS North Dakota, Planting Trees in North Dakota Prairies. nrcs.usda.gov
USDA NRCS Plant Guide, Wild Plum (Prunus americana). plants.usda.gov
USDA NRCS South Dakota, Sharp-tailed Grouse Habitat Project fact sheet (2021). nrcs.usda.gov
USDA NRCS Montana, Roosevelt County Tree TIP. nrcs.usda.gov
USDA NRCS Montana, TIP: Native Grouse Riparian Habitat. nrcs.usda.gov
Lautenbach, J.M., Plumb, R.T., Robinson, S.G., Hagen, C.A., Haukos, D.A. and Pitman, J.C. 2017. Lesser prairie-chicken avoidance of trees in a grassland landscape. Rangeland Ecology and Management 70(1):78-86. pubs.usgs.gov
Montana FWP, Sharp-tailed Grouse. fwp.mt.gov
Montana FWP, Hunting seasons. fwp.mt.gov/hunt/seasons
North Dakota Game and Fish, Tentative 2026 Season Opening Dates (Jan 9, 2026). gf.nd.gov/news/8997
Thomas, E.D. Jr. 2023. A Shout-Out for Sharptails. Montana Outdoors, Sept-Oct 2023. fwp.mt.gov
Sagor, E. et al. Manage woodlands for wildlife. University of Minnesota Extension. extension.umn.edu
Menalled, F. 2011. Weed Management in Shelterbelts. Montana State University Extension MontGuide MT201104AG. montana.edu
Vantassel, S.M., Hygnstrom, S.E. and Ferraro, D.M. 2011. Controlling Vole Damage. University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension NebGuide G887. unl.edu
Towner State Nursery 2027 catalog. ndsu.edu