Coming off a different thread, what are some of the things you guys are doing to improve nutrition on your land? What are you planting for deer? Why are you planting that? What habitat work are you doing? Why? What plants do you guys think give the deer the most nutrition? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
All of our management is centered around the health of the soil because it all starts there. From soil PH to microbial life, healthy soil makes healthy plants and in turn make healthy deer, turkey and quail. We have about 500 acres of row crop and another 100 acres of food plots and another 250 acres of grassland that's either in or going into native warm season grasses with a high forbe and legume content. Forbes and legumes are the end all be all in wildlife, get those to grow vigorously and the only other element wildlife needs is some sanctuary so they can age and reproduce. I believe desirable traits stack based on nutrition over generations.
My whole career has centered around nutrition and managed intensive grazing. The genetics i have used and are pushing include stuff very few people have in the US. We are behind the times in the food plot industry and when i do seminars and do blog postings, i aim to bring people up to speed as to the new products and technologies. That being said, i believe in multigraze forages and a cafeteria style approach. I want maximum sward density and as many days a year for the ground to be covered. Forages such as sunn hemp, sainfoin, graza radish, ethiopian cabbage etc etc are those i am pushing and using .
How do deer do on Sunn hemp? I have a few small fields that I've been thinking about planting in it for a year to help the soil and serve a secondary purpose as food plots. I read something somewhere that made me cautious about planting it around our deer but don't recall what it was, seems like it had something to do with a possible problem grazing cattle on it.
Yeah it sounds like it but 100 acres isn't as much as it used to be either. About half of it basically goes into the same mix as fall cover crops so that makes it seem like less area. I change the mixes up a little bit so they have some more variety but it's generally in the cover crop base, like wheat to rye or triticale. If you count all the covers as food plots (which they really are) I guess I could claim to have over 700 acres of food plots, lol.
Nice, every year we get bigger and bigger plots but we are still under 10 acres I believe, not counting the 350 acres of corn and beans all summer long Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Even though I've only got 9 acres, I've got no one around me who has any food plots or manages deer. My property is surrounded by deep woods and cow pastures, there's very little nutrition in the forage in the area. But, with that said, I implemented a micro-management plan and I am actually amazed at the improvement I have seen. I provide high protein feed and corn mixed in the automatic feeder in a centralized location on my property that almost appears to have been designed for a feeder. It's an opening surrounded by really thick brush and dense woods. Then we have a few small mineral sites in select areas where the deer frequently travel. I also put in a small watering hole between the mineral sites. Lastly, I have been planting small 1/2 acre honey hole food plots so deer have green forage. It sounds like a lot to jam into a small property but rather than seeing yearling spikes we are seeing fork 4 pointers, and rather than seeing 2.5 year old 4-6 pointers we are seeing basket 8 pointers. I've also regularly had does giving birth to 3 fawns. It's really nice knowing that our hard work is paying off.
I'm not surprised to hear about the drastic response to improving their nutrition. Deer are a lot like a crop in that they will respond more strongly to improvements in the elements that are most notably lacking in any given area. Like say wheat, if fertility is decent but the soil is lacking in sulfer, the wheat will respond more drastically to adding sulfer to it than a load of fertilizer, PH is the same way. Doe health and fawn health/production has major direct correlation to nutrition. I think that has been historically under appreciated and under estimated in the hunting/plotting community for years though it's really been brought to the forefront of management focus by deer farmers in recent years. A person doesn't have to have dozens of acres of food plots to make a huge difference. We do but it's because we can and because I have the ground and the equipment to do it and love doing it. I'd do a million acres if I could just because I love it that much. Few things in life are as rewarding as paying your dues and then getting to enjoy the profits of it.
i've only got about 1.5 acres to work with and not all in 1 spot. i have 2 different fields that get rotated with squash/pumpkins. these are small 1/4 acre plots. i plant these because they provide a BIG forage base during the late season. deer here absolutally LOVE THEM!!. i have always had a few small 1/8 acre spots in white clover but did not have any this year. i beleive they froze out from lack of snow last winter. these are a great spring/summer/fall attractant. have been dabbeling with oats/rye now and so far have had great luck with them. when i bought my property (33 acres), it was like a park. huge oak/ash/basswood that let no sunlight in. other then nettles and multifloral rose, there was nothing at ground level. you could look 100-200 yards in any direction and see nothing but huge mature trees. i select logged it and now, its so incredibly thick with many different spiecies of trees growing its almost unwalkable. my small piece of ground is now the very best whitetail habitat for miles around. here is a photo example. from this tree 5 years ago, i could look across the river and well onto my niehbors property. the river is about 70-80 yards away. there is now an incredible amount of woody browse. bad side is, it attracts TOO many deer in the winter and they keep things very browsed down. as for genetics. MEH. they are there or they ar'nt i also fell into that trap years ago trying to "shoot" the poor genetics out of the herd. foolish now to think of it. you AI'NT gonna do it in a natural setting. no way!!.
I don't have a lot of acreage and the farms in the parts I hunt in put down the bare minimum in lime and fertilizer. Most of it is in corn so they play winter wheat in off season and spray with cow manure in the winter. I do plant a few small plots in either oats, cowpeas, clover and turnips. Mostly because the deer will flat out mow a pea or bean plot. So I generally sorta feeding a combo of corn and alfalfa pellets starting the third weekend in January when its legal again in Virginia. In the pots I plate I do keep the soil around 7 in ph and fertilize based on soil samples. We let yearlings walk now and usually shoot for 3 years old or better. Also I keep a mineral station running as long as the law allows too. Genetics in the area I hunt is weird. Usually a lop sides configuration with a perfect 4 on one side and a spike on the other. Around last week of October and first two weeks in November we will see a few nice deer cruzing.
You're exactly right. I have fun just creating the habitat let alone seeing the results come hunting season. It's coming up on 5 years of owning the property and this past year is when we really started seeing the improvements. So much that one of the basket 8 pointers was holding his antlers all the way up to April. This year I provided slightly more and better quality high protein food than the previous years so it will be exciting to see even more improvements to the herd that frequent my property.
