Finally getting around to long-promised discussion of some land management work done to date. Let me add, I 100% WELCOME any critique / observations / words of wisdom on what y'all might do differently. Have had a few good years in a row harvest wise, but don't have so much hubris as to think it's due to what I've done alone on my long / thin acreage plot as much as the blessing of butting up against 3 miles of plantation land to my west, a responsible hunter to my north, and an equestrian-loving family to my east who don't hunt much.
Will start with a zoomed out view of the lay of the land. My parcel is within the red border.
Zoomed in a bit, can tell that in addition to being lucky neighbor wise, also lucky to have biggest pond in area to serve as a watering hole draw. Also can see that a 4 lane highway serves as a south boundary to my property and another road about a half mile east of me runs north to south and splits the quail plantation to my west from another quail plantation to our east.
When we first moved to the property in 2014, it had about 20 acres of fallow fields with no evidence of recent plantings, giving me a blank slate with which to work.
First year only planted one very small plot in my northwest field section trying to keep it as hidden from the house as possible... only about 250 yards from my back door, but thankfully treeline edge and tall weed growth I let grow next to the plot helped give deer comfort coming in at dawn and dusk. Don't have a picture form 2014, but do have one from 2015 when I put a corresponding plot on the far northeast side as well giving me about a total of 2 acre planted in crimson clover, oats, and triticale.
Really upped the plot offerings this past year, expanding to approximately 5 total acres of planting. Dirt lightly tilled by tractor and disc, but fertilizing and seeding all done by hand... racing to do it quickly while had window in fall with rain on horizon. Was one tired fella when done
Playing with extra plot acreage gave me the chance to play a bit more with plantings. Below pic shows general planting plan I came up with. Orange areas roughly correlate with fall planting I shared immediately above... green areas in below photo outline where I'd ultimately like to focus on more summer friendly browse. Tried couple of acres of sunflowers few years back but without e-fence and they got mowed FAST. In a way, clover is naturally doing a fair job as spring browse as crimson seems to be naturally spreading across my place as I mow (I always wait until it goes to seed in the spring before mowing it). Also have some white clover and arrowleaf clover spots that seem to be naturally spreading... all which comes as a surprise to me, as my pH is a bit on the low side to be especially clover friendly.
Last picture is of some tree plantings I did the first few years on the property. Forgive the crappy labeling / hard to see and read colors. Basically the tree name colors match the plantings / so for example where you see yellow dots all the dots represent sawtooth oaks, dark green circles represent chinese chestnuts, red dots are dolgo crabs, blue dots are kieffer pears (label misspelled!), and orange dots are pecans planted for ME (though bet squirrels will steal bulk in the end).
Again, absolutely welcome any critique / questions / comments... always open-minded and eager to learn.
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