Different Approach?

[chaded]

Last year i put in a 2.5 acre food plot (WR, oats, turnips, radish). It came in good but the deer absolutely hammered it and it looked like a putting green all fall/winter. My brother in law put in a 2 acre plot on the land adjacent to mine and not too far away from my plot, same thing although his didnt really come in quite as well but the rye did good. I am taking a 5 acre piece of pasture out of grazing (it didnt get grazed much anyways) and using it for habitat. After this past season I will admit i am reluctant to spend the time and money again because it didnt seem worth it?

I had a state forester here a couple years ago and was telling him that a consultant forester was telling me to put rape in that 2.5 acre plot and he smiled and recommended that i pretty much leave it natural and just mow it every so often not to allow trees and other woody plants to take over. That was his approach to some other pieces of the property and mentioned there was far more wildlife benefit to that approach then just putting in a “food plot.” I know im doing that approach for this year with the new 5 acre and really might with the 2.5 acre piece.

My concern is who knows what is going to grow up now after i blasted it with glyphosate and planted the other stuff. I was just back there yesterday and beside the cereal grains there are several other “weeds” coming up as well. I really dont mind the food plot i put in but it seemed that they hammered it and then mid-late fall theres not alot left and their doing rut things anyway. Just trying to figure out for myself if it was even worth it.

Does anyone just let it “go wild?”

 

[Catscratch]

Google "quail strip disking spraying". Im a fan of disturbance with the intent of letting nature take over. Tons of native plants are preferred browse and forage.

Click on the pdf in the link for some good info on natives, timing, nutrition, palatability, etc.
"Quality of Native Plant Forage Species Important to White-tailed Deer and Goats in South Central Oklahoma" https://www.noble.org/news/publications/ag/wildlife/deer-goat-native-forbs/

 

[yoderjac]

Last year i put in a 2.5 acre food plot (WR, oats, turnips, radish). It came in good but the deer absolutely hammered it and it looked like a putting green all fall/winter. My brother in law put in a 2 acre plot on the land adjacent to mine and not too far away from my plot, same thing although his didnt really come in quite as well but the rye did good. I am taking a 5 acre piece of pasture out of grazing (it didnt get grazed much anyways) and using it for habitat. After this past season I will admit i am reluctant to spend the time and money again because it didnt seem worth it?

I had a state forester here a couple years ago and was telling him that a consultant forester was telling me to put rape in that 2.5 acre plot and he smiled and recommended that i pretty much leave it natural and just mow it every so often not to allow trees and other woody plants to take over. That was his approach to some other pieces of the property and mentioned there was far more wildlife benefit to that approach then just putting in a “food plot.” I know im doing that approach for this year with the new 5 acre and really might with the 2.5 acre piece.

My concern is who knows what is going to grow up now after i blasted it with glyphosate and planted the other stuff. I was just back there yesterday and beside the cereal grains there are several other “weeds” coming up as well. I really dont mind the food plot i put in but it seemed that they hammered it and then mid-late fall theres not alot left and their doing rut things anyway. Just trying to figure out for myself if it was even worth it.

Does anyone just let it “go wild?”

When did you plant and why? For attraction or QDM feeding?

 

[SwampCat]

My native plant areas get hammered in summer. Almost no browsing in fall and winter

 

[Native Hunter]

Letting it "go wild" works well in some places but not in others. In most instances there will one or two aggressive and unwanted species that will take over.

I took a different path that is a hybrid approach. I let it "go wild" but I spot spray (or hack and squirt) the unwanted species in order to give the desirable species a chance to dominate and increase. This makes all the difference in the world on what you have. You might say it is changing the destiny of the land.

Forbs are most important in spring and summer. That's why you also want browse species coming on for the winter. I started with pasture land that was void of any shrubs. I planted just a few like arrowwood, ROD and elderberry. I now have them popping up everywhere, and I do see browsing - especially on the arrowwood. But these would not be popping up everywhere if I had not controlled the sweetgums, sycamores and other unwanted species. The desirable forbs that came from the seedbank would also not be dominating if I hadn't controlled the undesirable ones.

Here is a thread that you might find useful: https://habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/take-a-walk-with-me-through-the-prairie.12349/

Best wishes.

 

[chaded]

When did you plant and why? For attraction or QDM feeding?

Late August/early September. I think it would of been better to plant a little later in hindsight but at the time we had some good rain coming and it womred out great for that. We didnt get anymore rain for sometime after that. The purpose was to provide extra food for late fall/winter. While there is not really any beans or corn around here there is no shortage of acorns and forbs and browse. I guess i was also trying to see if maybe it would hold them here a little more.

With all that being said, the consideration to change course is not to serve the same purpose as the food plot but merely just considering whether the food plot is worth it and simply to just give up on that. I haven’t decided. Really what happened was I put the work and money in and they ate it all up pretty quickly and late fall and winter rolls around and it was no different here then when i didnt plant the food plot.

So some ideas i have is do the food plot again but try to plant later and hit it with a good bit of fertilizer and hope it withstands the pressure or thin some deer out or do both or something else all together like what was mentioned in this thread. I still have the new 5 acre plot to figure out as well. Do a food plot with it and maybe it will help feed all the deer? Decisions...

 

[trampledbyturtles]

If I tried to pull that off I'd get a field full of Canada thistle.

 

[yoderjac]

Late August/early September. I think it would of been better to plant a little later in hindsight but at the time we had some good rain coming and it womred out great for that. We didnt get anymore rain for sometime after that. The purpose was to provide extra food for late fall/winter. While there is not really any beans or corn around here there is no shortage of acorns and forbs and browse. I guess i was also trying to see if maybe it would hold them here a little more.

With all that being said, the consideration to change course is not to serve the same purpose as the food plot but merely just considering whether the food plot is worth it and simply to just give up on that. I haven’t decided. Really what happened was I put the work and money in and they ate it all up pretty quickly and late fall and winter rolls around and it was no different here then when i didnt plant the food plot.

So some ideas i have is do the food plot again but try to plant later and hit it with a good bit of fertilizer and hope it withstands the pressure or thin some deer out or do both or something else all together like what was mentioned in this thread. I still have the new 5 acre plot to figure out as well. Do a food plot with it and maybe it will help feed all the deer? Decisions...

Sounds like you have a significant overpopulation. You're gonna have to shoot a lot of does to bring things into balance. I typically plant PTT/WR/CC for my feeding plots. When our populations were very high and we had a mast crop failure, deer would eat the turnips in the fall. Once the population came into balance and we increased the native food through timber management, our deer stopped eating the turnip leaves in the fall. They started on the leaves after a good frost and started eating bulbs in Jan and Feb.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[buckdeer1]

Letting it go wild isn't mowing to keep the woody browse down,thats a yard.I can understand fencing off pasture to let it go back natural but you want the forbs and woody browse to grow

 

[ethompson]

I only plant plots in fall. The plot is the only green available during the winter. Way to much native vegetation in spring and summer.

 

[yoderjac]

I only plant plots in fall. The plot is the only green available during the winter. Way to much native vegetation in spring and summer.

If I was up north or only planting for attraction, that is exactly what I'd do. But down here, summer is a big of a stress period as winter. They are close, but I'd call summer our primary most years.