Thanks for all the replies and wisdom. I'm trying to put together a game plan for the years going forward. Obviously none of us have the time or resources to do everything all at once.
My next question would be, if you were to start your management efforts over from scratch, what would take priority? Oak plantings because they take the longest? Providing the maximum amount of security cover assuming it's lacking? Improving native browse? Are fruit and nut trees a lower priority? Assume there are equal "holes" in a property's "assets".
It really depends on what you have to work with and your goals. In my case, when we started, we had young pine stands which provided reasonable cover and more mature pines that had a thick canopy but were not yet ready for a commercial thinning. When we assessed the first thousand acres with our property at the center, and then a 3 mile radius from the center of our property, it was clear that quality food and age were the limiting factors. Our deer numbers were quite high. We were on the borderline for having enough acreage to achieve our objectives. Those objectives included improving the health of the local deer herd as measured by body weight and antler size, and introducing new folks into our sport, managing primarily for deer and turkey but for wildlife in general including quail and small game and non-game species. We also plan to manage for a compromise between timber value and wildlife.
Our first priority was to protect young bucks. It took us 5 years of constant vigilance, reporting, and prosecution to get trespass under control. Our second priority was establishing an emergency food plot program. As I mentioned, we are borderline in terms of acreage to make these goals achievable. We only own a little less of 400 acres. Fortunately, we have some cooperating neighbors and have influence over just over 800 acres. That is still small and we are still not sure if those objectives are achievable.
In recent years, we have finally been able to do some larger scale improvements. Commercial thinning of pines, clear cuts for bedding areas, establishing firebreaks and conducting controlled burns are among them. These are disruptive activities that have a negative short-term impact on hunting but have great long-term benefit for wildlife management. We are just now beginning to transition from a high intensity/maintenance food plot program to a more sustainable long-term permaculture approach.
Factors in our approach included what we had to work with to begin, how much acreage we owned and had influence over, our management objectives, and our resource limitations. They could be quite different for others and the things that are most important to start with could be much different.
Thanks,
Jack
