Dr. Craig Harper - Manage Your Fields for Bigger Bucks and Better Hunting

[MadMadHoosier]

Two questions for a western Kentucky farm.

1) Is rototilling almost as good as discing for early successional? I don't have a disc, but last week I bushhogged an area as low as possible, and then used the 72" rototiller to bust the ground up.

2) Also, while there I captured a bunch of "PictureThis" plant identifications. Is there a handful of these that you guys would go out of your way to remove, or just let nature take its course?

I've tried various food plots in the past, but seldom have time, at the right time, for them to be successful.

Plenty of cropland around rotating corn and soybeans. Lots of flooding hardwood bottoms where the deer seem to be hanging out right now. And plenty of higher ground hardwoods the deer seem to move to for hunting season.

Thanks for any input.

 

[b116757]

Ironweed does have pollinator benefits but probably very little deer use

 

[Native Hunter]

I see a lot of plants in your post that have no value to deer. You could start by getting rid of any grass that doesn’t grow tall enough to hide deer. Tall grass cover is great, but short grasses are just taking up space where something useful could be growing.