The first one I thought was a quail...until I saw how it flew. The dog looked at me like, "Dad! What the hell was that?" They are NOT bird dogs...or hunting dogs of any kind by training anyway. Was a neat little time in the woods....
I have determined my deer are picky because they can be. This isn't a bad thing, but is frustrating. What I am seeing is that the deer have other options that they prefer over the turnips. In some cases I have had even soybeans stand to the point I have to mow them and till them under and still have full pods. This is what is fueling my interest in planting more and more shrubs and the like for a more long term, natural food source and cover...vs my plots. I will still keep some small plots, but the larger ones (which even for me are only like an acre in size) are going to get seriously reduced while I expand my fruit, mast and browse offerings. This sort of "plotting" isn't the stuff the magazines write about, but it's what is best for the situation. The significant amount of ag I have and the minimal amount of deer I have simply do not require the amount of plotting I am currently doing. Once I make this change it should also reduce the amount of time I need to tend to things and reduce my level of activity and hopefully promote more deer to actually use my place as well. Been doing this for nearly 20 years now and I'm still learning and making changes.
I have a similar situation to you. Surrounded by thousands of acres of Ag, deer never eat everything I plant, and they don’t really stay all winter. I have a bunch of Oaks and when they start dropping acorns more does show up. Then the bucks chasing the does. Sometime around Mid December they move off and don’t return until mid March. When I first started plotting I had almost 4 1/2 acres on 40. That was way too much food. I keep scaling it back every year to plant more shrubs, fruit, and cover. I just cut my 1 3/4 acre plot back to an acre and shaved my destination plot down to about an acre and a half. I think my end game is to have fruit and nuts in the fall along with a really good food source from late September through December and let the deer move off and tax someone else’s place the rest of the year.
I think I plot a total of 2.5~3 acres on my 150... (100 of it is corn/bean field). I thought I was pretty minimal as it was...but the deer continue to prove me wrong. My perennial plots I use as "orchards" as well so I am dual purposing those as it is. I'm one of the few people I know that can plant a 1/3 acre plot of ag soybeans and leave it unprotected and it will produce grain without any issues! I have done it for years!
What did you plant in your 3 acre planting? I want to do something similar I think but on a smaller more micro scale. I want to stick with shrubs and smaller trees... I'm leaning towards plums, hazelnut, elderberry, arrowwood, buttonbush, dogwoods, ninebark, and things like that... these are all things (except the elderberry) that I don't have currently that I think can offer a combo of food and cover when planted in a compact cluster.
Thanks for putting this up, I wanted some Arrowwood but they were out when I ordered. I just ordered some and they were added to my order.
I sure hope so! My order was thru the Missouri Department of Conservation...here is the link of where I ordered mine.
My list of my future additions is double what I just bought...but I had to start somewhere. We will see how things go. I got some others like elderberry, grey dogwood and wahoo that I can transplant if I feel the need/desire. I may sprinkle in a few acorns as well and just see what happens....
Yep - I checked Indiana's inventory and all they have left is oak trees. I also like how MDC allows for smaller quantities...this allowed me to try a bunch of different stuff.
