It's been a minute since I gave an update. A lot has been going on but it hasn't felt like much has been worth documenting or sharing. This has certainly been a weird year. Probably too much water until August 12th and then the rain shut off for over a month. We haven't found any EHD deer yet this year, but the lack of deer on cameras all summer long sure is showing the effects last year's EHD had on the herd. So far, we have zero mature bucks between the three farms and are just hoping one or two show up. Regardless, I am assuming it will be a few years before the herd bounces back.
The first year for beans in food plots was nearly a bust. I am assuming this was a combination of poor planting depth, low bean population, and high browse pressure that limited how well they came up, because it certainly wasn't for lack of rain. The tallest plants only made it about a foot with a few pods on them. I overseeded brassicas and rye into them so hopefully there is some food for the deer. This plot is a little over an acre but effectively is only about a 1/4 acre because of the planting density.
One of the challenges with living 6 hours away is that things can get away from you in a hurry. In this case, the tractor initially broke down or it was too wet to brush hog this new plot. This plot was drilled in early June and had excellent emergence. The chicory, alfalfa, and clover are all still there, but along will all the weed seeds created by everything else that came up. Forced acceptance of "weeds" in plots is kind of comforting, actually. We knew about the extra sorghum sudan in the hopper but figured they would just get mowed off. I went back and forth on whether I should mow this plot or not. I think it might be kind of interesting to see how the deer use it.
While we slowly transition the pasture ground to various cover types, I decided to drill in RC Big Rock switchgrass the first weekend in June to help screen in access paths for fall and winter hunting. This is the fourth variety/cultivar of switch I have planted and by far the fastest growing. This photo was taken in late August (3 months after drilling) and the RC Big Rock was about 4-5 feet tall. I think it put on another 6-12" since then.
(The sorghum sudan seed that snuck in is 7-8 feet tall)
Some other wins have been chestnuts that I have been growing from seed and transplanting into 5 ft Miracle tubes or cages. The average 3 year old seedling is well out of the tubes. At this point, I either convert them over to cages or just prune inside the tubes if they have a decent form. I have somewhere around 50 chestnuts planted on this farm so far.

Ozark chinquapin (planted May 2023)

Skioka and Dunstan planted in May 2023. Chestnuts are open-air pollenated, so you technically don't know the genetics of the seedlings. However, some operations will sell the seeds under the cultivar name if the orchards are isolated.
This is a new chestnut orchard I just started. For the first year it will just have 15 trees but the plan is to work this up to 50 or so, with a 20' X 20' spacing that will be thinned down to 30 X 30. This isn't really intended to be a commercial orchard, but I will eventually graft over some of these seedlings to the better producing cultivars or varieties.
The dog in the photo above is also a new addition to the farm. She is an English Setter puppy I adopted from some family friends that went through some life changes and couldn't care for her anymore. For now she will just be a working companion around the farms, but I am hopeful I can train her as a bird dog. As we work on improving the habitat, we are seeing and hearing more quail around the property.
