Over drilling beans every few weeks

[JonJ]

Situation is too little plots for deer density. 100 acres 11 yr regrowth, very hilly, only about 3 acres divided into 11 small plots. No ag for miles, minor competing food plots on neighbors. Easily get in solid fall winter wheat base that gets steady browsing through winter.
If I add beans, sunflower or turnip they will last a week or two. Let a couple of sweet leaves sprout and they're nipped off. Not enough open land to overwhelm the browse pressure.
Going no-till this year. Wondering if drilling a few swipes of candy every couple of weeks from Sept till Thanksgiving would be worth effort. Few resident bucks, but cams get 25+ eights and better passing through every year. Trying to get them to pass repeatedly. Does go from 8-10 regulars in summer to 20-25 when plots come up and corn feeders turned on.
Again wondering if the drilling candy worth the diesel.
Sorry if answer lies in the 105 pages of threads here, searched till my head hurts.

 

[SD51555]

You're feeding ribeyes to hobos. If you don't have any competing ag for miles, or competing neighbor plots, dial down the quality of the forage. Clover, chicory, flax, and cereals.

 

[SD51555]

Do some google earth scouting to see how big your neighbor's plots are. They're probably getting cleaned out too.

Also, if your logged areas are that old, you may be short on the browse menu too.

 

[SwampCat]

Where is your place. I have the same problem - but I have a lot more acreage in plots. My advice would be to go with a fall planting this year of cereal grains with clover - I prefer wheat and durana clover. The durana will not stop growing like beans and flowers when deer nip the tops. Not only do I have a fairly high deer density - I have a fairly high hog density. They love the clover, also - but they tend to graze it instead of rooting it

 

[TreeDaddy]

Feral hogs are a strange lot

They browse my plots but decimate my lawn

bill

 

[Tree Spud]

You need to plant things that will re-grow after browsing. Look at forage turnips, forage kale, clover, and then over seed with WR.

I think you are wasting your time & money to add beans or sunflowers. They'll get wiped out well before putting on much growth.

 

[yoderjac]

Situation is too little plots for deer density. 100 acres 11 yr regrowth, very hilly, only about 3 acres divided into 11 small plots. No ag for miles, minor competing food plots on neighbors. Easily get in solid fall winter wheat base that gets steady browsing through winter.
If I add beans, sunflower or turnip they will last a week or two. Let a couple of sweet leaves sprout and they're nipped off. Not enough open land to overwhelm the browse pressure.
Going no-till this year. Wondering if drilling a few swipes of candy every couple of weeks from Sept till Thanksgiving would be worth effort. Few resident bucks, but cams get 25+ eights and better passing through every year. Trying to get them to pass repeatedly. Does go from 8-10 regulars in summer to 20-25 when plots come up and corn feeders turned on.
Again wondering if the drilling candy worth the diesel.
Sorry if answer lies in the 105 pages of threads here, searched till my head hurts.

The first thing I'd work on is deer density. We were in a similar situation but had a bit more land. We worked with the state for extra doe permits and shot every doe we saw for a number of years to begin to deal with density. Second, don't plant soybeans, sunflowers, or any other ice cream crops. Completely ignore competition from neighbors. Once hunting season rolls around, the key is security not attractive crops. Clover is a great anchor crop. With only 100 acres you're not in the ball park in terms of scale for doing QDM. The key is making your place more hunable. The location of plots and keeping pressure low are the key.

With candy crops, deer get one bite and they are done in a high density situation. If crops like beans are eaten in the early stages, they die. With very browse tolerant crops, deer will use them as needed, but they will establish and be able to handle to pressure once established.

I think you are barking up the wrong tree trying to drill over and over again.

 

[MRBB]

maybe you might want to E fence in a plot or two to save GOOD prime food for hunting season
I managed a property 196 acres, that sort of sounds like your's minus neighbor issue's
it was just over run with deer due to 1000+ acres next to it, didn;t allow hunting(or should say legal hunting , as lots of cheaters poached BUCKS off that land, however, but ONLY bucks, doe numbers were off the charts, even local TV stations did stories on the property which just drew in even more poachers and trespassers! )
I built 16+ acres of food plots on the land every yr, we killed 40-60 deer a yr on the property, and some yrs you'd swear you didn;t shoot a one!
it was crazy, and pretty impossible to get deer numbers in spec, as for every one we killed a new one took its place off the non hunting lands next to it!
add in the only deer being killed on that side of the fence were illegally shot bucks(when talking to local game warden, all they would say is YEAH we know's lots of problems over there and they never did anything about it, a whole other level of frustration right there??)

BUT after about 10-12 yrs on this property, all the GOOD food plots, and continuing to kill all the doe we could, we started having a lot of decent bucks, the only way we were able to keep food plots into hunting season was by E fence
and the same can be said about getting new browse to grow in the forested part of the property, as deer were like shop vac's with legs chopping down new growth as they walked any where!
when I was young I never thought having too many deer was a BAD thing or even possible, after 20 yrs working this property, I came to see that in a whole different light, too many deer is worse than NO deer IMO
you can always BUILD habitat and draw deer in
but when numbers are crazy high, and you have no control over bordering lands its a endless fight up hill!

Good luck!

 

[JonJ]

We too have "no hunt" land, about 600 acres to South, State land, mostly mature hardwood with good oak stands. Across river to East, 700 acres with club with "you shoot it, you mount it rule". The other two sides, 500 acres, nonresident family, weekend hunting. Used to have more pressure around, and we were that safe place, 1 1/2 miles from roads. Hunting pressure has greatly deminished around us. Used to enjoy seeing deer sneak around on us as neighbors left their stands about 9AM, or moved in about 4PM.
Most of our does, live next door, we are the place where travel circles overlap. Maybe 3 does bedding and raising fawns on us. Most stay in adjoining big hardwoods and visit morning and evening. They do leave good trails for wandering bucks to follow, unfortunately mostly at night. Always trying to find things to keep them coming by.

 

[hillrunner]

If you want to plant beans, I'd put up an electric fence and let them get to maturity . Once you take it down they'll have a decent amount of food that they can't wipe out in a day. Broadcast cereal rye into it when the leaves start to fall for even more food.

 

[MRBB]

I have had very good luck with making food plots of a mix of both soybeans and corn, and I don't get fancy( or I don't think so) planting them either, simply disc the ground to get it good and loose, broadcast seeds of both onto plot, disc one more time, add fertilizer as called for, cultipack, and set up e fence, you'd be amazed how thick things get of both corn and beans
IMO< the deer really love this planting for me, as it offers a ton of security to things, being thicker, and food of both in one spot

I have even upped my game on this, buy doing 1-1/2 -2 acre plots this way, ONLY, I leave a section in the middle about 50+50 yards I DON"T plant with corn and beans, but add some turnips and or chicory or clover, or a mix,
set up a blind inside this , and its like having a private plot unseen from outside of the plot, as only way to know its there is from the Air, not the ground, unless one walked into center of it!like an island inside a corn/bean plot!
I found in early season deer flock to the center for the tender greens once the E fence comes down, its been one of my best set up to date
as the deer seem to get into these things earlier in the day due to the thickness of cover all around ,adding I gather a extra layer of comfort to them, knowing they can step out any time they want
any how, food for thought if your doing E fence!

 

[Bassattackr]

You have two options.. Plant more or shoot more.

Both within your control

 

[buckdeer1]

Use the feeder early to slow some browsing and broadcast wheat in bean stubble

 

[Wild Thing]

Agree that you have to either kill more deer or plant more food but likely BOTH are needed.

Next - lose the corn feeders. The best thing we ever did here was to stop winter feeding the deer. They would hang around and eat up the little bit of corn we fed and then continue to hang around and eat everything else in sight. They devastated the native habitat, and most of our planted conifers every year. Since we quit winter feeding everything has bounced back nicely.

I have used E-Fence successfully, but truthfully, once the fence comes down it doesn't take them long to wipe out a field of beans. Like others have said - beans are deer candy.

We worked on it for years. Finally got up to 16 acres of food plots (10% of our 160 acres), thinned the deer down to more manageable numbers and stopped winter feeding. Our annuals still don't last the entire winter but we have almost year round food sources now.

 

[yoderjac]

Agree that you have to either kill more deer or plant more food but likely BOTH are needed.

Next - lose the corn feeders. The best thing we ever did here was to stop winter feeding the deer. They would hang around and eat up the little bit of corn we fed and then continue to hang around and eat everything else in sight. They devastated the native habitat, and most of our planted conifers every year. Since we quit winter feeding everything has bounced back nicely.

I have used E-Fence successfully, but truthfully, once the fence comes down it doesn't take them long to wipe out a field of beans. Like others have said - beans are deer candy.

We worked on it for years. Finally got up to 16 acres of food plots (10% of our 160 acres), thinned the deer down to more manageable numbers and stopped winter feeding. Our annuals still don't last the entire winter but we have almost year round food sources now.

Great advice!

 

[Foggy47]

Just was reading on a Facebook food plot forum - a guy claimed he put a transitor radio (tuned to talk radio) in his bean field.....and it kept deer away. Never heard this before. Someone with frequent deer sightings should try this with a radio......and report the changes. Makes sense to me.

 

[yoderjac]

Just was reading on a Facebook food plot forum - a guy claimed he put a transitor radio (tuned to talk radio) in his bean field.....and it kept deer away. Never heard this before. Someone with frequent deer sightings should try this with a radio......and report the changes. Makes sense to me.

It will work for about 10 minutes. Seriously, short of a Gallagher-style e-fence, all the other things like plot-saver, radio, are quickly overcome in a high deer density environment where the beans are the most attractive food available.

 

[BenAllgood]

100 acres of 11 year regen, sounds like you could set good size portions of it back to an earlier succession of plants. That would increase the food dramatically more than 11 year succession. Keeping areas in that under 5 year old plant community could show a big difference.

 

[TX-Aggie]

My family's property does not have much in way of Ag fields around us. We can't open enough flat ground to run beans (or any sort of ice cream plants) during the late spring/summer/early fall months. Even our large clover plots could almost be bowled on. What we have started moving to is more plots for game birds (turkey and quail) during this period. These plots do get some sunflowers, some soybeans, and some cowpeas, but mainly summer grains and flowering type plants for bugging. In addition to providing for game birds and some deer browse, it keeps growing plants in the plots year round - cut down on weed pressure, and continue working to improve our rocky soil. We are near Dr Woods from Growing Deer TV, so if you have seen his videos showing his rocky soil, we have the same type. In fact, my dad and uncle wanted to till the soil, and thus rented a tiller to work our plots starting out - they broke two tines on the tiller just trying to get started.

 

[MRBB]

Just was reading on a Facebook food plot forum - a guy claimed he put a transitor radio (tuned to talk radio) in his bean field.....and it kept deer away. Never heard this before. Someone with frequent deer sightings should try this with a radio......and report the changes. Makes sense to me.

I have tired this, doesn;t work, as after a while, the deer don;t see anyone about and will adapt to the radio sounds and just ignore them
I constantly have deer in my yard with music playing, some times there 5 ft or less from the radio too!(in my work shop, they stand outside door as apples fall near it!)
the lure of food, will over come there worries about the music or talk radio sounds!
if they see nothing to fear, they have nothing to fear

E fence is about all, and you need to set it up so they cannot just jump over it
double rows wide and assorted heights of layers per row !

and even then, it may Not work 100%
I'll go as far as to add this
I have an excessive amount of chipmunks this yr in my back yard, I have bird feeders, so I know why they come!
BUT this yr I decided to have some fun chasing them away
I sat on my deck with my garden hose , put some seeds close to me, and thought MAYBE I can squirt them a few times and maybe they might move off to other lands
at first they would run when I squirted them, then after a few times, they would let me squirt them a little more then run
and then, they got to the point they would just sit there and let me blast them non stop, while they filled there cheeks with seeds!
and the hose has some pretty good pressure, about moved them as they got squirted with it!
the desire and instinct over powered there FEAR of being squirted by me, even with me sitting 10 ft away or less!
so, just saying, the reality is,
its hard to deter animals from a food they WANT!
I now live trap them and take them for a ride out into the forested lands 2+ miles away
as I also found out by using food coloring, if I DON"T take them at least 2+ miles away, they show back up! HAHA!

seems they have some GPS in there heads that works up to 2 miles , after that, either doesn;t work, or they find a new place there happy with LOL
I also figure it helps pass on some new genes to the area doing so!