I need some advice and possibly a pep talk. I got a bit of a gut punch today (in a first world problem kind of way). I’ll attempt a bit of background.
I’ve made it no secret that we have essentially zero bedding on our place. I have been working on the small chunks of timber and I have a couple nice little bottom fields that have been loads of fun getting crops to grow, but I am banking on deer coming off the neighbors and getting them to do it before dark is a challenge.
I finally convinced my dad to plant the big 22 acre brome field way up on our North property line to native grass and we were going to fence it as part of the project. There were two tiny fingers with a few cedars and several hedges that gave deer from the North a bit of cover as they traveled off that neighbors onto ours. While that activity was also mainly at night, I had hoped that would thicken and someday be the base for some thicker cover on our place.
We had the brome killed, native grass planted, and the fence built in the last month or two. As part of the fence project, the guy had to cut a couple trees right on the property line. No big deal. Well, it appears dad had a neighbor come in and clear those little fingers. He was all excited to show me, like I would be impressed with it or something. He clear cut everything and stacked them into brush piles.
My question becomes, what to do with the bottom fields. I don’t have the energy or finances to keep doing something like that if my dad is going to make generational changes in the opposite direction for far cheaper on the back end. We went from almost no cover on our place to no cover on our place. I had already planned on converting the field I put into corn this year into clover. It’ll be 2 acres. I am thinking maybe doing the same with the other 3.5 acres field. Thoughts? Plant it and kind of let it be. Basically I am looking for a cheaper (than corn which won’t be hard), less maintenance option to put in place. What would you do?
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I'd think native grasses would offer good cover for the majority of the season. There are two fields near my house that come to mind: the first is only 8 acres and has been native grasses for a long time. It has the occasional stand of spruce trees or various shrubs sporadically throughout, the deer love to bed down in those high grasses or in/around those spruce for a bit more cover all year long. Obviously getting some spruce or shrubs of size is a longer term investment but as one of the above posters said, a few here/there for some structure seems to go a long way in making them feel comfortable.
The second field was disced in prep for a crop of some sort a few years back but the farmer never got around to planting it. Over the past few years that field has become over run with native broadleaves like ragweed, milkweed etc. By end summer and into fall that field stands over 6ft high and draws more deer to it than any other field I've seen. There must be tons of forage throughout and the high vegetation seems to help them feel comfortable in to bed and pass through in daylight.
With that in mind, I think an easy and economical option would be to run a disc over the field and see what the seed bank has in store for you and just let mother nature run its course. If you want to try to intervene maybe a few islands throughout of something with a bit more height like conifers/miscanthus/shrubs or whatever grows well in your area. In my area, my favorite places to hunt are the old abandoned farm fields that are in various stages or regen.
