Turning a food plot into a bedding area

[djw195]

Turning a food plot to a bedding area

I know this is going the opposite direction of food plot planting, but I’m sure wondering what methods people have used to turn ¼ acre in the woods plots in to bedding areas? This plot doesn’t set up great for access as a food plot but would make a great bedding area. The area as a whole is mostly wooded with some open ridges with farm fields, rugged bluff country hills, I do notice that the deer love running edges of crp grass and hard woods. I know that some grasses/shrub/etc. plantings might be sensitive to half sunlight, so I’m not sure on best options. I’m also considering planting a handful of evergreen tree’s to diversify, especially since they aren’t very prevalent in the immediate area. The goal is to have dense, diversified cover. This is in SW Wisconsin 5a. Any tips, thoughts, or resources?

 

[yoderjac]

The first question I'd ask is whether 1/4 acre is sufficient for a bedding area. Sure, if all other factors like terrain, wind, and arrangement are right creating cover might make it more attractive for bedding, but most of the stuff I've seen for bedding suggests you want larger areas. Bedding areas are different than bedding spots. For example you might get a deer to bed in an a specific spot in a bedding area buy just cutting down a tree, but the area in general has to have the characteristics deer are looking for to bed. Probably the biggest factor for buck bedding is security. One typical way we've created bedding is simply to clear-cut. As the clear-cut grows up, you can keep it in early succession with periodic controlled burns. We've had biologists come in to help with recommendations and they all suggested a 5 acre minimum for this and seemed to think 10+ acres was better.

So, if you told me you had and area where deer are bedding and you want them to keep bedding in that area and you've got 1/4 acre where you want to improve the cover, I'd say you have a good chance of success.

If you are saying you tried to put a 1/4 acre food plot in the woods and it is not working out so you want to convert it to a bedding area, I'd say success is unlikely unless the stars otherwise align. If you had a 5 acre farm field you wanted to convert, that would be a different story.

When you say it doesn't setup great for access as a food plot, do you mean equipment access to plant and maintain it or do you mean hunting access given prevailing wind? If you mean the former, another approach might be micro-burns. MSU deer lab has a good podcast on these.

We clear-cut to small ridge tops that had low quality hardwoods for bedding. We sprayed the resprouting stumps and waited a year for the fuel load to reduce. We then burned them. It is time for us to do that again. We did about 20 acres total in three spots. The smallest was about 6 acres. We also put firebreaks around them and through the middle so we could burn portions of them at different times. They are pretty naked the first year after a burn, but full of food and cover by year two. By burning them in two sections a year or so apart, deer still have good bedding during the first year of regeneration.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[j-bird]

I think it's going to depend a lot on the location and just how open the rest of the area around this plot area is and what sort of cover may be needed. If the cover aspect in the area IS good enough for bedding then I would plant the plot area in a different cover type....either a tall grass or maybe some sort of conifer or dense shrubs. If the cover aspect of the area IS NOT enough for bedding....I think I would turn the dirt and plant some browse shrubs and maybe some fruit or nut trees....something that once established you can walk away from and still benefit the wildlife. You could even just let it be and mother nature will take over with weeds and the like and it's simply a forest opening and it will progress thru it's various stages of growth.

 

[Peplin Creek]

This is an interesting... my first question was if access isn’t great for a food plot, why would it be better for bedding? Either way you have the potential of bumping deer. I have some food plots that aren’t in great locations so I Sacrifice morning hunts around those areas.

how open is the woods? You could try to plant grass in the plot along with a cluster spruce, cedar. 3 or so trees to create “pockets”. Design it with the sun in mind as deer this time of year will sun themselves.
Remember not every acre of your property needs to be improved. It’s perfectly fine to have dead areas and that should make access to certain stand sites better because you don’t have to worry about jumping deer.

 

[bwoods11]

We plant spruce, cedar and pine on our properties for bedding. I think your idea will work. One acre might be better!

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

Let nature take its course


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[djw195]

Great feedback all. I think I did a poor job of explaining the details of the situation, so I will clarify a bit.

Why make this a bedding area? This sits kind of on a knob facing south and a bit west. It’s in the back of the 70 acre property, as I’ve learned, food sources are best kept closer to access to have the best chances not to spook them. This sets up better as a bedding area because it’s still closer to the border of the property which sets up nice for access but also a natural area where bucks cruise from bedding to bedding in the rut.

This property is totally wooded with mixed hardwoods, edge diversity would be welcomed. This will need to stay 1/4 for a few years until it is logged again, as many of the trees that surrounded are of marketable value and I don’t want to waste that. I haven’t improved a lot of this property, it was logged heavily 5 years ago and I have 2 food plots that are around 1/4 acre, each on opposite sides of the property. The biggest limiting factor is food, but I’ve gotta have it closer to my access or I ruin hunts before they start.

I would love to plant some kind of switch grass and cedars mix, but as many already stated, I probably need more like 5 acres for that. So I’ll need to think on a smaller scale. I think the largest this area could be is 1 acre via logging and dozer. So if you had a 1/4 acre, how would you approach it to make it a bedding area? What would you do if it was 1 acre.

 

[Peplin Creek]

I think I would still go with conifers and grass and just see what happens.

why are your hunts ruined? Are you hunting the plots and bumping deer getting to them? Just trying to figure out the whole picture.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

If your property is all wooded and it was “logged heavily” 5 years ago why isn’t there more bedding cover than what you already need? Seems to me worrying about a 1/4 acre is less than insignificant. I would be concerned about getting food on the ground.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tree Spud]

Turning a food plot to a bedding area

I know this is going the opposite direction of food plot planting, but I’m sure wondering what methods people have used to turn ¼ acre in the woods plots in to bedding areas? This plot doesn’t set up great for access as a food plot but would make a great bedding area. The area as a whole is mostly wooded with some open ridges with farm fields, rugged bluff country hills, I do notice that the deer love running edges of crp grass and hard woods. I know that some grasses/shrub/etc. plantings might be sensitive to half sunlight, so I’m not sure on best options. I’m also considering planting a handful of evergreen tree’s to diversify, especially since they aren’t very prevalent in the immediate area. The goal is to have dense, diversified cover. This is in SW Wisconsin 5a. Any tips, thoughts, or resources?

A 1/4 acre area is ~ 100' x 105'. In that size you could plant about 50-60 norway spruce at 12' spacing. That might hold one doe group of 3-4 or 1 buck depending on many things.

Your area is twice the size of a basketball court ... very small & insignificant to the surrounding geography ... why would this place be targeted for bedding and what are your expectations?

 

[yoderjac]

Great feedback all. I think I did a poor job of explaining the details of the situation, so I will clarify a bit.

Why make this a bedding area? This sits kind of on a knob facing south and a bit west. It’s in the back of the 70 acre property, as I’ve learned, food sources are best kept closer to access to have the best chances not to spook them. This sets up better as a bedding area because it’s still closer to the border of the property which sets up nice for access but also a natural area where bucks cruise from bedding to bedding in the rut.

This property is totally wooded with mixed hardwoods, edge diversity would be welcomed. This will need to stay 1/4 for a few years until it is logged again, as many of the trees that surrounded are of marketable value and I don’t want to waste that. I haven’t improved a lot of this property, it was logged heavily 5 years ago and I have 2 food plots that are around 1/4 acre, each on opposite sides of the property. The biggest limiting factor is food, but I’ve gotta have it closer to my access or I ruin hunts before they start.

I would love to plant some kind of switch grass and cedars mix, but as many already stated, I probably need more like 5 acres for that. So I’ll need to think on a smaller scale. I think the largest this area could be is 1 acre via logging and dozer. So if you had a 1/4 acre, how would you approach it to make it a bedding area? What would you do if it was 1 acre.

I would do nothing to make 1/4 acre bedding cover. Perhaps just kill any invasives in it. Other than that, I'd do what ST says and just let nature take it's course.

 

[djw195]

I would do nothing to make 1/4 acre bedding cover. Perhaps just kill any invasives in it. Other than that, I'd do what ST says and just let nature take it's course.

will do

 

[jsasker007]

If you can get sunlight to the ground in that area it should have new growth---deer love to browse on new growth so maybe the new bedding becomes bedding/browse depending on what the new growth is. The deer will browse new stuff until it grows out of reach. They love thick cover. To me it sounds like that 1/4 acre area would make a good place for an additional stand near a trail the deer would use to go from bedding to food and back.