These last several posts are spot on and demonstrate the difference between farming and managing for wildlife. Monocultures in farming are largely driven by cost of production and harvest. Food plots for wildlife management are closer to (but not identical) to planting for livestock and grazing. Here, a field may be planted with a combination of clover and orchard grass (for cattle not deer) and last for many, many years. Much more acreage is required (or livestock is rotated) but once planted, nature governs. Nutrients are cycled as animals consume vegetation and defecate back. A diversity of plants including weeds grow in the field over time.
Now, deer are not grazers like cattle, they are browsers. So, we might include a complementary plant like chicory instead of orchard grass. Because only a small part of their diet comes from the field, we may need to mow once or twice a year since they are free ranging and have other options unlike cattle. Because of this highly varied diet of plants, they don't require mineral supplements since each kind of plant has different mineral mining and storage abilities.
Diversity of habitat with fields, and multiple successions of timber in proximity is king for wildlife management. Having the fields provide quality food during times when nature is stingy is the key, not having an abundance of some beautiful highly nutritious monoculture when nature is plentiful. Who cares if a deer is eating a quality food we provide or one provided by nature? We only care that the deer has a quality food available for as much of the year as possible.
This kind of management is low cost and can even provide a positive cash flow, but requires scale and a significant amount of land. It is quite different than managing for improved hunting. In some cases, hunting is tougher because deer are not forced by their stomachs to expose themselves for food. If you would die suddenly and stop this management, deer would not be hurt. Slowly, over years, nature would take over and perhaps the BCC would revert to some extent, but deer populations would adjust slowly over time to compensate. With intense farming type management, if you stop, the quality food availability diminishes quickly and deer populations can crash.
Thanks,
Jack