Wildlife Openings

[yoderjac]

Rit ask about my evolution in habitat management in another thread so I thought I'd start a new one to address it.

Traditional Food Plotting:
When I started, I got together with a few other folks and bought a 378 acre pine farm. When we made the purchase, it was a food desert. Older pines on half of it had canopied and they younger pines were beginning to canopy. We did an areal spraying of the younger pines because the timber company we purchased from knew they are selling and didn't spray when they were younger. The next thing we started was a food plot program. It was kind of an emergency room type operation. We used traditional farming techniques with tillage and high fertilization and pH adjustments.

We have a pipeline 60-80 yards wide bisecting the property. Trespass and poaching were a big issue for the first 5 years. It took a lot of observation, reporting, and prosecutions to get it under control. We divided the pipeline into smaller plots each about 1 acre divided by stands of bicolor lespedeza. The terrain was rolling so we put the the plots on the flat sections and bicolor on the edge of the slopes. Our deer population was so high and food so scarce that while I would mow a clover plot, deer would feed in one end while I was mowing the other. As I would loop around, and get inside 40 yards, they would filter back into the pines. By the time I was back out on the other end, they were back out feeding again. We enrolled the farm in our states Deer Management Program which give us virtually unlimited antlerless tags and established a policy of shoot every antlerless deer on sight. We would even shoot button bucks if we were not positive they were buttons. We did not want to miss any opportunity to shoot a doe.

Soil health, Tillage Minimization, and Weed Tolerance:
Over time, I learned more about soils from guys like Ray the Soil Guy and how deer relate to food sources. We began to move to min-till and no-till operations. By this time we had created a number of small kill plots distributed across the property. This, combined with weed tolerance in clover plots, significantly reduced the cost while improving soil health and quality deer food. We entered EQIP programs with USDA. We coordinated large scale projects with timber operations. We clear cut several areas of low quality hardwood ridges for bedding totaling about 22 acres. We put in firebreaks, applied herbicide to these area, and executed controlled burns. We also thinned our mature pines and burned them as well. We are planning a second thinning of the mature pines to a Savannah like rate and doing a first thinning on the younger pines. In each case, we will burn after the harvest. Timber management is positive cash flow that can offset cost of food plots while improving food and cover for deer and turkey

Permaculture:
Maintaining food plots is expensive and time consuming. What happens when we stop. Deer go from having a high density of high quality food to having much less quality food in a fairly short period. So, I've been looking at sustainability. This is in terms of cost and effort as I get older. I have native persimmons, so converting male trees to female was a low cost way to increase quality food. By selecting scions from trees with a wide range of drop times, I can have persimmons on the ground over a long period. I then went to growing other trees from seed. Chestnuts were an early project and they are now beginning to produce nuts. I have Allegheny Chinquapins that grow native, so I collected nuts and grew them next. I planted some bare root Tigertooth Jujubes as an experiment that is beginning to work out. We also planted a few pears and finally disease resistant apple trees.

Wildlife Openings:
Continuing this concept of sustainability, I've begun to look at things differently. Opening in the canopy provide lots of high quality food whether planted or not. Our small kill plots are 1/2 acre or less; Most less. I start these with a clover base and plant fruit trees in it. I then, let nature take its coarse. Weeds are not a problem as many can be great deer food. Every few years, I'll bushhog them flat. I'll do this just often enough to to keep them from getting woody growth. I may even strip disk though to disturb the soil after mowing from time to time. The idea is to simply keep them open and allow the combination of the fruit trees and sunlight to produce food.

The next type of wildlife opening is a timber thing. When we thin our young pines, we will have a few distributed 5 acre sections clear-cut. We will burn these and have them replanted in pines. We will keep them on a short cycle basis selling them as pulp wood. So, these will cycle from early succession to pines over about a 15 year cycle and then repeat. This creates a diversity of habitat keeping them open for a significant percentage of time.

We will probably always have some amount of food plots. But if I get old or some major economic hiccup occurs and we can't continue the food plots, they will be a much smaller percentage of the quality food available.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[SwampCat]

I think your assessment is spot on. Years ago, tillage food plots were pretty much the go to practice on most properties. I have a degree in Wildlife Management and worked in rhe Natural Resource field for 34 years and had never heard of a Throw N Mow plot up until ten or fifteen years ago.

I think the longer we work our land, the more we figure out what works best for us - and often, as we get older - we gravitate towards what works best and with less labor. My deer herd is all about an easy to access, high protein food source. My land is surrounded by cover. My soil is poorly suited for growing fruit trees. Established clover plots and planting wheat into those established plots every fall with a Woods Seeder is what works for me. I can plant 30 acres in two days. Wheat is cheap - $10 per 50 lb bag - and with a planting rate of 100 lbs per acre, that is $20 per acre - and no fertilizer. Of course, that doesnt include equipment, labor, and fuel.

Most of us measure our success in habitat manipulation by the health, quality, or quantity of our deer herd. I think a lot of us use our deer as an excuse to justify our management work.

 

[yoderjac]

Yes, I think one of the lessons I learned over the years is the when we bend nature a little to favor specific species like deer and turkey as well as wildlife in general, it is fairly low cost with significant benefit. In many cases, with timber management, it can be a income source. The more we try to bend nature, the greater the cost and the smaller the marginal benefit. At some point we actually break things and we hurt our objectives.

One good example of this principle is deep tillage. A bottom plow was originally used for weed control. Eventually, the land would "wear out" folks would clear new land. When herbicides were introduced, we continued to use a plow then a disc because that was how it was always done. Deep tillage disrupted the microbiology in the soil. It introduce oxygen into the soil so the microbes consumed OM at a much faster rate. Eventually the interaction between soil, plants, microbes and such was broken. The normal nutrient cycle was broken. Because harvest equipment could be designed for monocultures, mixing crops as nature mixes complementary plants was not possible. The depletion of the soil was mitigated by adding high amounts of expensive fertilizer. Other issues like the development of hardpan were also a result of regular deep tillage.

We bent nature so far that it broke and we continued to find expensive solutions to compensate for the brokenness and allow for the severe bend. Most food plotters learn from farming methods.

With no need to harvest, and deer depositing much of the nutrients back into the soil, it is easier for food plotters to bend nature much less with the same benefit to deer. By using No-till and min-till techniques and mixing crops smartly (legumes with n-seeking crops) and allowing OM to build top down as in nature, I've all but eliminated fertilizer and benefit deer the same. Of course, even farmers have moved to no-till and cover crops because of the long-term economic benefit. They may use different and more expensive equipment, and still plant monocultures for harvest, but the principles are the same.

The wildlife opening concept is just an extension of this. By getting things started in the right direction and then doing nothing for a long span only intervening when the opening gets to the point where the object is in threat, I'm bending nature less and getting just as much benefit for deer.

Again, because of farming history, we often measure our plots in terms of yield and how "clean" they are. We see this as success but deer don't. As long as you have well defined objectives for the plot and they are met, you have success. For example, with QDM, an object may be to provide quality food during a stress period when nature is stingy. If, at the end of the stress period, there is still some crop in the field, the objective was met. It doesn't matter how much is left because that does not end up in the belly of a deer, or if it does, if it was not there (outside the stress period), the deer would eat an equivalent quality native food. For a small non-QDM property owner, an objective may be attraction during a particular hunting season. So, if after that season, the attraction drops to nothing, it doesn't matter, the objective was met. Of course, plots can have more than one objective and need to be part of a much larger plan.

Because epigenetic influences can take several generations of deer, it really does take many years to get a good perspective on how our properties are responding to our methods and techniques.

I started this thread so that younger guys, just getting into owning and managing property can begin to think about these things and can avoid at least a few of the many mistakes I made along the way.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Crimson n' Camo]

Good stuff!.....I think the next big hurdle to get over will be how the masses perceive "weeds".....

 

[Telemark]

I think I'm lucky in that the permaculture/wildlife opening side of deer food is the only real option for me and has always been my focus. One thing I would like to add is the benefits of coppicing/stump sprouts. This fits into the same vein as wildlife openings, I think. I have been amazed by how much the deer at my Ontario location browse on stump sprouts. They use them far more than the clover I planted.

 

[yoderjac]

Good stuff!.....I think the next big hurdle to get over will be how the masses perceive "weeds".....

Yes, I agree! The best definition I have seed is a plant growing someplace you don't want it to grow. For farmers, any plant other than their crop in a field is a weed. It takes resources away from their crop and reduces yield making their field less profitable. For deer managers yield is really unimportant. If deer are wiping out a field of an acre or more, you've got much bigger problems. Deer are browsers not grazers and will take a bit of this and that as they walk by. Some weeds have no real wildlife value and can really be problematic, but many, many weeds are great wildlife food. Pokeweed, for example, can have as much or more crude protein than soybean forage.

I'm personally really bad at plant identification, but one of the best things I've done is try to learn about this. Understanding which plants that are weeds for farmers are also problematic weeds for food plotters, which really don't hurt anything, and which are highly beneficial it an objective of mine. Another thing to keep in mind is that even most problematic weeds that have no wildlife value have a place. Some of them will grow on soils like compressed logging decks and strip mines. Over time the roots brake up the soil a bit and add some OM.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[TreeDaddy]

Yes, I think one of the lessons I learned over the years is the when we bend nature a little to favor specific species like deer and turkey as well as wildlife in general, it is fairly low cost with significant benefit. In many cases, with timber management, it can be a income source. The more we try to bend nature, the greater the cost and the smaller the marginal benefit. At some point we actually break things and we hurt our objectives.

One good example of this principle is deep tillage. A bottom plow was originally used for weed control. Eventually, the land would "wear out" folks would clear new land. When herbicides were introduced, we continued to use a plow then a disc because that was how it was always done. Deep tillage disrupted the microbiology in the soil. It introduce oxygen into the soil so the microbes consumed OM at a much faster rate. Eventually the interaction between soil, plants, microbes and such was broken. The normal nutrient cycle was broken. Because harvest equipment could be designed for monocultures, mixing crops as nature mixes complementary plants was not possible. The depletion of the soil was mitigated by adding high amounts of expensive fertilizer. Other issues like the development of hardpan were also a result of regular deep tillage.

We bent nature so far that it broke and we continued to find expensive solutions to compensate for the brokenness and allow for the severe bend. Most food plotters learn from farming methods.

With no need to harvest, and deer depositing much of the nutrients back into the soil, it is easier for food plotters to bend nature much less with the same benefit to deer. By using No-till and min-till techniques and mixing crops smartly (legumes with n-seeking crops) and allowing OM to build top down as in nature, I've all but eliminated fertilizer and benefit deer the same. Of course, even farmers have moved to no-till and cover crops because of the long-term economic benefit. They may use different and more expensive equipment, and still plant monocultures for harvest, but the principles are the same.

The wildlife opening concept is just an extension of this. By getting things started in the right direction and then doing nothing for a long span only intervening when the opening gets to the point where the object is in threat, I'm bending nature less and getting just as much benefit for deer.

Again, because of farming history, we often measure our plots in terms of yield and how "clean" they are. We see this as success but deer don't. As long as you have well defined objectives for the plot and they are met, you have success. For example, with QDM, an object may be to provide quality food during a stress period when nature is stingy. If, at the end of the stress period, there is still some crop in the field, the objective was met. It doesn't matter how much is left because that does not end up in the belly of a deer, or if it does, if it was not there (outside the stress period), the deer would eat an equivalent quality native food. For a small non-QDM property owner, an objective may be attraction during a particular hunting season. So, if after that season, the attraction drops to nothing, it doesn't matter, the objective was met. Of course, plots can have more than one objective and need to be part of a much larger plan.

Because epigenetic influences can take several generations of deer, it really does take many years to get a good perspective on how our properties are responding to our methods and techniques.

I started this thread so that younger guys, just getting into owning and managing property can begin to think about these things and can avoid at least a few of the many mistakes I made along the way.

Thanks,

Jack

to borrow,paraphrase from a political slogan from prior presidential campaigns.....

......."its the soil,stupid"......

bill

 

[yoderjac]

I think I'm lucky in that the permaculture/wildlife opening side of deer food is the only real option for me and has always been my focus. One thing I would like to add is the benefits of coppicing/stump sprouts. This fits into the same vein as wildlife openings, I think. I have been amazed by how much the deer at my Ontario location browse on stump sprouts. They use them far more than the clover I planted.

Mississippi State University Deer Labs call this technique "Mineral Stumps". The nutrient and mineral content in these is very high because the large root system is delivering minerals and energy to a relatively small amount of top growth.

It works great as a short-term technique, but I'm more focused on the long-term and it is hard for me to figure out how to fit this in. When we did our low quality hardwood clear-cut we let the stumps sprout and produce as much growth as possible, then had a crew come in and spray them with herbicide to kill them and then conducted our controlled burn after they died. Our objective was to keep these bedding areas in early succession by regular burns every few years.

So, if we had let the "mineral stumps" go, they would have eventually produced multi-trunk trees. These would have very low timber value and would close the canopy in a very few years and would take many, many, years to produce mast. So, as I assess the method, it is expensive in time but not in money. Time seems to be my most limiting factor but money is limiting too. The question I have to ask, is my time better spent on other improvements.

So, for a QDM practice, it doesn't have a high value for me. However, if you consider it from a small property attraction alternative to a food plot, it seems reasonable. You may be able to get a similar return on time and cost (however you balance those) compared to a food plot of similar size.

I love the out-of-the-box thinking like this! The technique has clear value. If you figure out how to incorporate this as part of a long-term plan, share it with us. I may be missing something.

One place I think this technique has value is the same place MSU uses micro-burns, around a stand site. By selectively making mineral stumps inside 30 yards of a stand, may be a very good way to set up a bowhunting site. MSU is starting to study micro-burns on this small scale as well.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

to borrow,paraphrase from a political slogan from prior presidential campaigns.....

......."its the soil,stupid"......

bill

Yes, that brings up another related topic which is establishing realistic goals. While most small property owners can improve the huntability of their property, without sufficient scale, you can't really do QDM. When the local deer herd ranges off your property as much as on it, your ability to impact the herd on a measurable basis (say body weight or antler size as metrics).

Next, those who either own enough land or have cooperation with neighboring property owners, are limited by soils. Yes, through expensive high cost inputs, we can temporarily have a positive impact on the local deer herd but is this sustainable? Probably not for most of us. Short of supplemental feeding (which has its own problems), we can only have so much impact based on our underlying soil fertility. Food plots are a small percentage of a deer's diet. Most is native foods.

One way to observe this is to map B&C and P&Y records and overlay that map with a soil fertility map. A good proxy for soil fertility is agricultural production. There is a strong correlation. It is not 100% because there are some special situations. For example in our state, we have a county where firearm hunting is pretty much non-existent. While the soil there is not the most productive, it has the most P&Y bucks. Why? Age. Bucks need age to reach antler potential and in a county with only bowhunting, the average age will be higher than the agricultural counties where many potential P&Y bucks will be killed by firearms before they reach their potential.

So, while anyone can improve what they have,folks should not compare their place to someone who has much more fertile soil.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Telemark]

for a QDM practice, it doesn't have a high value for me. However, if you consider it from a small property attraction alternative to a food plot, it seems reasonable. You may be able to get a similar return on time and cost (however you balance those) compared to a food plot of similar size.

For me it's worth it because the deer use them more than they use food plots at my place. Ymmv.

 

[Early Bird]

I think I'm lucky in that the permaculture/wildlife opening side of deer food is the only real option for me and has always been my focus. One thing I would like to add is the benefits of coppicing/stump sprouts. This fits into the same vein as wildlife openings, I think. I have been amazed by how much the deer at my Ontario location browse on stump sprouts. They use them far more than the clover I planted.

How high do you cut your tree to get it to stump sprout the best? At the ground?

thanks

 

[Telemark]

How high do you cut your tree to get it to stump sprout the best? At the ground?

thanks

Yes. But I'm not that picky. If it's easier to cut the tree 3 feet up, I cut it there. The more important thing is that the tree gets cut clean off and not hinged.

 

[Early Bird]

Yes. But I'm not that picky. If it's easier to cut the tree 3 feet up, I cut it there. The more important thing is that the tree gets cut clean off and not hinged.

Thank you. Does it matter the size of the tree? What is the best time of year to cut to get the stump sprouts?

 

[yoderjac]

For me it's worth it because the deer use them more than they use food plots at my place. Ymmv.

Yes, I think for an alternative to and attraction food plot they have potential.

 

[yoderjac]

Thank you. Does it matter the size of the tree? What is the best time of year to cut to get the stump sprouts?

Start by listening to this podcast: http://deeruniversity.libsyn.com/mineral-stumps-for-deer-nutrition

Trees with larger root systems will have greater reach and produce richer forage.

One thought I had was to start at about 3' and remove water sprouts below a few inches of the top as they develop. Then, when the sprouts eventually get well out of the reach of deer, cut it off a few inches below the lowest sprout. This might be a way to keep this productive for more than a few years.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Crimson n' Camo]

Another thing to keep in mind is that even most problematic weeds that have no wildlife value have a place. Some of them will grow on soils like compressed logging decks and strip mines. Over time the roots brake up the soil a bit and add some OM.

This last part you mentioned is what I find to be the hardest for folks to wrap their heads around. They can see something being beneficial if its being eaten but if not then suddenly it becomes useless to them. They aren't seeing the bigger picture and that are there far more roles to play in the grand scheme of things

 

[Early Bird]

Start by listening to this podcast: http://deeruniversity.libsyn.com/mineral-stumps-for-deer-nutrition

Trees with larger root systems will have greater reach and produce richer forage.

One thought I had was to start at about 3' and remove water sprouts below a few inches of the top as they develop. Then, when the sprouts eventually get well out of the reach of deer, cut it off a few inches below the lowest sprout. This might be a way to keep this productive for more than a few years.

Thanks,

Jack

Excellent.

 

[Early Bird]

Start by listening to this podcast: http://deeruniversity.libsyn.com/mineral-stumps-for-deer-nutrition

Trees with larger root systems will have greater reach and produce richer forage.

One thought I had was to start at about 3' and remove water sprouts below a few inches of the top as they develop. Then, when the sprouts eventually get well out of the reach of deer, cut it off a few inches below the lowest sprout. This might be a way to keep this productive for more than a few years.

Thanks,

Jack

I listened to the podcast, thank you. I have always thought the best time to do this in the winter when the tree is dormant but he says to do it in the summer when the tree is growing. Do you have any knowledge regarding timing?

Ray

 

[woodduck]

I listened to the podcast, thank you. I have always thought the best time to do this in the winter when the tree is dormant but he says to do it in the summer when the tree is growing. Do you have any knowledge regarding timing?

Ray

I had a 5ish year old, tubed Pin Oak that had the worst luck. It got deformed from heavy brows after it came up out of the tube. Had bug damage to the main leader. Then a buck got the tub off and rubbed it. Last spring I cut the tree off about 3" from the ground just after it leafed out then retubed it. Several new sprouts developed and after about a week I thinned them back to the nicest one. It came up out of the 4ft tube by the end of summer. I suspect the timing would be the same for both situations. Hope that helped

 

[yoderjac]

I listened to the podcast, thank you. I have always thought the best time to do this in the winter when the tree is dormant but he says to do it in the summer when the tree is growing. Do you have any knowledge regarding timing?

Ray

The first I saw any science on it was when this pod cast came out. You might to go with what they recommend, but I'm not sure how much it matters from an attraction perspective. I would probably probably shoot for winter myself simply because I have more time then, the weather is nicer for cutting trees, and it is easier to fell a tree where I want it when it is dormant.

Thanks,

Jack