BenAllgood
Well-Known Member
I like to keep an eye on the content Dr. Craig Harper puts out. Another member told me about this latest one from him.
Dr. Craig Harper - Manage Your Fields for Bigger Bucks and Better Hunting
- Thread starter BenAllgood
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Native Hunter
Well-Known Member
I've been listening to Craig for years. His advice is great, and the only negative I can find is that I sometimes have a hard time finding my barn.
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
This is a great example of how bending nature slightly to favor deer is hugely more efficient and effective than trying to bend it too far. He unintentionally makes a great case for abandoning mineral licks. He shows how native plants (whether we manage for them or not) deliver minerals well in excess of what deer need, even in poor soils.
This is worth a watch for anyone new to deer management.
This is worth a watch for anyone new to deer management.
BenAllgood
Well-Known Member
Don't be too sure it was unintentional.
He gave a list of things they were able to grow bigger deer without.Also worth it for people that have been in the game a while. He shares recent data for management practices and nutritional values.
BenAllgood
Well-Known Member
I pulled these two screenshots from that video as I thought they were pretty interesting.
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
Yes, those numbers are very revealing. It demonstrates how plants are the mineral delivery system for deer, and even in very poor soils, their diet of native foods provides minerals in excess of their needs. Mineral licks only serve to congregate deer increasing face to face contact increasing the chances of spreading some diseases. We stopped mineral licks many years ago as the risks far outweigh any advantage.
The entire video demonstrates a great approach. Just like I've found over the years, bending nature slightly to favor a target species like deer has great benefits at a low cost, this approach applies that concept to the native plant community: Disadvantage the plant community that does not benefit your target species, and advantage the plants that do.
When we try to bend nature too far, it significantly drives up cost with very little marginal benefit if any. A completely clean monoculture of a planted crop benefits deer very little if at all over a dirty field of mixed crop and weeds and drives costs up significantly. The approach here takes things one step further, and does not even plant a crop.
This does not mean that food plots are not important for attraction or QDM. The key is understanding their place. For QDM, the key is timing. Native foods are seasonal and nature oscillates slowly between bountiful and marginal deer food. Our food plots should target times when native foods decline or become unavailable. Deer can survive these periods, but with proper management, they can flourish.
One of my areas of weakness is "weed" identification. This is an area I need to improve in to make strategies like those shown in the video effective.
The entire video demonstrates a great approach. Just like I've found over the years, bending nature slightly to favor a target species like deer has great benefits at a low cost, this approach applies that concept to the native plant community: Disadvantage the plant community that does not benefit your target species, and advantage the plants that do.
When we try to bend nature too far, it significantly drives up cost with very little marginal benefit if any. A completely clean monoculture of a planted crop benefits deer very little if at all over a dirty field of mixed crop and weeds and drives costs up significantly. The approach here takes things one step further, and does not even plant a crop.
This does not mean that food plots are not important for attraction or QDM. The key is understanding their place. For QDM, the key is timing. Native foods are seasonal and nature oscillates slowly between bountiful and marginal deer food. Our food plots should target times when native foods decline or become unavailable. Deer can survive these periods, but with proper management, they can flourish.
One of my areas of weakness is "weed" identification. This is an area I need to improve in to make strategies like those shown in the video effective.
BenAllgood
Well-Known Member
By no means is he saying use the approach of "instead of food plots, do this". The examples he used still plant food plots. He's a proponent of food plots. He wrote a book on it, and does tons of research on them. He is suggesting things to do in open ground areas or creating these areas. He's suggesting ways of managing your land to better provide food and cover over the entire landscape. Sometimes we concentrate on way less than 10% of our properties, and spend most of our time and resources there while leaving the rest of our property at sub-optimal levels. He's suggesting identifying and managing these "low hanging fruit" options to providing optimum food/cover.
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
Ben,
I hope you didn't think I took the video is saying to abandon food plots. Food plots fill a different niche as I mentioned above. I was trying to say that this takes the concept of "dirty" food plot one step further. "Dirty" food plots, those with a healthy mixture of crops and weeds, it unworkable for farmers, but perfect for deer managers. I was suggesting that this approach for old field management is even lower cost and bends nature even less and provides a very high volume of quality deer food.
We had 1st pine thinning done this spring. All kinds of vegetation is coming up now. I'm seeing more browse pressure on these plants on the edges of food plots than I'm seeing on the food plots themselves.
It shows what a small percentage of a deer's diet comes from our food plots compared to well managed native foods. When we purchased our pine farm, it was becoming a food desert based on the stage of succession and an overpopulation of deer. A major food plot program was one of the first steps in our program as well as doe reduction. It has been through timber management that we have produced much more food and cover on a much larger scale over time. We have been reducing our food plot program in recent years. It has become less intense and more sustainable and reduced in acreage. We have been converting many of them to what I've been calling "wildlife openings". They started by rotation into perennial clover. Soft mast producing trees were then planted throughout them. We then let them revert and go wild. It is only when they become too woody that we cut them back.
Harper provides an alternative to the mower that would allow us to use fire to set areas without the soft mast trees back.
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
No personal experience in the North, but to my way of thinking, this technique is part of habitat management when working at scale to do QDM. I would expect them to be more effective in the south where summer can be a stress period. I think that, in the north, it would depend on your general habitat. In a big woods environment, summer can be stressful even in the north. I would expect these to have some cool season forbs, especially if you are doing growing season burns as part of it. I could also see them playing a browse role in big woods north environments where canopy shades out a lot of woody browse. While it may not be high quality food at that point, it is food.
BenAllgood
Well-Known Member
I would increase the disturbance return intervals to favor more woody browse. Shrubs and young trees that extend above snow levels would be great. Dr. Harper talks about this when he mentions delaying return intervals to get the desired structure.
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
We do this with clear-cuts. Same principal except fire is the only real disturbance tool because of the stumps. With HW clear-cuts, we typically let the stumps sucker the next spring and after they have pushed all that new growth, we hit them with herbicides. Once they dry out we hit them with fire. We then cycle fire in 3-5 year intervals depending on conditions. I'm down in 7A, so we are looking more for bedding cover than food, but if burns are timed for growing season, they produce lots of forbs.
MarkDarvin
Well-Known Member
I’m not in the northeast, but I’m in about the coldest part of the country. I manage acres of browse on my place and the deer hammer on it all year except for the fall. Once frost hits, the deer are on my plots every few hours until they are gone. Once winter hits, it’s back to browse, and I’m laying down new trees for them to eat right away, and setting the stage for browse in that spot for the next 2-3 years.
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We get snow in feet most of the time… and I see them browse hard but dogwood, young trees, maybe some briars … I just don’t think a field of this would work here but could imagine it elsewhere. I see 6-7 months here jn western NY. By no means do I want to poopoo this either
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BenAllgood
Well-Known Member
That's the beauty of old field management. You manage for the succession stage you want. If you want forbs, you manage for that. If you want shrubs and small trees for woody browse, you manage for that. Having a mix that you can stagger return intervals gives you the interspersion that whitetails love.
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
When managing for stages beyond an old field, it removes disking as a viable tool. Fire is the only real option. It becomes similar to managing and clear-cut to keep it in early succession.
BenAllgood
Well-Known Member
Also, chainsaw and herbicide are options. I've gone through areas with both of those options, and it's not as bad as it sounds, even in briar choked thickets of the deep south.
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
Yes, there are times when we aren't able to burn as frequently as we would like and some trees get old enough to withstand prescribed fire. We do break out the chainsaws from time to time but that and backpack sprayers are pretty labor intensive. In clear-cuts, we have stumps which makes ATV sprayers impractical.
