Keystone Krops

[Mennoniteman]

The oldtimer farmers saying about corn is that you want it to be "knee high by 4th of July". With all the rain we've had it might be shoulder high by then. It's up to my hips on June 12.

 

[George]

Pretty, that's a big food plot.

G

 

[Mennoniteman]

Pretty, that's a big food plot.

G

But in food plots, size doesn't matter, it's all about quality. And you have way better quality food up in that saddle than I do in my cornfield. My problem is that I grew up on a farm and I have growing corn in my blood. You can take a boy out of the Amish but you can't take the Amish out of the boy type of thing

 

[Mennoniteman]

Recently my friend gave me a tour of his hunting farm. Our PA food plots are firing on all cylinders so far this summer, and good management practices like using the correct herbicides and fertilizer brings big results.
Here in this pic of one area of his operation you can see bare dirt in the foreground, ready for fall brassicas. Behind that is a strip of switchgrass for beddingcover, with a strip of oats behind that backing up to the hunting blind. On the left is freshly mowed ladino clover, and to the right out of the picture is several acres of corn. This will be a prime spot on the first day of hunting season.

 

[yukon]

Amazing. What’s the distance to blind?

 

[Mennoniteman]

Amazing. What’s the distance to blind?

It's a 10 acre field, 165 yards x 300 yards, they put deadly dozen in front of the blind for archery draw, however, most of their archery hunting is sitting along funnels in the woods.
For rifle hunting there's no shot going to be more than 165 yards from that blind.
What struck me as the interesting thing about this 10 acre field layout is the switchgrass in the center. By the first of December when PA rifle opens bucks will be feeling hunting pressure in the woods and bed in the switch where they won't ever be disturbed and feel safe there, allowing them to control their deer herd with finesse, selectively shooting a few does in the woods while preserving the antlered deer in the switch except for the shooters.
I think this property has somewhere around 15 acres in switchgrass in 4 different plots on a farm that is only 100 acres, potentially allowing them to draw antled deer from their neighbors, This much switchgrass is something that is very unusual in PA.
The Midwest people often discuss switchgrass for bedding cover, but In the mid-atlantic region if we let sunshine hit the ground anywhere an instant jungle grows up for thick bedding cover, so planting something strictly for bedding cover isn't usually in our MO, and I wonder if we may be overlooking a powerful management tool.