Lazy Food Plots
- Thread starter dogghr
- Start date
My food plots are not lazy, but I’m rapidly shifting that direction mentally. I’m tired of work, work, work at the farm - it would be nice to not always have a chore.
I shifted 10 acres of plots into “lazy” plots this past fall. Durana clover, crimson clover, arrow leaf clover, chicory, hairy vetch, oats, and wheat. I will let them live as long as they want, then I’ll no till a summer mix into what remains.
I shifted 10 acres of plots into “lazy” plots this past fall. Durana clover, crimson clover, arrow leaf clover, chicory, hairy vetch, oats, and wheat. I will let them live as long as they want, then I’ll no till a summer mix into what remains.
Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
I'm puzzled, how does your "no cages" fruit tree growing work for you? When we let our fruit trees exposed like that our deer chew them to a frazzle in no time. You must have a secret that the rest of us haven't figured out yet...
Native Hunter
Well-Known Member
Here is my lazy food plot:
I hate to compare to other areas of the country, because that usually doesnt work out - but, in SW Arkansas, our durana usually lasts well in to August - sometimes longer if we get a little extra rain. Weeds even help shade it. We plant our fall cereal grains the end of September, so we only have a month, in the bad years, when we dont have a plot full of either clover or wheat. Here goes my comparison - I would think SC and AR would have similar growing seasons. When does your durana die out?
I used to plant summer crops, but it is such a fight between the deer, the hogs, and the wet ground in late spring - that I threw up the white flag and surrendered. Against my better judgement, I am going to TRY to plant some milo down in the bottoms this year that can supply some food to the deer (and hogs) - and if flooded later in the year, maybe we can kill a duck or two over it. It is not looking real good right now - since that ground is ankle deep in water.
I dont have much in the way of producing apple trees yet. One granny smith and one Arkansas black. I picked quite a few of the apples for myself, but shook off about forty or fifty for the deer - and they laid there and rotted. Didnt even have a hog eat them. Stubbornly, I have planted more in the last few years. I have calcareous soil and gumbo - neither of which is kind to most fruit trees - except persimmon. I only have one small area that will grow fruit trees - at least that I have found. This ground wont even grow pine trees. After I bought the place - I had twenty acres of pasture planted with loblolly pine - a tree I thought would grow anywhere. Not one of those 12,000 trees made it past three years. You cant fight mother nature.
To be honest, the apple trees I have planted, are for me - if they ever produce. While I really like the thought of having fruit producing trees for the deer, I guess I dont know enough about fruit trees to provide enough varieties to provide a year round food source like the food plots do.
To be honest, the apple trees I have planted, are for me - if they ever produce. While I really like the thought of having fruit producing trees for the deer, I guess I dont know enough about fruit trees to provide enough varieties to provide a year round food source like the food plots do.
This is a fairly maintenance free feeding method. 200 lbs of feed will last about two months. No spray, no planting, no fertilizing, no bush hogging - change the battery every six months and fill the barrel every two months. Instantly change the food source - from high protein soybeans to bird seed if you want. My deer will use them some, but are typically intermittent. The deer will feed in the food plot everyday, but might not hit the feeder but once every three days. I use a combination of whole corn, cracked corn, and sunflower seeds - so that most of the critters have a food source. Plus, it helps concentrate the coons and possums to make trapping them pretty easy, and it concentrates the hogs, making easy (and fun) work for the thermal. I remove the feeders once deer season starts. We do also provide a protein food source about half the year that we fence with 32” field fence to keep the hogs out. That operation can get expensive. We dont hunt those sites either, but we keep feeding there during deer season to compete with the 20 deer feeders on land surrounding my property.
dogghr
Well-Known Member
I can't or won't compete with feeding deer. My adjacent farms farms have over a 100 ac of alfalfa. More corn than I can imagine. Hay/clover fields by the thousands. With timber prices thru the roof, hundreds of ac of recently timbered property providing quality browse. So like others, my fields provide only an attraction to allow me to pattern deer as they make their way to more productive bottom land. But what they do know, is they can sneak in the edge of daylight hours, undisturbed, to nibble on a variety buffet of alfalfa, clovers, grains, and a multitude of natures plantings on my measly 15 ac of planted and fallow fields.
And over the years, I've found that same attraction exists whether I micromanage or allow natures run of my fields.
The added attraction of no/low maintenance is natures plantings of such things as vetches, dandelion, lettuce, beggars lice, ragweed, strawberry, and many more browse plants costing me nothing in time and money. In addition, each of these in their own way are mining or producing nutrients that reduce the need for fertilizer , chemical sprays, etc. Ugly?? Yes plots that one is almost ashamed to show a picture of but yet so productive in every aspect of the wants of a land manager especially trying to conserver costs and time.
But the results of doing little to nothing is overwhelming to ones mind as to how minuscule mans need to control actually is. This is not for every one, nor every part of the country. But it is certainly an alternative to the glossy pictures plastered on every deer magazine in the country. I certainly don't share to condemn any persons choice of management, but just to show what can be done when the mind is freed. As I travel to the farm this week end and pull thru the gate, I assure my own mind will cringe with what I see and I will subconsciously think of things I should do to make my plots more "perfect". And then I will sit on my Jeep, have a drink and snack, and accept all is well.
"... the most fun lies in seeing and studying the unknown" Leopold
And over the years, I've found that same attraction exists whether I micromanage or allow natures run of my fields.
The added attraction of no/low maintenance is natures plantings of such things as vetches, dandelion, lettuce, beggars lice, ragweed, strawberry, and many more browse plants costing me nothing in time and money. In addition, each of these in their own way are mining or producing nutrients that reduce the need for fertilizer , chemical sprays, etc. Ugly?? Yes plots that one is almost ashamed to show a picture of but yet so productive in every aspect of the wants of a land manager especially trying to conserver costs and time.
But the results of doing little to nothing is overwhelming to ones mind as to how minuscule mans need to control actually is. This is not for every one, nor every part of the country. But it is certainly an alternative to the glossy pictures plastered on every deer magazine in the country. I certainly don't share to condemn any persons choice of management, but just to show what can be done when the mind is freed. As I travel to the farm this week end and pull thru the gate, I assure my own mind will cringe with what I see and I will subconsciously think of things I should do to make my plots more "perfect". And then I will sit on my Jeep, have a drink and snack, and accept all is well.
"... the most fun lies in seeing and studying the unknown" Leopold
MarkDarvin
Well-Known Member
Shouldn't the plaque go to the highest ratio of output to input? The absolute laziest among us would be my brother. He doesn't show up for the year until the night before opening morning.
George
Well-Known Member
All fruit trees get a cage and a screen, the aforepictured trees will soon get their cages and screens.
G
Agreed. Up here in the VA mtns I'm the only open area for a few miles w/ the SNP on one of my borders. My plots are small, a couple about 1/8 acre, 1 that's 1/4 acre, & 1 that's 1.5 acres (where my orchard is) but they really draw the game. I'm on top of them year round also (here & there of course) but it helps that I live here & am able to work on them most any time I need to.
That's crazy the deer or hogs didn't touch those apples!!! What else is around you that they're eating over apples?
Now that's funny! Not necessarily a bad thing though
Wheat, clover, native food, protein supplement
I'm surprised they didn't touch the apples at all. Maybe I goofed in planting an orchard
Truthfully I did it for myself though it's turned into a hobby. Actually it's turned into an addiction haha! Just finished my fence the other day. Deer browse the heck out of the younger trees leaves pretty hard but bears up here will destroy multiple trees in a night.
Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
Do you have electric fence, or how do you keep out bears?I'm surprised they didn't touch the apples at all. Maybe I goofed in planting an orchard
MarkDarvin
Well-Known Member
That's a hell of a fence!
dogghr
Well-Known Member
Still beating that dead horse theory. WW , RC , RC , naturally occurring vetch , dandelion , eventually some ragweed , but essentially a weed free food plot. No tillage for years. No fert. Limed twice in 12 years. Feeding deer nearly 12 mo w very little sweat, expense, and fuel.
Do you really think the deer care to search out the food? Full of bugs for the turkey. Hiding places for fawn w protection from the predator. Pollinators busy thruout the year w the blooms.
What do I need to convince?? Your choice.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Do you really think the deer care to search out the food? Full of bugs for the turkey. Hiding places for fawn w protection from the predator. Pollinators busy thruout the year w the blooms.
What do I need to convince?? Your choice.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
