Ohio Farm Tours

[buckhunter10]

Ridge Plot and Highpoint are really filling in well. We mowed them last time I was down, put fert on them and seeded a brassica mix into the clover. I am very happy to see how the brassicas are finding their way into the plots.
Highpoint

Ridge Plot

Ridge plot 2

 

[lakngolf]

Lot of green in buckeye land. And great bow shooting. 10 yr old grandson wanted to get set up for bow hunting but did not get it done this year

 

[buckhunter10]

Finally a few of the bucks Ill be hunting this year

 

[buckhunter10]

Overall - the plots are not perfect but I am happy with them for a first year on many of the field. I have reduced tillage, I have a lot of ragweed, brassicas, clovers, chicory and other stuff growing in the plots. Next year I will focus on mowing/spraying to get them better established. Some might become beans as well.

The bucks and number of deer are higher then I have ever seen before. I am just amazed at the amount of clover the deer have eaten this summer, truly amazing.

Thank you all for reading,commenting and following along!

 

[buckhunter10]

Well did an interesting experiment this year.

On July 10th-12th - I planted clover, chicory, radish and oats
then I went on vacation and we had a TON of rain
The plot grew great but had some serious grass competition
I mowed down the oats and over-seeded with brassicas - below is the results so far:

not perfect but I am happy with the diversity. As you can see chicory, different brassicas, clovers, oats, weeds


same plot, just a different area/spot. Again you see small areas of turnips and other stuff popping up.

 

[dogghr]

Dang Buck, you've made your place into a Nirvana in short order. Looks great. And nice band of bucks. Amazing what happens when you quit chasing does and get married. Good luck on your season.

 

[buckhunter10]

Dang Buck, you've made your place into a Nirvana in short order. Looks great. And nice band of bucks. Amazing what happens when you quit chasing does and get married. Good luck on your season.

HAHA! Thank you DOGGHR! Ive been hard at it, lot of work can get done with a dozer and a few weekends! I planted a lot more perennials this year compared to the past. I will be able to just mow, spray vs. having to plant every year - next year should be a lot less maintenance in comparison to this year which will be GREAT.

I do have many plans in place to add more food and mast producing trees after this season!

 

[buckhunter10]

Plots got mowed Sunday (5 acres worth)
Spread 3 bushel of rye over the plots as well
Need to shoot some does as you can see in some of the pictures.
None of my big boys showed up again but this buck is hard horned and at a steady pattern in a plot.

High point - pre mowed

High point - pre mowed, lots of chicory, clover, alfalfa, radish, turnips coming up - its a mess but its a first year plot! Building up OM!

Brassicas getting SMASHED! All my clover plots have brassicas coming up in them as well. This is why i need to shoot a couple does.

tire plot - picture above and below, brassicas getting mowed.

Ridge plot below is coming up nicely, clover, radish mix. Top dressed with rye grain and got some rain.


Season opens in a couple weeks. We are ready in Ohio! Thanks for reading everyone.

 

[j-bird]

place looks ready to go. I am surprised to see the deer eating the brassica already....but hey, I'm sure your not complaining! Grasses in perennial pots is always a pain, but easy enough to control with spraying as long as you stay on top of it.

 

[buckhunter10]

place looks ready to go. I am surprised to see the deer eating the brassica already....but hey, I'm sure your not complaining! Grasses in perennial pots is always a pain, but easy enough to control with spraying as long as you stay on top of it.

I think that truly shows that we have a bit too many deer around, they find and crush the brassicas! I top dressed everything with RYE and I hope that will relieve some of that browse pressure. I have grown brassicas in years past that grew HUGE and deer didnt touch them till much later in the year. I have even been able to notice significant browse on the clover, which is unusual.

Over the past 9 years we only have shot a few does (3-4), basically that is all that has been killed on 230 acres, plus neighbors have killed very few on another 300+ acres. One set of neighbors kills a decent amount but they hunt like 400+ acres and only shoot them during gun season. In conclusion, I think I need to harvest a few this year, gunna try to kill 2-4 and see if that changes anything at all. With my plots being so good, I dont think it will change a thing to be honest.

I agree on the grasses, just got to mow the first year, I have overseeded with rye/brassicas to help work as a cover crop and I will spray heavily next year with IMOX or CLETH.

 

[j-bird]

You mention seeing the pressure on your plots.....are you seeing it on your browse and the like as well? I like the idea of adding the rye to take some pressure off.....hopefully it helps. Funny how we all have different "issues:. I have far more food than the deer can eat. A difficult season here last year is telling me to lay off the does this year......again. We shot a single deer (doe) last year...my daughters first deer ever - so I couldn't say "no". Shows the importance of site specific information......

 

[buckhunter10]

You mention seeing the pressure on your plots.....are you seeing it on your browse and the like as well? I like the idea of adding the rye to take some pressure off.....hopefully it helps. Funny how we all have different "issues:. I have far more food than the deer can eat. A difficult season here last year is telling me to lay off the does this year......again. We shot a single deer (doe) last year...my daughters first deer ever - so I couldn't say "no". Shows the importance of site specific information......

Great question. So my farm is in a very rural area and in the foothills of Appalachia. This makes study browse (IMO) much harder then say areas of farm county where the native browse is all densily packed into hedgerows and small blocks of timber. My farm is surrounded by 100s of acres of land that has all be clear cut or select cut in the last 5 years all at different times.

Now with that rambling done, I have noticed that many stump sprouts, green briar and other native browse are getting hit much harder this year then ever before. Some of this I believe is due to more deer being around. I also think some of the clear cut areas that are say 5 years old now, have outgrown the deer. All of this coupled with the fact there are acorns all over and we are still seeing deer on plots like crazy, that shows me numbers are higher then we have considered in the past.

 

[buckhunter10]

One last thing all add - we as hunters need to understand our neighborhoods.

I have some neighbors to south of me who also have plots, and feeders and everything else they can offer to hold deer.

Now because I know that. I assess my camera pictures, plots and browse and I can easily determine that we have a lot or a little number of deer.

This last camera has pull I had 3-5 does in every plot, every evening almost. Then again all night long. Thousands of pictures of deer. Now I know my neighbor to the south is telling me he is seeing 10+ does at a time in his plots and feeders. None of this accounts for the deer that I always see on the pipeline field or that skirted cameras, etc.

Years past I didn’t have the information I have now and I would assume I only had a few does around. When you spread out the survey through more cameras and neighbor observations sometimes the deer numbers around will surprise you. Again all IMO.

 

[j-bird]

I FULLY agree in that we need to see the "neighborhood" and not see our properties as islands so to speak. I am seeing a bit of a shift as well because of neighborhood influences....not with food but with bedding. As the habitat changes so will the deer. Like you said some of those cut overs may exceed the reach of the deer and/or as they mature they will reduce their density as well. This affects both food and cover. I am seeing it now as I have deer bedding on my place I didn't have 5 years ago. The neighbors tree planting is now maturing to the point that the understory is weakening due to lack of sunlight. My place was cut a few years ago and I have some thick areas now that the deer are now using that they wouldn't before. understanding food, cover and deer numbers and the like on an area "neighborhood" basis can mean a lot and allow you to adjust for these changes. Some times I think folks think too much on a micro scale......sometimes you have to, but you can;t forget the macro as well. heck I have so much food around and so few deer - I can plant small 1/4 acre plots of soybeans without a fence and I still get plenty of growth and pod production! Not many folks can do that.....

 

[dogghr]

Great question. So my farm is in a very rural area and in the foothills of Appalachia. This makes study browse (IMO) much harder then say areas of farm county where the native browse is all densily packed into hedgerows and small blocks of timber. My farm is surrounded by 100s of acres of land that has all be clear cut or select cut in the last 5 years all at different times.

Now with that rambling done, I have noticed that many stump sprouts, green briar and other native browse are getting hit much harder this year then ever before. Some of this I believe is due to more deer being around. I also think some of the clear cut areas that are say 5 years old now, have outgrown the deer. All of this coupled with the fact there are acorns all over and we are still seeing deer on plots like crazy, that shows me numbers are higher then we have considered in the past.

Best time to evaluate browse is late winter, early spring. If brush is eaten past an inch or to the second bud then you have too many deer or not enough natural browse. Of course drought or poor hard mast years in the east can affect this. Good luck on your season with those brutes.

 

[Chainsaw]

You have some nice looking deer there Buckhunter and plenty of them judging by the plot action. As Dogghr said though the spring is the best time to check population against natural browse at least here and I am presuming it would be true in your area as well. And although it is obvious we sometimes forget that though the deer population can take a long time to grow from a handful to thirty, once there sixty can happen in one more season. In that scenario when we have experienced it here, it took a high amount of doe shooting and/or a serious winter to get the population somewhat in sync with the then current property browse levels. Looking back we should have been working more with neighbors rather than trying to handle it all ourselves. The pressure put forth while trimming the doe herd back on this property made for some slow buck activity here. I think it is an excellent thing you are doing in sharing info with like minded neighbors.

 

[buckhunter10]

Best time to evaluate browse is late winter, early spring. If brush is eaten past an inch or to the second bud then you have too many deer or not enough natural browse. Of course drought or poor hard mast years in the east can affect this. Good luck on your season with those brutes.

AHH so true Dogghr! However, I do see one issue with this browse pressure method, and this is just a theory of mine so I could be wrong.

When I look at my farm and the surrounding area it had what most of us would say a "healthy" number of deer. Now like many areas of Ohio and other parts of the Midwest, when timber is ripe for the cutting much an area is all done at one time. In our case we had 100s, if not thousands of surrounding acres cut all within a 2-4 year window. Now during that window, deer harvest numbers did not increase, actually I would say they decreased due to the deer having better habitat to hide in when the guns started to crack.

In this scenario if you measure browse pressure in late winter, you might not notice a significant amount of heavy browse in year one, year two or year three even.After year 4, when the browse is now over a deer's head, the area that just a year before seemed to not be over browsed can be decimated due to increase in deer from better bedding habitat but also decrease in browse within a deer's reach.

So my question is, do you think one can under-estimate the number of deer you have by only doing a late winter survey or making the assumption (as many hunters do as of recent) that your native browse can handle significantly more browse, only to have the perfect storm situation hit when browse levels decrease, deer numbers increase and now your fighting an uphill battle?

I am not sure if any of that makes sense as I type this or if I am just rambling, I hope this comes off as some what of a coherent thought.

 

[buckhunter10]

You have some nice looking deer there Buckhunter and plenty of them judging by the plot action. As Dogghr said though the spring is the best time to check population against natural browse at least here and I am presuming it would be true in your area as well. And although it is obvious we sometimes forget that though the deer population can take a long time to grow from a handful to thirty, once there sixty can happen in one more season. In that scenario when we have experienced it here, it took a high amount of doe shooting and/or a serious winter to get the population somewhat in sync with the then current property browse levels. Looking back we should have been working more with neighbors rather than trying to handle it all ourselves. The pressure put forth while trimming the doe herd back on this property made for some slow buck activity here. I think it is an excellent thing you are doing in sharing info with like minded neighbors.

Thank you Chainsaw! It is not always easy to communicate with the neighbors but we have been blessed to have some darn good ones.

See my response above to Dogghr, what are your thoughts on this as well?

 

[buckhunter10]

Opening weekend Update -

Well the cousin and I got out for Saturday and Sunday morning! It was a fantastic opening weekend, best we have ever had.
Deer sightings from stand between both of us - 31
I saw 2 shooters on the hoof at 60 yards
Driving around Friday Night we say 30+ deer in a few mile drive (11 of those on farm)

Numbers in our area seem to be well back on the rise and I am just flat out tickled about it!

 

[j-bird]

Wow - sounds like you have many to choose from. If I had that many deer the farmers would be sitting on combines with AR's trying to keep them from eating all their crops!

Your population being on the rise sort of reminds me of what I saw on my place on a much smaller scale. We had a neighbor convert a couple corn fields into mast tree plantings for timber. Once the trees and weeds got tall enough to provide cover the deer loved it....and I saw more deer. Now - 20 years later, those trees are starting to form a canopy and it seems to have curbed the deer numbers some. The canopy has reduced the ground level cover and yet the trees provide no mast yet. This is on much more of a micro scale vs your situation it sounds like, but I think it still demonstrates how habitat conditions influence deer populations and how we need to monitor them and try to hold numbers in check with the available habitat. My area still has far more food than the deer can ever eat and the shear size of the area of where the habitat changed isn't enough to have a wide spread impact......your situation however may be different.....