Planting to attract wildlife (Deer, Turkey and Rabbit)

[AlabamaDeerHunter]

I bought a 50 acre cutover with a creek through the middle a few years ago. Now I want to manage it for hunting. It was land that has been cut for timber. Half was replanted in longleaf pines and the other half wasn't. The trees are only 3-6 feet tall except for the creek line which has massive trees. So mostly a giant bushy area of bamboo, briars, bushes and hay. The 50 acres plot is surrounded by land owned by a timber company consisting of mature pines in all 4 directions with my land in the middle.

Deer are everywhere because they come out of the pine to forage through my fields. I mean I have caught as many as 7 to 8 mature bucks in my field on camera at one time on multiple occasions. I can sit in my stand and just watch them 2 hours before dark on any given day. I only hunt this property one to two weekends a year and take one to two deer at the most and just let them settle till the next year.

The biggest issue it seems is there are a bunch of bamboo that is spreading all over about half of the property. It hasn't crossed the creek to the other side yet. I was told I can get a D5/D6 Dozier in there and dig that out. Ok fine.

After that is out of the way, I was wondering from you experienced farm owners and hunters, exactly how much of the 50 acres should I plant and what types of food crops should I plant to attract wildlife, but specifically Deer, Turkey and Rabbit. Those 3 species seem to keep the ecosystem alive as far as I can tell.

Keep in mind this is for Alabama. I know were are different as far as climate once you get out of the SouthEast.

Thanks for any advice fellas.

 

[Catchin’ deer’s]

I don’t live in Alabama so I might be wrong but I would say no more than 7 acres, you want to leave a lot of that pine for cover, although, you could over seed the fields and plant clover or alfalfa or rye etc. this would give them a little bit of protein which will give a lot of antler growth, and then a little corn plot, this will give carbs to help keep them warm in the colder months. Good luck deer hunting

 

[yoderjac]

First, let me say your goals are realistic, attraction, given your acreage. However, you might want to step back and think of attraction as a sub-goal on a parcel your size. I'm presuming your real goal is to improve hunting and attracting wildlife is the way you express it. There is a difference. You can attract wildlife and at the same time make hunting worse. I would start by doing what you are doing, removing the invasive species. Even it it makes it harder to hunt in the short run you will be glad you did in the long run.

Next. I'd look at how you plan to hunt it. Were will you park or enter? What is the predominant wind direction? what is the terrain and vegetation like? How do deer relate to the land right now?

Then think about stand locations and wind direction and approach. Can you put stands in places where you have a good option depending on the winds that day? Once you have stand locations thought out, you can now decide where you want to attract deer to and how they might approach that area relative to your stand.

After that, you are ready to consider what to plant.

Separate from attraction, you want to think about the land and soil. Dozer work will often remove the top soil and microbiome. You will want to restore that for the long run regardless of attraction. Plants like winter rye will grow in low fertility soil and attract deer. A mix of Carbon and Nitrogen are needed to restore the organic matter. Adding clover to the Winter Rye not only acts as a nurse crop when planted in the fall but provides the N component to complement the C component provided by the WR. For a spring plant, buckwheat, is often called "green manure".

All of these crops attract deer and turkey. The "what" to plant has a large overlap between deer and turkey, but the "where" to plant varies a lot. For deer, you are considering stand locations and approach routes. For turkey, you are thinking about poults. 90% of their early diet is insects. Hens will roost where good nesting cover is proximate to brooding ground. Crops that green up early, like clover attract bugs. Poults are the most vulnerable for the first 2 weeks after hatching. Weather and viruses take most and they are weather dependent which you can't control. Predators take some and good thick nesting cover helps. A short distance between nesting cover and brooding reduces risk. Poults can't move through grasses that flop over like fescue. Having tall overhead cover with bare ground next to it provides some escape from avian predators since you can't kill most of them anymore.

Arrangement matters when managing for turkey.