Regenerative Plotting

[weekender21]

No chemicals on my plots yet. Not necessarily by choice, just haven’t timed it right. The bucks visited my weedy MRC and BW plot quite often this summer.

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[Native Hunter]

I wonder if part of the answer could be developing more aggressive varieties of plants that deer will eat and prefer.

When I work in some areas of Northern KY in summer, I am blown away by the amount of wild chicory growing in the pasture fields. It's not only holding its own with cool season grasses, but appears to actually gaining an advantage over them.

Yes, there is a difference between wild chicory and forage varieties of chicory. Deer will eat wild chicory, but it isn't quite as palatable as some of the improved varieties. However, plant scientists are constantly manipulating various plants for various reasons, and I think some aggressiveness could also be bred into many food plot species.

I might also mention that in some of those fields up north that I mentioned the red clover is just amazing as well. When I see those fields of red clover and wild chicory that look better than my food plots, it blows me away. I know that the chicory was not planted, and I don't feel that the red clover was planted in recent years. How it has reseeded and survived so well - I can't say for sure. I just know that I like what I see in some places up in that area. I've often thought of trying to stop and ask some of the farmers what variety of red clover they are planting, but I've never done it.

 

[Hoosierhunting]

I wonder if part of the answer could be developing more aggressive varieties of plants that deer will eat and prefer.

When I work in some areas of Northern KY in summer, I am blown away by the amount of wild chicory growing in the pasture fields. It's not only holding its own with cool season grasses, but appears to actually gaining an advantage over them.

Yes, there is a difference between wild chicory and forage varieties of chicory. Deer will eat wild chicory, but it isn't quite as palatable as some of the improved varieties. However, plant scientists are constantly manipulating various plants for various reasons, and I think some aggressiveness could also be bred into many food plot species.

I might also mention that in some of those fields up north that I mentioned the red clover is just amazing as well. When I see those fields of red clover and wild chicory that look better than my food plots, it blows me away. I know that the chicory was not planted, and I don't feel that the red clover was planted in recent years. How it has reseeded and survived so well - I can't say for sure. I just know that I like what I see in some places up in that area. I've often thought of trying to stop and ask some of the farmers what variety of red clover they are planting, but I've never done it.

Aggressive improved varieties that compete with cool season grasses and reseed, I like the sound of that but the cynic in me thinks seed companies and pharmaceuticals aren’t all that different. There’s no money in a cure, the moneys in the treatment.


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[Laker]

In the North, I feel like heavy use of WR or other hardy Winter cereal grains would be most appropriate if we're looking to limit chemical use and reduce effort. Thick plots of WR and medium red clover, maybe some chicory, mowed at the right time, and supplemented at mowing with more WR, MR, and a couple pounds an acre of brassica at the late summer mowing could be pretty self-sustaining. (That's a pathetic run on sentence but I'm to lazy to fix it.) A guy might have to spray every couple years and start mostly over, the seed is all pretty cheap. Or am I wrong?

I think the effort up front getting the basic nutrients close to right and an acceptable PH could really be sustained for the long run just planting the right stuff and not pounding the soil with fertilizer. Dramatically reduced annual inputs would be a win for me. An ATV, DR mower, sprayer and spreader are all I'd need.

 

[DRandall90]

In the North, I feel like heavy use of WR or other hardy Winter cereal grains would be most appropriate if we're looking to limit chemical use and reduce effort. Thick plots of WR and medium red clover, maybe some chicory, mowed at the right time, and supplemented at mowing with more WR, MR, and a couple pounds an acre of brassica at the late summer mowing could be pretty self-sustaining. (That's a pathetic run on sentence but I'm to lazy to fix it.) A guy might have to spray every couple years and start mostly over, the seed is all pretty cheap. Or am I wrong?

I think the effort up front getting the basic nutrients close to right and an acceptable PH could really be sustained for the long run just planting the right stuff and not pounding the soil with fertilizer. Dramatically reduced annual inputs would be a win for me. An ATV, DR mower, sprayer and spreader are all I'd need.

I'm generally on this same train. Same zone etc. The most spraying I do is when I generally convert from overgrown pastures of (as my father in law would call it) junk to something more palatable to deer. After it's converted, my spraying goes down a ton just through use of grains.

 

[Laker]

I'm generally on this same train. Same zone etc. The most spraying I do is when I generally convert from overgrown pastures of (as my father in law would call it) junk to something more palatable to deer. After it's converted, my spraying goes down a ton just through use of grains.

I haven't gotten there yet. I'm still on the full-spray train right now. Hope to get there.

 

[MarkDarvin]

In the North, I feel like heavy use of WR or other hardy Winter cereal grains would be most appropriate if we're looking to limit chemical use and reduce effort. Thick plots of WR and medium red clover, maybe some chicory, mowed at the right time, and supplemented at mowing with more WR, MR, and a couple pounds an acre of brassica at the late summer mowing could be pretty self-sustaining. (That's a pathetic run on sentence but I'm to lazy to fix it.) A guy might have to spray every couple years and start mostly over, the seed is all pretty cheap. Or am I wrong?

I think the effort up front getting the basic nutrients close to right and an acceptable PH could really be sustained for the long run just planting the right stuff and not pounding the soil with fertilizer. Dramatically reduced annual inputs would be a win for me. An ATV, DR mower, sprayer and spreader are all I'd need.

So far, what I'm seeing, is the closer you get to a balanced plant profile, you'll have less invasion by undesirable weeds. I think it ultimately revolves around carbon to nitrogen ratios. There are some rule breakers with aggressive grasses that need to be dealt with the hard way, but if you can get a leg up on them with a hericide application or tillage pass to create an opening, you can keep it open longer by mimicking a balanced blend of high carbon and low carbon plants.

High carbon are your mature cereals, sorghums, corn. Low carbon are your beans, peas, clovers, brassicas. In-between are the broadleaves like dandelion, chicory, buckwheat, jewelweed, willowherb, sunflower, etc.

Being the low intervention minded guy I am, I like perennials like white clover and chicory. That hits two of the three major constituents and doesn't require annual seeding. They also give you a window in the spring to broadcast cereals to jumpstart your grass (barley) before the warm soil grasses advance in June. I'm still kicking myself for going low rate on my spring barley. Won't make that mistake next year. I've got a showdown coming with sedge grass and I've got my fingers crossed the barley can snuff it out before it takes hold again.

 

[Laker]

Mark said, "Being the low intervention minded guy I am, I like perennials like white clover and chicory."

How does that square with my need for gun/muzzle loader season in the frozen tundra? Clover and chicory will be mostly toast. Without my brassica, the doe local herd won't parade by my stand every afternoon. Opening weekend can be nice some years. But after that I'm usually looking at snow.

Have you gotten a respectable brassica crop to grow through your thick Summer clover?

 

[Mennoniteman]

Mark said, "Being the low intervention minded guy I am, I like perennials like white clover and chicory."

How does that square with my need for gun/muzzle loader season in the frozen tundra? Clover and chicory will be mostly toast. Without my brassica, the doe local herd won't parade by my stand every afternoon. Opening weekend can be nice some years. But after that I'm usually looking at snow.

Have you gotten a respectable brassica crop to grow through your thick Summer clover?

I've disced down clover and planted brassica into it, however, discing doesn't kill clover, and clover& brassica being the same crop means they don't mix well, the clover tends to smother the brassica before it gets going. A much better option is rye and brassica mix, since these two use different nutrients they grow together quite well. The rye will keep down the weeds the next spring and be ready for the next crop in midsummer.

 

[MarkDarvin]

Mark said, "Being the low intervention minded guy I am, I like perennials like white clover and chicory."

How does that square with my need for gun/muzzle loader season in the frozen tundra? Clover and chicory will be mostly toast. Without my brassica, the doe local herd won't parade by my stand every afternoon. Opening weekend can be nice some years. But after that I'm usually looking at snow.

Have you gotten a respectable brassica crop to grow through your thick Summer clover?

Not at all. I blew on a full rate of rape seed and didn't see a plant. It's gonna take some strategic mowing or some other disturbance to make an opening.

I pulled back my clover to look for oats, and I found seed hung up in the stems of the clover. Imagine trying to sprinkle oats on a pile of spaghetti and hoping to hit the bottom of the plate. Ain't happening.

I'm gonna retool and try again next year. I'm still trying to figure out how to get WGF sorghum and oats to live among the clover for that late season.

 

[DRandall90]

Not at all. I blew on a full rate of rape seed and didn't see a plant. It's gonna take some strategic mowing or some other disturbance to make an opening.

I pulled back my clover to look for oats, and I found seed hung up in the stems of the clover. Imagine trying to sprinkle oats on a pile of spaghetti and hoping to hit the bottom of the plate. Ain't happening.

I'm gonna retool and try again next year. I'm still trying to figure out how to get WGF sorghum and oats to live among the clover for that late season.

If your looking not avoid chemical use altogether, clover becomes a bit of a burden if you plan to use a plot for fall. I should be clear -- I have several plots I would never move away from clover because I think they provide too much value for deer in spring and summer, in addition to pheasants and turkeys, not to mention other wildlife that comes in for the bugs.

If you are truly looking to make a fall plot with limited chemicals, I would say your best bet would be to go with spring grains (barley, spring oats, cereal rye) and then roll or crimp them at brassica planting time and lay it on top of your brassica seed. Overseed some winter rye into them when you plant brassicas and you could probably rotate this without extreme difficulty. Peas or beans could be another spring option, but depending on plot size and deer density, they aren't going to be as browse tolerant as clover or grains. Buckwheat is an option if you have other clover plots and just want to build the soil up for a better brassica crop. It really depends how much other natural browse your area has during spring.

Since my area has wolves, bears and coyotes extensively, fawn recruitment is a priority for me, so I prefer to keep a lot of clover and cover going perennially.

I do my best to get fall crops on a couple fields to help through post rut and winter, but my overall goal is a healthy herd and benefits for other wildlife as well.

 

[Jason Broom]

Regenerative plotting and old-field management are subtly different ways of solving the same "problem". If you really want to benefit the wildlife in your area, study the variations of early successional habitat pertinent to your locale. With all of our chemicals and seed blends, we cannot hope to do significantly better than what God and nature provided for animals, prior to man's various and sundry disturbances. It is only through our arrogance that we think spraying/plowing/discing or even "Throw-n-mowing" is somehow better than what came before us and sustained all creation quite effectively in our absence. The one major caveat, in today's world, is all of the introduced invasive species that are so often noxious and extremely successful in competing against native flora. Trying to fight the good fight, with cheaters like wild hogs in the game, makes it just about impossible to "win". Even as I plant sawtooth oak and Chinese chestnut, I know that it would be far better if neither of those plants were in scope, but the cards have been dealt.

So, you want your land to be managed in ways that meet the needs of deer and other wildlife? The more you know about each plant, its virtues and its drawbacks, native or introduced, the more you can make informed decisions on how and why you would encourage or discourage the success of that plant. Knowing how various plants grow harmoniously, or are incompatible, with others, is the second phase of a very long learning curve. Manual efforts to remove undesirable plants, including the responsible use of chemicals, can be employed to manage relatively large areas in early successional growth, at a cost that is far less than food plots. TSI and old-field management should be the CORE of your habitat management plans, with food plots providing a small, supplemental, targeted benefit (to you or wildlife?) that is commensurate with the costs. On a very well-managed property, food plots become entirely superfluous, and their value on the worst properties is dubious, at best.

I wish everyone on this site could tour Native Hunter's property. The depth and breadth of honest to goodness habitat management on his land is something that provides real perspective on what can be achieved with the right means and mindset. Some day, I hope to be one tenth as knowledgeable as he is about plants and wildlife.

 

[DRandall90]

Regenerative plotting and old-field management are subtly different ways of solving the same "problem". If you really want to benefit the wildlife in your area, study the variations of early successional habitat pertinent to your locale. With all of our chemicals and seed blends, we cannot hope to do significantly better than what God and nature provided for animals, prior to man's various and sundry disturbances. It is only through our arrogance that we think spraying/plowing/discing or even "Throw-n-mowing" is somehow better than what came before us and sustained all creation quite effectively in our absence. The one major caveat, in today's world, is all of the introduced invasive species that are so often noxious and extremely successful in competing against native flora. Trying to fight the good fight, with cheaters like wild hogs in the game, makes it just about impossible to "win". Even as I plant sawtooth oak and Chinese chestnut, I know that it would be far better if neither of those plants were in scope, but the cards have been dealt.

So, you want your land to be managed in ways that meet the needs of deer and other wildlife? The more you know about each plant, its virtues and its drawbacks, native or introduced, the more you can make informed decisions on how and why you would encourage or discourage the success of that plant. Knowing how various plants grow harmoniously, or are incompatible, with others, is the second phase of a very long learning curve. Manual efforts to remove undesirable plants, including the responsible use of chemicals, can be employed to manage relatively large areas in early successional growth, at a cost that is far less than food plots. TSI and old-field management should be the CORE of your habitat management plans, with food plots providing a small, supplemental, targeted benefit (to you or wildlife?) that is commensurate with the costs. On a very well-managed property, food plots become entirely superfluous, and their value on the worst properties is dubious, at best.

I wish everyone on this site could tour Native Hunter's property. The depth and breadth of honest to goodness habitat management on his land is something that provides real perspective on what can be achieved with the right means and mindset. Some day, I hope to be one tenth as knowledgeable as he is about plants and wildlife.

While I agree with you overall, I think it's important to understand that what is "native" is really only a measurement of what time period you are looking at, and therefore needs to be defined by one's own self. Are we talking Pleistocene era native, or native to the last X number of years?

Good examples in my area include things like Norway spruce, clovers, alfalfa and chicory. By most definitions, these aren't native to MN if you look prior to European settlement. My guess is if you asked the average person if clover was native, they would say yes.

If you look at the last 120 years, where the deer population went from an estimated 500,000 deer to now 30+ million, it's clear that deer have a palate for more than just what was here 10,000 years ago.

I'm not trying to create a counter argument, just stating that I feel we tend to accept things as native now that we once did not, just based on our own definitions.

 

[Drycreek]

A couple things you’re overlooking IMO. One, is the fact that some of us hunt on land that’s not ours, and it’s subject to the landowners’ wishes. In my case, that’s growing pine trees. Our lease is a mixture of plantation pine and mature hardwood/pine forest. Virtually nothing for a deer to eat except at acorn drop. While it does sustain some deer, they are always looking for more and better browsing. We now plant almost all of the openings (since I joined) and it has increased our deer sightings at least threefold, both personal and on camera. The old roads and rights of way are behia grass, good for nothing except for cows to graze. It was there before the pine trees and will be there when I’m dead.

The second is that here in Texas there is very little ag, and it’s nonexistent in East Texas where I live. Here, it’s timber or cattle, or both. No plethora of fallow fields where natural deer food grows, that’s one reason we have no quail anymore. If it’s open, it’s generally pasture, either behia or coastal bermuda. Neither will feed deer. So it’s food plotting, supplemental feeding, (corn, or protein), or a combination of the two. So, while your scenario probably works lots of places, it’s not ideal where I hunt.

Our goals, most of us, are to nurture deer to the best of our abilities in order to provide does with enough milk to raise healthy fawns and producing healthier bucks that hopefully mature. That means feeding a few more mouths than what my habitat would normally carry and having those deer stay closer to where we actually hunt. While TSI will improve habitat for a few years, (and we do that at home as well as at my lease), it’s good for a few years then you have an overstory that returns you to where you were, or close.

One more reason for food plots that some may not understand is the fact that I enjoy the process and the results. The deer hunt is over when you pull the trigger, but the food plotting continues.

 

[Creek chub]

So far, what I'm seeing, is the closer you get to a balanced plant profile, you'll have less invasion by undesirable weeds. I think it ultimately revolves around carbon to nitrogen ratios. There are some rule breakers with aggressive grasses that need to be dealt with the hard way, but if you can get a leg up on them with a hericide application or tillage pass to create an opening, you can keep it open longer by mimicking a balanced blend of high carbon and low carbon plants.

High carbon are your mature cereals, sorghums, corn. Low carbon are your beans, peas, clovers, brassicas. In-between are the broadleaves like dandelion, chicory, buckwheat, jewelweed, willowherb, sunflower, etc.

Being the low intervention minded guy I am, I like perennials like white clover and chicory. That hits two of the three major constituents and doesn't require annual seeding. They also give you a window in the spring to broadcast cereals to jumpstart your grass (barley) before the warm soil grasses advance in June. I'm still kicking myself for going low rate on my spring barley. Won't make that mistake next year. I've got a showdown coming with sedge grass and I've got my fingers crossed the barley can snuff it out before it takes hold again.

I have never planted barley but can get it cheap from a local mill. Do you use it for soil improvement or do your deer eat it?

 

[MarkDarvin]

I have never planted barley but can get it cheap from a local mill. Do you use it for soil improvement or do your deer eat it?

Everything has multiple roles. Here's what barley does:

Early greens
Grass suppression
Upside down carbon well
Edible seed heads
Above ground biomass/soil cooler
Below ground biomass
Root channel maker

If you're gonna do it, find a two-row or forage barley.

 

[Chainsaw]

One more reason for food plots that some may not understand is the fact that I enjoy the process and the results. The deer hunt is over when you pull the trigger, but the food plotting continues.

You are right Dry Creek;the hunt is over quickly. And in addition to food plotting, the apple tree, pear tree, oak tree and yes even hickory tree releasing, buckthorn and other invasives control, interior road maintenance, new stand creation/old stand maintenance, posting and reposting, camera set out and picture collection and analysis, trail funneling maintenance and creation and a myriad of other land management activities continues. We surely wouldn't do all this if we didn't really enjoy it because it does involve a huge amount of time and dollars. And that is likely why we are so few in number with most hunters thinking we are crazy or at least they think I am.

On the food plot dilemma of what to plant with what --some things just don't go well together and that's is where the Lickcreek style of planting really shines. What can self sustain like clover and chicory planted among a strip of apple and pear trees or whatever fruit grows well in a particular area does so in its stretch of plot and what can't gets rotated and replanted annually.

Living in a heavy AG area we can get away with less plots than most and get the biggest returns from our "natural" habitat. Since we are constantly killing or cutting back one tree, shrub, plant colony in favor of another our habitat is really not "natural". There is definitely more deer and land management work to do than any one of us can accomplish; Using tools like regenerative plotting, farmers planting some of our fields, and manipulating what the land "naturally" produces in what we call woods are all required to have the standout deer growing and hunting properties we aspire to create or reshape.

 

[Baker]

TSI and old-field management should be the CORE of your habitat management plans, with food plots providing a small, supplemental, targeted benefit (to you or wildlife?) that is commensurate with the costs. On a very well-managed property, food plots become entirely superfluous, and their value on the worst properties is dubious, at best.

Very interesting thread and one I have been pondering for several years now. I notice with the exception of dry creek almost all the responses are from the north so I thought I would share my experiences from the deep south. { La. }

I hate chemicals!...but use them...sparingly. Every year I study how to shift my entire farm to purely organic. I have yet to be successful though my herbicide use is a fraction of what it once was. I simply don't want to spray poisons on my farm and certainly not on plants the deer and critters eat!

I haven't tilled in over a decade going totally no till with multi specie crops planted both summer and fall. I have been successful keeping cultivars growing year round. Joint vetch and Alyce clover along with chicory provide a valuable bridge in the late summer early fall " dead zone " period we have here in the south. Ex. it hasn't rained here in about a month with upper 90's everyday since June and forecasted out as far as we can see. Beyond that a beauty of the deep south is the growing season is essentially year round.

The only herbicide treatments I do now are when I roller crimp the summer crops and prepare for fall. Even with a heavily planted specie mix of 7 cultivars this summer there is a heavy dose of grasses and some weeds underneath thriving. I terminate that before fall planting.I find some consolation that almost never are there poisons sprayed on the food in a field that deer eat.

I haven't used synthetic fertilizer in more years than I can remember and my plots have been improving steadily. I'm convinced it is from the multi specie rotations with summer crops feeding fall crops feeding summer crops and the cycle continues increasing OM and the micro biology of the soil. Where i live is cattle or timber country . The soil is too poor for ag. I have about 130 acres of plots split fairly evenly between clover/chicory plots with fall small grains radishes and turnips planted into the clover and 2 season rotated crops of summer / fall annuals plus about 15-20 acres of joint vetch/alyce clover that is a reseeding annual approach.

Jason, I agree with most of your post here with the exception of the above comment. I propose that almost all of my 1350 acres of farm are intensively micro managed. I do about 100 acres of TSI every year creating a mosaic of different aged ecosystems. And if you have ever seen a southern forest after timber thinning it becomes a salad bar jungle!. I don't have any old fields to manage cause I created every field on my farm. I do have wide right of ways for the road system which get mowed once a year in the fall and without question that provides quality habitat food for the deer as well. So every specie native or exotic known to exist in southern habitats is well represented on the farm.

Where my experience differs is that the food plot system in place here is anything but superfluous or dubious. They add enormous value to all wildlife on top of the other highly managed 1100 acres. Deer are in the plots night and day, even frequently bedding in the daylight cause the plots are so high you could hide a giraffe. I've heard people say food plots only provide ~5% of a deers diet . I simply don't believe that in my circumstance. Even with high quality weeds and forbes all over the farm grazing pressure in the plots suggests a MUCH higher %. The plots simply give the deer the opportunity to choose the highest quality bite to take with every bite they take thus living on 100% peak nutrition year round . State Wildlife and Fisheries do a browse study every year in the woods and find low pressure on all the ice cream plants assuring I'm not creating an overpopulation result.

Not sure how all this fits in with the intent of this thread but what I know is all forms of wildlife have increased on my farm over the 40+ years I've owned it from butterflies to world class bucks.My synthetic inputs have decreased dramatically along with costs of traditional ag vs notill. My fields are far more productive. And my enjoyment has increased commensurately .

 

[Laker]

Not sure how all this fits in with the intent of this thread but what I know is all forms of wildlife have increased on my farm over the 40+ years I've owned it from butterflies to world class bucks.My synthetic inputs have decreased dramatically along with costs of traditional ag vs notill. My fields are far more productive. And my enjoyment has increased commensurately .

I'm a Northerner and I've only had my place 3 years. When I started, there was just a single overgrown trail right up the middle of my place and the entire 80 acres (the dry part at least) was a mono-culture of trees all the same age, about 15 years. We didn't sniff a living thing the first Fall hunting season. Not a deer, hardly a bird or squirrel. It was just a barren waste. A post-deer season walk through the entire place that first year turned up ONE SET OF DEER TRACKS ON 80 ACRES. We weren't bushwhacking all over the place during hunting season either, barely intruding on the edge. So I don't think we spooked the entire property.

The next Summer, we made that skinny trail into a skinny, long food plot, piled on the 19-19-19 and WR. That Fall, we saw a couple deer, and a grouse or two started to inhabit the edge, and along the edge of the access trails be began to create.

The next Spring, I waited for green up and sprayed, started adding lime and fertilizer per the soil test. Mid-Summer, I sprayed again and spread a Fall mixture of WR, annual clover, and a brassica mixture. Last Fall, I had three doe family groups hitting that plot every day like clockwork. I saw grouse out eating clover, wading into the middle of the plot even, every sit. Squirrels were running all over. Cameras caught a zoo; black bear, bobcat, wolves, skunk, racoon, porcupine, deer... Things have changed.

This year, I sprayed early and poured lime, gypsum and a mountain of oats on my plot in late Spring. The oats grew thick and lush, covered the soil, added OM, helped shade out weeds. Late Summer I fertilized per a soil test, spread my brassica/clover/WR mix into the oats, sprayed and knocked them down to cover the seed. Despite a lack of rain for a month after planting, I've now got the best brassica plot I've ever seen. Broadcasting 200LBS of urea / acre a month after planting, right before a good rain may have helped.

Obviously, I'm still dependent on chemicals. I'm still pouring synthetic fertilizer. I'm hoping this will change in the next couple years. I don't know if I could have accomplished any of this without chemicals but I don't want to use them forever.

I know for a fact, the diversity and quantity of wildlife has increased dramatically at my place, in just a couple years and all I've done is make food and edge habitat. There's a lot more to do. I look forward to improving bedding cover and natural browse as time goes on. It's fun. It's satisfying, and it keeps me out of the bar.

But, the change in my place has been dramatic by adding food and edge, slowly improving the soil. It's night and day. And, it's fun.

 

[MarkDarvin]

I'm a Northerner and I've only had my place 3 years. When I started, there was just a single overgrown trail right up the middle of my place and the entire 80 acres (the dry part at least) was a mono-culture of trees all the same age, about 15 years. We didn't sniff a living thing the first Fall hunting season. Not a deer, hardly a bird or squirrel. It was just a barren waste. A post-deer season walk through the entire place that first year turned up ONE SET OF DEER TRACKS ON 80 ACRES. We weren't bushwhacking all over the place during hunting season either, barely intruding on the edge. So I don't think we spooked the entire property.

The next Summer, we made that skinny trail into a skinny, long food plot, piled on the 19-19-19 and WR. That Fall, we saw a couple deer, and a grouse or two started to inhabit the edge, and along the edge of the access trails be began to create.

The next Spring, I waited for green up and sprayed, started adding lime and fertilizer per the soil test. Mid-Summer, I sprayed again and spread a Fall mixture of WR, annual clover, and a brassica mixture. Last Fall, I had three doe family groups hitting that plot every day like clockwork. I saw grouse out eating clover, wading into the middle of the plot even, every sit. Squirrels were running all over. Cameras caught a zoo; black bear, bobcat, wolves, skunk, racoon, porcupine, deer... Things have changed.

This year, I sprayed early and poured lime, gypsum and a mountain of oats on my plot in late Spring. The oats grew thick and lush, covered the soil, added OM, helped shade out weeds. Late Summer I fertilized per a soil test, spread my brassica/clover/WR mix into the oats, sprayed and knocked them down to cover the seed. Despite a lack of rain for a month after planting, I've now got the best brassica plot I've ever seen. Broadcasting 200LBS of urea / acre a month after planting, right before a good rain may have helped.

Obviously, I'm still dependent on chemicals. I'm still pouring synthetic fertilizer. I'm hoping this will change in the next couple years. I don't know if I could have accomplished any of this without chemicals but I don't want to use them forever.

I know for a fact, the diversity and quantity of wildlife has increased dramatically at my place, in just a couple years and all I've done is make food and edge habitat. There's a lot more to do. I look forward to improving bedding cover and natural browse as time goes on. It's fun. It's satisfying, and it keeps me out of the bar.

But, the change in my place has been dramatic by adding food and edge, slowly improving the soil. It's night and day. And, it's fun.

A guy has to create an opening somehow to be able to start something. That can be chemical, tillage, or if you're lucky, with livestock. I've used a rental skid steer for a number of years. Tillage and harrow trauma is my opener. By the time I'm done with my day or two, I've got enough disturbance, I can get it covered back up with what I want. Keeping it desirable and manageable with high diversity is my goal.