2015 Spring Food Plot Update

A Favorite Picture

Black Bear Problems Again

Welcome to the 2015 Spring Food Plot Journal.

The food plot story for the Spring 2015 is little action. Last year we hit our plots with lime and fertilizer and saw good results. We then decided that this was a worthwhile activity for our plots and had planned to hit them hard again this spring, but that didn't happen. These plans were held up by a wedding in the plot we call the old garden. My son got married there on May 23rd, so we had a lot of work to do around the old place to make it presentable. We couldn't host a wedding without a new outhouse. The old one had served us well for over 30 years, but it's time had come to an end.

The other factor in our food plot situation is the right of way that was finished last fall. We had hoped that it would be planted early enough in the fall that we would have lush clover this spring. This didn't happen. The right of way was planted so late that spring green up was slow and green up didn't start with clover. They had planted another crop that popped up late in the spring. The deer didn't hinder its growth. In other words, it wasn't a crop that deer like to eat.

With all of this activity happening we still did a couple of things in our plots, so we have a few things to report.

Oldhouse Plot

The only thing we got to do in this seven year old plot of Durana is mow it in early June.

We need to work this plot and plant something in it, but there is still some clover in it. We draw deer to this location with a mineral lick and from time to time a little corn or protein feed so the deer have a little clover to eat when they visit.

This plot is on the list to plow when time allows.

You can see in the picture that the plot is still nice and green, but there isn't a lot of clover.

Last year this plot had been planted in a summer annual and then we planted oats in it in September. After being eaten down over the fall this plot was left a partly barren plot of weeds.

On May 23rd it needed to host a wedding, so my dilemma was whether or not to disk and plant and hope for fast growth,or to let it go and see what would grow. My decision was to overseed with clover and hope for the best. At this point in early July this plot has some clover and chicory along with some grass and weeds. On May 23rd it was sparse, but the wedding went on without a hitch. Thank God for a beautiful day and dry weather.

We haven't mowed this plot since before the wedding.

The Monster Mix in this plot is now two years old and doing well. We overseeded with clover in early spring and we mowed the plot once in early June. There is a lot of clover for the deer.

This plot only needs some lime and fertilizer along with some mowing to keep it lush for a few more years.

You can see that the plot is nice and green in early July.

Last summer we lost most of our hayfield plots to the right of way work, but we thought that this one year of downtime would lead to a flourishing spring of 2015. As noted above this didn't quite happen.

The company in charge of the right of way work promised to come in and replant the right of way so we just let it grow and the grasslike plant grew tall. As June progressed we could see clover start to grow under the cover of the grass so we decided to mow it and see what happened. As of early July we've mowed most of the right of way that is accessible and we have some clover to show for it. The clover isn't thick and lush, but due to the large size of the right of way there is a lot of clover. Although the clover in the right of way wasn't thick and lush in early spring, its now giving us a decent food source here in early summer for the deer.

Area 5, planted in 2011 in Monster Mix, is still a pretty nice clover plot. For some reason the deer like this spot, it's common to see deer in this small plot in the evenings. I mowed it last week and there was a deer laying in it later that evening.

Area 6 was planted in Monster Mix in 2012, but for some reason hasn't performed as well as Area 5. We followed the same lime and fertilizer regimen as area 5 and the plot started good, but grass has taken over. This plot is mostly grass and could be plowed up this summer, but the competition for the plow is pretty stiff.

Area 7 was planted in AlfaRack in 2013 and never did great, but had come along and had some clover. Part of this plot is below our barn and the back basement corners of our barn are leaning bad so we've not mowed below the barn. The remainder of this area has some clover, but isn't impressive. We'll probably let part of this plot grow up to try to hold the ground which will split the rest off to be a seperate plot.

Most of area 3, which was planted in Durana in 2013, was taken up by the right of way. It now consists of a narrow strip of clover.

Last fall we planted oats in Area 1 and the deer loved them. We disked this area in the early spring and wanted to plant a summer annual. Time didn't allow us to do this so a variety of weeds and grass has grown in the plot. I was frustrated that we didn't get anything planted here until I saw that the deer were spending a lot of time eating there. I guess the lime and fertilizer had grown some nice weeds for them to eat so we've left it alone. A ride through the plot revealed the purple flower weed we've seen them eating in our other plots over the years.

Most of area 2 was taken by the right of way. There is a little clover left and some clover is starting to come in along the right of way.

We need to do some work in the hayfield and we also need to rename/reorginize our plot names as well.

Here are two pictures of the hayfield. In the first you can see the new right of way on the left and Area 3 and Area 5 on the right.

The area of the front field that we put ladino clover and fescue in two years ago is a sparse clover plot, but we see deer in it almost every day.

The super plot of Monster Mix we put in last year is doing great. It's closer to the house than the other plot so in the daylight we see deer in the section that is farthest from the house. In the dark the deer come to the areas closer to the house. We also overseeded this plot this spring and we mowed it in mid-May.

So far this plot is showing the good effects of the large amount of lime and fertilizer that we used in it.

You can see the new super plot in the middle, it's the greenest part of the field with last years plot below it. This picture was taken standing by the house.

The right of way dissapointed us early, but has turned around to give our deer quite a bit of clover now that summer has arrived.

We had hoped to disk up a couple of areas and get summer annuals planted, but that didn't happen. The good news is that there is still something growing in all locations for the deer to eat. It's not the lush food plot paradise that we wanted, but it could be a lot worse.

Later this summer we hope to get a couple areas disked up and fall annuals planted and we'll continue to mow them to keep fresh growth. We may even put in more clover in the plot that is now edible weeds.

We get thousands of pictures each month with our digital trail cameras but we narrow down each set of pictures to our favorite six or seven and these are usually buck pictures. As you can imagine there are always several more that are very good but don't make the cut.

Below is one of our favorite pictures from 2015. This may be one of the best fawn pictures we've captured with our trail cameras. You can take a look at our favorite deer pictures from July 9th here, which included this picture. We just can't get enough of it.

The black bear didn't give us any more headaches throughout hunting season, but he showed up again this spring and ruined the two feeders we had out. Since then we've left them down and we've still captured him on camera two other times. He seems to keep stopping by to see if we've put them back up.

We're not sure what we're going to do about him. We'd like to put up bear proof feeders, getting them higher and suspended from something that a bear can't climb. The problem is time to do this. I don't want to continue to let him ruin feeders. We'll have to figure something out by the fall.

Here is one of the pictures we got of him.