August 2007 Food Plot Update

Digital Trail Cameras - Ease Of Operation

Black Bear Pictures

August has been our rainy month this year. We went from brown grass in the yard to healthy green grass after some early August rain and we continued to get rain throughout the rest of the month so our food plots are nice and green.

We've also done some experimenting with Round-Up and Arrest herbicides this month. Our disks do a good job but when the hay/grass is real thick it takes a lot of disking to get the ground worked up well so we're trying to kill off most of the grass in one plot before we disk and see if it speeds up the process. We also used some Arrest grass herbicide in three of our plots to try to knock back the grass that has crept in on us.

This month we also broke down and bought fencing to build exclusion cages for our food plots. This is something that I have wanted to do for a while now. We had robbed our old ones to make fences for our new apple trees and I had hoped that constant monitoring with digital trail cameras would give us the information that we needed, but we still wanted to see what the plots could do if they were not grazed at all. Hopefully they will provide some valuable information for us.

Oldhouse Food Plot

Since we have a combination of annuals planted in the oldhouse food plot we haven't had to do anything in the plot other than stand back and watch.

The sorghum has jumped up and is waist high throughout the plot, while the brassicas are holding their own and there is an occasional remaining bean plant. Seed heads have not yet formed on the sorghum so we’re hoping that there is enough time for this to occur. Although the sorghum looks nice, it's the seed heads the deer prefer.

It was funny one day to arrive at the plot and see a doe's head looking at me above the sorghum. I think she felt somewhat protected in there.

It's hard to tell how much the deer are eating in this plot since the sorghum has screened our trail camera from much of the plot.

I would like to get something else planted in this plot this fall but I'm not going to disk it up if there is still something there for the deer to eat. We'll wait and see what happens in September.

Deer traffic in the cornpatch food plot has slowed considerably and the grass has come on strong. We saw few deer in the plot in August and our digital trail cameras didn't pick up much action either.

We mowed the plot in early August and it needed mowed again by the end of the month but we decided to take a different route. Since much of the vegetation is now grass we decided to try grass herbicide and see what happened. On August 23rd we sprayed Arrest on the entire plot. I'm curious to see what happens since much of the plot is now grass. There may be some bare spots if the grass all dies or there may be clover there that was being masked by the grass. I'm hoping for good results.

Old Garden Food Plot

The old garden plot has been on the re-planting list for quite a while and we've finally taken some steps to do that.

On August 17th we sprayed the plot with Round-Up. It was interesting how much clover I noticed while spraying the Round-Up. On August 23rd I sprayed again with grass herbicide since most of the vegetation was grass. If some clover survived the spraying that was OK with me.

I had considered planting Monster Mix in this plot but I had to use it elsewhere so I've purchased a bag of Evolved Harvest Provide Clover and Chicory. I was strongly considering Durana but didn't have any left and did not have time to wait to have it shipped. Last fall I planted Evolved Harvest Shot Plot in the Middle Clearing and it grew well so I hope the Provide with also do as well.

The small strip of Power Plant is doing well. Seed heads have developed on the sorghum and it was amazing to see some bean plants still growing, but we haven't seen many deer visit the plot over the past month. I put a trail camera on the plot hoping to catch the deer when they decide to clean up the sorghum.

Middle Clearing Food Plot

The Monster Mix is still doing well, but there seemed to be more grass coming up in the plot and we weren't getting as many pictures of deer eating in the plot.

We decided to try some grass herbicide in this plot as we did in a couple of our other plots. If we can kill most of the grass I’m hoping we'll still have a nice plot.

I'm curious to see what our exclusion cages show us in this plot over the next few weeks.

Whippoorwill Food Plot

The Bucks and Bosses along with a little Durana are doing well in this plot, actually better than I expected since the plot is so small. We mowed the plot in early August and I'll probably need to mow it again soon or try the grass herbicide here as well.

As I said last week this plot is an interesting travel area for deer and we get some interesting pictures here.

Hayfield Food Plot

The Durana in the hayfield plot is still doing well and the Alfa Rack is holding its own although not flourishing. Deer are still visiting regularly.

There has been some grass creep into parts of the Durana and Alfa Rack so we decided to use grass herbicide here as well. I'm hoping to knock the grass back a bit and let the clover and alfalfa thrive. We could have mowed but we would have been mowing only grass so I decided to try to just get rid of the grass.

We also got the extension planted by disking on August 7th and 10th. I also applied 250 pound of lime on the 10th. On August 22nd we fertilized with 10-20-20, disked, dragged and sowed Durana and a little bit of Monster Mix. We then used our ATV's to push the seed into contact with the soil. The ground was wet so we're hoping the clover will get a quick start in the moist ground and warm temperatures.

This extension was a little over one-quarter acre and pushes our total in the hayfield somewhere around an acre. This is our biggest food plot and I'd like to keep extending it when possible to give the deer a good food source that could have the size to withstand the grazing pressure.

So far the Durana that we planted in the spring has held up well under heavy feeding.

Right Of Way Food Plot

The Bucks and Bosses isn't doing great in this plot and we also haven't captured a lot of photos of deer eating here. Similar to the whippoorwill plot I'll probably need to either mow the plot or use the grass herbicide soon.

I may put a good camera in this plot over the Labor Day weekend to see if we're missing anything.

I was happy to get the hayfield extension done in August. I think a large perennial plot in this area will be a good nutrition plot for our deer and help keep them on our place.

Along with getting the hayfield extension planted we have also tried some different things. We've used grass herbicide in the past to a limited extent with success, but now we're trying it on a more wide scale to see if it can help us rid our plots of unwanted grass. Hopefully it will work well for us.

We've also made another run at using Round-Up to rid our old plots of their vegetation. We're hoping that this will greatly reduce the amount of disking that we have to do to get the plots ready to plant. Our disks do a nice job but heavy grass roots can be a real bugger to get rid of.

Finally we've put out exclusion cages again to help us better monitor our plots and show what they are capable of if the deer and other critters leave them alone.

We'll let you know how these new experiments have panned out next month.

Since we enjoy testing digital trail cameras I thought that we would detail some of what we have learned by taking a look at a different subject each month.

The fourth column in our chart is ease of operation. You could also call this column the annoyance factor. What I try to determine here is both how easy the trail camera is to initially set up and also how easy is it to make changes in the field.

I've come to learn that ease of operation comes into play a lot as time goes by. I have some cameras that I don't mind changing the settings on and others that I don't bother trying to change the settings on due to the hassle. Some cameras seem to get easier to operate as time goes by and you get used to them, while there are others that just never do get on my good side.

One thing that should be obvious but isn't, is that it is possible to have a good ease of operation grade because there aren't many settings available and this is the case with some of the cameras. The best of both worlds is when you have many options but the operation is easy.

The thing that I change the most is the time delay, which probably holds the most weight in the grade. Another factor is whether or not the time and date need reset each time batteries are changed. Resetting the time and date each time I change the batteries really starts to get me. I like to be able to change the batteries, memory card and time delay quickly and have the camera ready to go again. If I have to go through a lot of steps to change the delay or reset the time and date it adds much more time to the camera set-up. Sometimes I'll just leave the time and date on default and put the camera someplace where I don't have to change the delay time.

I noticed that I've not given a camera a grade lower than a C. I also noticed that the cameras with a C are those that I rarely change their settings or I have to reset the time.

So, ease of operation is a grade that doesn’t cost money but how annoying a camera is to operate will stick with you for the entire life of the camera.

You can take a look at our digital trail camera reviews here.

Back in mid-July we got our first black bear picture. Since then we have gotten a handful of pictures of this bear. Now, I'm assuming that there is one lone bear. He isn't wearing a nametag, but we're assuming there is only one.

I'm not entirely sure what to think of our new visitor. On the one hand it's kind of neat to have a new critter around to capture pictures of and a sighting always gives us something to talk about. On the other hand a black bear can wreak a lot of havoc, especially around a feeder. We've moved the feeder with the varmint zapper to the location he visits. Do you think that little shock will just tick him off?

Here is a picture of him from our last visit and make sure you check back each week to see if we continue to get more black bear pictures.