March 2010 Food Plot Update

A Favorite Picture

An Old Shed

Welcome to the March Food Plot Journal, the first in 2010. I hope you had a great deer season and a pleasant winter. Our winter never seemed like it was going to end but finally in mid-March it let up and we have had some nice weather the past couple of weeks.

Deer season went well. Ryan shot the big ten point buck the opening day of bow season and a few decent bucks made it through the season for us to watch this year. That is a successful season in my book.

It's now time to get into our food plots and we've had a little time to get on the John Deere the past couple of weeks so let's see what things look like.

Oldhouse Food Plot

There is still a decent base of Durana clover that has survived in this plot. As of April 2 it was starting to green up and I think that we will have a pretty good clover plot for the deer here again this year.

The Durana clover in the cornpatch is similar to the oldhouse plot. The clover has greened up and I hope it jumps up fast to overcome the grass.

The Durana clover in the garden plot is still greening up as well and we should get another summer out of this plot of clover.

The Monster Mix in the middle plot is doing better than I expected it to. I've been threatening to disk this plot up for some time now, but there just seems to always be enough clover to keep the tractor away.

I'm going to watch this plot real close this spring and summer. It may just make another summer.

Whippoorwill Food Plot

The Monster Mix and Durana in the whippoorwill plot are sparse this spring. This plot will likely get disked up before we get too far into the summer.

Hayfield Food Plot

The Durana we planted last spring looks pretty good. It should jump up and provide good forage for the deer this spring and summer.

The Durana we planted in the spring of 2008 looks bad this spring. It has been taken over by grass. I haven't decided what to do here. I may plow it up and put in an annual or I may just keep mowing it and put an annual here in the fall. I'll have to wait and see what I have the time to do.

The fall weather was tough on the ShotPlot, Forage Oats and Buckhunters Blend. None of these blends grew that well and the deer came to them early and cleaned them up. On March 20 and April 2 I disked these areas and Megan helped me spread 480 pound of lime. I plan on planting Durana here.

Right Of Way Food Plot

The Durana here has lost the battle with grass so I'll plow it under once I'm done in the hayfield and most likely plant an annual.

For some reason I'm having trouble getting a perennial to last more than a year in this dirt so I'll keep throwing annuals at it for a while. The last planting that did well here was a brassica I planted in the spring.

The annuals we planted late last summer did not perform as I had hoped, but I believe that the weather was the major culprit. I'm going to keep experimenting, that's part of the fun of it for me.

After a snowy winter the past couple of weeks have been nice and the dirt has disked up real nice. I probably could have planted part of the hayfield plot but I didn't have the fertilizer or the time to do it. Maybe the weather will cooperate over the next couple of weeks and I can get some clover planted.

Once I get the clover planted I'll start working on the annuals in the smaller plots. I may plant some fall annuals in the late spring or early summer and see what happens.

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 February. This is the second picture of an owl that I can remember us capturing with our digital trail cameras. I wish the bar wasn't in the way. You can take a look at our favorite deer pictures from April 2 here.

For those few people that have followed this website for a while you may remember the buck that graced the home page the first couple of years. I watched this buck from my stands for two years, but never got a shot at him once he made it to that third year.

Last week my neighbor was raccoon hunting and found one of this bucks sheds. The rodents had done a considerable amount of chewing on it but it is in surprisingly good condition for an antler that has been lying in the woods for eight years.

The antler rough scored 61 inches, so doubling this and adding a sixteen inch spread would add up to 138 inches.

Take a look at the picture of this buck here. His last picture is the fourth picture down the page.