May 2009 Food Plot Update

A Favorite Picture

Bucks

Welcome to the May Food Plot Journal. Our established food plots have sprung to life and should provide a lot of forage for the deer and our newest plot has finally showed some signs of life. It sure seems like we’ve had colder than normal temperatures and a frost hit our apple trees hard, but warmer temperatures and some rain late in the month have the plots looking good.

Oldhouse Food Plot

The Durana in the oldhouse food plot looks pretty good and I would say that the majority of the plot is clover. For some reason the clover hasn’t grown very tall in this plot but it still seems to be growing.

I haven’t done anything in this plot this year, but I’ll probably mow it soon to knock back the grass and weeds that are there.

The Durana clover in the cornpatch has jumped back real nice and the bare spots are showing some growth. The clover established last year has taken off nice and has surprised me.

On May 25th I mowed parts of this plot with both a brush hog and a lawn tractor. I wanted to see what difference there was between the two mowing heights and not mowing it at all. The jury is still out, but I’ll probably mow it in June.

The Durana clover in the garden plot is growing very nicely. We mowed it with a lawn tractor on May 25th and one week later the clover had jumped back real nice. The bare spots that we overseeded are still thin.

The Monster Mix in the middle plot is hanging in there better than I expected. I would guess that the plot is about 50% clover. I mowed the plot on May 25th and one week later the clover looked even better than before. Mowing this plot often this summer to keep the weeds back may be our best option.

This plot was on the chopping block for this fall, but it may just make the cut another year.

Whippoorwill Food Plot

The Monster Mix and Durana in the whippoorwill plot came on real nice in May. I had mowed the plot in early May and the clover took off as the month progressed. I’ll need to mow the plot again, probably in early June.

Hayfield Food Plot

The AlfaRack has come on strong and looks real nice in part of this plot.

The Durana planted two years ago is doing well, but we are seeing some areas that are mostly grass.

The Durana planted in the fall of 2007 never overcame the dry fall it was planted in and is about 25% clover at best. This area may get disked and planted in oats this fall.

The area were we planted in Durana last spring is growing well in some areas and we have a lot of grass in other areas.

The long strip we planted in late April has finally popped up. We have some grass to contend with, but I was glad to see the clover finally come on late in the month. I sprayed the grass with Arrest herbicide on May 18th but have not seen any positive results. I’m not sure if I mixed the herbicide too light or if possibly the concentrate has gone bad. I tried a heavier mix concentration at the end of the month to see if the problem was my mixture.

Throughout the entire hayfield plot there will be a lot of clover for deer to eat this summer.

I mowed the entire plot on May 2nd, partially mowed it again on May 25th and will need to mow it again soon.

Right Of Way Food Plot

The Durana in the Right Of Way plot is doing very well. There are some thin spots, but after having such a stuggle in this plot last year I am pleased. This plot has some of the nicest looking clover on our property. The only problem is that it is very small.

I mowed the plot on May 25th.

Throughout most of May the deer left our plots alone to grow, but later in the month we noticed deer traffic in the plots increasing on our digital trail cameras. I expect that we will see an even bigger increase in the numbers of deer eating in our plots. Our plots have grown well and along with our extensions of the hayfield plot we now have more forage for deer to eat than we ever had in the past. Hopefully we will see that in larger, healthier deer and maybe even some bigger antlers.

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 March. This one looks like a red eyed fly. What do you think? You can take a look at our favorite deer pictures from April 27th here.

We were still getting pictures of a handful of racked bucks after the deer seasons had ended last year, but do not seem to be getting pictures of bucks that fit this bill so far this year. I’m not quite sure what may be happening here but I’m hoping they have not run off to another feeder somewhere across the hollow. I’d like to see them eating the high protein green food we are trying to grow and provide, but they often go where the getting is easiest.

One of the problems may just be that the bucks are not identifiable yet and we may have more of the older bucks still around than I am thinking. One thing I know for sure is that we will keep watching to see what’s around. Our picture pages will show the evidence.

This picture is the best buck we captured by camera this year, but he didn’t show up the next week. This picture was taken on May 26th.