September Food Plot Update

Velvet Shedding and Rubs

Apples

After the first hurricane gave us some rain at the end of August we had little rain until the remnants of the next hurricane passed by on September 26th. The plots didn't get enough rain to make the growing spurt that I had hoped for. I'm still holding out hope that October will be wet and warm enough to green the plots up a little but I'm not holding my breath.

In spite of our lack of rainfall three of the five food plots still hold a good bit of clover while a fourth is looking better than I had expected in the spring. I expect them to jump back next spring as long as we have at least normal amounts of rain between now and then.

Oldhouse Food Plot

The clover in the oldhouse plot has changed little from August. It is still low to the ground with some grass trying to take over.

Digital scouting camera pictures over the last month have revealed a good bit of activity in the plot, so we know they are still using it. I also ran a large groundhog out of the plot one day on my way to one of our feeders. He looked real healthy.

I'm confident some grass herbicide, fertilizer and lime in the spring will rejuvenate this plot.

The corn patch plot is looking pretty rough with some spots looking worse than others. There are areas where it is trying to turn back into a hayfield and others that look OK.

We mowed the plot again early in the month. When the grass showed up it seemed that it was the only thing that wanted to grow so we mowed it with the lawn tractor on the highest setting. The approaching fall and dry weather has slowed everything down at this point.

Similar to the oldhouse plot we have some work to do here in the spring but I'm still pleased with the enlarged plot. It is about three times the size of the old plot and the deer have used it a lot. We have also learned once again that it is real difficult turning hayfield into food plot. The next time we try this we will kill off the vegetation first to try to reduce the competition.

I went back and looked at last falls Food Plot Journal and noticed that the old garden plot looked about the same as it does now. This isn't bad if it jumps back next spring as it did this year.

This plot is probably our driest and may be a candidate to try some Alfa Rack the next time. It is reported to be a deeper rooted plant and may perform better at this plot. For now I think we can nurse along the clover for another year or two.

This plot has continued to improve over the summer, even through the dry conditions. This doesn't mean that it is a lush, green, grass free and weed free plot but it is a lot better than it looked like it was going to be last spring.

I can see a good bit of clover and some spotty evergreen, this plot may turn into something after all.

I put a digital scouting camera on this plot but the battery went dead so I didn't get any pictures at all. Bow season opens up in a couple of weeks so I'll be watching this plot with my own eyes soon.

Early in the month I mowed the weeds down in the plot to see what would happen. The answer is not much of anything. I had wondered if any of the Extreme had survived underneath of the weeds. Three weeks after being mowed I could not find any Extreme to speak of. The weeds are not popping back vigorously themselves.

We'll kill everything off and try some annual seed here in the spring. If I have the time I would like to enlarge the plot a little as well.

I did get quite a few digital game camera pictures in this plot in late August. I averaged about twelve pictures per day and photographed three different bucks.

Food plot season is winding down; especially since we didn't get the opportunity to do any planting or experimenting this fall. The plots appear to be a little sparser than they were last year at this time. We had a year of record rain fall last year and this year has been very dry. It is no wonder that the plots look rough. On the good side, I still believe that the plots provided a lot of good forage for our deer.

An October Food Plot Journal will be sent out if there is enough happening in the food plots. Who knows, the latest rain and more in early October could rejuvenate them to never before seen lushness. If not we will be back in the spring and you can keep updated as to what else is going on in our deer season updates on the site that will begin in October.

One of the things that I was looking forward to with our digital trail cameras was watching the bucks shed their velvet. This turned out to be less exciting than I had anticipated. We got good photographic evidence that it took only about twelve hours for two bucks to completely shed their velvet. On these two occasions we got pictures of the buck in the evening with velvet and then the next morning with his velvet completely shed. I would not have thought that this would have happened this fast. I thought that we would get pictures of the bucks with their velvet hanging and it would take at least a couple of days. Once again I was wrong.

The interesting thing was the reddish color of their antlers the morning after shedding the velvet. This blood red coloration appeared to wear off rather quickly as well.

The before and after pictures have been included on the Whitetail Deer Photographs pages.

On our September 24th visit we found the first buck rubs of the season. There were about a half dozen rubs in the woods below one of our feeders. It's always exciting to see the first rubs and I could also smell the first hint of fall in the air.

This has been a great year for apples. All of our trees have produced and the deer are checking them constantly. It is interesting how the apples have done so well over what has been a very dry summer. Even though the food plots suffer form these dry conditions the deer have been able to gorge themselves on apples since the first early harvest tree started dropping apples in August.

Although I like the extra nutrition that our food plots provide for the deer I like trying to provide other forms of nutrition like the apple trees. The deer seem to agree.

This makes us look pretty smart for planting six more apple trees last spring. Although they are a few years from bearing fruit I don't think we can have too many and some of the older ones are starting to get past their prime. The challenge now is keeping the deer away form these young trees.

The picture below is an apple tree that is right alongside the old garden food plot, loaded with apples.