00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan. In this episode one and three tan the show, we're joined by Dr Craig Harper, one of the nation's foremost experts on deer habitat management, and we're talking food plots, timberstand improvement, old fields, and much much more. Hey, the guys and gals, and welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sick and Gear, and today we're joined by someone who I guarantee you're going to enjoy hearing from. I first heard Dr Craig Harper back probably six or seven years ago at a Qutum a Dear Steward course, and then since then I've heard him speak at a number of other deer and habitat related events and seminars, and every single time I've walked away from these, you know, seminars, having learned a ton and haven't really enjoyed myself as well. Dr Craig Harper is a Professor of Wildlife Management in the Extension Wildlife Specialist in the Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries at the University of Tennessee. He's also a renowned authority on all things dear Habitat. He was named the two thousand thirteen QTUM a Professional Deer Manager of the Year, and on top of that, he's also the author of the highly claimed guide to Wildlife Food Plots in Early Successional Plants. So today we're going to pick Craig's brain on all things dear Habitat and deer habitat improvement. But before we dive into all that, Mr cost Dan Johnson, do you have any important updates from this past week? Did you kill a turn yet? I did not kill a turkey, but you did? I did. Yeah, I want to hear that. I want to hear that story. Oh man, it was a mess, to be honest, So I'll make it as short and sweet as it possibly can. But we we headed down to Ohio this weekend to do some work on the property and a turkey hunt, me and and Buddy josh Um. So I got there Friday night, Saturday morning, we got in started hunting and there are a lot of birds gobbling, but couldn't get them coming off the roost. So eventually, after a couple of hours just been walking around, had a couple of actually kind of relatively close calls while running gunning, but just couldn't quite make it happen. So then for the rest of the afternoon we trimmed out lanes for some of our tree stands, check some stands, stuff like that. UM went back out in the evening and moved our little pop up blind to this corner of the farm where you can see into like all the different open areas on the property. UM, this is one angle where you can seem like four different set into this field. Otherwise, we blocked off and our plan was basically to sit there and watch and just hope we might catch some birds moving across one of these open areas and try to talk to them and get them convinced to come in. And it was really windy and it's supposed to rain, so I didn't have the highest of hopes that anything would hear us. UM, but I figured at least here we could see things and lo and behold. After sitting there for like an hour, here come three birds, probably like I don't know, five yards away, cutting across this field. I'm not sure how far it was but very far away, and the head out across this field, and I was kind of thinking, well, I guess just throw out some noise and hopefully can get their attention. But like, yes, it was really windy, so I just started squawking away, just trying to do anything just to catch their attention. And it seemed like they heard, because they stopped, perked their heads up and looked my way. But they just kept slowly feeding across the field going the other direction, and they just milled around to the other end of this field for like twenty minutes, and we kept on thinking, how they're gonna come this way? Are they gonna leave? And we were debating if they if they go around the corner, should we grab our stuff and just sprint down the field and try to close the gap. But eventually they just slowly turned and started feeding our way down the middle of this finger of just basically what was cut beings from last year, And over the course of the next hour, maybe hour and a half these three times, is slowly, slowly pecked their way down the field towards us. Never once in a while I do a little call and they look my way and keep moving that direction. So fast forward, like I said, like an hour. They finally it's like, wow, this is really gonna happen. I can't. We've been sitting here watching these birds like an hour and a half, and now it does look like we might get a shot. So me and my buddy Josh from the blind and they circle around us, um instead of coming straight and they circle out wide. And now we're coming in from our left side and I can't get a shot because the blind, the windows of the blind aren't open that way. Um. So basically now they're in it like I don't know, thirty five yards or so, and they're getting a little nervous. And so now at this point they got to thirty yards or just inside that and they're about turned to like bust way. You don't you ever see that where they kind of take a couple of steps and then they spin around the other way and they take a couple of steps and spin around. They're kind of jumpy. I was like, Josh, just take a shot, just just take we're trying to get a double. But I was like, just just get your bird, because I you know, I already killed one in Michigan, but he hadn't got to get out and hunt yet. So he took a shot and we don't know what happened, but but he missed and they go taken off, and by the time they go taken off, they didn't really run that far out, and so Josh was trying to get another shot at the bird he had taken the shot at the first And while that's happening, I see that they are still within shooting ranch. So I pulled down this other window on the other side, pull my gun out and take a shot at one as this bird's running off and I rolled him and Josh took another shot and he missed his, so so he was really bummed, and we were all confused. Like I was like, was the bird that I shot? The bird that you shot? And he's like, no, no, you you you took yours out the first shot, the one I was the one I shot at. He never never connected, So we don't know if someone's going on with this gun. But it was chaos. We went running out of the blind, chasing after the bird, and um, you know, I got one down. He was nice Tom and I was glad to have it, but I was I was really just bummed for Josh because he this was his first time out this season because of other commitments and stuff, and I really wanted him to get one, and he just got struggle with bad luck. Kind of the same thing. Unfortunately, exact same thing happened to us last year. We had a double and I don't know his guns not patterning. Well, I guess we gotta we gotta check it out and figure out what's going on, because he was super bummed, and it kind of took some of the excitement of my bird because I just wanted him to get one. So nonetheless, it was nice to get some some more meat in the freezer. And it was a crazy hunt. And the next day we went back out and just couldn't get anything to come in again. So it was a fun weekend. Got trail cameras up, like I said, got some work done on the tree stands. So now I'm just we're gonna you know, I had out west for a couple months, and I'll come back in August and go back to the property, check the cameras and hopefully Junkyard JJ are back. Well. Congratulations and good luck. Thank you, sir. I. Speaking of trail cameras, you proposed a trail camera bet to me on Twitter the past week, but you never responded to what I proposed as steaks? What what that you can? If I win, I get to come hunt in Michigan and if you win, you get to come come up my Iowa farm. I think that's perfectly fair, perfectly fair and very very equal prizes there. I wonder what the other hunters would say if this guy pulled up in another hunter pulled up, I was like, yeah, I lost the bet. This guy gets to hunt here this year. It's just tough. You gotta I gotta deal with it. I'll tell you what. Let's think of something else fair enough, But but we are on for a bet, right, We're gonna do the same same rule, same thing as we did last year. Uh, Velvet, do you want to have do you want to have a two part bet? Excuse me? Explain? Okay, two part bet, one in velvet and one hard horn I like that. Okay, So, uh, biggest velvet buck take surprise and biggest hard horn buck takes surprise. So for the hard horn buck, are waiting until the end of the season then to do that one? Yep? Well you let's let's say yeah, at the end of your season in the end of my season, which is somewhere around what January, first week of January. Yeah, so let's say mid January, we will reconvene for the hard horn, but we can we can do the first part in uh, let's say September, mid September, after the velvet comes off. I like it. Let's I don't know. I'm I don't have an Iowa hunt this year, so my locations for quality bucks will be going down, but I'm think of a cross for Ohile. I'm willing to get into it. And uh, I was close last year, so it could happen. You were close. You were close. It was uh, I bet you when coming you know, coming down to it. Those two bucks were really close to the same size. Yeah, it would have been interesting if if either one of us could have killed one to get it, to get a tape on them and see. But either way, cool deer, beautiful deer. So I actually tried contacting the Boone and Crockett club official scores to take a look at those pictures, and just all I said was, you know, hey, I just want your best professional guests on these two deer and what they score. And I showed him two pictures of each buck, and they never responded to me. It was worth a shot. Oh that's funny. Well, I'm excited to get the summer kicked up. I always get really pumped up about the summer velvet pictures and velvet scouting, getting video of velvet bucks out in the fields. That's still a lot of fun. That's right. I'm not quite done with spring yet. I still I'm still going out. I found a ton of mushrooms last night, which would have been Monday night, and uh so I'm gonna eat those tonight Tuesday night. And this weekend I'm Saturday and Sunday, Saturday and Sunday. This this week is I'm just here. Oh, Mark Kenyon, you're like a little brother the U. Now I've lost my train of thought. You were talking about this weekend Saturday and Sunday. So I'm gonna I'm gonna go turkey hunting this weekend again. Friday or Saturday morning and Sunday morning. Those are the probably the last two times that I'll be able to get out because I'll be gone on business the following week and I don't know, I think the season I might get one more week weekend. Get closes on the twenty second MAYWOD is when the season closes here in Iowa, So we'll see what happens. I gotta make it happen. You know, you you did your you did your good deed for the season, and you got your your wife and stepped out of bourb and now's your turn. Well maybe my buddy, I'm I'll be hunting on my buddy's property and he's never gotten a turkey before, so my goal is to try to get him one. So maybe maybe I get out and get it done. Maybe I don't, but uh, we will see. I feel like it's just as much fun when you get to be there, like guiding and calling and stuff. I get pumped about that. I think last year I was able to quote unquote guide on three or four different kills. Last year that was awesome, And this year it hasn't worked out. But but it's it's a blast, but it's it's coming to an end. Turkey season was a it was a wild ride for a lot of people. I feel like some people start so early these these days, like February seasons at early March seasons, and we're slowly getting to this next phase of the year. And and now I'm working on some food plot stuff. I've been out spraying food plots and I gotta plant some stuff here in late in May, I'm gonna be putting in, um a food plot screen hopefully if if ever this spot dries out enough. We've been getting so much rain we did too recently. But that's that's an exciting time of year. And that's what we're talking about today, I guess, is food plots and habitat projects and different things like that. And I don't know you've probably have you ever heard Dr Craig Carver before, Dan, just a little bit um from the information that you sent me yesterday, I did. I did a lot of reading on that. Um I shouldn't say a lot, but I became familiar of what he does, and I'm looking forward to it for the pure fact that hopefully the information that we get today and through what I read, helps my very first food plot improve, you know, like be better than if I didn't go, you know, if I just killed the grass and three seed in the ground. Yeah, yeah, they're they're definitely. I'm sure you will learn things that are gonna help you to make sure you do something better than that. Uh, he's just a very interesting speaker, and I've I've seen him a number of different events, and he's just just a guy I could sit and listen to for a long time and very very very notable. So I think we're in for a treat. And I suppose with all that being said, we should just make that happen. So let's take a quick break for a word from our partners at Sick of Gear, and then we'll give Dr Craig Harper a call. So, as most of you know are good friends at sick Gear are the ones who keep this show on the air, and our Sikest story series will be continuing next week, but today I wanted to share a slightly more traditional plug for these guys you know. Over the past year so we've shared all sorts of interesting tidbits in this sickst segment, from the recent story series to our specific product related tips and gear advice from Don Zuck, But not too often do I personally talk about what I like about Sick of Gear and why I've been wearing their stuff for six or seven seasons now, I think, and I guess that's partly because there's such a long line of specific things I could mention, and that would honestly just be boring. You know. Yes, I love the fit and finish and quality of their gear. Yes, I love the fact that they utilize, you know, the best technologies and materials out there. Yes, I love the attention to detail. I really love the attention to detail on their design and their focus on really meeting the actual needs of serious hunters. But maybe maybe what I appreciate the most about SIKA is that I feel like they've developed a culture and a tribe of hunters that I just one percent feel like I'm a part of, you know, the sick could tribe as they call it. It's full of guys and girls who love to hunt, who just put it all out there and who are absolutely sick for it. And that, my friends, is something I can relate with. So if you're sick for as well, head over to sick gear dot com and try this stuff out. I don't think you'll regret it. And now, without further ado, let's get back to the show and give Dr Craig Harper a call. All right with us Now on the line is Dr Craig Harper. Welcome to show. Craig. Nice to be here. Mark. Yeah, I was talking just a little bit ago about how I've been able to hear you speak at a Dear Steward course the number of years ago, and in a couple of different seminars and habitat days, and and every time I just learn a ton and I also just get a kick out of here. And you share your hunting stories and food plot stories and stuff. So I know our listeners are are in for a treat today. But I guess for those that aren't familiar with who you are and what you do, could you share with the audience to a quick bit about your professional background and what you do today related to deer inhabitat. Sure, I'm a professor in the Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries at the University of Tennessee and um the extension Wildlife specialists, and so my primary responsibilities are to assist natural resource professionals, whether that be state wildlife biologists in our cs of course, extension agents throughout the state, and others even beyond the state. We do a lot of in service training in other states as well assist them in both wildlife programming and with recommendations related to both population management and and habitat management. And UH often use the word we when I say we we did this, or we went out and did this or collected this information, what have you? Uh. Most often I'm talking about my graduate students and technicians that work with me. Of course, I would have very little to share with others out across the country if it weren't for some really hard work and graduate students who are out there collecting all these data. And because i'm the extension Whilie specialists operate a little differently than a professor whose appointment is teaching in the classroom or strictly research and that of course I keep maintained and direct graduate students. But as soon as the information is coming in, uh many times even before it's analyzed, and of course I share this with the audience. Look, these are preliminary data, but here's what we're fighting. And that's fun for me, and I think that's a lot of fun for the audience because they get a look at what we're doing with regard to uh the science and research. And UH it's fresh off the press and sometimes even before it hits the press, so UH that's always fun to provide them just up to date information on what we're doing and a little bit about my interest. Um. I'm a manager at heart, always have been, growing up on farm and growing up hunting and fishing and always spending time outside and wanted to be a manager. But life has its twist and turns, and as I was in school, was eventually got into a master's program, and then that led on to a pH d program and before you know it, you know I'm working as a professor at a university rather than sitting on a tractor working on a w m A as a wildlife manager. So my interests remained the same. And what I'm getting at is the research I conduct is always management based. It's always research that is designed to help wildlife managers, and that may be professional wildlife managers or it may be landowners who want to manage their land for wildlife. So that's the approach I take. Can you tell us a little about the types of research projects and issues that you're doing. I remember reading about some different things you've done when it comes to food plots and studying different types of forages and things like that. But I guess could you elaborate on that what specific types of things are you guys actually collecting that on. We have done lots of things over the years, and I will summarize a little bit of what we have done and what we are doing currently. Of course, we've done a lot of work with food plots, and for I think it was about twelve years or so, we maintained several sites and what we will call cafeteria style plots, and this was done throughout Tennessee, but we also occasionally had some sites in other states as well. But we looked at all kinds of forages, and for example, we might have a two or three acre field and that be separated into tent acre blocks that are planted two separately to twenty two twenty five different species, and we would maintain exclusion cages in those individual units, and we would clip the forages inside the cages after each month, and then we would have one cage that would remain for the entire growing season. So we could track things like what dear preferred first, second, third, fourth, right on down the line. We monitored how much forage deer eight each month. We had areas that had high deer densities, medium deer densities, low deer densities. We began to look at lots of different mixtures. What happens when we mix this together or that, what grows best together? How many pounds you know, what rate of each should be added, um which herbicides can we use to get rid of these weeds that are you know, coming into our plots, and then which mixtures are well suited because you can or cannot use herbicides with this forage, but you can with that forage. So in essence, we spent you know, twelve years at least, and then even longer than that with some of the other herbicide stuff, and what I would call putting a puzzle together as to which forages were best to use in different areas that deer preferred, that withstood grazing pressure or did not, that would be complementary in a mixture, and for which you could fight various weeds. So that's the food plot research. And we also did food plot research as related to either forest management, where we would implement practices in forests such as uh different types of harvests and thinning within without prescribed fire within without different herbicide applications, and compare that to food plot plannings. UM. We've done a lot of firework both in woods and in fields or early successional areas. We've done a lot of work looking at which plants deer eat, in which plants they don't eat, in early successional areas, how to manage those areas, whether by disking or burning, or different herbicide applications, mowing, drum chopping, on and on. A lot of stuff has been done over the years. With that, of course, we've looked at wildlife response to some of these things, whether it's especially Northern Bababwai, done quite a bit of work with with Northern Bababwai, whitetail, deer, elk, wild turkey, rough grouse, UM work with grazing UH, especially with native grass systems, the effects of grazing native grasses on grassland songbirds and and also on on Northern Babapwai it uh. And then of course herbicide work both in early succession whereas food plots and in the woods, whether that be broadcast applications or stem applications in the woods with regard to timber stand improvement. So both what I would say woods fields and food plots, a lot of different applied management approaches. Wow, I have a I have a quick question. And I know you're on a roll. We're going in the right direction. But this next question is kind of for just my curiosity. But when you use the term wildlife research, are you, guys um when you do your research, are you looking at all types of animals, all types of wildlife from you know, the biggest animal, which might be a deer, all the way down to bugs and birds and squirrels and you know, smaller mammals. There are projects that do that, and and I have been involved in some of those and and have led some of those. But most of what I do is strictly habitat based of For example, we might we have an ongoing project right now where we're looking at, uh, the effects of field management on habitat for different species. All right, so we know what represents habitat for grasshopper, sparra, northern bob, white white tail, deer, phons, wild turkey, polts, eastern cotton tail, etcetera. I know what represents habitat for those species and what is not. And we know what the vegetation measurements should and should not be for those species because that work has been done and it's published in the literature. But the questions that remain is how should we manage some of these areas to get the composition and structure of vegetation that these species prefer. When you put, for example, radio transmitters on these species and follow around, follow them around and see where they go and where they don't go, does that make sense? Yes? It does? So sorry, were you going to continue? Well, I'll just say one other thing. Of of course, research is always uh metered by funding, and so it doesn't cost as much money for us to go out and look at habitat management practices and just measure the effects on the vegetation, the forage, etcetera, whether whether for cover or forage, as it does for us to go out and do that and spend many, many, many, many thousands of dollars on radio transmitters, trapping these animals, paying people to follow them around, etcetera. And the size of the area that you need to look at is is infinitely greater when you're looking at you know, the home range of a wild herkey, or the nesting territory size of an indigo bunning or a field spare or whatever. The case may be as opposed as opposed to just looking at the vegetation effects. So you know, the size and complexity of the project is always much greater when you're involving um home range habitat use of different species. Interesting. So, so you had talked a little bit about a second ago about you know, different types of ideal composition of habitat and all the different um you know, needed aspects of habitat for certain species. So you know, let's talk about deer, of course. Can you describe to us the ideal habitat situation for deer, the composition of of you know, timber versus early successional habitat versus, etcetera, etcetera. Can you describe what that ideal habitat would look like? I think that might be helpful for our listeners to compare that to maybe what they do or don't have. Yes, and I'm gonna make this really really simple, and I hope people will appreciate that. And it's not going to be what most people will be looking for. Um. Most people are probably going to expect me to say something like it should be uh, mature forest, young forest or brushy cover ten percent early successional cover and five percent food plot or you know whatever something like that. That is not the case. Period ideal habitat for a white tailed deer is an area where they have sufficient food and sufficient cover to obtain maximum body size and are able to reach age where they can represent and show their maximum atler size. It's as simple as that. Now, think about this, How could I give you a certain percentage of woods or fields or anything else When we can go into Wisconsin where there's lots of Boone and Crockett books and the vegetation composition is totally different than if we drop down into south central Kansas and there's no forest whatsoever, and so the mixture of forest to field and brush and all that. You can't say that it needs to have certain percentage of this, certain percentage of that. Just look at it as a as a much more simple concept, adequate cover, adequate food to allow them to reach maximum body size and maximum matler size if they reach you know, an appropriate age. Um. You just can't really look at it any other way. And then it's funny because I was in a conversation similar earlier today where someone was talking about where they needed x amount of mature forest in Pennsylvania for acron production and uh you know the the uh forbes that are growing in the wood woods during the springtime, how nutritious they were, etcetera, etcetera. We only get a good acren year about uh one or two years out of five. If mature woods are that important, then what are the deer deer and doing during those three or four years when we don't hardly have any acrons? What about those deer in Kansas where there's there's no acrons in certain portions of Kansas, no oak trees. How about South Texas? Ever seen any mature forest that in South Texas? You've seen lots of big deer down there though, So again, you can have big deer with mature woods if the mature woods are managed in a certain way and if there's other vegetation types along with the mature woods. But you don't have to have mature forest in order to have uh good deer habitat. That makes a lot of sense. My question then, is, though, how does someone go about auditing their own property or trying to quantify, you know, what the the right move is on their own unique piece. How do you go about figuring out what that optimum level of food versus cover to manage and and get your dear to you the best health is possible into the adequate care and capacity. How do how can the average guy go about figuring that out? Because it kind of seems like a from high level makes a lot of sense, but how do I actually do it on the ground. Yeah, that's it's a good question, but it's very complex, and that every property is different and different regions are very different, and dear, home ranges are going to vary at least somewhat from uh place to place. But in a nutshell, when I go to a property and I'm helping someone who is truly concentrating on deer, the first thing I identify is, you know, number one, their objectives, and and then what is owned the property with respect to the habitat at composition? You know how much woods, how much fields, how much agriculture, et cetera. And then look at the forage base, how much forage is available naturally occurring forage, what's going on around the property. It needs to fit in with what the person is doing on this property. That's always a limitation. Uh, you know, if you have five or eight thousand acres, that's one thing, but especially for you know, the poor soul is trying to manage, you know, twenty eight acres, a hundred and fifty acres, even three hundred acres whatever, I mean, they're they're highly susceptible to what the neighbors are doing. So that cannot be overstated how important it is to look at what the neighbors are doing, try to work with them, and try to look at what's being provided outside your property boundaries, and then what you need to provide inside the property boundaries. And that's really important to look at an aerial photo and see, Okay, where is the cover, where is the food? Lots of times where the cover is you actually don't need cover there. You would be better off with food there. And and many times where there is food or where there is some kind of field, really you would be better off with some good cover there. So think about the arrangement of cover versus food, what's going on on surrounding properties. And then we dropped down at the property level and get outside and look around on the ground. And one of the first things that I do is, of course ask them about any records they may have on dear density whether that be uh harvest records or whether that be of course, some survey that they've done with cameras or whatever else. Get a feel for how many deer there. Look at the plants. I can look at various plants and see which ones are eating and which ones are not, and the extent to which there they are eating. Obviously you're gonna see, you know, uh, get some feel with the density of tracks around in certain areas. You know, you get a feel for about how many deer are talking about. And then you start looking at, uh, what the condition of the understory is in the woods. You know, if I'm in the eastern United States where there are woods, what kind of plants are there, what kind of forage is there, what kind of cover is under there, for example, for for falling. Uh Usually usually it's it's it's poor, too bad, and there's lots of work that could be done to the woods to improve that. And then you get outside the woods and you look around in fields, and so often there either hay fields or they're just old fields with a base of non native perennial grasses, whether that's tall fescue or brom grass, or if you're down south bermuda grass or whatever the case may be. You've got to get rid of that. You get rid of that, and by default, instantly you've increased the forage availability by at least tenfold just by killing the the unneeded grass that is keeping everything else from growing. So there's lots of little simple things that can be done to really increase the quality of forage and the quality of vegeta of of cover that's available on the property. So with the like probably rambled a little bit there, but it's that's a complex question with you know, lots of ifs and the ends right, So what you're kind of what you're trying to say, there is no magic equation like X plus Y equals z type of scenario. But in order to you know, you do your research projects and in order to hit your goal of you know, Z equals big racks, big bodies, you know, the maximum potential for those two things. How much trial and error can one person expect to have to go through or upping something or taking something down a notch to to reach that maximum potential? Not trying to be facetious, but uh, most likely for the rest of their life or as long as they're in this um I tell people all the time. Habitat management is not an event that then it is a way of life. The vegetation is going to continue to change until Gabriel blows his horn, and you've got to be there to manage that and get that steered in a direction that is suitable for that species. And you know, for example, we go back to the to the woods or open area and we're in you know again, uh, pick on south central Kansas. That's a really nice place to be, but you're out there. Another factor is, Okay, what is the current land use? Are they grazing it? Are they haying it? Uh? Does the landowner have an uncle that's using it? For this? That there's always a restriction on some property. I have no idea how many properties I've been to a lot all over the place. I have yet to visit one property. I've never visited one ever that there isn't some kind of restriction that keeps you from going full bore as far as you can go. Most often it's money, but almost as often it's something related to money, such as, well, we really need to grow this, and we got to grow hay over here, and we need cows over there, and we really like to see those woods in this condition. Or uh uh, my brother he really likes to mow. He likes to see it clean. There's always always something, and it's usually uh, you know, somewhat difficult process to to try and work around what at or those some things are. But as long as you have good cover that is relatively dense from about four or five feet tall and down, and you have lots of good food, and it's placed strategically both with regard to holding the deer own your property and with regard to your hunting's success, all of which is really figured out on an aerial photo rather than on the ground at least initially. Uh, you're going to be in good shape. So if anybody tries to tell you what percentage of woods or what percentage of of fields that you need to be optimum, I would look at that with a raised eyebrow and uh, and then start to question it a little bit. So so I guess, continuing down this line of thought, then if if I'm a property owner, I'm looking at my property, I think if I had to really dumb it down, oversimplify and correct me, if you think these are not the right categories. But if I had to oversimplify the categories of habitat that I might want to consider, and we'll just assume this is a property that has all the buff Let's say there's timber management, maybe early successional habitat, and then potentially food plots. If we were to break it down in those three categories, which would you say is the most important just on average to start thinking about, because I think a lot of people when they think habitat projects, a lot of people jump to food plots. That's kind of the sexy thing to think about and to do and plan and put in. Is that where you think someone should jump first? And I know this is going to come down to a you know, parcel by parcels all you know, different for each person. But if you wanted to right now, if we could start the conversation and one of those three categories that you deem the most important at least for us to discuss, which would which would those be? If you're in the Eastern United States, on most properties, it's going to be your woods. Because on most properties that are managed for deer, that's what comprises a majority of the property. It always and I shouldn't say amuses me. But I've always find it curious why somebody wants to manage their property but they only want to manage about two percent of it. I mean, if I think about that, just think about that for a second. You really want to maximize your property for deer, but all you're concerned with is planting some food plots. And rarely does anybody plant any more than you know, two or three percent of their uh property and food plots. Yes, I have been to some that you know they have twenty five you know, planted in food plots, but uh, it's it's it's not necessary. And it is so much cheaper and efficient to manage woods and fields four deer than it is to manage food plots. I'm a huge fan of food plots. I just wrote a book, another book on on food plots, and they can help you get to that next level with regard to nutrition. But you've got to have a base. If you don't have that base and you're trying to manage your you're exclusively on food plots, believe me, you're going to be frustrated. So so let's start there. Then let's start with timber and then open area successional habitat. What should a deer hunter, dear manager be thinking about when it comes to managing their timber. How do they audit whether they're timber is high quality or not? And then if there needs to be improvements? Can you can you share this some some thoughts on how you might be able to go about doing that if they are wanting to manage specifically for deer. If the tree value is not what's important, but the deer's what's important, then it's very simple. It all comes down to sunlight. And so look at your property without seeing the trees. Try to envision this. You're looking across your property and you're in the middle of the woods. Try to see that. Just just remove the trees from your side. Now, what do you see whether you're standing in the woods or whether you're standing in a field. That should be the same. Does that make sense. I've got I've got vegetation. It's anywhere from heed to five feet tall. Okay, that's the starting point. That's the cover I need. And by default, for a majority of the plants, it's going to be some kind of decent forage. Some is always better than none, at least for the vast majority of species. But if I've got cover that is that tall in my woods, bam the deer in there. They're not going anywhere. They're not gonna run through my woodlot to get to the other side where there's a thicket. Do you follow me again? Look at your woods without seeing the trees. The all the trees are doing is blocking the sunlight. And they're providing a boost of acorns every once in a while, and that and that's the way that should be viewed. Just a boost of energy in the fall occasionally. Congratulations. But you can manage dear at the same level without acrons. The forage that is underneath, by far, by far is more important than the acrons that are produced every once in a while. Now do I manage for acrons? Also? Of course I do, because I have oak trees, you know, in these stands, and so why shouldn't I try to get that extra boost out of them. That should be viewed the same as your food plots, helping you give a little boost at different times of the year. So I'm managing my fields with UH and and and the fields are the early successional component that herbaseous UH plant community. You know, that's not a young forest. You know by the way, you know you've got a uh two or three or four year old regenerating stand. That's not early succession. That's a young forest. And when we talked about early succession, we're talking about her baseous plant communities that are out there the field. We get rid of the rank perennial grass. We got uh variety of forbes and uh maybe some scattered shrubs and that kind of thing coming up. It's uh four or five feet tall. It's perfect cover deer walking around in the daylight. Uh, they're perfectly covered up. Um, they're they're feeding around the entire time. They're bedding in there. Uh, they're bedding in there during the summertime, they're falling in there. They are are bedding in those fields in the wintertime, especially during the day when they get good direct solar radiation. And then we get over into the woods or the drawls, brushy areas, and that's where you work on having good thick cover uh for escape and uh. And you can either manage those areas where it's kind of moving around, you know, cutting different areas at different times to have that thick vegetation coming in, or if you don't have that much property you can burn for example, those areas where you got good thick woody cover. When it starts to get to that point where you can see, oh, let's say, you know, twenty yards or so, it's time. It's time to burn and set that back. And so then all that stuff re sprouts and you don't lose a year in your cover. It's it's right back to where it was. It re sprouts, vigorously grows very quickly, you know, on vast majority sides. Of course, there's always some exceptions to this, but on the majority sides, and then you can maintain that that good escape cover just in one particular area if you want, Can you elaborate on how to safely manage a prescribed fire like that in the timber to achieve that outcome that you just you just mentioned it, because I think for a lot of guys and gals that's a little bit intimidating, but I know that there's so many benefits of doing that. Can you walk us through what goes into that? Again, Mark, you're asking questions that would tell a lot of time to answer, but I'll try to be as succinct as possible. Number one and I have to say this, it's uh it should be automatic. You have to have a burned plan in which you are stating your objectives and then you were outlining how you're going to do this, and you are involving people who know what they're doing. If you don't know what you're doing, Okay, So I'm gonna say that's that's a given, all right, So I won't go into all the safety and whatever whatever. Um. Of course, you need a firebreak around the area that you're burning. A firebreak most often is created with a tractor and a disk or a bulldozer. It might be a road, it might be a creek, it might be a field on one side of the wood just been uh plowed or disked or whatever. Or if you're in the woods. What we do more than anything else, a couple of us and and me included. I don't just put this on the technicians backs, but we will put backpack blowers on our back while down through the woods and literally in uh forty five minutes to an hour's time, you can have a nice six eight foot wide firebreak be where the leaves are all blown out of the way right down to uh to the soil which obviously doesn't burn. And you know that is the firebreak, and you can have that connecting where there's a road or a creek or uh whatever the case may be, and that's how you contain the fire. Then, of course, you only burn when the weather allows you to. So you have to look at the weather days in advance, and you're targeting the forecast with regard to how many days since the rain, um, the temperature, the relative humidity, and the wind and so in essence, you want to burn on a blue bird day, not a cloudy day. If you burn on a cloudy day, you're probably going to have problems with smoke. And more times than not, the fine fuel moisture will be relatively high, and so you're just gonna produce more smoke and you don't get as good as a burn, and and you want to always get that smoke up and off of the area. And and there's something on the fire weather forecast called a mixing height that you pay attention to, uh with with an unstable atmosphere, where that smoke will rise vertically very fast. And then you have those transport winds way up there, you know, feet to transport the smoke and and get it off the site. So a blue bird day, relative humidity you know, usually somewhere between thirty and and uh uh a wind you know in stand um wind at that you know that's hitting in the face at about two to five. So then we go in and we light the fire on the down wind side of where we're gonna burn, immediately adjacent to the firebreak. And so your flame links are only you know, six eight inches tall, and you have a line of fire and it is backing against the wind because the wind is in your face. Correct or you follow me. You let that burn slowly with a back and fire. It's very safe. Uh. You're not wanting to damage the trees that you have not killed or cut down, and so you don't want a hot fire. You don't want an intense fire. You let that back through the area that you're burning. It's very safe. It's moving against the wind, it's moving slowly. Um. You can speed that up by running some strips of fire perpendicular to your line of fire. That's called a flanking fire. Uh. You also could use a strip heading fire, and that's where you walk in front of the fire line, the firing front with your drip torch, and you might walk up their fifty feet or so and walk parallel to the firing line, the fire line, and let that strip of fire then blow with the wind into uh that backing fire line. That's called a strip heading fire. But usually just let the fire back through the area. You might use some flank fires. UH take your time, let the fire do its thing. As long as you're getting the cambium layer, which is that layer just inside the bark of those little uh saplings and seedlings and the understory. As long as you're heating them up to about a hundred and forty five degrees, that's that's not that hot. Okay, that take and fifties grees, just forty five degrees, you've top killed them. And so you're continually setting back, setting back, setting by that growth in the stand to keep it at a level that is providing good cover for deer, providing forage for deer. You know, once that leaf structure gets up there six ft or so, you no longer have forage for deer. And once it gets up to that level, it's shading out everything on the ground. And so it's important, it's it's it's necessary to continually uh burn these areas to set back the successional process, and uh, make sure the sunlight is hitting the ground and stimulating the vegetation. How would you say that prescribed fire improvement compares to the quality of habitat you create with another timber improvement practice such as hinge cutting or select of cutting or clear cutting or anything like that. I mean, if you had to rank, I suppose your tools, how would you how would you do that? Well, think about it. Both of them are are all of those are using the same thing, which is what sunlight. That's exactly right. And so if you thin the trees with your chainsaw, which is necessary before you start using fire, because if you use a if use fire in a close canopy stand that is not allowing you know, at least twenty perhaps of sunlight coming through, then you're not going to stimulate the vegetation in the understore. There's just too much shade, see what I'm saying. So if you go in and you thin the trees, and whether you girdle and spray the trees, or whether you hinge cut or whether you cut them down, how long will that sunlight last before the regenerating trees grow up and prevent the sunlight from hitting the ground. How long do you think several years? That's right, And in the eastern United it States, it's it's it's amazing, very very consistently, it's gonna be six d eight years. So we target seven years as what we call the maximum fire return interval. So with that being said, you're asking me to rank those. Had I rather go in and burn my stand every five to seven years, or had I rather go in with a chainsaw and cut down more trees as frequently as needed, that's up to you. Now, one thing I can do with fire that you cannot do with a chainsaw is stimulate the herbaceous plants in the understory. If you're only cutting with a chainsaw on most sites, you're gonna be dominated by woody species, woody brows. Where you're using fire, you can turn much of that woody composition into herbaceous composition, and that's gonna mean drastic improvements in the nutritional quality. Most of the woody species are going to have somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve to eight crude protein. Most of the herbaceous species that you would be maintaining with fire are going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of at least eighteen up to you know, thirty four crude protein and much more digestible on the average. Can you can you ever have too much of that type of habitat? I mean when we talked, you talked earlier about the importance of properly thinking through how all the different pieces of a property work together. From a hunting standpoint, strategy standpoint. If I've got timber spread out across my property, would you tell me I should be improving it in this type of fashion all as much as they possibly can, or would you rather have some areas that are improved other areas not so much? Maybe so that we minimize dear travel in certain areas and maximizeing others. That's two different approaches. My My approach is to maximize things. Literally, when I'm riding around on a t v S with landowners, we are constantly pointing out what needs to be done. Why would you have this area that is not productive And there's a term that's been coined for that, it's called usable space. If it's not usable for a deer as cover or food, then in my opinion, something needs to be done about that. Now I realized that there is, uh, you know, an approach that you just mentioned to think about dear travel and them not see you or whatever. But that is not an issue with me because I know how to position roads, paths, et cetera, work with the wind. So everywhere on the property is usable for d here, and it doesn't have to be usable for the same thing. But I find it wasteful if there's an area the property that deer you know, are not using because there's no cover and no food. I for me, I don't see any reason for that unless that's you know, the driveway or something around the shop or whatever the case may be. Okay, fair enough, that makes sense. I can definitely see. I can definitely see that point of view. And I'll tell you something else that I've kind of called that is odd area management. I've never seen or heard anybody else mentioned it, but it's something that I routinely talk about. As you're driving around and you're along the edge of a field or the edge of the woods, you know, I asked, guys, why why have you not sprayed all this tall fescue that's along the edge of the field, or they're at the edge of the woods. I mean there's there's uh fifteen or twenty feet from right here over out of the edge of the woods, and you know they'll just look at you all, well, I don't know. It's just a little bit, that's true. It's just that little bit. But think about this, if you add up all of the little bit all over your property, you'd be surprised at what percentage of the property is in that little bit that is not managed, especially if your property is broken up, uh considerably, you know, with woods and fields and agriculture and different vegetation types. So so let's let's talk about these little bits in these open areas and such. You talked a little bit about earlier the importance of your open areas and managing old fields and everything like that. I know there's a lot to it. But for someone who maybe has not started diving into that at all. They know about food plots, they've dabbled maybe in food plots, but they have not been managing these fields to be maximized in nutrition and orcover. What does someone need to know to start managing their old fields in creating optimal early successional habitat Where we started, the number one thing. Number one thing, get rid of the non native perennial grasses. If you're in the northeast, that's gonna be tall fescue, orchard grass, and timothy. If you're in the mid South, it's gonna be tall fescue and orchard grass. If you're in the South, it's gonna be tall fescue, bermuda grass, and Behaa grass. And from the mid South down during the summertime, you're also going to have Dallas grass in many of those areas. If you're in the Midwest, UH, Missouri, East Kansas, portions of Eye what cent out through their southern Michigan, UH, You're gonna have tall fescue. You're gonna have a lot of brome grass, especially smooth brom, but you can have other brom grasses as well. Get rid of spray and kill all of the perennial, non native cool season grasses. UH. Best approach is to do that in the fall, after you've gotten a couple of good frosts. After those frosts, all of the warm season plants go dormant. Right Once they're dormant, then you can use a broad spectrum herbicides such as glyphosate to selectively kill the perennial cool season grasses that are vigorously growing and photosynthesizing at that time in preparation for their winter senescence. Although their cool season, they also will go dormant during midwinter, and so that is the optimum time to kill them because they're transporting all of those nutrients from the leaves down into their roots in preparation for winter senescence. If you spray them in the spring, you can get what appears to be a good kill, but you don't actually get as good of a kill on the root systems. And with in two years, you'll you'll likely see thirty thirty of that grass cover back out there. So you're saying by doing it later in the fall, after this frost, you can apply like you mentioned, like glyph which would be which would kill almost anything except for the fact incrept me if I'm wrong. But at that time of year, the types of grasses that you want to survive will be already going dormant, so they won't draw in that glyph and they won't have that negative impact, but it will kill the grasses that you do not want. Those perennial grasses I believe he says that is that right, That is correct. Unless the plant is photosynthesizing, the glyposide is not going to kill it. Glyphocide has no soul activity, and so if the plant is dormant, or if the seed has not germinated, an application of glyposide is not going to impact it. So rather than needing to go spot treating these with a little backpack sprayer, you could go out there with your a TV sprayer almost and and spray the whole area into much faster for fashion, it seems like absolutely And and for most of these fields that would need a broadcast application anyway because they're covered with these grasses. And while you're at it, use your spray gun and spray all those odd areas as well. And and at a minimum mark, at a minimum, by default. Just by doing that, you have increased the forage value of that field at least ten times, and usually a whole lot more than that. And you have immediately increased the cover value because of what's going to germinate and grow after all that rank grass cover is killed. Because all that grass coverage, you know, it's it's a sod and it's preventing the seed bank from germinating and growing, and so you've got it's it's like Christmas once. Once you kill that grass cover, you've got all this different stuff that's just popping up. You never know what you've got. You know, it might be something you know, sucky, like a tie or whatever, but it might be something really good, you know, and you shot then you never know. So you you just spray all the cover, you pull the what I call you pull the carpet off of the field and get rid of it, and then you let all that stuff underneath pop up and grow. Now, some of it you're not gonna like. You know, if you're out in the Midwest, it might be teasel. If you're down south, it might be sickle pod. If you're in the Northeast, it might be curly doc. You know, there's all kinds of you know, plants out there that you don't won't that are going to respond. Of course, there's gonna be some grasses to Johnson grass on many of these fields. When you kill you know, the brome grass or the fescue or whatever it's going to be on some of them, there'll be an explosion of Johnson grass. That's all right, remember this is a way of life. When that Johnson grass gets up there about eighteen inches tall, go over it with an application of You could use glade to say, but I would probably use plateau. That's a broad spectrum selective her beside that will kill the Johnson grass and won't keep most of the other plants that you want them to retain. So, you know, if anyone thinks that they can just go out there and you know, do something with quote their habitat, you know, once or twice and it be good that it's just that's incorrect. Habitat management is a way of life. It's something that you're gonna have to get into and don't be discouraged just because you see a plant that isn't good for deer, go out there and kill it. You know, if you enjoy killing deer, you are to enjoy killing plants that deer don't lie. So there you go. Now. I think when a lot of people think about providing nutrition for their deer, right they jump to food plots clover beautiful little green fields full of this lush, high protein food. But from what I've heard and from people like you, there's a huge nutrition, nutritional component to these types of these old fields, if you if managed properly like you discussed, they provide tremendous forge value. That is that correct, absolutely and in a great big way. You know, it's funny you mentioned that I just got an email here, let's see about an hour and a half ago there, and then that you want to talk about brand new hod Off press is not eman the press. I just got the email from the lab. I just got this from the lab an hour and a half ago. And I'm looking at at the exhale spreadsheet and the graphs, and uh, we did we put in some treatments for we mode portions of fields, and we burned portions of fields. And I'm looking at the crude protein and askid detergent fiber content, as well as the percentage of phosphate, potassium, and calcium. So I'll just run through a couple of these. Uh, Carolina geranium crude protein only nine acid detergent, fiber point five percent phosphorus. That's outstanding, especially on some of these poor souls that we have. Uh, let's see, where's another one that you would recognize. Here's a golden rod thirty two percent crude protein only eleven point eight percent acid detergent fiber uh point seven percent phosphorus. It's outstanding. Um. Of course BlackBerry, everybody is familiar with BlackBerry. Percent crude protein, ten percent acid detergent five. The percentage of acid detergent fiber, you want that to be low. In Anything less than about thirty five represents a highly digest table forage. So these are these are outstanding forages. But keep in mind when we're collect them, this is in the spring. We just collected these and send them to the lab because we want to see what is available. Two doze that are late in gestation and about to give birth that this right now is the period when the highest nutrition is required by both doze and bucks. You know bucks here they started growing their atlers of a few weeks ago, and so you want them to have optimum nutrition right now. Right now is the time we're we're in uh early to mid May, and they need the best that they can possibly have right now. These plants meat or exceed any food plot planning that you would plant. Okay, pick one. Um, here's daisy fleabane, and I'm mentioned in species that that dear highly select I'm not talking about plants that they don't eat. You know, we're we're looking at all plants, all kinds of plants out there, but I'm specifically looking at the ones that that they are selecting in the fields. And you know, we've record whether the plant is eating or not in what extent, et cetera, as I've mentioned for the food plot stuff as well. So uh, again, you are missing the boat terribly by overlooking your field. I mean, the poor guy out there that's got some you know, old field dominated by fescue and got some little trees growing up as ten acres that they're bush hogging every year. Oh my gosh, it's well, there's there's virtually zero food value out there, virtually zero ten acres. He can have four thousand pounds per acre just by spraying the fescue. Now that's gonna be a good one. But but easy almost anywhere uh one to two thousand pounds, and you know it might take, uh, of course, a little bit of effort with regard to spot spreading some pot problem plants like I mentioned. If you know Johnson Grice explodes, you know, don't think you can just spray the fescue and stop right there. As I mentioned, it's an ongoing process. But the value that you can get from these fields is truly outstanding, and and it's just really disappointing that more people don't understand that or don't take advantage of it. So would you stay for someone who's on a budget and they have some type of old field like this, and there they've been thinking, well that they want to put a food plot in. Would you tell that person, on average, their better bet for on a budget, and that's of a situation would be don't plow it under and plant something, take advantage of what you already have, optimize it, and create great habitat in that way. No, I would tell anybody that, regardless of how much money they have. Right and and think about this, I think, think about this, What are you going to plant that has more than you know, crude protein and uh point four point five point seven phosphorus and uh one to two calcium. I mean, these are outstanding forages. Now I'm not saying don't plant food plots, especially if you have the means to do so. Now here's the trick that in my opinion, a few people understand. Now you look at okay, when is nutrition waning or limiting on my property. Now, according to what you have out there in the fields? Are according to what you have in your woods and when it's growing and when it's providing what That's what you have to identify. When is nutrition limiting on your property for your for the for the deer that's on your property, then that's what you use to decide what you need to plant. You need to plant something in your food plot, then that is filling in that natural nutritional gap. Follow me, definitely. You don't just plant you know, whatever whatever because you know you saw somebody on TV doing that. You know what you see people doing on TV. I hope this isn't a revelation to anybody, but it's based on sponsorship. You know what I'm playing. I mean, let's just be real, real honest here, So and and and many products are outstanding. I'm not speaking for against any product, but don't be misled by what you see on TV and in the magazines. I mean, let don't don't just keep the wool over your eyes, pull your head out of the dirt. Think about your property and what you have available. Natural nutrition is limiting, hello that when you need to fill a gap. Okay, now, choose a planting whose natural production is greatest during that period. This is not rocket side, So okay, so let's continue from there. Then let's say we've reached this point where we've we've been optimizing our timber, we're spending time on our old, old fields. Now we find where these gaps are. What other considerations should I be thinking through before planning my food plots? Now, let's say it's the first time food plotter who's thinking through all these things for the first time. What are those first things or questions they need to answer before starting on a food plot project. I would go back to my photo. Go back to your photo and look where you won't cover and look at where you want food. Where you want food is not necessarily where there is an existing field. Okay, that's that's the first step determining where to plant your food plots. You determine where to plant your food plots according to your photo, not according to you standing out in in on the property and looking across the field, because too many times, well obviously you don't want to plant where it's adjacent to a road, and usually not where it's adjacent to a property line or whatever. But you've you've got to put together the puzzle for your property with an eye towards the arrangement of the cover and food. Now here's where the art comes in. And you're putting together an arrangement for what for your hunting success? Okay, were we all want to kill something? We're not just doing this because we want to see them healthy. Yes, we like and we want to see them healthy, but we want to see them healthy, Let's be honest, so we can kill them. And so as you were setting this up, you want to do so for your hunting success. So with that in mind, you determine the places that you want to plant. Um, what I would recommend is also to look at a souls map as you do this. Your souls map can help you determine some of these places. Especially you know, if if you've got several places where you might plant and over here's a place where the souls are much better than over there, that might help you determine where you need a larger feeding plot as opposed to a smaller hunting plot. Does that make sense? So you're looking at your photo deciding where to put what, looking at your souls map deciding where it would be best to put larger fields because where the souls are better. That means you will have to spend less money on amendments to achieve the yield that you were looking for. And something very interesting that we're doing right now we're all in the middle of it, is looking at this relationship between plant nutritional quality and souls, and it is extremely interesting. Most people and myself included, would intuitively think, Okay, why do we put out fertilizer to uh make plants more nutritious. No, we put out fertilizers and amend the soil with lime and you know, other amendments so we can achieve a higher yield, more tonnage or more bushels of grain, preaker, et cetera. There is no producer who fertilizes fields to make his soy beans more nutritious. They fertilize their fields to get a higher yield bushels per acre of beans out of their soy beans. So don't be mistaken thinking that your food plots are going to be more nutritious just because you add fertilizer to them, you're gonna have you're gonna obtain greater yield out of them, which is very important. Because you don't want to have to plant any more than you have to for the expense of planting and managing a food plot. Correct, okay, but there is a certain amount of of soil nutrients that are needed for that plant to grow. And so you can get uh lots of food plot plantings to grow in poor souls, but you're not going to grow very much. And if you take a plant sample of your soybeans, that our only you know if they're healthy, and they're only up there about, uh, you know, twelve inches tall, and you pull out those tender leaves and ends of the stem and you send in send those into the lab and you get the report back. It's going to be outstanding forward quality. It's just that if you have amended the soul, now your soil beans, according to what variety of planting, of course, is going to be three feet tall. And so instead of two hundred pounds per acre, you've got four or five thousand pounds per acre. Wow, I can definitely say how that makes a big difference. When you think about that way, well, think about your nutritional care and capacity and how many deer you can support. So so when it comes to now we're thinking through these types of questions. Now we're thinking about actually preparing a food plot location. Is there any common mistakes you've seen or anything that maybe is above the normal advice that you found from your research and experience when it comes to how to properly prepare food plot location and seabed or or amending the soil. Any any couple of things that stand out there that people should know about. If you're planting with uh a no till drill, your seed bed preparation is just spraying the existing vegetation and so as long as that vegetation is you know, and I'm talking about herbaceous vegetation. Uh, figuring that you've taken care of those small trees or something coming in, of course you're gonna have to get all that removed with mechanical you know, uh equipment or whatever. But uh, you spray the field with the appropriate herbicide. You know, almost always glide slike to kill everything down, and then uh you wait for the soil conditions to be appropriate, which usually is is very moist so you can get the proper seeding depth according to what you're planting. Well, you always want the proper seed and depth regardless of what you're planning. But for some uh plants such as you know, soybeans, they can be or cow pas for example, you know inch and a half to two inches deep, but I definitely definitely want them an inch deep, uh, you know. And then of course for smaller seeds, especially clovers, uh even chickory, joint vetch, et cetera. I don't want that any deeper than a quarter of an inch. It's essentially sitting on top of the ground. And so your seedbed preparation when you're planting with a no teel drill is simply to control uh competition. Now, if you're planting conventionally, you know, by by disking and covering the seed with a disk or what some people call I do all or what have you, then uh, you need to to work up the salt where you have for most things a fine seed bed, and then you have to pay particular attention to how deep your planet. And that's going to be more difficult with conventional equipment as opposed to no tail planting, which means for many things, you need to plant more seed per acre than you would if you were no til drilling, cause your seeding depth is not as precise, and so your German nation rate and your seedling survival is not going to be as good. And then finally, after you've prepared a really good seed bed and and of course beforehand you've amended it properly with you know, lime fertilizer or whatever, and especially if we're talking about small seeded species, it is critically important to go over with a culter packer, something that provides good firm seed to soul contact. And I'm not talking about a drag. A drag is something that you pull across the field to help smooth out the seed bed and break up clods and that kind of thing. But a culter packer actually firms up the seed bed and provide you with good firm seed to soul contact, which definitely improves UH seedling survival rates. So so the idea, I know a lot of people talk about using those two things interchangeably. Like if you only have a culter packer a culti packer, you can drag an old chain link fence or something like that. Is it really not going to achieve nearly as as much of what you want to with a dragon that way, or is it still a poor man's version that can kind of get the job done. Um No, it's not a poor man's version. It's just using uh, the incorrect piece of equipment. A drag does not achieved the same effect as a Culter packer. Period. If I don't have a Qulter packer, then I'm going to go over the field, usually with a four wheeler, and firm it up with the four wheeler tires and try it yourself. Go out there and top so your clovers, and then right across it with your fore wheeler about every you know, five or six ft or whatever. Come back two weeks later and look at the green stripes. There will be green stripes wherever your tires are, and in between there will be, of course some clovers or whatever you plan it coming up, but it won't look as good as one of those tires went across. I can attest to what you're saying, because that is I do not have a Culti packer, and so I do exactly that. I write over every square inch that I can of my food plots with my tractor tires. Very you know, cussing up myself for not just buying a Culti packer of the the whole time, and then I have seen where if I do miss an area, you can absolutely tell that you can. And you know, I'm not saying you need to pack the soul down. I don't want to pack the soul down. And you know I've got uh some big tractors that you know I would not do that with because that's that that's too much weight. I'm not trying to compact the soul. I'm just trying to provide good firm seed the soul contact, just just firming it up. Because if you don't do that, think of this. When conditions are are right, the seed germinates and you've got a little rootlet that's coming out of the seed, and if it can't get good immediate contact to mineral soul and it's kind of loose, you're not going to have as good a seedling survival as if it's you know, got good firm contact and that little rootlet can go right down into mental soil and start getting the water. And NU can said it need Yeah, it makes sense. Now I've got a question for Dan over there. You are a first time food player, so as you're hearing Craig walked through all these things from your perspective, as that person who hasn't yet dove into this at all, what are you thinking? What are your what's where are you still confused? What's your question about this? Because I'm I'm hearing all this and I've done it before and I'm familiar with it. But from your perspective, where's where's your head at? Where your questions at? My My whole big thing that I'm going to have to focus on is the this area that I have is an old garden. It has been cleared and in a garden was placed there years ago where they grew vegetables. Now it hasn't. No one's taking care of this area for you know, two years, maybe three years maybe, and there's now this weed bed basically of a grass. My whole thing is how am I going to get equipment down there to get this grass out? You know, I'm gonna spray it, I'm gonna kill it, and I might even do a burn from the sounds of it. But I'm still curious on what needs to be done to remove that that I guess first inchest of where all the this bad grass is growing for me to be successful when I do plant my seeds and you're gonna plant conventionally. Uh, well, I'll probably plant broadcast style. Um. Yeah, So you're gonna you're gonna disk up a seed bed and then you're gonna top sow the seed. Correct? Correct? Uh what equipment do you have, Dan? I'm men do a four wheeler with a disk or some kind of planner or a tractor and a desk or what. As of right now, I have two arms and a garden rate. All right, And you just want me to hang up? I can no. No, there there is hope, but it's a different style. What you're gonna have to do is something called um no till top sewing. Okay, okay, you're not gonna know till drill. You're gonna no till tops o. And you're gonna be forced to use something that has small seed if you know, till tops so large seed such as you know, as I mentioned, cow peas or corn or soy beans, what have you. It's gonna lay there on the ground and rot. It needs to that. Those seed need to be covered, and you have no way to cover the seed. So what you're gonna rely on is mother nature allowing the seed to sift down through dead and decay and organic material that you're gonna spray and kill and it will finally get into a place where it can germinate and grow and you can get a good stand out of that. But you're gonna have to sew at approximately double the rate that you would if you were preparing a seed bed. Okay. And I can't sit here on the phone and tell you exactly what I would do in that field because I don't know what is in that field, But for most of those situations, uh, what I would do is so the best thing for those situations small all seed would be something like, of course clovers or during the warm season, where are you dan, uh Eastern Iowa, Eastern Okay? Well, Uh, I would stick with clovers, and later in the in the growing season, like in in August. You also could know till tops O some brassicas and and and they will come up. Uh you can know till tops, so uh, some cereal grains. I would recommend an onless variety of wheat, and that will that will, that will do fairly well. The critical thing is you've got to control that vegetation. And what I like to do is about three weeks before I hope to see my planting germinate and come out. I will sow the seed at that time and then go through and spray the entire area with glyphosate. In three weeks time, that material is going to die down and it's gonna you know, be starting to fall down on the ground, uh, providing more organic material and you'll see your planet uh seeds starting to come out. Now according to what the seed bank is, you know, you could have uh some other stuff come out as well, and then you're going to be at the mercy of the seed bank with regard to what you can get rid of with with clovers, there's some really good herbicides that you can use to attend to weed pressure. But um, you know that that's something that you have to attend to. So I would look at no till top sew and and spraying at least three weeks prior to when I hope the seed would germinate and start to grow. Got you. Well, there you go down and of course and of course apply the appropriate amount of lime and fertilized according to your soul taste. Right. So okay, so you you started walking us through some different forage options. Given Dan's set of circumstances, and you also alluded to this earlier, how you shouldn't just plant based on what you see on TV. A lot of people, you know, ask what's what should I plant my food plot? And they expect there to be one single answer that's always going to be correct, And of course it's always gonna be different based on your goals, your circumstances and also done different things like that. But could you walk us through at least the process that you think somebody should go through when trying to answer that question for themselves. What is the right thing to be planning? We've we've already talked about looking for the gaps in nutrition across your property. I'm sure that's part of this, but is there anything else that somebody should be thinking about when trying to answer what should I plan? Well, again, I would go back to what I mentioned earlier about looking at the property and identifying, you know, when those gaps are, and then I'm looking at what is providing food at that time. So that's going to vary a little bit with regard to where you are in the country and you know, the the growing season, of course, but just about everywhere think about this. You tell me when our bucks beginning to grow antlers where you live April April and what if you're in Oklahoma beats same time? What about New York time or even North Florida. You know, it's interesting that the timing of bucks growing antlers is really actively tight across the country as opposed to the timing of the rut. Have you ever thought about that? I think it's pretty pretty interesting. It is. So if I'm trying to plant something that is going to provide optimum nutrition for bucks, I'm looking at what's occurring on my property naturally, and I want to make sure that at that time, uh, there is just plentiful, high quality forage. If there's not, you definitely need something that's gonna fit that April May and early June winda um for most areas of the country of the antler growth is complete by August the one so a lot of people, you know, they will plant soybeans, which I am. I am big on planting soybeans for for various reasons. But you know, if you go in and drill your beans or plant your beans in early to mid June, or let's say you planted them in mid May, but you put a fence around them to keep deer out until late July. What did you just achieve You've kept deer from eating the highest quality forward you have during the time that they needed the most. I mean, it's just it's just ultra curious to me. Why why would you do that? I mean, unless you're planning some little bit of plot, you know, for for bow hunting or something like that, and you've got so many deer you can't even get a food plot to grow, which you know, I would argue you have other problems then, But anyway, I want something during that April to June time period, and something that is really good regardless of where you go across the country is perennial clovers and chickery during that time. UM. Another good forage during most of that time is some of the annual clovers. Uh according to where you are, that maybe uh crimson, that may be air leaf, that may be balanza, that may be barsine, and there are some cold tolerant varieties of barsine. Don't overlook the annual clovers that they they will have a place in the management strategy of food plot UH, strategy of most properties. You know for deer and if I'm needing something during the wintertime, I'm concentrating on uh a cool seasoned grain, along with annual clovers and uh of course possibly various brassicas. The perennial forages are not producing forage during the wintertime. Uh literally, unless you're down south where you've got really really mild winters. Uh Well, most areas of the perennial clovers and chicory or in in alfalfa or either dormant, wilted down, or producing no more than literally twenty five or fifty pounds pre acre during during midwinter. They are not what you're looking for. You're looking for annual, cool season cereal grains, especially oats and wheat, and in some areas of really far north, I would go as far as say cereal rye uh annual clovers in the and in various brassicas. And then during that summer period if you're down south, I like uh joint vetchan and alice clover. I like soybeans and cowpeas almost anywhere. But you've got to think about the growth cycle of these plants. You're usually planting them. You know it's going to differ. You know, in latitude, whether you're in uh Michigan or North Louisiana, of course, but typically you're talking about planting in in May early June and something like that. But those plants need a while before they're really providing much production. And so your peak production is going to be August through September according to you know what variety, et cetera. So that's an important time, especially for fons. You know, after fons are winged, they're requiring a very high crew protein content, you know, like nineteen and so that's the time when those natural forages that we talked about earlier that are you know, crew protein, are very low, relatively low in uh nutritional value, although many of them continue to produce leads on the ends of the stems that are very high in in UH in nutrients. And and that's something that's that we found very interesting looking at the difference in nutrition level of young leaves versus old leaves on given plants. But you've got to feel that window of times of the year when nutrition is limited on your property. So as you as you've been discussing this, you've brought for a couple of terms that people new to food plotting may not be familiar with and that's annuals versus perennials and cool season versus warm season. Can you can you help us better understand what those mean and then what are the right applications or or the benefits to either or. An annual plant germinates grows, flowers, produces seed, and dies in one year or within one year. A biennial species germinates grows, for most of them will overwinter either with green leaves or a green rosette, according to what plant you're talking about, and then it will flower the next year, produce seed, and die. A perennial species will germinate and grow. Most of them will flower their first year, produce seed, and then go dormant, and then arise again from their roots system each year thereafter, according to which one you're talking about, from many years, so a perennial species continues to come back from the roots. An annual species relies on throwing off seed to uh to continue you know that species, to persist, and a bi annual species throws off the seed uh in in its second year. Warm season is uh. I won't get into great detail, but in essence, a majority of them grow and produce most of their growth during the warmer months of the year and flower and produce seed toward the end of summer and uh fall. Cool season species grow during cooler months of the year, but not necessarily through the middle of winter, but certainly during the fall and spring months, and they typically flour and produce seed in spring or early summer. So the phonology the timing of these plants is absolutely critical for you to understand in order to one put together a food plot mixture and number two meet the demands of when a new nutritional gap may occur. You know, it's I said something about, you know, the commercial products I am. I am neither positive or negative on them, but I look at them objectively. When I turned the bag upside down and look at the seed tag, and it's got warm season plants and cool season plants, and fords and grasses and a little of this, a little you know, you can just flip that over and put it down. They have put that mixture together for somebody out there is totally ignorant, and they're going to plant it in a wet spot, a clay spot, a dry spot, a sandy spot, and win or summer whenever, and they expect to see something come up and and and they will, but oftentimes at least half of the contents in the bag is totally wasted because they're planting it on the wrong side or at the wrong time whatever. If you understand what you're planting and why, then you're only gonna have species in the mixture that fit the need and the time of when you're planning, and and your successes is far greater. So to the annuals versus perennials again, what would be the benefits to using one over the other. I've certainly, I've certainly got on this path, and I think I understand it. I've been utilizing annuals to reach some of my goals and prails for other goals. But for those that haven't, maybe you know, I just try to understand that distinguishment and utilize that or choose which is the right of the two for their goals. What would that be? When would you use each in different applications? Um, If if I'm up north, then I'm using more perennials than annuals. Probably, and it's according to the property, but probably because perennial cool season species Ladino clover all site clover alpha alpha chickory, etcetera. It's peak production is made through July early August. So although it's it's called a cool and it is cool season species, it's peak production time is during the summer. And that's especially true in the northern latitudes. So the perennial cool season species act as a warm season forage. Then if I'm up north, I'm also going to have either annual cool season species to fill any uh nutrition gaps in winter, or I'm going to have something like soybeans and corn, which are warm season species, but they have food, you know, either the soybeans seed or the corn grain that is available in fall and winter for a good energy source. And of course if you have soybeans, then obviously that provides an outstanding warm season forage source as well. And that's really the reason why soybeans, in my opinion, all things considered, soybeans have to be ranked number one of all food plot plannings because they provide such outstanding warm season forage as well as a fall and winter uh source of energy in their beans. But but food plus soybeans are not you know, a cure all for for for everything. You're You're not going to have of uh soybeans available during that March April May time in most areas of the country, you know, way down south, you can you know, plant soybeans priorily, but still then they're just gonna be tiny and trying to come out of the ground. So during that uh late um or you know, the the early phoning in late just latestation periods in the early phoning and that initial antliger and phase soybeans are providing nothing because they're not out there. And is that that's probably somewhere worth than like your perennial clover might fill that gap, right that that's correct or according to where you are, various annual clovers as well, and um you know, one of a favorite mixture of mine is winter wheat with crimpson clover and araw leaf clover. And according to the situation, I might also add red clover with that. But the crimpson clover and the and the wheat come out of the ground, you know within with with if there's moisture within two weeks after you planet, and so you've got a graze herble stand within four weeks. It goes right through the winter. It will continue to produce through the winter and it, and the crimson clover is good up to about southern Pennsylvania southern Michigan, you know that latitude and and down and air leaf clover might be a touch lower than that, but those two grow through the winter. The crimson clover will flour and die in late April. At that time, it's when you really see the air leafs start to pop out and you know, grow out of the crimson clover. And at that time, the wheat is bolting and producing a seed head. If you've used an onless variety of wheat, or some people call it beardless. You know those wheat seed heads that have those long, stiff hair like structures on it, those are called LMS A w N. Do not plant uh and on the variety of wheat, plant on less varieties of wheat, it's producing a seed head. At that time. Deer will eat those seed heads in the milk stage, and then they will eat those seed heads after they've dried. And on a pro acre basis, you can get you know, a thousand, fiftundred pounds of forage just out of the wheat seed heads. That's free energy. Why would you not take advantage of that? That's one reason why I tend to place wheat above oats and cereal right, because of the value of the wheat seed head. Now, Dear will selectively choose of the cool season grains oats first, cereal right second, and wheat third. And then also, if you have barley, it's it's way way way down, uh, whenever we planted barley and wherever, deer don't touch it, but they will hammer the oats, the rye and the wheat. And when I say rye, please know that I'm talking about annual rye serial right. I'm not talking about rye grass. That's a completely different species. And there is no situation whatsoever anywhere in which I would plant rye grass. There's simply way, way too many other things to plant that are far better and that are much highly selected by deer uh than than rye grass. And so even though oats is selecting number one serial righte number two and wheat number three, I typically go with wheat number one because, first off, the value of the seat did but number two. If you have all three of those out there, you will see dear select one over the other of the other. But if you take one of them away, they will be eating the other two. If you take one of those away, they're gonna be eating the one that's left, just as if you you had the other two. You see what I'm saying. So you know, if you don't have oats or right, they're gonna eat wheat like they would oats or rye if if they were there. Um, but if they're together, they'll select the oats first. So if you're just trying to plant a highly attractive plot and you're not worried about carrying nutrition through the winter, oats is a perfectly fine thing to use. Uh, It's it's very attractive. It's an outstanding forwards. You you know, amendo soul where you can get good production and uh, the nutritional value gonna get easily in excess crew protein and and until the cool season grains begin to bolt, the acid detergent fiber content will be very low. But once the those cool season grains, those grasses start to get large and begin to bolt, the dear use of them drop off precipitously. Now a lot of people look at that or gosh, you know they're not eating any of this. We just need to mow this to, you know, get some fresh growth. Well, if you're planting using wheat and you have those clovers mixed in with it, you don't want to do that because the clovers are still in there and that's providing really good, attractive, nutritious forage. Plus the wheat then will produce that seed head that that deer. Then we'll come in and I mean, it's it's amazing that you know, the pictures that we have where we get down and take a picture, you know, about two ft off the ground, it's just nothing but wheat stock spikes all across the field with not one seed head on it. It's it's it's it's very attractive during that time Megan June and and the air leaf is coming out. The air leaf persist until July. It'll start uh flowering in July, and it'll finish up in late July. So right, there's a plot that I plan it in early to mid September. At this latitude, it is provided outstanding forage and every month of the year through late July. And then if I had red clover, according to what latitude I'm at, that red clover will persist until August. That is the only mixture that I'm aware of, and all of our work that truly is a year round food plot. For dear, there is nothing else. There is no other mixture that I'm aware of that is truly year round in terms of producing during every month of the year and have an adequate standing crop that is sufficient for pretty dog on heavy grays in every month of the year. Mhm. Now, as you're talking about this mixture, I know that there are and you you kind of alluded to this already as well, that there are some things that mix well together. There's some things that don't or they don't make sense to mix together at all. Um, are there any other other handful or a couple of different other mixtures that you've found work well together for whatever goal it might be that you want to you as an example. Oh, yes, there's there's lots of them, and uh, we've put them all in this food plot book. Um. And you know I can't go through all these different mixtures, but you know it's it's easy to get a hold of. You can go to the the UT Extension and Publication site and order it. You can go to the Quality Deer Management Association website and and and order it. And we've you know, we put all of this together. And in this edition here I've put a plant i D Guide in the back of it that shows nice full color pictures, you know, several pictures of each species, so you can see what these plants are that might be growing in your food plots or in your in your fields. How to identify whether they're good for wildlife or not, and if they're not, you might do use or spray to get rid of them. That's perfect. That was exactly one of the things I was wondering about as we were talking through all is different aspects of habitats. How do you identify which ones are good, which ones are bad, what the deal with them? And that's that sounds it is not easy to find that information. And I get asked at all the time, and it took, to be quite honest with you, a long time to put this together. But uh, and and you know, there's there's still more that that that I'd like to add, and might do that in a in a later edition, but this one I think I've got. Don't hold me to this, but it's it's more than two d and fifty species it's in there. And uh, of course it's not everything that you would find everywhere. But it's got species and pictures in there from uh everywhere from Michigan and Iowa and Kansas to uh Mississippi, the mid South, New York, Pennsylvania, throughout the Eastern United States across to the Great Plains. So, in addition to the species identification and those things you just mentioned there, what else is in the book? What else should we be looking for? Well, the first of the whole portion of the book is a guide to wildlife food plots. So it tells you everything from considerations and a food plot management plan, UH, considering your objectives, UH, everything about souls, soil nutrition, amending souls, everything about the various nutrients and lime. It's there's a chapter of course on weed and pest control, all about the herbicides and pesticides. There's a chapter on deer, a chapter on turkeys, a chapter on UH bob white morning dub waterfowl, a chapter on woods roads. UH. There's appendices that provide planting charts and UH charts on which species do you prefer? For a second third, UH appendacies on the herbicides and pesticides. UH. And and then you've got the whole plant I D Guide In the back of it. So so this is I think it's a perfect place for us to wrap things up too, because we've taken a lot of your time and we appreciate that. But it sounds like if anyone out there this conversation is that that the the appetizer, this is the beginning of your interest in food plots, or you know you want to do it, but you haven't really had what maybe the resources or the get up and go to go do it. Now, if you've heard this and you're excited and you're motivated, or you want that little extra, it sounds like this book of yours, Craig is going to give them everything else they need to do to take from our conversation here as a starting point to then apply to everything else they need to to go and actually put something in the ground that will make a positive difference for their dearness. I believe you're also there's also more information about the early successional habitat as well. Correct, Yes, uh that you know that plant I d guide in the back that is a guide to early successional plants, and there's information in there on of course, managing early successional areas, and we have other publications on that as well if if somebody goes to my web page perfect well on that note, then Craig, I know you mentioned it briefly, but can you again tell us where we can find that information and where we can purchase the copy of the book, either through the University of Tennessee. Uh, you can go to UT Extension or you can go to the Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries. Uh. It's easy enough just by googling my name and uh U T and you'll find that easy enough. And of course the Quality of Deer Management Association carries the book. They provide it in uh in what they call their shared where you can buy products and and I might also mention the people who want to get more of this kind of information. We we provide this and so much more in those Dear Steward courses offered through the Quality Dear Management Association, and they're held across the country, and uh, you know, it's a great opportunity for somebody learned all kinds of stuff about dear dear habitat and uh you know, some aspects about hunting as well. So true, Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, I attended one of those courses I think seven or eight years ago, and it really was one of the without a doubt, probably the single greatest educational opportunity I've had when it comes to Dear Habitat and all these things. So so I can't I cannot recommend them enough and creg are you gonna be participating in them again this summer? Yes, we have uh I think two Dear Steward one courses and at least to Dear Steward two courses. Okay, one of them is coming up here pretty soon and in Iowa. Uh yea. If they through, I believe it is great. And I think that includes a site visit to Bill Winkie's property as well, which I which I imagine would be pretty interesting. Yes, yes, it'll be. It'll be a fun time. That's terrific. Well for anyone out there who who hasn't already checked that out, I highly recommend definitely giving it a look. And if you can't make one of the in person opportunities, which which I do think are the best way to go about it, I think there are also some great opportunities with the online modules that are available. There's an online version of the Dear Stuart of course, which definitely can be a great education too, so check those out at qum a dot com and Craig, I just can't thank you enough. This has been really, really interesting and I think for everybody out there who's ever wondered about food plots getting started or taking their food plot game to the next level, I think you just made a huge difference for them. So thanks for that. Well, you're most welcome and I enjoyed it and appreciate you asking me to be absolutely and Dan had to jump off because of children issues with a little little kids in the family, but he wanted to say thank you as well, Craig, so I we will make sure to include links to everything you mentioned for folks to check out the book and uh, I guess until we chat next time. Thanks again and good luck this summer and fall. Alright, very good same to you and look forward to seeing you again. Well there you go, talk about a serious education on deer habitat. Just awesome, awesome stuff there. And with that we are going to wrap things up a few quick reminders though. First be sure to check out the New Wild podcast. We've just released a new episode featuring Rod Owen of the Jury Outdoors team, and we're discussing how to sell film your hunt, so check that out and please subscribe and leave us a rating or review on iTunes. It's a huge help. We also need to thank our partners who helped make this podcast possible, so big thank you too, Sick of Gear, Trophy, Ridge Bear Archery, Redneck Blinds, Tara Maps, Oxonics, Carbon Express, Maven Optics, and the White Tailed Institute of North America. And finally, thank you all for joining us. I hope this episode inspired you to get a little dirt in your hands and to get outside improving deer habitat. And of course, until next time, stay Wired to Hunt.