My winter deer habitat is definitely lacking. My woods looks like the open woods you showed in the video. Definite changes ahead. Thank you for the great video on a cold winter day.
We noticed that deer prefer the corn to be flattened or otherwise knocked down. Our theory is that they feel safer in it because they can see the wolves we have. When it was standing, they didnt even go in it in the winter. They would circumvent it eating only the edges.
They 100% prefer it more when it's knocked over. It's a bit of a gray area though here in MN with the regulations. Some COs consider it baiting, the regulation on it are as clear as mud. I wish they'd just clarify whether or not it's legal. Perfectly legal in lots of other states though.
Understand the corn 🌽 over beans for forage amounts if you have the ability to plant it .. but the beans are high protein versus All carbs for the corn ... deer need protein over carbs during winter ... but Any food during rough periods helps dramatically...with All those cost for lime fertilizer diesel fuel seed costs and Tons of work I'm getting to the point of just putting out several feeders with great protein pellets .. out of season and possibly small quality plots during hunting season when Feeders are Obviously NOT permitted to be running !! Great analysis n breakdown !! Continued Success 😎
Great video and information for Northern hunters. Thanks for your efforts! Rough season on my property even though my food plots were in great shape. You definitely got me excited about getting the chainsaw going. Think I'll plant some confers too...
Great video Sam, multi-species diversity, thermo-cover, increased stem density & available browse play big roles in getting deer through the northern climate winters in good shape.
Im from the Red River Valley. 99% of the time on a normal hard winter, deer here will migrate MILES to a spot along the RedRiver that someone planted a field of SugarBeets. Basically ZERO browse here to sustain deer. If it wasnt for Beets, our deer herd would be almost Zero. No one here plants foodplots to sustain deer. A few do micro kill plots. Sucks for sure. Enjoy your channel Sam. .
Man that's rough....I've worked out in western MN some and that wide open landscape is a whole different ballgame when it comes to deer habitat management. And thanks for the kind words and following along!
Definitely got some ideas from you, especially adding spruce around some of my mature white pines, and also ensuring I have woody browse within that area. I wish I had the area and equipment for beans and corn, but I don’t and will have to rely on brassicas in my small plots here in NW Wisconsin. Thanks for the video.
Yah I get that on smaller properties. A Dr. Craig Harper trick if you ever want to try beans is to double or even triple the planting rate to try and out compete the browse pressure. Beans will plant via tilling and packing them in.
Great video. Yall have some pretty country up there. Hack and squirt and fire are just like a chainsaw, they're a tool that can be used in many ways to accomplish different objectives. Fire and hack and squirt can be tools to promote woody growth in the understory. We use hack and squirt and fire to manage our oak regen areas. We kill certain species we dont want, others we cut and allow to re-spout. But we herbicide low value timber and low value browse species. We have 3-6 ft. oak saplings packed with green briar and blackberry in our burn units. Ive used those methods on thousands of acres in OH. Its how our state forest are managed as they regenerate sites before harvest. The difference from what you explained is we push our fire intervals 4-6 years once the desirable species are established. Historically our Oak forest in OH established with a 7 year fire interval. Up in your neck of the woods id guess you need to be burning on that higher end maybe 7-8. Light it up before your low value saplings get above the reach of the deer, or outpace your oaks. It happens quick with full sun. Those oaks will re-sprout to their full size in one or 2 seasons. Promote diversity of structure by breaking up the units smaller so your leaving adequate heavy cover around. Keep the vids coming. Check out our channel if you get time.
I can completely get behind that plan. Dr. Craig Harper talks about those 7 year burn intervals a lot and that makes sense to me. It's when I see the intentional burn plans of every 3 years by southern deer habitat managers up here that really frustrates me. As I shared in another comment, I've seen a very popular southern deer manager come up here and kill all the aspen on a property to create an oak savannah. It should be criminal to recommend something like that. And this has happened on more than one property. I just don't get it. I will check out your channel! It's always fun to see what other habitat geeks are up to!
Have you ever had your brassicas rot? I have had this happen to me twice, this year being one of them. The deer don't seem to want to eat it now. The last 2 years at this time I have had between 15=20 deer in the fields eating the brassicas. Thanks for doing these informative videos.
I imagine it would happen if we had a hard freeze that killed them followed by an extended warm-up. They always rot in the spring. I haven't noticed them rotting before but as mild as the winter was this year it could have happened, I didn't look that closely during the warm up
Great video. A mix of many different habitats certainly makes a property a year around attraction. Do you have them bedding in cattails in the winter? (if you have cattails)
Thanks brother! I haven't stepped foot in the swamp yet this winter, but historical data tells me I'm sure they are. Once that thing freezes up there are beds all over it.
Great information! Thanks for sharing this. I have a lot of Mountain Holly on my property. Is that beneficial to deer in any way? Also I have some pretty nasty Thorn Apple trees in an old cow pasture area. What should I do with those?
Deer don't really browse the mountain holly but it's native so unless it's completely took over I wouldn't worry about it. When you say thorn apple if you mean fireberry hawthorn again it's not very attractive to deer but native so it doesn't bother me. We have a fair amount on our farm. The thickets make for decent cover. I like having some other better browse plants in those thickets to though
Awesome video! Lots of good information. My family just purchased 80 acres in northern Wi. Just walked it for the first time looks like it has lots of good bedding cover and browse and there is a lot of doe group beds around the pines right now! Did not find much for big runs on the property but I’m hoping once I plant food plots for next fall we’ll pull some bucks in! Where is this video located?
Congrats that's very exciting! You'll fall in love with the land management side of owning a property. It's very rewarding work. I'm in the northern half of west central MN
@@PFHabitat I am excited! I’m planning on planting some clover small kill plots for next season and some brassicas and corn for my main bigger food plot. Does this sound like a good idea? I’m hoping they like brassicas around here. Mostly woods and some old cattle fields around here so not much ag for them to feed on
@harrisonnelson1064 sounds like a good start to me. All 3 have different benefits during different points of the year. Deer have different preferences in different areas based on nutritional deficits in the plants in that area so the best plan is to try a few things and see how the deer respond and adjust as needed.
Fire can be a useful tool. Most of our forests here in northern Minnesota are too thick and the brush is so tall it's out of reach. In five years those hinge cut areas will be the same way and will require a ridiculous amount of labor to manage.
Fire definitely can be a great tool. I use it all the time for various reasons. The scenario I mentioned in the video is one way I don't want to see it used up here in Minnesota. Burning on a 7 year rotation would be more applicable up here. Our burn windows are tight up here in the spring so actually getting a good window to get it done is the tricky part. And the hinge-cut in this video is 5 years old now and was on fire this past rut with deer activity. I spend a half day in each of my cuts cleaning them up or resetting some trees that outgrew their benefit each year and that's it for maintenance. I hear what you're saying all the time but it's just not true. A little intentional time in it every year and it can go forever. Whether hinge-cut or flush cut the successional clock will start ticking so you'll need to do maintenance on any bedding cut either with a chainsaw like I prefer or perhaps with fire like you suggest. If you don't like the act of hinge-cutting by all means don't use it. It's not for everyone.
@@PFHabitat You said you've seen property ruined by using prescribed fire in northern Minnesota. Do you have access to this property? Maybe you could do a video and show what you are talking about. I live in northern Minnesota as well and have seen generational fear of fire, probably stems from the fires of 1918 around moose lake and cloquet.
Yes as I said I've seen them ruined when the prescription was hack and squirt with fire on a 3 year rotation. On one property the very popular southern land manager told the guy to kill all his aspen, run fire every 3 years, and create an oak savanna. That should be criminal up here. I have nothing against a more extended burn rotation of 7 years if you can get a fire to carry. Go for it. What I described in the video was a poor way to use fire as a northern deer manager. There are many ways we can use it in a beneficial manner
I saw an article several years ago that talked about autopsies done on deer in the U.P. of Michigan that had starved to death due to a harsh winter. Every one of those deer bellies was full of corn. They said the corn has the nutritional value as a chocolate bar does to humans. It tates good but very little nutritional value. I do know that a piece of corn swallowed by humans without being broken with our teeth offers zero nutrition. Our bodies aren't able to break down the kernels in our digestive system. I believe deer are the same
I agree with you and have seen that type of research. Normally those types of results are from folks introducing corn during those high stress periods in the winter when deer haven't already been eating it. It definitely messes with the rumin in their gut and can kill deer. It is different when they've browsed on it in fields all fall. Their gut is adapted to it in that situation. And they don't indulge as much as opposed to eating it in a pile. But woody browse will always be my primary winter feeding goal. Corn is just a few extra carbs for them. There are varieties that are more digestible for them like your traditional silo corn varieties
Those deer were likely going to starve to death either way. There's very little nutrition in woody browse, thats why deer rely on body fat to get them through winter.
Let me first say that I appreciate your content and agree with most of it, but I live in central Minnesota, and the deer will dig through a foot of snow to get to my clover. I am surrounded on 3 sides with farmers who normally have corn, and one of them leaves it stand all winter. The deer routinely travel back and forth from his corn and my clover plot all winter. I also have brassicas that they never seem to touch right along side my clover.
You know what they say, 60% of the time it works every time ;) But seriously, there will always be those properties where deer paw through the snow to eat clover. But I've never seen it on a large scale. They will eat corn and beans in the winter on every property. Brassicas generally do have some drawing power in the winter but I have heard of the properties where they don't get touched. Usually that's when they're new to the property. It can take several years before the deer seem to develop a taste for them. But if clover is working for you, by all means, don't change what you're doing! MSU deer lab did a study a while back that showed that deer will select certain plants due to nutritional deficits in the soil. So deer preferences can change from property to property, even properties that border each other. This is general advice in this video, but there will always be circumstances where this advice may not apply.
Hack and squirt with controlled burns makes more sense in the south with their longer growing seasons and more mild winters. Up here, not so much, although I could see it working in certain situations, like if you have an area of aspen you want to regen and there are a bunch of other trees like basswood mixed in. If you drop the aspen then hack and squirt the basswood, you make less of a mess and have less work to do(at the time) while still getting the aspen browse and side cover to the ground. That's one of the only situations I can think of up here that would make sense for hack and squirt.
Agreed, it is definitely a southern deer management practice. But I've seen very popular southern deer managers come up here and recommend it on a large scale and destroy whole properties. I've even seen them kill whole aspen stands to create an "oak savannah". It gets a bit frustrating to see landowners ruin their properties and spend thousands of dollars for someone to tell them to do it. I have used hack and squirt on a very limited scale up here. Normally it's only when I have a tree I just don't feel comfortable felling but I still need it dead cuz it's robbing sunlight.
@PFHabitat yes, it's funny hearing people from both the north and south saying "this is the best way" without adding the caveat of "for my region". You did mention that it was for northern hunters, so gotta give you credit for that! Nationwide food plot groups on Facebook are the same way, lol. I can't imagine "Oak Savannahs" being a good thing, but they must be quite the attractant for deer down south, because they sure do love their white oak trees down there.
@nathaniellarson8 yes! I harp about regional differences all the time. I am a Minnesota boy through and through. That's what I know and that's the crowd I'm speaking to. I will never presume to say I know what is best for someone in Alabama or even Missouri. I get requests for consults south of Minnesota and have turned everyone down so far. This is my bread and butter. I am going to spend a few days in Kansas this summer on a property but that's for a buddy so no fee. I can't wait though, always learning!
Have you ever planted winter peas on your farm? Seems like you have a good size place. How many acres is it? Also you think the spruce plugs with the small auger would be a good way to go for planting conifers?
Yah I have and they definitely hammer winter peas. You want to plant them heavy if you want them during deer season, at least 50lbs to the acre. The family farm is 270 acres. It's been in the family for over 100 yrs. Definitely a special place for me. Yes I think spruce plugs with an auger would be a great plan.
How will you maintain this? Every few years hinge the trees that grow larger? Otherwise it will be above them again in a few short years. It’s always a moving target!
Yah the chainsaw is the main maintenance tool. Once you introduce disturbance that successional clock starts to tick so there's always a point where you gotta get back to work. We do have a shorter growing season so I figure I can keep browse in a deer's face for up to 10 years with not a ton of additional cutting
First time visiting your channel. I like your contact so far. I’m in Northwest Michigan so I do get a decent amount of snow. I have 40 acres and I’m considering how much corn and beans I could plant given that I have about 3 acres dedicated to food plots. Any advice for me?
I would try beans first. I like beans because you can overseed green food into them keeping them attractive all season. If you have high deer numbers I'd consider doubling the planting rate. Dr. Craig Harper talks about that in high deer density areas. Thanks for watching!
I despise autumn olive and have a lot of it. Do you consider that winter browse? It never appears to get browsed by me. It provides great screen and cover though.
Do you want the deer on your land all year? What’s your best over winter food. I’m in northern lower Michigan so our climate is very similar! . I don’t have much open ground for beans/corn unfortunately
Yes we get them to yard on us. On a tough winter we'll have up to 200 deer that visit us when they get in their big yarding groups. Woody browse is definitely their #1 food source on ours. On bad winters I'll hit the woods every 10 days or so and do some TSI and drop trees just to feed the deer. It helps a lot.
Most aren't our deer. We pull them in late season through the winter. Our year round resident deer herd is much smaller, but still a healthy herd I would say
Sorry, not off hand. If it was a multi-day project the guy I use may be willing to travel to do it, but I've only worked a handful of jobs in northern Wisconsin and haven't had to find a forestry mulcher yet for those properties so I'm afraid I won't be much help.
If you want to promote a spruce/conifer stand by planting various areas of a farm won't the deer eat most of those plantings before you can achieve what your showing on your farm? I'd hate to plant and then it be all for not.
The deer won't touch the spruce. They will browse on white pine in higher deer density areas. If you notice them hitting your white pine you can either plant all spruce and space them out more or substitute in some red pine for the whites.
If deer are eating spruce I'd say that's a pretty good indicator a lot of work needs to be done to boost their overall browse. Kinda like when I see deer eating buckthorn, they don't want to eat it but they will if they have nothing else.
Yes sir! Given I use mostly small tools it made sense. If folks are going to be ordering off Amazon anyway it's an easy way for them to support the channel. It probably took 10 minutes to set up. If you're consistently pushing content I'd do it. Just another way to help pay for the time away from family to shoot content.
@@PFHabitat I am gunna set it up before I put out next weeks video. Thanks you have me the last nudge I needed . I enjoy your channel been watching you a long while
Appreciate you following along! And yes, it's kinda a no brainer to do, especially if you're doing all you can to avoid sponsorships like I am. It doesn't make it feel like you're trying to sell anything, you're just posting links to help folks that would order off Amazon anyway.
I spring Planted trophy rape with the beans and fertilized it well that stuff was knee to waist tall the stems were like an inch thick and it stood tall through the snow in the spring it looked like a bush hog rolled through it and we found 23 sheds on 7 acres sw Wisconsin
Finally a habitat guy that knows what the he’s talking about.
I appreciate the kind words brother!
My winter deer habitat is definitely lacking. My woods looks like the open woods you showed in the video. Definite changes ahead. Thank you for the great video on a cold winter day.
I love hearing that you're gonna get at it! The chainsaw is a true game changer. Your deer will appreciate it
We noticed that deer prefer the corn to be flattened or otherwise knocked down. Our theory is that they feel safer in it because they can see the wolves we have. When it was standing, they didnt even go in it in the winter. They would circumvent it eating only the edges.
They 100% prefer it more when it's knocked over. It's a bit of a gray area though here in MN with the regulations. Some COs consider it baiting, the regulation on it are as clear as mud. I wish they'd just clarify whether or not it's legal. Perfectly legal in lots of other states though.
Thank you; outstanding practice of building deer habitat.
That means a lot, thank you!
Understand the corn 🌽 over beans for forage amounts if you have the ability to plant it .. but the beans are high protein versus All carbs for the corn ... deer need protein over carbs during winter ... but Any food during rough periods helps dramatically...with All those cost for lime fertilizer diesel fuel seed costs and Tons of work I'm getting to the point of just putting out several feeders with great protein pellets .. out of season and possibly small quality plots during hunting season when Feeders are Obviously NOT permitted to be running !! Great analysis n breakdown !! Continued Success 😎
Great points Rob! If I had to choose one I'd pick beans. They hunt better and you can overseed into them. But we still plant both
Love all your videos! Thanks for all the info!
Thanks for watching! I really do enjoy sharing the videos and the dialogue with fellow hunters/habitat managers.
Finally a video that gets it ! Liked / Subscribed !
Great to hear, I appreciate that!
Very good content. Thanks!
Thank YOU for watching!
Very Informative and straight to the point. Multi seasonal habitat and food sources are critical
Thank you and spot on!!
Another great video! Thanks again for the info 👍
Thanks! And thanks again for watching!
Great video and information for Northern hunters. Thanks for your efforts! Rough season on my property even though my food plots were in great shape. You definitely got me excited about getting the chainsaw going. Think I'll plant some confers too...
Thanks and glad to hear it! No better time to bust out the saw than right now. And with a warm up coming it'll be a great time just to get outside
Great video Sam, multi-species diversity, thermo-cover, increased stem density & available browse play big roles in getting deer through the northern climate winters in good shape.
Amen Jake! As always, thanks for all your great content over the years and mentoring the next generation of habitat managers
Im from the Red River Valley. 99% of the time on a normal hard winter, deer here will migrate MILES to a spot along the RedRiver that someone planted a field of SugarBeets.
Basically ZERO browse here to sustain deer.
If it wasnt for Beets, our deer herd would be almost Zero.
No one here plants foodplots to sustain deer. A few do micro kill plots.
Sucks for sure.
Enjoy your channel Sam. .
Man that's rough....I've worked out in western MN some and that wide open landscape is a whole different ballgame when it comes to deer habitat management. And thanks for the kind words and following along!
Good video! Enjoyed it!
I appreciate that, thanks for watching!
Definitely got some ideas from you, especially adding spruce around some of my mature white pines, and also ensuring I have woody browse within that area. I wish I had the area and equipment for beans and corn, but I don’t and will have to rely on brassicas in my small plots here in NW Wisconsin. Thanks for the video.
Yah I get that on smaller properties. A Dr. Craig Harper trick if you ever want to try beans is to double or even triple the planting rate to try and out compete the browse pressure. Beans will plant via tilling and packing them in.
@@PFHabitat What variety and source of beans would you suggest?
@MrRABland I prefer enlist beans. A lot of guys have pigweed issues. You can spray 24d on enlist beans
Great video. Yall have some pretty country up there. Hack and squirt and fire are just like a chainsaw, they're a tool that can be used in many ways to accomplish different objectives. Fire and hack and squirt can be tools to promote woody growth in the understory. We use hack and squirt and fire to manage our oak regen areas. We kill certain species we dont want, others we cut and allow to re-spout. But we herbicide low value timber and low value browse species. We have 3-6 ft. oak saplings packed with green briar and blackberry in our burn units. Ive used those methods on thousands of acres in OH. Its how our state forest are managed as they regenerate sites before harvest. The difference from what you explained is we push our fire intervals 4-6 years once the desirable species are established. Historically our Oak forest in OH established with a 7 year fire interval. Up in your neck of the woods id guess you need to be burning on that higher end maybe 7-8. Light it up before your low value saplings get above the reach of the deer, or outpace your oaks. It happens quick with full sun. Those oaks will re-sprout to their full size in one or 2 seasons. Promote diversity of structure by breaking up the units smaller so your leaving adequate heavy cover around. Keep the vids coming. Check out our channel if you get time.
I can completely get behind that plan. Dr. Craig Harper talks about those 7 year burn intervals a lot and that makes sense to me. It's when I see the intentional burn plans of every 3 years by southern deer habitat managers up here that really frustrates me. As I shared in another comment, I've seen a very popular southern deer manager come up here and kill all the aspen on a property to create an oak savannah. It should be criminal to recommend something like that. And this has happened on more than one property. I just don't get it. I will check out your channel! It's always fun to see what other habitat geeks are up to!
good stuff!
Thanks for watching Mike!
Have you ever had your brassicas rot? I have had this happen to me twice, this year being one of them. The deer don't seem to want to eat it now. The last 2 years at this time I have had between 15=20 deer in the fields eating the brassicas. Thanks for doing these informative videos.
I imagine it would happen if we had a hard freeze that killed them followed by an extended warm-up. They always rot in the spring. I haven't noticed them rotting before but as mild as the winter was this year it could have happened, I didn't look that closely during the warm up
Never been a fan of hack and squirt, might as well hinge cut and get the benefit of both woody browse, sunlight and side cover. Much better use imho
100% agree!!!!
Great video. A mix of many different habitats certainly makes a property a year around attraction. Do you have them bedding in cattails in the winter? (if you have cattails)
Thanks brother! I haven't stepped foot in the swamp yet this winter, but historical data tells me I'm sure they are. Once that thing freezes up there are beds all over it.
Great information! Thanks for sharing this. I have a lot of Mountain Holly on my property. Is that beneficial to deer in any way? Also I have some pretty nasty Thorn Apple trees in an old cow pasture area. What should I do with those?
Deer don't really browse the mountain holly but it's native so unless it's completely took over I wouldn't worry about it. When you say thorn apple if you mean fireberry hawthorn again it's not very attractive to deer but native so it doesn't bother me. We have a fair amount on our farm. The thickets make for decent cover. I like having some other better browse plants in those thickets to though
Awesome video! Lots of good information. My family just purchased 80 acres in northern Wi. Just walked it for the first time looks like it has lots of good bedding cover and browse and there is a lot of doe group beds around the pines right now! Did not find much for big runs on the property but I’m hoping once I plant food plots for next fall we’ll pull some bucks in! Where is this video located?
Congrats that's very exciting! You'll fall in love with the land management side of owning a property. It's very rewarding work. I'm in the northern half of west central MN
@@PFHabitat I am excited! I’m planning on planting some clover small kill plots for next season and some brassicas and corn for my main bigger food plot. Does this sound like a good idea? I’m hoping they like brassicas around here. Mostly woods and some old cattle fields around here so not much ag for them to feed on
@harrisonnelson1064 sounds like a good start to me. All 3 have different benefits during different points of the year. Deer have different preferences in different areas based on nutritional deficits in the plants in that area so the best plan is to try a few things and see how the deer respond and adjust as needed.
Fire can be a useful tool. Most of our forests here in northern Minnesota are too thick and the brush is so tall it's out of reach. In five years those hinge cut areas will be the same way and will require a ridiculous amount of labor to manage.
Fire definitely can be a great tool. I use it all the time for various reasons. The scenario I mentioned in the video is one way I don't want to see it used up here in Minnesota. Burning on a 7 year rotation would be more applicable up here. Our burn windows are tight up here in the spring so actually getting a good window to get it done is the tricky part. And the hinge-cut in this video is 5 years old now and was on fire this past rut with deer activity. I spend a half day in each of my cuts cleaning them up or resetting some trees that outgrew their benefit each year and that's it for maintenance. I hear what you're saying all the time but it's just not true. A little intentional time in it every year and it can go forever. Whether hinge-cut or flush cut the successional clock will start ticking so you'll need to do maintenance on any bedding cut either with a chainsaw like I prefer or perhaps with fire like you suggest. If you don't like the act of hinge-cutting by all means don't use it. It's not for everyone.
@@PFHabitat You said you've seen property ruined by using prescribed fire in northern Minnesota. Do you have access to this property? Maybe you could do a video and show what you are talking about. I live in northern Minnesota as well and have seen generational fear of fire, probably stems from the fires of 1918 around moose lake and cloquet.
Yes as I said I've seen them ruined when the prescription was hack and squirt with fire on a 3 year rotation. On one property the very popular southern land manager told the guy to kill all his aspen, run fire every 3 years, and create an oak savanna. That should be criminal up here. I have nothing against a more extended burn rotation of 7 years if you can get a fire to carry. Go for it. What I described in the video was a poor way to use fire as a northern deer manager. There are many ways we can use it in a beneficial manner
I saw an article several years ago that talked about autopsies done on deer in the U.P. of Michigan that had starved to death due to a harsh winter. Every one of those deer bellies was full of corn. They said the corn has the nutritional value as a chocolate bar does to humans. It tates good but very little nutritional value. I do know that a piece of corn swallowed by humans without being broken with our teeth offers zero nutrition. Our bodies aren't able to break down the kernels in our digestive system. I believe deer are the same
I agree with you and have seen that type of research. Normally those types of results are from folks introducing corn during those high stress periods in the winter when deer haven't already been eating it. It definitely messes with the rumin in their gut and can kill deer. It is different when they've browsed on it in fields all fall. Their gut is adapted to it in that situation. And they don't indulge as much as opposed to eating it in a pile. But woody browse will always be my primary winter feeding goal. Corn is just a few extra carbs for them. There are varieties that are more digestible for them like your traditional silo corn varieties
Those deer were likely going to starve to death either way. There's very little nutrition in woody browse, thats why deer rely on body fat to get them through winter.
Let me first say that I appreciate your content and agree with most of it, but I live in central Minnesota, and the deer will dig through a foot of snow to get to my clover. I am surrounded on 3 sides with farmers who normally have corn, and one of them leaves it stand all winter. The deer routinely travel back and forth from his corn and my clover plot all winter. I also have brassicas that they never seem to touch right along side my clover.
You know what they say, 60% of the time it works every time ;) But seriously, there will always be those properties where deer paw through the snow to eat clover. But I've never seen it on a large scale. They will eat corn and beans in the winter on every property. Brassicas generally do have some drawing power in the winter but I have heard of the properties where they don't get touched. Usually that's when they're new to the property. It can take several years before the deer seem to develop a taste for them. But if clover is working for you, by all means, don't change what you're doing! MSU deer lab did a study a while back that showed that deer will select certain plants due to nutritional deficits in the soil. So deer preferences can change from property to property, even properties that border each other. This is general advice in this video, but there will always be circumstances where this advice may not apply.
Hack and squirt with controlled burns makes more sense in the south with their longer growing seasons and more mild winters. Up here, not so much, although I could see it working in certain situations, like if you have an area of aspen you want to regen and there are a bunch of other trees like basswood mixed in. If you drop the aspen then hack and squirt the basswood, you make less of a mess and have less work to do(at the time) while still getting the aspen browse and side cover to the ground. That's one of the only situations I can think of up here that would make sense for hack and squirt.
Agreed, it is definitely a southern deer management practice. But I've seen very popular southern deer managers come up here and recommend it on a large scale and destroy whole properties. I've even seen them kill whole aspen stands to create an "oak savannah". It gets a bit frustrating to see landowners ruin their properties and spend thousands of dollars for someone to tell them to do it. I have used hack and squirt on a very limited scale up here. Normally it's only when I have a tree I just don't feel comfortable felling but I still need it dead cuz it's robbing sunlight.
@PFHabitat yes, it's funny hearing people from both the north and south saying "this is the best way" without adding the caveat of "for my region". You did mention that it was for northern hunters, so gotta give you credit for that! Nationwide food plot groups on Facebook are the same way, lol. I can't imagine "Oak Savannahs" being a good thing, but they must be quite the attractant for deer down south, because they sure do love their white oak trees down there.
@nathaniellarson8 yes! I harp about regional differences all the time. I am a Minnesota boy through and through. That's what I know and that's the crowd I'm speaking to. I will never presume to say I know what is best for someone in Alabama or even Missouri. I get requests for consults south of Minnesota and have turned everyone down so far. This is my bread and butter. I am going to spend a few days in Kansas this summer on a property but that's for a buddy so no fee. I can't wait though, always learning!
Great informational video. Do you fence your soybeans?
No we haven't had to. Plenty of browse around in the summer, especially with the renter planting 50+ acres of beans every year
Luv it
Thanks Steve!
Have you ever planted winter peas on your farm? Seems like you have a good size place. How many acres is it? Also you think the spruce plugs with the small auger would be a good way to go for planting conifers?
Yah I have and they definitely hammer winter peas. You want to plant them heavy if you want them during deer season, at least 50lbs to the acre. The family farm is 270 acres. It's been in the family for over 100 yrs. Definitely a special place for me. Yes I think spruce plugs with an auger would be a great plan.
How will you maintain this? Every few years hinge the trees that grow larger? Otherwise it will be above them again in a few short years. It’s always a moving target!
Yah the chainsaw is the main maintenance tool. Once you introduce disturbance that successional clock starts to tick so there's always a point where you gotta get back to work. We do have a shorter growing season so I figure I can keep browse in a deer's face for up to 10 years with not a ton of additional cutting
First time visiting your channel. I like your contact so far. I’m in Northwest Michigan so I do get a decent amount of snow. I have 40 acres and I’m considering how much corn and beans I could plant given that I have about 3 acres dedicated to food plots. Any advice for me?
I would try beans first. I like beans because you can overseed green food into them keeping them attractive all season. If you have high deer numbers I'd consider doubling the planting rate. Dr. Craig Harper talks about that in high deer density areas. Thanks for watching!
@@PFHabitat Can I broadcast beans or would I need a planter?
You can broadcast them. I'd broadcast into tilled ground and pack after broadcasting. And I'd triple the rate
I despise autumn olive and have a lot of it. Do you consider that winter browse? It never appears to get browsed by me. It provides great screen and cover though.
No I wouldn't. I despise any invasive as well. Generally most invasives have very low browse value
When do you plant your beans and overseed rye when? Only rye or more beans for late planted beans?
They always go in mid to late May and we overseed rye around Sept 1st. I'll overseed brassicas mid August
@@PFHabitat thank you. Do you mow or kill (spray) the beans or just over seed into the canopy of the beans?
@jerryperron5243 overseed right into the canopy. You don't want to mow them, unlike corn beans will rot on the ground
This wildlife biologist says "great video" and "well said."
@@virgilholmes6688 I appreciate that. It means a lot hearing things like this from folks that live it!
How much land are you working with? I have an 80, wish I had more but even an 80 keeps me busy
Ours is 270 but probably about 130 I can actually manipulate for habitat when you consider the tillable etc. Definitely keeps me busy!
You saved viewers thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars. You dont need a$100k skid steer.
I concur!
Do you want the deer on your land all year? What’s your best over winter food. I’m in northern lower Michigan so our climate is very similar! . I don’t have much open ground for beans/corn unfortunately
Yes we get them to yard on us. On a tough winter we'll have up to 200 deer that visit us when they get in their big yarding groups. Woody browse is definitely their #1 food source on ours. On bad winters I'll hit the woods every 10 days or so and do some TSI and drop trees just to feed the deer. It helps a lot.
@@PFHabitat wow that’s a lot. I don’t have near the density around me
Most aren't our deer. We pull them in late season through the winter. Our year round resident deer herd is much smaller, but still a healthy herd I would say
Look for someone that does forestry mulching in northern wi. Know anyone???
Sorry, not off hand. If it was a multi-day project the guy I use may be willing to travel to do it, but I've only worked a handful of jobs in northern Wisconsin and haven't had to find a forestry mulcher yet for those properties so I'm afraid I won't be much help.
If you want to promote a spruce/conifer stand by planting various areas of a farm won't the deer eat most of those plantings before you can achieve what your showing on your farm? I'd hate to plant and then it be all for not.
The deer won't touch the spruce. They will browse on white pine in higher deer density areas. If you notice them hitting your white pine you can either plant all spruce and space them out more or substitute in some red pine for the whites.
We bud cap our white and red pine seedlings in the fall. This isn't perfect but its the only practical way to keep deer off them.
@derickchristensen3219 great tip, easy to do and it'll get a few more trees past the deer
I would do a test planting before making big investment in trees and time. Deer will eat spruce seedlings here.
If deer are eating spruce I'd say that's a pretty good indicator a lot of work needs to be done to boost their overall browse. Kinda like when I see deer eating buckthorn, they don't want to eat it but they will if they have nothing else.
Did you become an Amazon partner ? I thought about it for my channel . How’s that/it going ??
Yes sir! Given I use mostly small tools it made sense. If folks are going to be ordering off Amazon anyway it's an easy way for them to support the channel. It probably took 10 minutes to set up. If you're consistently pushing content I'd do it. Just another way to help pay for the time away from family to shoot content.
@@PFHabitat I am gunna set it up before I put out next weeks video. Thanks you have me the last nudge I needed . I enjoy your channel been watching you a long while
Appreciate you following along! And yes, it's kinda a no brainer to do, especially if you're doing all you can to avoid sponsorships like I am. It doesn't make it feel like you're trying to sell anything, you're just posting links to help folks that would order off Amazon anyway.
I spring Planted trophy rape with the beans and fertilized it well that stuff was knee to waist tall the stems were like an inch thick and it stood tall through the snow in the spring it looked like a bush hog rolled through it and we found 23 sheds on 7 acres sw Wisconsin
@user-wisrcounty that is awesome!!! I've thought about experimenting with a longer lived brassicas in the beans. Now I may have to!
You must live in Europe, you are driving your truck in the passenger seat. 😂
Lol I'm just good at trick videography ;)