Ep. 1023: Back 40 – Why Deer Ignore Your Food Plots (Biggest Mistakes Landowners Make)

00:00:00
Speaker 1: What is going on?

00:00:00
Speaker 2: I’m Jake Hoper, the host of Back forty. We’re back with another season. You’re going to be getting an episode like this once a month here, and if you didn’t catch any of the Back forty series last year, let me explain how this episode format works is a little bit different. So each episode we’re going to be diving into one specific question, one specific white tailed dilemma that we all likely face, and I bring in a panel of experts. I ask them all the same exact question, and we get their perspective.

00:00:28
Speaker 1: And the beauty of this is you can pick.

00:00:29
Speaker 2: Up on any common themes of shortcomings that they’ve addressed with their own food plots or their own issues, or little specific pieces of advice that may be the missing link in your strategy of whatever the topic may be. So this week we have the deer just aren’t using the food plots like I see on YouTube, like I see on TV.

00:00:47
Speaker 1: It just does not feel worth the effort.

00:00:50
Speaker 2: And we have Thomas Milsa with the Unteam Ambition out of Wisconsin. We have Jared Vanhas out of Michigan with the Habitat podcast. We have Kyle from Team Radical, who is fanatical about his food plots and how it incorporates into his hunting strategy. And we have Terry Peer with real world wildlife products and chasing giants who’s out of Kentucky and also hunts in Illinois. So we have the core of the Midwest here, all different little areas, all different nuances on planting days, strategy, and this episode addresses a lot of different things which was the goal from strategy on hunting, from what you plant, how you plan it, all the different things. So if you’re gearing up to have the best food plotting year ever, what does that mean and is it actually going to help you or hurt you? All that’s addressed here in today’s episode of the Backboardy podcast presented by Multrie. We’re going to kick things off with Thomas Milsnat out of Wisconsin, and then we’re going to keep working through all the different experts. So hope you guys enjoyed this episode.

00:01:42
Speaker 1: Here we go.

00:01:48
Speaker 2: All right, I’m running into this problem. This is something that a lot of people can relate to. I’m planning my food plots every spring or every fall, but it seems like the deer are barely using them, or they’re not allowing me this magical late October or November or late season opportunity that I have envisioned in my head from all the different forms of media that have come out over the year. So I’m planning food plots every year, but they just don’t seem to be doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

00:02:17
Speaker 1: What do you tell me?

00:02:20
Speaker 3: Well, every situation is different, right, But I will tell you what I know and what I’ve learned over the years on food plots is first and foremost, nutrition equals attraction. So you know, reevaluate your soil tests, get a micro level soil evaluation as far as like the mineral components in that plot, because that will dictate the palatability of the plant, the sugar content of the plant, ultimately the flavor of the plant for the deer. Okay, that’s one level in there. The plants that you’re planting in there are going to dictate the seasonal attractiveness of that plot. But bigger than both of those things, and more often than not, the reason why deer aren’t seeking out a specific food plot is the location itself. So what I will tell clients is a poor food plot, a lower quality food plot. You know, a crappy throw and grow type system, maybe there’s a lot of grasses in there relatively poor soil. But a poor food plot will in a good location of a secure location, will trump a really good food plot in a less secure or more open situation. So we’re always trying to draw deer into areas with our food plot systems, but we want to maintain connecting cover, certain levels of security cover or screening so that they’re not getting pressure on that food plot specifically. And you know that goes hand in hand with a lot of different things as far as our design element and how we pursue deer. But if they’re not consistently showing up there, or one problem I’ve ran into is I’ll get deer on a food plot very consistently, but every time hunt, I don’t see them, which is a telltale sign that you have access issues.

00:04:03
Speaker 1: Right.

00:04:04
Speaker 3: So good screening cover and then adjacent to that food plot is improving the overall food quality of the native habitat so that we’re creating consistent food and cover in the area and then pulling those deer into that food plot when that seasonally attractive food source is the most palatable, which you know, if we’re doing like a cool season annual like brassicas or small grains in the fall, that’s when they’re going to be the most palatable. That’s why they work well. You know it’s a cool season cover crop at the end of the day. But location, location, location, that’s.

00:04:35
Speaker 4: Going to be the biggest thing.

00:04:36
Speaker 3: And from a structure standpoint, the analogy I always use with clients is if we look at any given food source and we think of it as a the bottom layer of a multi layered cake. If we want, if we’re thinking specifically like how do I pull mature bucks into this location, whether we’re hunting on that location or hunting between that location and betting, how do we pull those bucks into that location daylight movement during hunt hours that we can actually harvest them? Right, The bottom layer of that multi layered cake is that food source. That’s the anchor that’s keeping those deer coming back to that area and creates that pull. That’s the foundation of that movement in and of itself. The next layer on that cake that’s generally going to be where your dough’s bed. The icing that holds those two layers together is what the cover represents on the property. The icing represents the cover, so your does want to bed in. Generally the first layer of cover in from the food source. So look at your food plots and go, can I see from the food plot way into the woods, or inversely, if I’m standing in the woods where I think deer might want a bed, can I see all the way back across that food plot? If that’s if you answer yes to that, then you need to increase the amount of cover between that base layer, which is the food and the dough betting. And then if you want to stack that next layer on top with those bucks, and you need to make isolation or create some level of isolation between where the dough’s bed and where the bucks want to bed. Where I am and sell Western Wisconsin driftless region, hill country in general. A lot of times, almost more often than not, it stacks up exactly like a multi layered cake. You’ve got a big food source, whether it’s egg or a food plot doesn’t have to be a big food source, a consistent food source. More specifically, you got a food source, and the does are right inside that first layer cover, so it’s really important to have good edge structure. The does bed right there or maybe there’s not good edge structure, so they bed over that crown of the hill. And then they’re using the topography, right. I talk about how topography is always the greatest form of cover. They use that as the cover, and then where are your bucks. Maybe they’re next level down, or if it’s flipped around, they’re the next level up there on the top, or they’re down the ridge line of ways farther away from that, maybe the better bedding area per se. But the does always own the best betting next to the best food sources. So that’s how it all stacks up. So from a location standpoint, if you want to stack that top layer on the cake, which is where your bucks bed, you got to be thinking layers of cover and security all revolving around that base layer that is that food source. But I would more often than not with clients start with a soil sample and look at that because it’s very easy to throw down braskas and get them to grow and they might look great, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re high in nutrients and everything. The deer is relative, so if there’s nothing better on the landscape and you’re holding deer, they might show up there but if your neighbor has a better food source or there’s better native food out there in a more secure location, that’s where deer are going to spend the bulk of their time and they’re going to show up.

00:07:34
Speaker 5: You’re always going.

00:07:34
Speaker 3: To have a handful of dos that linger on those plots, and then that buck is going to come through at some time in the middle of the night and check a community scrape on the edge of that food plot, or walk through, take a few nibbles and move on. But if you truly want to hold them in the area, the adjacent habitat and the security that it provides along with the availability of food is going to directly relate to how frequently those deer visit those food plots that you have out there, and nutrition is a huge, huge portion of that.

00:08:01
Speaker 2: I think you have a lot of hunters realistically, they’ve all heard they need to get a soil sample, and I don’t know how many actually do. And then beyond that is getting the recommendations of how to amend the soil.

00:08:13
Speaker 1: Is there any key pieces of advice.

00:08:15
Speaker 2: For someone that’s like, Okay, I’m going to get a soil sample and I’m going to test the micro and macro nutrients of the soil because a lot of them might not cover both. Do I need to typically work up the soil and get those get that nutrients worked into the soil, like just high level?

00:08:30
Speaker 1: What does that look like? Uh yeah, if.

00:08:33
Speaker 3: You go down that path, you know the more conventional process there, which is you know, macro level nutrients NPK. What does it ultimately what does it take to grow this crop I want to grow? That’s a downward spiral, and it’s a it’s a never ending one. To that point, right, your inputs are going to consistently increase and you’re not really increasing the palatability of the crop, right, analogous to the conventional agricultural model, where you know, we know exactly what it takes to grow this crop, but every single year the nutritional content of that crop declines due to synthetic fertilizers, due to chemical usage, due to genetically modified crops that are bred or modified to handle certain conditions, you know, grow to certain yield potentials, but not necessarily emphasizing the nutritional content of that crop itself. So the big thing first and foremost, you know, and these are you can go online look this up six soil health principles, right, But a big part of that is going to be species diversity because that ultimately is going to dictate the soil quality long term. And then you know, with that the inputs that you do put down in the early phases, Like our goal is always to balance out the soil mineral profile and then slowly taper off of inputs. We can’t do that if we’re just feeding this you know, crack addict soil ecology right where it needs these added nutrients to produce anything. We have to step away from that slowly and improve that. So there’s different ways to address that. We use carbon based mineralized fertilizers. We try to reduce the amount of chemical inputs. We try to reduce the amount of disturbance in general, both chemical tillage, so on and so forth. And you know, I’m not anti chemical, I’m not anti tillage. It’s the right time, in the right place, and just not over using or abusing any specific tool that we have, but ultimately limiting soil disturbance and promoting soil biology, which is going to come from plant diversity in your planting and limited disturbance, maintaining soil protection or cover on the ground as much or as often as possible, and then nutrients cycling, so animal integration at some level. Are we bringing in more nutrients? Are we bringing in more carbon into that system, more microbes, stuff like that. And now there’s a lot of different things out there that we can utilize from different biological sprays. Like I said, the carbon based fertilizer we use is actually made with digested dairy cattle manure and then has different levels of nutrients and trace minerals added into it, so we can balance that stuff out there. But ultimately, if you’re trying to force a monocrop, you’re going to be taking a step backwards almost every single time. But you can layer that in there. You know, you can layer in like you know, plant a limited but still diverse planting, and then add another layer down the road. That’s how we do it. We I refer to it as a stacked food plot system. So we have a summer cover crop that if managed appropriately, and I say that, you know, soil prep cover crops lead into it. If managed appropriately, that provides a standing grain in the fall, but it also sets us up to where we can go in and add a fall forage crop on top of that, so we have multiple layers of food, and then we still come in and top it with cereal rye later in the season. And what we do with that system is we actually mix in a small amount of we kind of refer to it as a crop matched fertility program, so a small amount of that mineralized carbon based fertilizer with every planting. So it’s a little bit every time, but we’re slowly building up that mineral and then extracting it. But it’s a maintenance level more than anything, so we’re not just like trying to jam a yield with a lot of nitrogen and pull out out of the soil without putting something back in. And that builds up the stacked system, which is palatable much much broader timeline in the fall, So like standing sorgum and soybeans is like our foundation of that summer blend. There’s some other stuff in there like buckwheat to release phosphorus and sun hemp and stuff like that, but that provides that standing grain and then we come in there with a fall forage mix which is going to be heavy on brassicas, winter peas, some oh stuff like that, and then we’ll still come back in and top it with cereal rye because that sets us up for the next year. It reduces our weed competition in the spring, provides a good green food sour us right away in the spring. But more importantly, that sets us up to where we don’t have to come in and chemically disturb the soil biology again. And what we know through that process, through research, not specifically on our food plots, but research with those general practices and protocols in general, is that if we limit the amount of disturbance tillage and chemical and maintain a living root and a soil, we can increase the fungal dominance of the soil, which equates to increasing fat production or lipid production within the plant. So I say all that big words, big terms. What that means is we’re producing a soybean in the fall that’s higher in fat content. So we have a high fat, high protein food source along with our high carbohydrate food source in the standing sorgum, and then we top that with the forages.

00:13:37
Speaker 1: Ultimately we get the.

00:13:39
Speaker 3: Greens and the bulbs and then the small grains all that stuff. So it’s a cycle that we get into. But we can really stack a lot of food in a small area. So with that diversity element also comes the diversity of a deer’s palette on any given day, Right, what food or what nutrition are they seeking out based on climactic conditions, based on seasonal nutritional demands, stuff like that. And if we can pack as many of those things into one area, one we’re more efficient with our space, and two we’re creating consistent pull into that area. And the other thing too is you know that standing grain blend with the sorgum provides an element to cover there too, so it creates a level at a level of security. And then you know, we we build off of that even more with perennial systems around the edges of that tree crops mass producing shrub crops that ultimately produce mass and woody browse and things like that. So we can really stack in a lot of different deer food groups, many of which are perennial in that system, which creates conditioning, security, consistency, all the things that we want on a property where we’re trying to reduce pressure and increase attraction.

00:14:40
Speaker 2: To put a cherry on top of a food source, maybe someone you know, like yeah, to kind of eat it, and I’ve had opportunities, but I haven’t had the ability to get one in bow range or very consistently. So if the cherry on top, is it a soft mass tree that is dropping pairs and it also doubles as a as a mock scrape or a waterhole, like what is the what’s the silver bullet? I know you’re anti silver bowl, but what’s the silver bullet? Cherry on top? To a food source where it’s like, okay, yeah, I’ve been amending the soil.

00:15:07
Speaker 1: I’ve been doing these things.

00:15:08
Speaker 2: It is improving, and I really don’t have this problem where they my dear are using the food pots for example, what is the cherry on top?

00:15:16
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:15:16
Speaker 3: I think the cherry is ultimately the diversity element there, right. And also again it’s all relative, so if you look around or even on your property in general. I was on two properties this last week. One of them they’re roughly the same size.

00:15:32
Speaker 6: I’m trying to remember.

00:15:32
Speaker 3: One was one hundred twenty acres when was one hundred and sixteen acres. One of them nice property, beautiful property, a lot of great.

00:15:39
Speaker 6: Things going on.

00:15:40
Speaker 3: Not a single soft mass tree on that property. An old cattle pasture, which was what was weird because a lot of those old cattle pastures have a lot of old like pasture apples in there, which are phenomenal. Right, not a single apple tree on a property like that, parking some soft mass apple trees that around those food plots. Huge, huge pull on that right, you hit the nail on the head. I love the apple trees, crab apples, especially soft sweet mass, really really attractive late October through or excuse me, late November, late September through a lot of October. But on this other property, the oh, excuse me, what I was going to say with the apples is food source attractive, but also that community hub, that community scrape that almost always shows up underneath those apple trees. But then on the other side of that, this other property I just walked the other day, very similar property. Again old cattle pasture, apple trees throughout the whole property. So having one or a handful of apple trees in a specific, defined location is going to be less attractive because it’s not as limited of a resource on that property. But again, to go all the way back, the location is going to be everything. So if that location provides security, maybe it’s a travel corridor or a connecting corridor, the start of a corridor, the end of a corridor. It doesn’t matter if you’re flowing through there or close to it. They’re going to show up. They’re going to check that apple tree for apples and social interaction, you know, checking those scrapes, working those scrapes and whatnot. So I don’t want to say an apple tree is a silver bullet solution, but I think an apple tree or some level of perennial mass production around that plot creates a lot more consistency. You can see the same thing a lot of times if you’re on a property that doesn’t have a lot of oaks, and there’s that stand of white oaks, right, it’s really really heavy pull. And maybe that food plot is adjacent to that. So that food plot is a ton of activity late September early October timeframe, but you actually go hunt it and you realize, like the deer don’t spend a lot of time in the food plot. They’re in the woods, and then they just kind of transition through the food plot and they grab a few bye seat and they move on.

00:17:38
Speaker 4: All right.

00:17:39
Speaker 2: Next up we have Terry Peer. Terry has fielded a lot of food plot questions over the years. Likely has a little different strategy than some of the folks out there. But I think this conversation is going to point you in the right direction, whether it’s planting dates, strategy, understanding what’s been used on the ground in the past, and how that may impact the attractiveness of a food source without for there do Let’s go ahead and jump in right now. But Terry Peer, all right, next up we have Terry Peer. Terry, you have a lot of experience with food plots. You’ve probably asked more questions about food plots and dilemmas than just about anyone in the country. Here.

00:18:14
Speaker 1: You’re in Kentucky.

00:18:15
Speaker 2: You plant food plots across you know, different states and help implement plans.

00:18:19
Speaker 1: So I’m going to pose you an issue every year.

00:18:23
Speaker 2: You know, I feel like I’m putting it out great food plots, but it seems like the deer aren’t using them. I’m not having the success that you see on TV or even see you know other people where they have twenty thirty deer in the beans or in the corn or in the fall food plot. What am I potentially doing wrong? What are what’s the checklist? I can go down and say, hey, what am I not doing right? Because it doesn’t feel like I’m doing something right and it’s not me, it’s just I’m posing this for everyone.

00:18:52
Speaker 4: Well, thanks, Jake. You know, I’m coming at this from a very unique situation because I’ve gotten to study under some of the best agriculture agronomous you know, with Dwayne Hopkins, a real world wildlife seed in Green Prairie, and then obviously my time with Don Higgins is you know, my mentor I’ve seen it all, but I can honestly appreciate the question and the situation because I’m just a normal guy, just like everybody else. So the struggles that I’ve seen personally, the through lank consultings I’ve seen clients, it’s a real issue that I think most people probably are more scared to admit because of the shame that social media will give them. But it’s a real factor. So I think there’s several things to unpack here. When you say failure, what is failure? Sometimes that is I choose the wrong product for the geographic area or the deer density that I have, and the deer completely wipe it out or it doesn’t grow whatsoever. There’s that side of it. Then there’s this monster tsunami called mother nature that comes in and you put hours and hours and hours and thousands of dollars that your wife may or may not know about and it fails because it was variables completely outside of your control. And then there’s that probably the worst case scenarios. You have your place looking like a golf course and the deer on the neighbor eating pasture or eating moody brows. So there’s a lot of different directions that you can take this. And you know, I think when you when you unpack kind of those three silos, when you when you have over brows issues, I think I think society or the hunting community is probably the better term. They they watch this stuff on YouTube and they take everything so literal. All this guy did this, so I have to do it on my property this way because it worked there man, every farm in every area and deer density, it’s a case by case basis. So look two resources that are from your area with your deer density. Don’t take everything so literally on the internet through podcasts and trust me, I’m talking about my own here. So it’s it’s you have to understand and how to apply specific things to your property, because you know, you go in with a one acre or less property in certain areas of the country with high deer density and try to put soybeans in it, you’re going to be frustrated because the over brows situation. So you know, I would say that’s one of the failures. The second the second thing is mother Nature, and this is the one we have zero control over. You know, last year, if you look at if you look at a true timeline of the last five years, you’ve had every scenario possible. We’ve had wet springs, dry summer, and then wet fall last year, and certain and I’m speaking figuratively for my farms in Illinois and Kentucky a couple of years before that we had complete drought early season, and then we’re wet three four years ago at great spring, and then we didn’t get rained. From what Jake, I know you and I’ve talked about this because we were in the same boat. We had like middle of August through October fifteenth no rain. So the guys who rely on fall food plots were just hung out to dry. The best thing we can do is try to hedge our bets, and just like we want to diversify our food plot program, don’t necessarily think about it as diversifying the product for nutritional value to where I have something for deer that has high feed value feed value in soluble protein at different times of the year, but also hedge our bets for plan A, plan B, plan C based on mother nature. Because it’s so frustrating to go in and have your ground ready, invest in a no till drill’ll buy your fertilizer and then no rate. You just sit there and feel so helpless that it makes you want to go play golf instead, So I’d get there. I think the last the last silo is probably where you want to land the plane, and that is guys habit, but deer aren’t using it. That’s probably the most devastating from a morale standpoint of anything we have, and there can be a lot of factors to that. Again, I think that if we go into it looking at I want to diversify my nutrition source as much as I can. In the state’s you know, game laws, the equipment, the budget of some of them are permission properties. We can only do so much, but get your book INDs and then try to pack in as much diversity as possible and not watch social media and uh, you know YouTube to say it worked for this guy, it’s got to work for me when it’s not the close to the same situation. And what I mean by that is, don’t take something so literally from Don Higgins myself, from you know whoever out there and say, oh, that worked for them in Michigan or Iowa or Illinois, and I’m going to try to do it in Georgia. Look at what works, uh, deer density, soil, soil health, soil amendment. And let’s face it, we we sit on our own property and want to be the next level deer hunter and that might be from a one fifteen to a one twenty five, or a one fifty to a one sixty, or goodness gracious, the few people in the world that can actually do what Don does and then say a one ninety five to a two hundred. I think that we just gota. We got to pull back a little bit. And what’s what’s realistic because what my fear is is that a lot of people, although we can learn stuff from those shows and all of them’s great resources, just like this one, that we’re on right now. But if it’s not feasible in your area basically from a soil health to a herd health to a herd number to a genetic pocket, we’re just going to continue to get frustrated. Now we can evaluate those bookends on our property. We can say this is what I can do inside of this based on time, budget, equipment, soil area, type of property. Even the public guys, you know, they can do specific things, but it has to be realistic because if we don’t, if we don’t basically control the narrative, maybe even narratives not the right word, but control the expectations of what’s possible. I think that that’s where people who desire so much to take their hunting to the next level get so frustrated because it’s not achievable. And then what happens is you try to overcomplicate your plans. You get you know, oh, this guy said this, this guy get this, and before you know it, we have our property looking like a Where’s Waldo picture? If I might be dating myself, you’re a whole lot, I know.

00:26:13
Speaker 1: I know that.

00:26:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know think about it. You look at it from on ex or Google Earth, and it’s just this massive just different stuff, and we’re in there way too much. We’re putting intrusion on there. We’re hunting that, we’re trying to over complicate with every gimmick, every technique to make it. And I think at some point the hunting community really over complicates things. Now when you really strip back and say, my my property looks like this golf course, it should be in the brochure of any food plot seed company, and deer just aren’t in it. If that happens to you, what I would suggest doing is work with your local AAG extension office and do a Tisian analysis and it doesn’t cost anything. And you know, we can even offer resources for people if they have question about that. But you know, if deers aren’t, yeah.

00:27:16
Speaker 1: What’s that going to tell us? Yeah?

00:27:17
Speaker 2: So for someone that says, what is the tissue analysis? Why would I even do this?

00:27:21
Speaker 4: Right? So we can look at a Tissian analysis and see a spike in something and say, oh, well, the nitrate level is way too high in Nebraska. So I’ve been testing this theory in Kentucky. Probably happened. I noticed it about eight years ago with Brassica’s And for those folks who don’t know about Bbraska’s. That’s your till radishes, your purple top turnups. And you see these internet stories where these guys have this purple top turnip that’s the size of a volleyball. Right, They’re just huge ton of tonnage. They go to planet and the deer don’t eat it, and they say, oh, well, the deer to flyer the taste of it. Let me tell you something. A deer is eating rocks and sticks in the winter if they’re going to eat whatever they can to survive. Right, So, by no means in my an agronomous. But where I first noticed it is in Kentucky. Every flat surface in my area was a tobacco field. Okay, so you had year there was no crop rotations. There wasn’t corn and soybeans like you guys have out an Island or Illinois. Excuse me, it was tobacco. So to grow tobacco, they had to throw nitrogen on this on this track of ground the year after year after year. Tobacco loved nitrogen. And what I found is when I raised brassicas in the old tobacco fields, the dude didn’t touch it. And at least at first you know it took years for them to start using it, but I could plant it on an old clay hillside that never had anything other than pasture grass on it, and they hammered it, and I’m like, what is going on here? You know, you’re literally talking about a number of yards between the two plots, and I have this theory. I can’t tell you that it’s right or wrong. There’ll probably be ten thousand comments of people below saying you’re an idiot, and that’s fine. I get that every week. But my theory in that is in properties that have a high nitrogen that has gone into the subpen. So even when you do your soil test, you’re only doing the soil test up high or the root but till it dratishes. Purple top turnans. All of those have hair fiber roots that go feet into the ground, and what I believe is happening is it’s pulling the nitrogen into the plant from the subpen and then rotting up top. So when you do your tission analysis, what I noticed is your nitrate level was really really high. Your sugar levels would maintain the whole year. So everybody would say they cut a radish open and they say Oh, that’s really hot and they want to have the frost to say the sugars come up. My theory is it’s not the sugar’s coming up, it’s the nitrate levels dropping to turn it from being bitter into what the plant should be when we balance out the nutrients. So you know, yeah, you can throw a ton of nitrogen on a Braskus plot and it looked gorgeous, but you’re actually putting too much nitrogen on there that the nitrate levels are too high. It takes longer for the plant to mature or more cold weather to drop that nitrate level down to balance it out. So with all of the testing that we’ve been able to do through chasing giants and you know obviously real world and green prairie, we’ve started to see over the years, especially starting with our clover blends, different things that spike on the tissue analysis that the deer basically stay away from for a period of time, and as that balances itself out different times of the year, it’ll be more attraction. Okay. So that’s why using blends of products is so important, because you’re hedging your bet, like saying right now in we’re recording in late March. There’s certain plants that are extremely palatable right now, where others are not palatable at all. So when a company does a blend all of these kind of work in a gant charts at different times of the year, different times of the hunting season, deer will prefer it. If you went in and just went all in on one plant and said I’m going to plan a field of purple top turnips, well guess what, there’s going to be a window that they absolutely hammer them, but through a whole hunting season they’ll probably avoid it. So if if a land manager a hunter is trying to really dial in their food plot program and they’re looking at this thing and say, oh, this looks awesome. I’m going to have every deer within three radio miles come into my food plot and no deer there, I would guess that it’s either an intrusion part or possibly the wrong type of product for that specific window that they’re looking at. You know, it really gets back to the science of it, or it could just be that they’re over using it. You know, with intrusion, they’re trying to overcomplicate it. They’re trying to be in there doing every little gizmo, when you know, the philosophy that really we’ve studied under Dawn is less is more, give them what they need, be as diverse as possible, and stay out. But us as humans, I want the overt we want a family, want to over complicate it. I want that next little gizmo, that next little easy button from Staples to say, I’m going to attract everything. And sometimes we hurt more than we do. But man, out of those three silos of considered failures, the most devastating emotional thing that you can have is you got this lush field or this thing that you’ve strategized, and you had sleepless nights on how many you know, rolls of quarters of I hidden from my wife to invest in my property and the deer aren’t there. Uh. My guess is at some point they’ll be there. It’s just isn’t the wrong time for the wrong strategy. But yeah, I mean, man, you talk about the man in golf. I can get up on a tea box and I can snap hook one into the into the left woods. But guess what I can drop one hit another shot man with with stuff like this, when you’re talking about food plot failures, the emotional toll that takes on you because you got another year before you can kind of recover from that. And uh, it’s a whole lot, it’s a whole lot more heartbreaking than just teeing up another ball and taking them this ball mulligan real quick.

00:33:58
Speaker 2: For people that maybe having planted corn or beans, and and we’ll break this down to Kentucky and where you’re at in Illinois, what are just some loose planning dates for someone to consider, Like, Hey, I don’t I don’t even know when I need to be planning my corn or my beans. I know I’m seeing farm equipment, you know, roll out a little bit more, but is there a rough window to give people an idea, Like if you’re in Kentucky and you know, follow that band east and west and then Illinois, like rough dates for both of them. And I know we’re you know, I’m not I’m going to answer this question why you are not asking it, and you’re probably not going to like it.

00:34:33
Speaker 4: But but here’s here’s the thing. And it’s tougher for out of state guys than people who live here. So you know, for me to say when am I planting in Illinois is extremely tough because I’m not there every day. When I had a corporate job, I had to plan vacation to go. You know, now I have some being self employed with you know, I can go whenever. But it’s really tough for the guys who say I gotta take vacation and pick a date. I would rather be in the spring a little early with food plot products than late, and in the fall, I would rather be a little late than early. So if I can unpack that just a little bit. In the optimal world, do we watch and repeat what the farmer’s doing. Okay, So let’s just break that down and say corn corn is really finicky. You want to basically choose the right day corn for your area. So the further north you are, the shorter the day you are. Okay, So say one hundred day one hundred and nine day corn you get up into Minnesota, you might be a ninety ninety five day corn. Okay. So I know there’s listeners from all over the country that listen to this content. So again, don’t take me literally. If you want to raise corn, what I suggest you do is find a local road crop farmer and say what corn horn maturity do you plant? And try to mimic that as best you can, and then obviously, uh, you know. On the soybean side, I’m a big proponent, and I don’t want to make this a real world commercial, but I’m a big proponent of a blend of soybeans because you’re hedging your bet. If if I’m a farmer, I want to go in and I want to plant soybeans that are going to have the best yield for that specific soil type and that geographic area, if you know, and they have crop insurance if something fails. Right with soybeans, I don’t want to be I want to corn. I want to get the best optimal day maturity, plant at the best time as early as I can. But but on soybeans, I would rather plant a little bit later. So in Illinois or Kentucky, I could plant anytime in May and be perfect because I’m hedging my bet with four or five different group numbers of beans that if one doesn’t like the weather conditions, or one maybe one shatters because of an early frost, I got three or four others that are right behind it. So in an optimal world, I would say pattern your farmer. If you can’t do that, maybe put a trail camera. This is what I did, a couple weeks camera on the agfield, okay, so I could see when they planted, and on my soybeans. I wanted to be two weeks after the local farmer planted theirs. And the reason for that is a young soybean plant is the most desirable from a Tissian analysis. It’s like third cutting alfalfa. And if I let the neighbor plant all of his soybeans and get a two week jump start on those deer going to disperse over big open agfields in Illinois. You know, we were holding so many deer in these wood pockets in open egg right, so they disperse out and and try to get the browse pressure. I come in behind it a week or two later, and basically I disperse it. If you’re the first thing that germinates, you’re gonna have every deer in the county within You know they’re so hungry that time of year. But you know, if you’re picking a date, watch your weather, and you know sometime in May for where I do it. Last year, because of my flexible schedule, I was able just to pick a short window with those rains and Jake I mean, it’s absolutely crazy that I had three hundred acre a bushel corn and food plot corn. I sent SAMs off to the agronomist and they’re like, oh my goodness. And it had nothing to do with my skill set. It had nothing. It was like I hit the lottery when it came to when I put it in, and when I got rain at you know, when it tasseled out, and then we had that, you know, I spell, and I still had three hundred and food plotcorn. Crazy, absolutely insane, And I’ve had years where it looked like grain sorgum out there because but man, a lot of it’s just hitting the end. The novice food plotter. Corn is the least forgiving of anything. It takes more equipment, it takes more input costs, but man, in the late season, it’s just it’s so so awesome. Beans are probably the most forgiving outside of your fall food plots, because man, you can just broadcast them, get good soil contacts. So guys with four wheelers, you know, like a plot master tow behind can do plenty of take. But I mean, you can put out a lot of acres with loaned equipment without you know, no tail drills and stuff. But to circle back to your original question, in an optimal standpoint, I’m getting my corn in as early as I can. I’m pattering that after farmers, especially with mardy rates with beans. I’m I’m really looking at my chemical plan based on like, I don’t have mayors, taro and water hip here in Kentucky, but I have a lot of it in Illinois. So I got to plan my chemical program completely different with both of those. There’s a lot of just fantastic resources out there if you know where to look, and we try to We try to put a lot of that content out with with Chasing Giants.

00:40:24
Speaker 2: But you guys made up a booklet here. I ordered one with all the different chemicals and what they do.

00:40:30
Speaker 4: I was just looking to see.

00:40:33
Speaker 1: Mines in the house I would show mine.

00:40:36
Speaker 4: Basically. I’m glad you brought that up. I didn’t want to make it a commercial, but we like a handbook. It’s almost one hundred pages that are soil depth, fertilizer requirements, drill settings, how to apply your fertilizer. I mean stuff that doesn’t even have anything to do with our businesses, just as a resource guide. Real world dealers have access to it or you can buy it on Real Worlds called the Land Management Handbook. We’re just trying to get our printing costs back. It’s it’s trying to be an education. So say you looked at our soybeans and you wanted to plant agg soybeans because the local farmer had it for free, no problem, same use the same methodology on it. So fall plots. I think guys plant too early, they get they get too rambunctious, and say, I gotta have Well, if you’re planning the right blend of products, you’re going to have stuff in that blend that they won’t eat early anyway. And you got stuff that at first germ, like say a winter pee that comes up, that’s going to be mass attractions. So I really like in both of my areas to plan around that first week is September. And trust me, my hunting season opens the first Weektember. So I feel everybody’s pain that you want to have a green field before opening weekend. But I try to get around rain the first of September and not do this, you know, planting in late July early August.

00:42:03
Speaker 1: I heard it’s been brutal.

00:42:06
Speaker 4: That affects purity. Season a whole lot more so, I hope I answered your question with that.

00:42:13
Speaker 1: Now excellent.

00:42:14
Speaker 2: Well, Terry, where can people follow along? I know you guys have a lot of different things going on, but where’s the best place for people to reach out if they have Boopbloc questions?

00:42:22
Speaker 4: Obviously, Chasing Giants is our main platform. We have a weekly podcast with Don Higgins. We have a team of guys that are out not only doing hunting videos, but habitat videos and a lot of different styles. So a lot of people that don’t necessarily agree with donn or I and how we do stuff. There’s like twenty five people doing habitat videos. So you might even see a hingecutting guy on there every now and then, and that’s fine. We’re just trying to put different content out that the guy can say, that’s my situation, I’m going to apply that idea. And then obviously all the Chasing Giants weekly podcasts on all platforms. And then a handbook. It’s probably the best tool for people if they want to go in and have that hard, big book in their truck to reference.

00:43:08
Speaker 2: Have a sheet yeah, g shet when they need to go buy chemical anything else.

00:43:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, how to plant a fruit tree. I mean, I don’t sell fruit trees. I don’t care, but it’s a resource for everybody. You can find that at real Wildlife Products dot Com in the miscellaneous category. I believe. Awesome.

00:43:23
Speaker 1: Thank you there. You guys have it. Some great insight from Terry.

00:43:27
Speaker 2: Some key takeaways for me are going to be planning those soybeans a little bit after the row crop. Farmers get them in and really question what else goes into food plots and what are those three silos that may be a shortfall for your farm, your parcel, your permission piece, whatever the case may be. Next up we have Jared Van He’s out of Michigan. He deals with not ideal Midwest soils.

00:43:49
Speaker 1: And here we go.

00:43:50
Speaker 2: All right, we have Jared who owns ground in Michigan. Has a lot of background of food plots, food plots, seed, all the different shortcomings and wins that can be related to food plots.

00:44:02
Speaker 1: You know plenty about us. So I have this issue.

00:44:05
Speaker 2: I have this issue that maybe a lot of people feel like I plant food plots in the spring. I do the fall food plots, but every year it just feels like the deer aren’t using them. They’re not giving me the opportunity that I was dreaming when I was, you know, out there in a hundred degree heat planning my food plots, or all these different visions of watching deer on TV and YouTube where everything goes perfect.

00:44:27
Speaker 1: What am I doing wrong? What? What is? What are some things that I can potentially address?

00:44:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I hear you. I love and breathe this stuff more than I like to admit.

00:44:38
Speaker 7: It’s just kind of a passion deal here, and I’ve been there. We still have some some times where things don’t go as planned. You mentioned something there about the what you see on TV, and I think that’s very common. I think a lot of these food plotters who are are getting into it, who have the ground, it looks, it looks easy. But you know, in addition to that, there are a lot of things that I see done wrong on multiple properties.

00:45:07
Speaker 5: All the time.

00:45:08
Speaker 7: I think, you know, kind of obvious, but stand I’m sorry. Food plot placement. You know, a lot of guys will see an opening and that’s the easiest spot to plant, and I agree it is, but it might not be the right spot to go. I think lack of cover around the food plot is huge, and we can dive into these further. I’m just going to kind of go off the top here, and then access is a big one.

00:45:35
Speaker 5: How do you get there? How do you get out without a learning deer?

00:45:39
Speaker 7: For instance, I never step in my food plot ever during season unless I’m tracking a deer, going to get an arrow that I shot under a buck or something like that. And then like, what does your property have as a whole or what is it lacking compared to your neighbors. We talk about that all the time, about being the exclusive property, being the differentiator in your neighborhood.

00:46:02
Speaker 5: So those are just a couple there.

00:46:04
Speaker 2: So you had mentioned placement, So let’s let’s run through a scenario. Let’s say you have an open area on it’s a south access farm, and so you know there’s a little quarter acre, half acre, one acre opening that maybe there was crops there at one time or whatever the case may be. Unfortunately, for me to get anywhere on my property, I have to go buy it. So at that rate, are you better off not to potentially plant food there or what things could you potentially utilize to overcome that that access slash placement issue?

00:46:40
Speaker 7: You jack the words out of my mouth, Jake, My first thought was, don’t plan it. Yeah, right, Like, find somewhere that you can get to without making noise, possibly being seen or being smelled as you’re as you’re going through there. For instance, you could do some screening in there if you if you’re really had I wouldn’t even plan it. Nope, I wouldn’t even plan it. You could screen the edges, you could try to get by it, but for the type of year that you and I are usually after, and a lot of our listeners here, they’re not gonna They’re not gonna be there if you’re walking by it every time you go to hunt.

00:47:13
Speaker 2: Okay, let me run a different scenario by you. What if it’s five acres and you have clean access and you like to gun hunt, and you have other places to go, would you potentially plan it then and have a blind setup where you can just walk twenty yards into your property and have this big you know, green to grain transition or whatever your imagination would be, and have that as the centerpiece of your farm. Was that Is that a consolation prize to that to that issue?

00:47:40
Speaker 7: I think so, I think you’re you’re making lemonade on the lemons here. I think you could get a destination food plot in there. You know it’s gonna be tough getting under your truck and whatnot and getting to that spot, especially after dark.

00:47:55
Speaker 5: But I think that if.

00:47:56
Speaker 7: You screen your your one edge, your access edge very heavily, you get the blind hidden very well, and you’re using the right wind. You want that destination food, I do think you do. If it’s not on your neighbors or somewhere else where, you can play off of that. But yeah, I mean I wouldn’t just let it go to waste, But there’s got to be a plan to it and a strategy to it, and walking through it or going by it is not the right one. So if you could, if you could get downwind of the majority of food, if you could plant that in a heavy switch grass, maybe a bunch of hingecuts, so where you can get by there up into your blind, then you have a nice perch with your gun.

00:48:36
Speaker 5: I think that’s doable.

00:48:37
Speaker 1: Okay, what about spring verst fall food plots?

00:48:41
Speaker 2: Right now, people potentially are maybe wanting to try a spring food plot.

00:48:46
Speaker 1: I think there’s a ton of benefits to them.

00:48:47
Speaker 2: But run through why someone should consider doing a spring food plot versus letting to go to weeds, or maybe they had a fall food plot and there was no clover in it, and there’s rock. There’s a bunch of riders typically and a lot of food plots, and the rise gonna get up and it’s gonna set out in June. What are the pros and cons of doing nothing versus doing a spring food plot to either just give me, give me, give me the remedy, because there’s a lot of there’s so many different variables of this.

00:49:13
Speaker 7: No, no, I have a couple of things coming to mind that you mentioned. One of them weed suppression. That’s that’s a good one. I do think that the droughts we’ve had the past four years, you know, uh, planting in August has been hit or miss, you know, even for me.

00:49:28
Speaker 1: So mainly miss mainly. It really has been for a lot.

00:49:32
Speaker 7: Of people, seriously has and I’ve seen that firsthand. And I think that you know what I did this year to combat those get out there and frost seed a bunch you know, that’s even before spring. And then I think, you know, you can take advantage of that rainy spring, get some some food in the ground. I like nitrogen fixing mixes. That’s kind of what we normally run. Soybeans sorghum are are our spring mix nitro boost. But like that, even if it doesn’t grow well or I should say it has some weed competition in it, you’re still providing food on this parcel all summer. You know, if you just magically pop a food plot up in the fall, that’s wonderful. But I mean, if you get a deer who’s get who’s comfy there, You’re not accessing it all summer, You’re not pressuring it. And he’s eating soy beans, he’s eating sorgum, he’s he’s munching on spring clover. I think that behooves you for sure. And then you’re protecting the ground from you know, weeds, invasives, bare soil, from the sunlight, drying it all out.

00:50:35
Speaker 5: There’s quite a bit of advantages to it.

00:50:37
Speaker 7: Now that being said, spring food plots are not always the easiest. You know, you do have weeds, you have grasses you need to control. There are there are tricks to the trade.

00:50:47
Speaker 1: But what are some of the tricks of the trade.

00:50:50
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I think a clothtum treatments very helpful.

00:50:54
Speaker 7: I think using you know, the way you plant the seed in the ground to get it started. You have access to rent, maybe a drill or if you can get that seed covered up and get something going early frost seeding. That way, you’re not you know, sitting there in late May, June, July, wishing your plot will get started. It’s good to get something out of the ground, and even in the fall. You can do that by what you plant to have it pop up first thing in the spring. Rye grand red clover that’ll come up in the spring and give you a head start. We’ve just been burning too many times recently with this shrout and I’m doing the same thing over here, combating that that same result again for twenty twenty six.

00:51:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think that that makes a lot of sense, so real quick for people who aren’t familiar with clettam, what is that?

00:51:45
Speaker 1: What’s the selected purpose side? What is that?

00:51:48
Speaker 2: Is it pre emergent, is a postmergent? What is that killing? Or what are you mitigating by spraying it?

00:51:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, that’s a grass specific herbicide.

00:51:55
Speaker 7: And what that does is it kills anything else to grass based. The problem with spring plots is the cool season grasses come up first before the plants that we want, you know, cooler in the spring, they’re coming up the same as the fall. Late in the fall, they’re still growing, while the good stuff we like has already died or are terminated from the frost and whatnot. So I mean, try think about your lawn. If you go plant something in your lawn with an already established mat of grass, it’s not even going to be able to get through that. So you got to eliminate that competition.

00:52:28
Speaker 5: You know.

00:52:29
Speaker 7: We use some all natural fertilizers and stuff like that to give it a boost, but the number one is to eliminate that competition.

00:52:35
Speaker 5: So cleth is what we call it is.

00:52:37
Speaker 7: It’s available most places, and it’s a good one to start with because I tend to run into cool season grass is quite a bit in the spring.

00:52:53
Speaker 2: So you on a farm in the upper part of Michigan, not the up but the upper part of Michigan, we’re soil aren’t great. I live in Illinois pretty darn lucky. I mean, there’s there’s some plots where it’s like, holy yeah, I think I got two hundred bushel corn out of this. Uh So I’m spoiled from from that staff. But for someone that has sandy acidic or you know, not great soil, because a lot of times when you’re carving out of food plot, oftentimes it’s not great soil. So what can people Maybe that’s the root of some of these issues for some people who are like, man, you know, my my Braskas are you know they look like golf balls instead of what you see on the magazine where there’s big as your head. What are some things that people need to be aware of. What if the soil quality is not ideal, and what can you do short term and long term?

00:53:39
Speaker 5: I’m great, I’m glad you brought that up.

00:53:41
Speaker 7: I think you know the brask issue you mentioned there is is usually an overpopulation of seed. You’re planning them too close together. They’re over competing with themselves, are out competing themselves. But I think lining your soil is is going to be one of the best things you can do on acidic ground or you know, lo me ground, just just low you know, luster food plot ground, like I have quite a bit of my area without lining, your fertilizer doesn’t work as well. The plants don’t grow as well, they don’t taste as well, they don’t uptake the nutrients like they should. So really before you do anything, and I know this has you know, been talked about, get a soil test and line line that ground.

00:54:22
Speaker 5: It’s a pain, the bags are heavy.

00:54:25
Speaker 7: You know you’re spending money, but without that, you’re kind of wasting money on the back end with fertilizers and seed that don’t really have the true potential that they need.

00:54:34
Speaker 5: So that’s a huge one.

00:54:36
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.

00:54:37
Speaker 2: What’s your if you have what are you planning this spring? I guess is and and maybe are you playing anything in spring this spring? On the crappy soils? What are you what’s your silver bowl here for people to try to build up the organic matter and and amend these challenging soils so hopefully long term they start seeing more success or there’s more nutrition for the deer and you know all of the fringe benefits of that great question.

00:55:03
Speaker 7: Down here, I’m planning which is which is more clay based sweat. I’m planning a lot of premium or annual and you know perennial clover along with some alf alpha. I frosteded all that in and that’s going to be spring up north. On the sandy stuff, I’m gonna be drilling in what we call nitro boost, which is just a very diverse mix of clovers, legumes, there’s some, there’s some grains in there, and we just let that grow all spring and summer. Save if you’re sorghum coming up your soybeans, you know, forge soybeans. All this stuff that puts nitrogen from the air into the ground, into the dirt. It fixes nitrogen, is what that term is. And they they work for us all summer. They fertilize for us all summer. And what that’s doing when we go to plant our fall food plot, we terminate that and that just breaks down and feeds soil. So eventually we’re gonna be able to turn that soil into something with a higher CEC, more organic matter, and you have some food in there for the next planting. Where normally on crummy sandy soil like I have like a beach, it just drains out right. Fertilizer drains out, everything just runs right out.

00:56:14
Speaker 5: The soil.

00:56:14
Speaker 7: Sand drains very well, and that’s what normally happens. So I take a nitro boost. I like to crimp it or even I mean, whatever you have, you can till it in lightly, you can just get down mow it off. But just feed that soil like a system, over and over on top of each other, and you’re eventually you’re gonna you’re gonna see some improvements for sure.

00:56:36
Speaker 2: There Richard, we know Richard, Yeah, I love Richard. There was a really this was this is stuck with me. There was a we were on a farm and there was a CRP buffer strip along this field and then the rest of it was conventionally farm. He took a shovel, said look at this, and it was, you know, completely solid chunk of dirt and they took a chunk of where the CRP where you know, like it’s way more organic matter, all those different roots, and you could actually see life in that soil. And I feel like, oftentimes that’s a really good comparison of what you’re obviously trying to aim to build the organic matter build up the soil, and that’s what CRP does, or all these different things that you’re talking about, where instead if you have a a clump of dirt or you have a little miniature organism underneath the ground. So that’s it was just crazy because it’s line boom boom, and it was two completely different types of soils, even though the same.

00:57:24
Speaker 7: Field yeah, I’m glad you mentioned that what that’s doing, that CRP and some of the different seed types in that nitro boost mix that we plant, they are different root depths, right, So those native grasses going on super deep, and what that’s doing is it’s mining the nutrients, is bringing up for the plant, and it does that in all different columns of the soil where the farm ground the disk ground. You’re kind of resetting that every year and having to redo that. So we try to keep living roots in the soil as many days out of the year as we can. The microbiology feeds off that they do better for the dirt pants. And then, like I said, those different root structures the sunflower versus the soybean versus sorghum plants, clover, they all have different root depths, so they’re all grabbing nutrients from different spots or different depths in the soil and bringing those up to that green plant, which we then terminate and put right back down on top of the dirt. So yeah, no, I’m not surprised you saw that those buffer ships are awesome. Native grasses are awesome for that and just different ways to keep those roots living as long as you can.

00:58:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, wonderful.

00:58:29
Speaker 2: Any other from vitalized where you know an faq that you want to address right now, and then we’ll wrap it up here.

00:58:38
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:58:39
Speaker 7: I think one thing that people always want to know is you know how much fertilizer? What do I use? You know what do I do with my soil? I’m having this issue. I’m having that issue. We take every customer and we talk to them and we help them out when they have questions. We sell soil tests, but that’s not the point. The point is when they get the results, we know how to prescribe to that issue. And I think that synthetic stuff that you can buy it at the tsecs and whatnot, that’s just going to be a short fix.

00:59:10
Speaker 5: Your soil is going to tighten up.

00:59:11
Speaker 7: I think some natural fertilizer, all organic slow release stuff that’s going to feed your soil longer. It’s gonna be healthier for your plans. And that’s something definitely gonna do in the spring anytime with the year. But just get that soil test, get the micronutrients in there, get that pH up, and then feed it the correct food and then that’s going to be your best way to go.

00:59:34
Speaker 5: I mean, you can tell the dirt up.

00:59:35
Speaker 7: You can do the stuff you have with the equipment you have, But if you can move this way a little bit, it’s going to pay off over time.

00:59:42
Speaker 1: I like it. Well, thank you so much, Jared. There you guys have it.

00:59:45
Speaker 2: There is Jared’s opinion on why your food bosses aren’t producing what you really are hoping for. Next up we have Kyle with Team Radical. Let’s go and kick it off, all right. Up next we have Kyle with Team Rat. Kyle, You’ve planted a lot of food plots over the years, You’ve shot a lot of big bucks over food over the years, and I think it’s likely a pretty big part of your overall plan for success every year. But for a lot of people out there, they plant the food plots, they watch your YouTube channel and they’re like, Man, for whatever reason, I don’t have mature bucks or I don’t have all these different things coming in and having these magical food plot hunts I plan on every spring. I do fall food plots, but it seems like the deer are not using them. What are some potential reasons why this could be the case?

01:00:37
Speaker 6: WHOA, that’s loaded. But there’s a lot of things I mean, I guess the general consensus a lot of people think that you just go plant a food plot and deer just magically supposed to come there before you even decide what you’re planning. Really need to decide, in my opinion, the location, I mean, the design of the food plot, I think is equally as important as what the actual product that you’re putting out is. And the size is going to vary, you know, is it a small little kill plots, you know, quarter half acre? Is it a destination plot where you can put three to four acres of you know, soy beans or corn something like that. All those things vary so and if you don’t have that too, you know, I know we talked about this on one of your other podcasts. Is you know, paying the farmer to leave some mad crop, whether it’s beans or the corn, and just knock it down periodically throughout the season. And maybe you might have just a small little cove plot that you can plant, you know, plant that in clover and chicory. You know, I kind of talked to you about this a little bit at the Peoria Show here this past weekend. But you know, someone was really brought someone that’s really prominent in the honey world was really actually batching clover, and it just blew my mind. I took, I took, I took a fence to it. Let’s put it that way, because we over, in my opinion, is like the easiest, most inexpensive, attractive, failed proof plots that I feel like you can possibly plan. You know, we just got done doing the frost seeding here Central Illinois, and it’s it’s just so easy and fail proof. You know, you’re talking about fall plots. Fall plots. The last two to three years we’ve had significant drafts in the fall. And you go and do a fall plot. I don’t care. You can try to get a you know, a buggy up there and water it and do every decoration measure you can think of to try to get it, but it’s still not going to be sufficient enough. Really. If it is, you put in a ton of time, money, and work to get that little fall plot to take off. But and then if you don’t get it to come up, you know, then you don’t have a good stand or you don’t have anything there for the season to draw the deer, turkeys, whatever in and the other thing too. When while we’re on fall plots is I’ve noticed. This is a huge trend I’ve been seeing over the last seven years which blows my mind, is planning the fall plots too early. And I get planning around rain is very critical, but you know, the last couple of few years, like I said, we’ve had a drought. But in a normal year, if you do catch a good some rains and you plan it, say really early, and I’m calling you know, end of July, very beginning of August. In my opinion where I’m at, that’s too early because what will happen is that that product will get too tall and it’ll be less palatable to the deer. It’ll be pretty mature by the time season rolls around. And so many people, I think, forget that once deer season starts. It’s like they think the fall plot is just done growing. That’s not the case. I mean a lot of times special last few years, they’re growing all the way through November. So the taller once it gets over such heighth, you know’s cerial grains, whatever it may be, they become unattractive. You know, you see all the time these guys holding up these giant turnups, the size of their head or these giant brass cause you know, and they’re just like bragging about, like, man, this is the best thing ever that’s been sending it to me. That’s the last thing that I want in my experience. They absolutely will not touch them. And if you ever notice, whenever they pick those up and look at them, what do you notice first hand? There’s not a mark on them?

01:04:18
Speaker 1: Right?

01:04:18
Speaker 6: You know why is because the deer weren’t eating. Then that’s exactly what you don’t want. So that’s been frustrating seeing a lot of people do that, and I hope they take that the heart. But you know, fall plots are great if if you get the rain. They’re also great to have where jullir bean’s into you know, it’s real. It’s a like the cover crop. You know, farmers do it too. It’s easy to kill off. It keeps them shaded. So many benefits to that. But yeah, I mean that’s a mixed bag, right, I mean, food plot size, destination, is it a kill plot? The design is extremely critical.

01:04:56
Speaker 2: And talk about design, So yeah, I’m giving you a paintbrush. Paint me the perfect food plot. And I know it’s so situational, but think think of the average guy that maybe has on the larger and an acre to play with, right, So maybe it’s a permission piece. Maybe they just bought a small farm and they’re like, man, I think I can. Yeah, you bring the chainsaw and a brush hog, and I you know, I don’t have access to a skids deer or dozer or whatever the case may be. Like, it’s design the perfect budget friendly food plot.

01:05:25
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean we’re gonna go with clover and chickory right off the bat. I’m just gonna be honest with you. That’s least expensive, easiest plant, most fail proof thing that you have frost seeding it in. I mean you can do with a handseater. You can do it behind a foiler. But my perfect plot if I had to design one. And again, this is gonna really vary on your deer density too. You know a lot of guys are saying, oh, I’ve got a food plot, but the deer just destroy it and I can’t get it. The last you can do deer fence with electric fence, whatever it may be. But I really like an inside corner of a food plot to be in greens, specifically clover and chickery leading into the beans or corn, and like I said earlier, if you’ve got permission on this ground and you’ve only got a half acre, but it butts up to you know, the said farmer.

01:06:14
Speaker 1: Big ag there.

01:06:15
Speaker 6: Well, is there a way that you can purchase an acre or two of that corn or beans, whatever it may be. But I want it to be secluded too, right, I don’t want it exposed to the road. That’s the last thing I want. I want everything as stay away from the roads, out of visibility, out of sight, out of mind as possible. And then the biggest key is access and exit. You’ve got to be able to get in and out of there. You know, the last podcast I was on with you, I was hunting the two specific bucks there in December. I ended up having thirteen encounters with them before I finally got a shot, and I ended up killing both of them December twenty sixth and January first, I think, is when I got done. But a lot of people ask me, like, well, Kyle, why don’t you just go do a hanging hunt. Well, when you’re dealing with sixty seventy deer a night coming in, you go and you make a move. You might beat the first ten deer, but those two mature bucks. They’re gonna be the smartest ones. They’re coming in last, and you might bump, you might bust that, you know, fifteenth deer in his game over And in my case, I was very fortunate to have my wife and kids drive up there on side by side and spook out the deer of an afternoon. If I didn’t have that, I would not have hunted. Seriously, if I don’t have a backup of someone to come up there and bump the deer out or something to bump bust the deer off other than me getting down and I can’t get out of there smoothly, I won’t hunt. It’s it’s literally that simple.

01:07:40
Speaker 1: So that was kind of.

01:07:42
Speaker 2: Long winded there, I hope that. Yeah, so maybe answered your question. Yeah, so this is a all right, I’m putting you on the spot. I said I was going to do that. How many gallons of water does it take to cover EQUI the equivalent to an inch of rain? How many gallons is your guests for, you know, three forty and sixty square feet for an inch of rain? When he talked about houling in water, I’ve done this figure and anyone that’s a serious food potter.

01:08:06
Speaker 1: Has probably done this at one time. Like much water, I’ve.

01:08:09
Speaker 4: Looked it up before.

01:08:10
Speaker 6: I can’t remember, but I’m getting guess it’s in the hundreds of thousands of gallons.

01:08:14
Speaker 2: It’s twenty seven thousand gallons of water for one acre, for one acre for one ache of an inch or one inchury yeah, yeah, so.

01:08:24
Speaker 6: Twenty seven thousand gallons of.

01:08:26
Speaker 2: Water, which is crazy when you think about how much rainfall really is. How many gallons of water comes down when you get two inches of rain across the giant area.

01:08:34
Speaker 1: So you’re you’re.

01:08:36
Speaker 2: A big proponent of clover and chickory for the beginning of April. For someone’s like, hey, I I just got access to a new piece, or I didn’t frosteed. I knew I should have, but I didn’t do it. Is it too late for them, or what’s the strategy for them to get some clover and chickory in the ground before look at.

01:08:52
Speaker 6: The forecast, like right now we’ve got, you know, maybe a couple few days left in the forecast that gets below freezing. The key the frost seeding is the freezing thal, freezing thal when you can get it right around that day when everything is freezing and thalling, freezing and thalling, that’s whenever you want to be doing your frost seeding. So, like I said, you’re right at the tail end of it in my opinion, where I’m at at least for it to work. Things have started green up, you know, this past week and we had some seventy degree weather, so it’s it’s trying to green up super fast right now, but there are still a few days left with some freezing and falling. So yeah, you’re right at the very end of it. What if, at least.

01:09:32
Speaker 2: What if you missed the frost seating is the next best thing to can eat? This broadcast right before a heavy rain? Should you lightly disk? What are some options for something like.

01:09:41
Speaker 4: That could do it?

01:09:42
Speaker 6: You could do a spring, I mean I would recommend a spring, a spring planning, but that would be more so using a drill if I’m being honest, or if you do broadcast it, like you need to make sure it’s covered a little bit. You need to work the dirt and make sure it’s covered a little bit. But that’s tricky with clover, right, I mean you can’t. You do not want the planet too deep. That’s why I love frost seeding in my opinion, doesn’t matter what the product is. If if I could frost see it. Same with switch grass for bettingh switch grass. I love the frost seed because Mother nature will not fail as far as when it comes to planning. It will get that seed in there freezing and falling. But hitting those dates is crucial. But yes, you could do a spring I would recommend it in the spring if you miss the frost seeding, but yes, you need to have a really good seed bed if you’re going to do it in the spring.

01:10:36
Speaker 2: Do you ever add in a nurse crop like oats on a spring planning of clover chickery or do you typically only do that for a fall planning?

01:10:43
Speaker 6: To be honest with you, I I don’t even do spring plannings at all of clover and chickery. I know a lot of people do, but I I typically I focus primarily on frost seeding when it comes to clover and chickery primarily. Okay, but yeah, that would be that would be great to do with some oats or a cereal grain like that. It’ll help give it shade whenever it starts warm up and keep it covered. And that’s another thing is everybody wants to was really beautiful plots, you know, just thick lush. I personally like to, especially the last few years you know we’ve had drought weather. Well, I mean something shading in that clover is very very important because a lot of people mow it too often, and what it’ll do is it’ll burn up that clover. So I’ll actually min’ll actually look pretty nasty honestly for quite a while before I will ever mow it. You know, if I do mow it, I’m gonna mow it right before a rain that I know for sure is coming. And I might mow my clover literally maybe once or twice total leading up the season, and it ends up looking you know, phenomenal, about six eight inches high. You know, mow it just knocking those heads off on the on the white ladino clover, and it works fantastic.

01:11:54
Speaker 2: Here’s question for you, as far as maintenance goes, you know, like a straight clover plot, I feel like the maintenance might be a little bit more straightforward. Is there any nuances for someone that does clover and chickory as far as herbicide use or you just typically you know, clipping it, mowing it maybe on a on a normal year, twice a year, three times a year.

01:12:12
Speaker 6: Right, I mean, yeah, you’re gonna get some grass of stuff, and you can do some clesidum and stuff like that. But I’ll be honest with you, I’ve been on a no chemical program for like the last probably four or five years for everything just doing as far as for the clover chickery, yeah, yeah, I don’t.

01:12:30
Speaker 4: I don’t.

01:12:31
Speaker 6: I don’t spray it. No, I literally just do the mowing at the right time. Like I said, you know, whenever you mow it too many times and you’re mowing constantly throughout the summer months and everything, that’s just going to encourage new weeds and everything to grow. But if they’re shaded out, that clover will just sit there and just create a carpet taller and lusher and thicker. And that’s why I wait, I mean, I’m really trying to keep it shaded and keep it cool, let.

01:12:59
Speaker 5: It grow well.

01:13:01
Speaker 6: For when I wanted the most right for during deer season.

01:13:05
Speaker 2: I want you to think not exclude late season. So exclude late season, exclude the soybeans when we got snow and everything else, but from October and November, first part of November or December. Excuse me, how many sits on average are you actually sitting on a micro plot or a green plot or something like to that nature, Just to illustrate that, because I think a lot of people’s issues come down to they plan a food plot, they want to sit in the stand, they want to sit and look at their work multiple multiple, multiple times over over the year, and a lot of times access gets brought up in every single deer hunting podcast ever, but it still doesn’t hit home for a lot of people, Like, you know, they do mental gymnastics stuff like, well, it’s not that bad, but you know, I do scared deer when I walk in, and I do scared deal when I walk out, But I don’t think it’s that bad. So I’m trying to illustrate how often you’re really hunting these or how much are these you know, a key component to the bigger picture for hunting, maybe one hundred yards away or two hundreds away.

01:14:01
Speaker 6: Yeah, uh so, October, I’m primarily on those microplots, right, I mean the greens, specifically clover and chickory, and I hunt a lot of observation sets which might not be right over the plot, but I don’t have the right wind direction. But I’ll be honest with you too, I’m relying on trail camera intel as well, telling me you know, hey, well and historically you know this buck is hitting this plot first two weeks he likes it on this win. Another thing too, I think is not overemphasized us enough is more stands in a smaller area, meaning more stands closer together. Because educating you can educate that target buck you’re after really quickly. It only takes literally one time and you can educate them. So I’ll bounce around quite a bit, or I’ve got some spots, you know, where i just want to go sit that’s further away, that’s not where my target buck’s at. The wind directions right, and i just want to see what’s coming out up there. I’ll go do that. Leading into November, it’s really depending too on the weather, but primarily, you know, the rut is starting to kick in and start the seeking phase. I’m more off of those plots, whether it’s a micro or a big plot destination. I’m more in the timber then in the transition areas close to the food, but not right over the food, if that makes sense. I’m looking for those pinched down areas that are really close to the food in between the bedding. The transition specifically is what I’m after trying to catch them come from bed to food or from food to bed in between that path there.

01:15:41
Speaker 1: I think that’s all really great advice. And is there any other again?

01:15:46
Speaker 6: And I’ll be honest with you too, Jack, I didn’t mention this, but e bikes Yeah, I mean they’re great, life changing. Yeah, I mean, you can’t call me lady whatever you want, but it is the least amount of footprint that you could have right getting in and out. I’ve noticed lots of times I’ve drove by deer on the ee bikes and they just will not run. But if I walk past them, they’re they’re ready to run to the next county.

01:16:10
Speaker 4: Right.

01:16:10
Speaker 6: Those e bikes are fantastic for driving right up to your tree, staying you’re blind. Whatever I mean, And I will make them in accordance to that so I can do that. I can get in and out extremely quick, quietly and leave no footprint. That’s also been huge, huge.

01:16:29
Speaker 2: For me as far as if people think of a think of a message or an example of someone will reached out to you, or someone called you and said, Hey, Kyle Man, my I’m just struggling with my food plots.

01:16:40
Speaker 1: What is the common theme with that? Is it? Is it planting dates? Is it the location?

01:16:45
Speaker 2: What if you had to say one thing to lead people with to be self reflective of how to build a better plan for this upcoming year, what would you tell them?

01:16:55
Speaker 6: Well, I think one thing is too many people plant too many food plots in general, if they every square inch they have they want to plan a food plot. I think the general consists of what you need to realize is that every single food plot that you play in decreases your odds of being in the right place at the right time while you’re hunting. But with that said, you need to have enough to where you’re not educating over just one plot. And if you only have one plot, you need to take into consideration that these deer are going to pick up what you’re doing and you have to adapt to the situation because the deer are going to adapt to the pressure and whether it’s you know, they might move closer to the dark, or they’re taking a new route to get to the plot, whatever it may be. And I think, yes, again, you know, I just talked about fall plots where I see a lot of people planning them way too early and they’re way too mature in the deer or just not hardly touching their food plot, and they’re mad about it. They’ll send me a picture and they’ve got the most beautiful, lush, you know, cereal grain with rat whatever plot and it’s twelve eighteen inches tall, looks like just a carpet, and I’m like, that’s the that’s the last thing that i want right there, you know, I’m wanting it six eight inches tall, pops, and the deer will absolutely destroy it. It’s young and tender. They they really like it better. And I’ve done it both ways. I’ve seen it firsthand, experienced it myself because I’m actually planned on the right dates. You know. I tried before I left for an out west hunt, but we caught several rains back to back to back, so that stuff just grew like fire in it. They got too tall by the middle of the season. It was too tall and less palatable to the deer. But that’s a huge thing, huge mistake that I see. And then the biggest thing too for a lot of food plots, whatever it may be, is the seed bed. They’re trying to, you know, grow this beautiful food plot and they just have a terrible seed bed, whether it’s just thick grass, you know, and they they kill off the grass, but all that that is still there and they go in there and plant their food plot and you know it’s there. Don’t get the stand that they wanted a good seed bed. No matter what you’re planning, is is always critical. So those are some common mistakes that I definitely see quite often.

01:19:11
Speaker 1: Awesome, Well, thank you so much, Kyle.

01:19:13
Speaker 2: Where can people fall along with what you have going on and maybe watch some of your hunts where they’re get to see this in action.

01:19:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of them.

01:19:22
Speaker 6: You can check us out on YouTube, Team Radical on YouTube, follow us on Instagram, Team Underscore Radical, and you can find us on Facebook Team Radical Outdoors. But we’re on those three socials, and yeah, we’ve got a lot of hunts on there, especially a lot of white tails, mostly all bow hunting. That’s the hard thing. We didn’t really talk about much, but I’m primarily only bow hunting. I focus primarily on bow hunting basically only. So everything I do is set up for bow hunting, which will only be better or as good great for you know, a gun hunt, whatever it may be. So I did forget to mention that, but yeah, if you’re looking to watch them good boat hunting videos, check us out.

01:20:02
Speaker 2: All right, folks, welcome back to Back forty. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Next up, we’re going to have a topic that I think you guys will really appreciate, and it is simply the more effort you put in, why are you not having more success? White Tail hunting is one of those weird things where not always the more effort you put in the more you’re able to reap the benefits of that labor. Sometimes it is. So that will be the next episode of Back forty.

01:20:27
Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoyed this format.

01:20:29
Speaker 2: We’re gonna be filtering through different panel of experts and guests throughout the year.

01:20:34
Speaker 1: We’ll see you next time. See you