Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1023: Back 40 - Why Deer Ignore Your Food Plots (Biggest Mistakes Landowners Make)

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Ep. 1023: Back 40 - Why Deer Ignore Your Food Plots (Biggest Mistakes Landowners Make) · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What is going on? I'm Jake Hoefer, the host of
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Back forty. We're back with another season. You're going to
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: be getting an episode like this once a month here,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and if you didn't catch any of the Back forty
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: series last year, let me explain how this episode format
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: works is a little bit different. So each episode we're
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: going to be diving into one specific question, one specific
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: white tailed dilemma that we all likely face, and I
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: bring in a panel of experts. I ask them all
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the same exact question, and we get their perspective. And
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the beauty of this is you can pick up on
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: any common themes of shortcomings that they've addressed with their
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: own food plots or their own issues, or little specific
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: pieces of advice that may be the missing link in
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: your strategy of whatever the topic may be. So this
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: week we have the deer just aren't using the food
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: plots like I see on YouTube, like I see on TV.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: It just does not feel worth the effort. And we
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: have Thomas Milsda with the Unteam Ambition out of Wisconsin.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: We have Jared Vanhase out of Michigan with the Habitat podcast.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: We have Kyle from Team Radical who is fanatical about
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: food plots and how it incorporates into his hunting strategy.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: And we have Terry Peer with real world wildlife products
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: and chasing giants who's out of Kentucky and also hunts
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: in Illinois. So we have the core of the Midwest here,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: all different little areas, all different nuances on planting days, strategy,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and this episode addresses a lot of different things, which
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: was the goal from strategy on hunting, from what you plant,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: how you plan it, all the different things. So if
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: you're gearing up to have the best food plotting near ever,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: what does that mean and is it actually going to
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: help you or hurt you? All that's addressed here in
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: today's episode of the Backboardy podcast presented by Multrie. We're
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: going to kick things off with Thomas Milsna out of Wisconsin,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: and then we're going to keep working through all the
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: different experts. So hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Here
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: we go. All right, I'm running into this problem. This
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: is something that a lot of people can relate to.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I'm planning my food plots every spring or every fall,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: but it seems like the deer are barely using them,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: or they're not allowing me this magical late October or
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: November or late season opportunity that I have envisioned in
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: my head from all the different forms of media that
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: have come out over the year. So I'm planning food
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: plots every year, but they just don't seem to be
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: doing what they're supposed to be doing. What do you
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: tell me?
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Well, every situation is different, right, But I will tell
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: you what I know and what I've learned over the
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: years on food plots is first and foremost, nutrition equals attraction.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: So you know, reevaluate your soil tests, get a micro
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: level soil evaluation as far as like the mineral components
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: in that plot, because that will dictate the palatability of
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: the plant, the sugar content, and the plant ultimately the
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: flavor of the plant for the deer. Okay, that's one
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: level in there. The plants that you're planting in there
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: are going to dictate the seasonal attractiveness of that plot.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: But bigger than both of those things, and more often
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: than not, the reason why deer aren't seeking out a
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: specific food plot is the location itself. So what I
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: will tell clients is a poor food plot, a lower
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: quality food plot. You know, a crappy throw and grow
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: type system, maybe there's a lot of grasses in there
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: relatively poor soil. But a poor food plot will in
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: a good location of a secure location, will trump a
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: really good food plot in a less secure or more
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: open situation. So we're always trying to draw deer into
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: areas with our food plot systems, but we want to
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: maintain connecting cover, certain levels of security cover or screening
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: so that they're not getting pressure on that food plot specifically.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: And you know that goes hand in hand with a
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: lot of different things as far as our design element
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: and how we pursue deer. But if they're not consistently
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: showing up there, or one problem I've ran into is
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: I'll get deer on a food plot very consistently, but
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: every time a hunt I don't see them, which is
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: a telltale sign that you have access issues.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: So good screening cover and then adjacent to that food
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: plot is improving the overall food quality of the native habitat,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: so that we're creating consistent food and cover in the
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: area and then pulling those deer into that food plot
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: when that seasonally attractive food source is the most palatable,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: which you know, if we're doing like a cool season
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: annual like brassicas or small grains in the fall, that's
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: when they're going to be the most palatable. That's why
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: they work well. You know it's a cool season cover
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: crop at the end of the day. But location, location, location, that's.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Going to be the biggest thing.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: And from a structure standpoint, the analogy I always use
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: with clients is if we look at any given food
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: source and we think of it as a the bottom
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: layer of a multi layered cake. If we want, if
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: we're thinking specifically, like how do I pull mature bucks
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: into this location, whether we're hunting on that location or
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: hunting between that location and betting, how do we pull
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: those bucks into that location daylight movement during hunt hours
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: that we.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Can actually harvest them?
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Right, The bottom layer of that multi layer cake is
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: that food source. That's the anchor that's keeping those deer
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: coming back to that area and creates that pull. That's
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: the foundation of that movement in and of itself. The
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: next layer on that cake that's generally going to be
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: where your does bed. The icing that holds those two
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: layers together is what the cover represents on the property.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: The icing represents the cover, so your does want to
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: bed in. Generally the first layer of cover in from
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: the food source. So look at your food plots and go,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: can I see from the food plot way into the woods,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Or inversely, if I'm standing in the woods where I
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: think deer might want a bed, can I see all
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: the way back across that food plot? If that's if
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: you answer yes to that, then you need to increase
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: the amount of cover between that base layer, which is
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: the food and the dough betting. And then if you
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: want to stack that next layer on top with those bucks,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: and you need to make isolation or create some level
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: of isolation between where the dough's bed and where the
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: bucks want to bed. Where I am and sell Western
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin driftless region, hill country in general. A lot of times,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: almost more often than not, it stacks up exactly like
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: a multi layered cake. You've got a big food source,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: whether it's egg or a food plot doesn't have to
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: be a big food source, a consistent food source. More specifically,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: you got a food source, and the does are right
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: inside that first layer cover, so it's really important to
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: have good edge structure. The does bed right there, or
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: maybe there's not good edge structure, so they bed over
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: that crown of the hill. And then they're using the topography, right.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: I talk about how topography is always the greatest form
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: of cover. They use that as the cover.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: And then where are your bucks.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Maybe they're next level down, or if it's flipped around,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: they're the next level up there on the top, or
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: they're down the ridge line of ways farther away from that,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: maybe the better bedding area per se. But the does
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: always own the best betting next to the best food sources.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: So that's how it all stacks up. So from a
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: location standpoint, if you want to stack that top layer
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: on the cake, which is where your bucks bed, you
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: got to be thinking layers of cover and security all
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: revolving around that.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Base layer that is that food source.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: But I would more often than not with clients start
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: with a soil sample and look at that because it's
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: very easy to throw down braskas and get them to
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: grow and they might look great, but that doesn't necessarily
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: mean that they're high in nutrients and everything. The deer
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: is relative, so if there's nothing better on the landscape
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: and you're holding deer, they might show up there. But
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: if your neighbor has a better food source or there's
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: better native food out there in a more secure location,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: that's where deer are going to spend the bulk of
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: their time, and they're going to show up. You're always
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: going to have a handful of dos that linger on
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: those plots, and then that buck is going to come
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: through at some time in the middle of the night
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: and check a community scrape on the edge of that
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: food plot, or walk through, take a few nibbles.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: And move on.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: But if you truly want to hold them in the area,
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: the adjacent habitat and the security that it provides along
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: with the availability of food is going to directly relate
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: to how frequently those deer visit those food plots that
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: you have out there, and nutrition is a huge, huge
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: portion of that.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of hunters realistically, they've all heard
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: they need to get a soil sample, and I don't
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: know how many actually do. And then beyond that is
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: getting the recommendations of how to amend the soil. Is
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: there any key pieces of advice for someone that's like, Okay,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get a soil sample and I'm going
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: to test the micro and macro nutrients of the soil,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: because a lot of them might not cover both. Do
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I need to typically work up the soil and get
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: those get that nutrients worked into the soil, like just
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: high level? What does that look like?
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you go down that path, you know the
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: more conventional process there, which is you know, macro level
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: nutrients NPK. What does it ultimately what does it take
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: to grow this crop I want to grow? That's a
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: downward spiral, and it's a it's a never ending one.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: To that point, right, your inputs are going to consistently
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: increase and you're not really increasing the palatability of the crop, right,
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: analogous to the conventional agricultural model, where you know, we
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: know exactly what it takes to grow this crop, but
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: every single year the nutritional content of that crop declines
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: due to synthetic fertilizers, due to chemical usage, due to
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: genetically modified crops that are bred or modified to handle
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: certain conditions, you know, grow to certain yield potentials, but
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: not necessarily emphasizing the nutritional content of that crop itself.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: So the big thing first and foremost, you know, and
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: these are you can go online look this up. Six
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: soil health principles, right, But a big part of that
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: is going to be species diversity because that ultimately is
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: going to dictate the soil quality long term. And then
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: you know, with that the inputs that you do put
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: down in the early phases, Like our goal is always
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: to balance out the soil mineral profile and then slowly
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: taper off of inputs. We can't do that if we're
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: just feeding this you know, crack addict soil ecology right
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: where it needs these added nutrients to produce anything. We
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: have to step away from that slowly and improve that.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: So there's different ways to address that. We use carbon
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: based mineralized fertilizers. We try to reduce the amount of
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: chemical inputs. We try to reduce the amount of disturbance
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: in general, both chemical tillage, so on and so forth.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: And you know, I'm not anti chemical, I'm not anti tillage.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: It's the right time, in the right place, and just
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: not over using or abusing any specific tool that we have,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: but ultimately limiting soil disturbance and promoting soil biology, which
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: is going to come from plant diversity in your planting
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: and limited disturbance, maintaining soil protection or cover on the
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: ground as much or as often as possible, and then
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: nutrients cycling, so animal integration at some level. Are we
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: bringing in more nutrients? Are we bringing in more carbon
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: into that system, more microbe stuff like that. And now
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of different things out there that we
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: can utilize from different biological sprays. Like I said, the
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: carbon based fertilizer we use is actually made with digested
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: dairy cattle manure and then has different levels of nutrients
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: and trace minerals added.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Into it, so we can balance that stuff out there.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: But ultimately, if you're trying to force a monocrop, you're
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: going to be taking a step backwards almost every single time.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: But you can layer that in there. You know, you
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: can layer in like you know, plant a limited but
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: still diverse planting, and then add another layer down the road.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: That's how we do it. We I refer to it
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: as a stacked food plot system. So we have a
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: summer cover crop that if managed appropriately, and I say that,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: you know, soil prep cover crops lead into it. If
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: managed appropriately, that provides a standing grain in the fall,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: but it also sets us up to where we can
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: go in and add a fall forage crop on top
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: of that, so we have multiple layers of food, and
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: then we still come in and top it with cereal
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: rye later in the season. And what we do with
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: that system is we actually mix in a small amount
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: of we kind of refer to it as a crop
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: matched fertility program, so a small amount of that mineralized
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: carbon based fertilizer with every planting.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: So it's a little bit every.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Time, but we're slowly building up that mineral and then
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: extracting it.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: But it's a maintenance level more than anything.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: So we're not just like trying to jam a yield
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: with a lot of nitrogen and pull out out of
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: the soil without putting something back in. And that builds
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: up the stacked system, which is palatable much much broader
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: timeline in the fall, So like standing sorgum and soybeans
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: is like our foundation of that summer blend.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: There's some other stuff in there.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Like buckwheat to release phosphorus and sun hemp and stuff
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: like that, but that provides that standing grain and then
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: we come in there with a fall forage mix which
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: is going to be heavy on brassicas, winter peas, some
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: oh stuff like that, and then we'll still come back
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: in and top it with cereal rye, because that sets
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: us up for the next year. It reduces our weed
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: competition in the spring, provides a good green food source
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: right away in the spring. But more importantly, that sets
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: us up to where we don't have to come in
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: and chemically disturb the soil biology again. And what we
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: know through that process through research, not specifically on our
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: food plots, but research with those general practices and protocols
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: in general, is that if we limit the amount of
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: disturbance tillage and chemical and maintain a living root and
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: a soil, we can increase the fungal dominance of the soil,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: which equates to increasing fat production or lipid production within
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: the plant. So I say all that big words, big terms.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: What that means is we're producing a soybean in the
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: fall that's higher in fat content. So we have a
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: high fat, high protein food source along with our high
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: carbohydrate food source and the standing sorgum, and then we
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: top that with the forages. Ultimately we get the greens
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: and the bulbs and then the small grains all that stuff.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: So it's a cycle that we get into. But we
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: can really stack a lot of food in a small area.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: So with that diversity element also comes the diversity of
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: a deer's palette on any given day, Right, what food
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: or what nutrition are they seeking out based on climactic conditions,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: based on seasonal nutritional demands, stuff like that. And if
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: we can pack as many of those things into one area,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: one we're more efficient with our space, and two we're
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: creating consistent pull into that area. And the other thing
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: too is you know that standing grain blend with the
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: sortgum provides an element to cover there too, so it
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: creates a level at a level of security. And then
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: you know, we we build off of that even more
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: with perennial systems around the edges of that tree crops
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: mass producing shrub crops that ultimately produce mass and woody
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: browse and things like that. So we can really stack
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: in a lot of different deer food groups, many of
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: which are perennial in that system, which creates conditioning, security, consistency,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: all the things that we want on a property where
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: we're trying to reduce pressure and increase attraction.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: To put a cherry on top of a food source,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: maybe someone you know like, yeah, the kind of eat
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: it and I've had opportunities, but I haven't had the
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: ability to get one in bow range or very consistently.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: So if the cherry on top, is it a soft
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: mass tree that is dropping pairs and it also doubles
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: as a as a mock scrape or a waterhole, like
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: what is the what's the silver bullet? I know you're
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: anti silver bowl, but what's the silver bullet? Cherry on top?
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: To a food source where it's like, okay, yeah, I've
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: been amending the soil. I've been doing these things. It
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: is improving, and I really don't have this problem where
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: they my dear are using the food pots for example,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: what is the cherry on top? Yeah?
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: I think the cherry is ultimately the diversity element there, right.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: And also again it's all relative, so if you look
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: around or even on your property in general. I was
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: on two properties this last week.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: One of them they're.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Roughly the same size. I'm trying to remember. One was
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty acreshen was one hundred and sixteen acres.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: One of them nice property, beautiful property, a lot of great.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: Things going on.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Not a single soft mass tree on that property. An
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: old cattle pasture which was what was weird because a
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: lot of those old cattle pastures have a lot of
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: old like pasture apples in there, which are phenomenal. Right,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: not a single apple tree on a property like that,
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: parking some soft mass apple trees around those food plots.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Huge, huge pull on that right, and you hit the
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: nail on the head.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: I love the apple trees, crab apples, especially soft sweet mass,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: really really attractive late October through or excuse me, late November,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: late September through a lot of October. But on this
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: other property, the oh, excuse me, what I was going
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: to say with the apples is food source attractive, but
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: also that community hub, that community scrape that almost always
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: shows up underneath those apple trees. But then on the
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: other side of that this other property I just walked
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: the other day, very similar property. Again old cattle pasture,
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: apple trees throughout the whole property. So having one or
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: a handful of apple trees in a specific, defined location
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: is going to be less attractive because it's not as
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: limited of a resource.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: On that property.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: But again, to go all the way back, the location
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: is going to be everything. So if that location provides security,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: maybe it's a travel corridor or a connecting corridor, the
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: start of a corridor, the end of a corridor, doesn't
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: matter if you're flowing through there or close to it.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: They're going to show up. They're going to check that
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: apple tree for apples and social interaction, you know, checking
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: those scrapes, working those scrapes and whatnot.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: So I don't want to.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Say an apple tree is a silver bullet solution, but I
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: think an apple tree or some level of perennial mass
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: production around that plot creates a lot more consistency. You
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: can see the same thing a lot of times if
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: you're on a property that doesn't have a lot of oaks,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: and there's that stand of white oaks, right, it's really
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: really heavy pull. And maybe that food plot is adjacent
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: to that. So that food plot is a ton of
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: activity late September early October timeframe, but you actually you
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: go hunt it and you realize, like the deer don't
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: spend a lot of time in the food plot.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: They're in the woods.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: And then they just kind of transition through the food
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: plot and they grab a few bye seat and they
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: move on.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Next up we have Terry Peer. Terry has fielded a
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: lot of food plot questions over the years. Likely has
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: a little different strategy than some of the folks out there,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: But I think this conversation is going to point you
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: in the right direction, whether it's planting dates, strategy, understanding
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: what's been used on the ground in the past, and
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: how that may impact the attractiveness of the food source
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: without for there do Let's go ahead and jump in
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: right now with Terry Peer. All right, next up we
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: have Terry Peer. Terry, you have a lot of experience
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: with food plots. You've probably asked more questions about food
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: plots and dilemmas than just about anyone in the country. Here.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: You're in Kentucky. You plant food plots across you know,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: different states and help implement plans. So I'm going to
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: pose you an issue every year. You know, I feel
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: like I'm putting it out great food plots, but it
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: seems like the deer aren't using them. I'm not having
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the success that you see on TV or even see
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: you know other people where they have twenty thirty deer
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: in the beans or in the corn or in the
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: fall food plot. What am I potentially doing wrong? What
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: are what's the checklist? I can go down and say, hey,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: what am I not doing right? Because it doesn't feel
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: like I'm doing something right and it's not me, it's
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: just I'm posing this for everyone.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: Well, thanks, Jake.
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: You know, I'm coming at this from a very unique
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: situation because I've gotten to study under some of the
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: best agriculture agronomous you know, with Dwayne Hopkins, a real
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: world wildlife, seed and green prairie, and then obviously my
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: time with Don Higgins is you know, my mentor I've
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: seen it all, but I can honestly appreciate the question
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: and the situation because I'm just a normal guy, just
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: like everybody else. So the struggles that I've seen personally,
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: the through lank consultings I've seen clients, it's a real
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: issue that I think most people probably are more scared
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: to admit because of the shame that social media will
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: give them.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: But it's a real factor.
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: So I think there's several things to unpack here. When
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: you say failure, what is failure? Sometimes that is I
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: choose the wrong product for the geographic area or the
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: deer density that I have, and the deer completely wipe
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: it out or it doesn't grow whatsoever.
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: There's that side of it.
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: Then there's this monster tsunami called mother nature that comes
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: in and you put hours and hours and hours and
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: thousands of dollars that your wife may or may not
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: know about, and it fails because it was variables completely
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: outside of your control. And then there's that probably the
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: worst case scenarios. You have your place looking like a
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: golf course and the deer on the neighbor eating pasture.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: Or eating moody brows.
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: So there's a lot of different directions that you can
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: take this. And you know, I think when you when
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: you unpack kind of those three silos.
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: When you when you have.
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: Over brows issues, I think I think society or the
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: hunting community is probably the better term. They they watch
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: this stuff on YouTube and they take everything so literal.
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: All this guy did this, so I have to do
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: it on my property this way because it worked there. Man,
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: every farm in every area and deer density. It's a
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: case by case basis. So look two resources that are
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: from your area with your deer density. Don't take everything
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: so literally on the internet through podcasts and trust me,
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: I'm talking about my own here. So it's it's you
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: have to understand and how to apply specific things to
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: your property, because you know, you go in with a
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: one acre or less property in certain areas of the
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: country with high deer density and try to put soybeans
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: in it, you're going to be frustrated because of the
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: over brows situation. So you know, I would say that's
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: one of the failures. The second the second thing is
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: mother Nature, and this is the one we have zero
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: control over. You know, last year, if you look at
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: if you look at a true timeline of the last
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: five years, you've had every scenario possible. We've had wet springs,
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: dry summer, and then wet fall last year in certain
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: and I'm speaking figuratively for my farms in Illinois and Kentucky.
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: A couple of years before that we had complete drought
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: early season and then we're wet three four years ago
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: at great spring, and then we didn't get rained. From
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: what Jake, I know you and I've talked about this
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: because we were in the same boat. We had like
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: middle of August through October fifteenth no rain. So the
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: guys who rely on fall food plots were just hung
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: out to dry. The best thing we can do is
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: try to hedge our bets and just like we want
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: to diversify our food plot program. Don't necessarily think about
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: it as diversifying the product for nutritional value to where
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: I have something for deer that has high feed value
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: feed value in soluble protein at different times of the year,
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: but also hedge our bets for plan A, plan B,
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: plan C based on mother nature. Because it's so frustrating
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: to go in and have your ground ready invest in
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: a no till drift'll buy your fertilizer and then no rate.
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: You just sit there and feel so helpless that it
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: makes you.
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: Want to go play golf instead. So I'll get there.
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: I think the last the last silo is probably where
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: you want to land the plane, and that is guys habit,
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: but deer aren't using it. That's probably the most devastating
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: from a morale standpoint of anything we have, and there
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: can be a lot of factors to that. Again, I
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: think that if we go into it looking at I
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: want to diversify my nutrition source as much as I can.
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: In the state's you know, game laws, the equipment, the
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: budget of.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: Some of them are permission properties.
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: We can only do so much, but get your book
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: INDs and then try to pack in as much diversity
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: as possible and not watch social media and uh, you
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: know YouTube to say it worked for this guy, it's
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: got to work for me when it's not the close
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: to the same situation. And what I mean by that is,
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: don't take something so literally from Don Higgins myself, from
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: you know whoever out there and say all that works
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: for them in Michigan or Iowa or Illinois, and I'm
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: going to try to do it in Georgia. Look at
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: what works, uh, deer density, soil, soil health, soil amendment.
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: And let's face it, we we sit on our own
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: property and want to be the next level deer hunter
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: and that might be from a one fifteen to a
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: one to twenty five or a one fifty to a
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: one sixty, or goodness gracious, the few people in the
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: world that can actually do what Don does and then
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: say a one ninety five to a two hundred.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: I think that we just gota. We got to pull
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: back a little bit.
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: And what's what's realistic, because what my fear is is
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: that a lot of people, although we can learn stuff
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: from those shows and all of them's great resources, just
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: like this one that we're on right now, but if
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: it's not feasible in your area. Basically from a soil
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: health to a herd health, to a herd number to
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: a genetic pocket, we're just going to continue to get frustrated.
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: Now we can evaluate those bookends on our property.
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: We can say this is what I can do inside.
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: Of this based on time, budget, equipment, soil area, type
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: of property. Even the public guys, you know, they can
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: do specific things, but it has to be realistic because
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: if we don't, if we don't basically control the narrative,
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: maybe even narratives not the right word, but control the
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: expectations of what's possible. I think that that's where people
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: who desire so much to take their hunting to the
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: next level get so frustrated because it's not achievable. And
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: then what happens is you try to overcomplicate your plans.
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: You get you know, oh, this guy said this, this
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: guy get this, and before you know it, we have
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: our property looking like a Where's Waldo picture? If I
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: might be dating myself, you're a hold.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: On I know, I know that, I know.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know.
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: Think about it.
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: You look at it from on ex or Google Earth,
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: and it's just this massive, just different stuff, and we're
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: in there way too much. We're putting intrusion on there.
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: We're hunting that, we're trying to over complicate with every gimmick,
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: every technique to make it.
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: And I think at some point.
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: The hunting community really over complicates things. Now when you
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: really strip back and say, my my property looks like
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: this golf course, it should be in the brochure of
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: any food plot seed company, and deer just aren't in it.
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: If that happens to you, what I would suggest doing
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: is work with your local AAG extension office and do
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: a Tisian analysis and it doesn't cost anything. And you know,
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: we can even offer resources for people if they.
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: Have a question about that. But you know, if deer aren't.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what's that going to tell us?
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: So for someone that says, what is the tissue analysis?
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Why would I even do this?
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: So we can look at a Tisian analysis and see
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: a spike in something and say, oh, well the nitrate
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: level is way too high in Nebraska. So I've been
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: testing this theory in Kentucky.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: Probably happened.
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: I noticed it about eight years ago with Brasica's And
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: for those folks who don't know about Nebraska's that's your tilledradishes,
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: your purple top turnips. And you see these internet stories
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: where these guys have this purple top turnip that's the
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: size of a volleyball, right, They're just huge ton of tonnage.
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: They go to planet and the deer don't eat it,
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: and they say.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: Oh, well, the deer had flyer the taste of it.
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: Let me tell you something.
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: A deer is eating rocks and sticks in the winter
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: if they're going to eat whatever they can to survive. Right, So,
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: by no means in my an agronomous. But where I
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: first noticed it is in in Kentucky. Every flat surface
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: in my area was a tobacco field. Okay, so you
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: had year there was no crop rotations. There wasn't corn
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: and soybeans like you guys have out in an island
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: or Illinois. Excuse me, it was tobacco. So to grow tobacco,
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: they had to throw nitrogen on this on this track
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: of ground the year after year after year. Tobacco loved nitrogen.
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: And what I found is when I raised brassicas in
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: the old tobacco fields, the dude didn't touch it. And
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: at least at first you know it took years for
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: them to start using it. But I could plant it
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: on an old clay hillside that never had anything other
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: than pasture grass on it, and they hammered it, and
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: I'm like, what.
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: Is going on here?
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: You know, you're literally talking about a number of yards
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: between the two plots. And I have this theory. I
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: can't tell you that it's right or wrong. They'll probably
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: be ten thousand comments of people below saying you're an idiot,
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: and that's fine.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: I get that every week.
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: But my theory in that is in properties that have
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: a high nitrogen that has gone into the subpen. So
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: even when you do your soil test, you're only doing
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: the soil test up high or the root but till
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: it radishes.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: Purple top turnans.
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: All of those have hair fiber roots that go feet
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: into the ground, and what I believe is happening is
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: it's pulling the nitrogen into the plant from the subpen
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: and then rotting up top. So when you do your
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: tission analysis, what I noticed is your nitrate level was
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: really really high. Your sugar levels would maintain the whole year.
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: So everybody would say they cut a radish open and
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: they say, oh, that's really hot and they want to
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: have the frost to say the sugars come up. My
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: theory is it's not the sugar's coming up, it's the
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: nitrate levels dropping to turn it from being bitter into
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: what the plant should be when we balance.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: Out the nutrients.
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: So you know, yeah, you can throw a ton of
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: nitrogen on a Braskas plot and it looked gorgeous, but
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: you're actually putting too much nitrogen on there that the
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: nitrate levels are too high. It takes longer for the
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: plant to mature or more cold weather to drop that nitrate.
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: Level down to balance it out.
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: So with all of the testing that we've been able
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: to do through chasing giants and you know obviously real
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: world and green prairie, we've started to see over the years,
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: especially starting with our clover blends, different things that spike
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: on the tissue analysis that the deer basically stay away
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: from for a period of time, and as that balances
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: itself out different times of the year, it'll be more attraction.
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: So that's why using blends of products is so important,
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: because you're hedging your bet, like saying right now in
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: we're recording in late March, there's certain plants that are
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: extremely palatable right now, where others are not palatable at all.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: So when a company.
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: Does a blend all of these kind of work in
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: a gant charts at different times of the year, different
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: times of the hunting season, deer will prefer it. If
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: you went in and just went all in on one
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: plant and said I'm going to plan a field of
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: purple top turnips, well guess what, there's going to be
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: a window that they absolutely hammer them, but through a
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: whole hunting season they'll probably avoid it.
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: So if if a.
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: Land manager a hunter is trying to really dial in
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: their food plot program and they're looking at this thing
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: and say, oh, this looks awesome. I'm going to have
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: every deer within three radio miles come into my food
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: plot and no deer there, I would guess that it's
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: either an intrusion part or possibly the wrong type of
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: product for that specific window that they're looking at. You know,
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: it really gets back to the science of it, or
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: it could just be that they're over using it. You know,
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: with intrusion, they're trying to over complicate it. They're trying
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: to be in there doing every little gizmo when you know,
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: the philosophy that really we've studied under Dawn is less
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: is more, give them what they need, be as diverse
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: as possible, and stay out. But us as humans, I.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Want the over want, we want a family, want to
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: over complicate it.
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: I want that next little.
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: Gizmo, that next little easy button from Staples to say,
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: I'm going to attract everything. And sometimes we hurt more
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: than we do.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: But man, out of those.
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: Three silos of what considered failures, the most devastating emotional
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: thing that you can have is you got this lush
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: field or this thing that you've strategized, and you had
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: sleepless nights on how many you know, rolls of quarters
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: of I hidden from my wife to invest in my property.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: And the deer aren't there. Uh.
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: My guess is at some point they'll be there. It's
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: just isnt the wrong time for the wrong strategy. But yeah,
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: I mean, man, you talk about the man in golf.
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: I can get up on a tea box and I
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: can snap hook one into the into the left woods.
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: But guess what I can drop.
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: One hit another shot man with With stuff like this,
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: when you're talking about food plot failures, the emotional toll
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: that takes on you because you got another year before
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: you can kind of recover from that. And uh, it's
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: a whole lot, it's a whole lot more heartbreaking than
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: just teeing up another ball.
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: And taking them just ball mulligan.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Real real quick. For people that maybe having planted corn
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: or beans, and and we'll break this down to Kentucky
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: and where you're at in Illinois, what are just some
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: loose planning dates for someone to consider, Like, Hey, I
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: don't I don't even know when I need to be
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: planning my corn or my beans. I know I'm seeing
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: farm equipment, you know, roll out a little bit more,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: But is there a rough window to give people an idea,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Like if you're in Kentucky and you know, follow that
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: band east and west and then Illinois, like rough dates
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: for both of them. And I know we're you.
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: Know, I'm not I'm going to answer this question, but
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: you are not asking it, and you're probably not going
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: to like it.
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: But here's here's the thing.
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: And it's tougher for out of state guys than people
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: who live here. So you know, for me to say
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: when am I planting in Illinois is extremely tough because.
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: I'm not there every day. When I had a.
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: Corporate job, I had to plan vacation to go.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: You know. Now I have some being self.
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: Employed with you know, I can go whenever. But it's
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: really tough for the guys who say I gotta take vacation.
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: And pick a date.
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: I would rather be in the spring a little early
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: with food plot products than late, and in the fall,
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: I would rather be a little late than early.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: So if I can unpack that just a little bit.
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: In the optimal world, do we watch and repeat what
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: the farmer's doing.
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: Okay, So let's.
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: Just break that down and say corn corn is really finicky.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: You want to basically.
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: Choose the right day corn for your area. So the
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: further north you are, the shorter the day you are.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: Okay, So say one.
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: Hundred day one hundred and nine day corn you get
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: up into Minnesota, you might be a ninety ninety five
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: day corn.
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: So I know there's listeners from all over the country
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: that listen to this content.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: So again, don't take me literally.
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: If you want to raise corn, what I suggest you
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: do is find a local road crop farmer and say
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: what corn horn maturity do you plant? And try to
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: mimic that as best you can, and.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: Then obviously, uh, you know.
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: On the soybean side, I'm a big proponent, and I
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: don't want to make this a real world commercial, but
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: I'm a big proponent of a blend of soybeans because
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: you're hedging your bet.
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: If if I'm a farmer.
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: I want to go in and I want to plant
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: soybeans that are going to have the best yield for
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: that specific soil type and that geographic area, if you know,
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: and they have crop insurance if something fails. Right with soybeans,
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: I don't want to be I want to corn. I
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: want to get the best optimal day maturity, plant it
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: at the best time as early as I can. But
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: but on soybeans, I would rather plant a little bit later.
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: So in Illinois or Kentucky, I could plant anytime in
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: May and be perfect because I'm hedging my bet with
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: four or five different group numbers of beans that if
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: one doesn't like the weather conditions, or one maybe one
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: shatters because of an early frost, I got three or
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: four others that are right behind it. So in an
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: optimal world, I would say pattern your farmer. If you
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: can't do that, maybe put a trail camera. This is
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: what I did. A couple of weeks camera on the agfield, okay,
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: so I could see when they planted, and on my soybeans,
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: I wanted to be two weeks after the local farmer
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: planted theirs. And the reason for that is a young
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: soybean plant is the most desirable from a tissue analysis.
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: It's like third cutting alfalfa.
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: And if I let the neighbor plant all of his
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: soybeans and get a two week jump start on those
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: deer going to disperse over big open agfields in Illinois.
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: You know, we were holding so many deer in these
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: wood pockets in open egg right, so they disperse out
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: and and try to get the browse pressure. I come
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: in behind it a week or two later, and basically
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: I disperse it. If you're the first thing that germinates,
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: you're gonna have every year in the county within you
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: know they're so hungry that time of year. But you know,
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: if you're picking a date, watch your weather and you
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: know sometime in May for.
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: Where I do it.
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: Last year, because of my flexible schedule, I was able
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: just to pick a short window with those rains and Jake,
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: I mean It's absolutely crazy that I had three hundred
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: acre a bushel corn three and food plot corn. I
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: sent SAMs off to the agronomist and they're like, oh
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: my goodness. And it had nothing to do with my
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: skill set.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: It had nothing. It was like I hit.
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: The lottery when it came to when I put it
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: in and when I got rain at you know, when
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: it tasseled out, and then we had that, you know,
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: I spell, and I still had three.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: Hundred and food plotcorn. Crazy, absolutely insane.
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: And I've had years where it looked like grain sorgum
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: out there because.
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: But man, a lot of it's just hitting the end.
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: The novice food plotter corn is the least forgiving of anything.
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: It takes more equipment, it takes more input costs, but man,
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: in the late season, it's just it's so so awesome.
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: Beans are probably the most forgiving outside of your fall
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: food plots, because man, you can just broadcast them, get
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: good soil contacts.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: So guys with.
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: Four wheelers, you know, like a plot master toe behind
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: can do plata.
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: But I mean you can put.
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: Out a lot of acres with loaned equipment without you know,
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: no til drills and stuff.
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: But to circle back to your original question.
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: In an optimal standpoint, I'm getting my corn in as
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: early as I can. I'm patterning that after farmers, especially
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: with mardy rates with beans. I'm I'm really looking at
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: my chemical plan based on like I don't have mayors
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: taro and water hip here in Kentucky, but I have
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: a lot.
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: Of it in Illinois.
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: So I got to plan my chemical program completely different with.
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: Both of those.
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of just fantastic resources out there if
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: you know where to look, and we try to We
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: try to put a lot of that content out with
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: with Chasing Giants.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: But you guys made a booklet here. I ordered one
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: with all the different chemicals and what they do. I
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: was just looking to see it in the house that
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: I would show mine.
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: Basically, I'm glad you brought that up.
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: I didn't want to make it a commercial, but we
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: like a handbook. It's almost one hundred pages that are
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: soil depth, fertilizer requirements, drill settings.
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: How to apply your fertilizer.
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: I mean, stuff that doesn't even have anything to do
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: with our businesses, just as a resource guide. Real world
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: dealers have access to it, or you can buy it
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: on Real worlds called the Land Management Handbook. We're just
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: trying to get our printing costs back. It's it's trying
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: to be an education. So say you looked at our
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: soybeans and you wanted to plant agg soybeans because the
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: local farmer had it for free, no problem, same use
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: the same methodology on it. So fall plots, I think
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: guys plant too early, they get they get too rambunctious,
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: and say, I got to have Well, if you're planning
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: the right blend of products, you're going to have stuff
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: in that blend that they won't eat early anyway, and
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: you got stuff that at first germ, like say a
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: winter pee that comes up, that's going to be mass attractions.
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: So I really like in both of my areas to
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: plan around that first week is September. And trust me,
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: my hunting season opens the first week Timber. So I
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: feel everybody's pain that you want to have a green
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: field before opening weekend. But I try to get around
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: rain the first of September and not do this, you know,
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: planting in late July early August.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: I heard that it's been brutal that.
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: Affects purity season a whole lot more so.
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: I hope I answered your question with that.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that no excellent. Well, Terry, where can people follow along?
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: I know you guys have a lot of different things
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: going on, but where's the best place for people to
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: reach out if they have bootblack questions?
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: Obviously, Chasing Giants is our main platform.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: We have a weekly podcast with Don Higgins.
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: We have a team of guys that are out not
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: only doing hunting videos, but habitat videos and a lot
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: of different styles, So a lot of people that don't
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: necessarily agree.
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: With Don or I and how we do stuff.
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: There's like twenty five people doing habitat videos. So you
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: might even see a hingecutting guy on there every now
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: and then, and that's fine. We're just trying to put
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: different content out that a guy can say, that's my situation.
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: I'm going to apply that idea. And then obviously all
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: the Chasing Giants weekly podcasts on all platforms, and then
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: at handbook. It's probably the best tool for people if
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: they want to go in and have that hard, big
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: book in their truck to reference.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: At Yeah, when they need to go buy chemical anything else.
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, how to.
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: Plant a fruit tree? I mean, I don't sell fruit trees.
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: I don't care, but it's a resource for everybody. You
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: can find that at real Wildlife Products dot Com in
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: the miscellaneous category.
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: I believe awesome.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you there. You guys have some great insight from Terry.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Some some key takeaways for me are going to be
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: planning those soybeans a little bit after the roll crop
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: farmers get them in and really question what else goes
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: into food plots and what are those three silos that
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: may be a shortfall for your farm, your parcel, or your
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: permission piece, whatever the case may be. Next up we
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: have Jared Van He's out of Michigan. He deals with
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: not ideal Midwest soils. And here we go. All right,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: we have Jared who owns ground in Michigan, has a
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: lot of background of food plots, food plot seed, all
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: the different shortcomings and wins that can be related to
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: food plots. You know plenty about us. So I have
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: this issue. I have this issue that maybe a lot
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: of people feel like I plant food plots in the spring.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: I do the fall food plots, but every year it
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: just feels like the deer aren't using them. They're not
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: giving me the opportunity that I was dreaming when I was,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: you know, out there in a hundred degree heat playing
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: my food plots, or all these different visions of watching
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: deer on TV and YouTube where everything goes perfect. What
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: am I doing wrong? What?
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: What is?
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: What are some things that I can potentially address?
• 44:32
  Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I hear you. I love and breathe this
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: stuff more than I like to admit. It's it's kind
• 44:38
  Speaker 6: of a passion deal here and I've been there. We
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: still have some some times where things don't go as planned.
• 44:46
  Speaker 6: You mentioned something there about the what you see on TV,
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: and I think that's very common. I think a lot
• 44:51
  Speaker 6: of these food plotters who are are getting into it,
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: who have the ground, it looks, it looks easy. But
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: you know, in addition to that, there are a lot
• 45:04
  Speaker 6: of things that I see done wrong on multiple properties
• 45:07
  Speaker 6: all the time. I think, you know, kind of obvious,
• 45:11
  Speaker 6: but stand I'm sorry. Food plot placement. You know, a
• 45:14
  Speaker 6: lot of guys will see an opening and that's the
• 45:18
  Speaker 6: easiest spot to plant, and I agree it is, but
• 45:21
  Speaker 6: it might not be the right spot to go. I
• 45:23
  Speaker 6: think lack of cover around the food plot is huge,
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: and we can dive into these further. I'm just going
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: to kind of go off the top here, and then
• 45:34
  Speaker 6: access is a big one. How do you get there?
• 45:36
  Speaker 6: How do you get out without a learning deer? For instance,
• 45:39
  Speaker 6: I never step in my food plot ever during season,
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: unless I'm tracking a deer, going to get an arrow
• 45:47
  Speaker 6: that I shot under a buck or something like that.
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: And then like, what does your property have as a
• 45:52
  Speaker 6: whole or what is it lacking compared to your neighbors.
• 45:55
  Speaker 6: We talk about that all the time, about being the
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: exclusive property, being the differentiator in your neighborhood. So those
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: are just a couple there.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: So you had mentioned placement. So let's let's run through
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: a scenario. Let's say you have an open area on
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: it's a south access farm, and so you know there's
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: a little quarter acre, half acre, one acre opening that
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: maybe there was crops there at one time or whatever
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: the case may be. Unfortunately for me to get anywhere
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: on my property, I have to go buy it. So
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: at that rate, are you better off not to potentially
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: plant food there or what things could you potentially utilize
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: to overcome that that access slash placement issue?
• 46:40
  Speaker 6: You check the words out of my mouth, Jake. My
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: first thought was don't plan it? Yeah, right, Like find
• 46:45
  Speaker 6: somewhere that you can get to without making noise, possibly
• 46:50
  Speaker 6: being seen or being smelled as you're as you're going
• 46:53
  Speaker 6: through there. For instance, you could do some screening in
• 46:57
  Speaker 6: there if you if you're really had I wouldn't even
• 46:59
  Speaker 6: plan it. Nope, I wouldn't even plan it. You could
• 47:02
  Speaker 6: screen the edges, you could try to get by it,
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: but for the type of year that you and I
• 47:06
  Speaker 6: are usually after, and a lot of our listeners here,
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: they're not gonna They're not gonna be there if you're
• 47:11
  Speaker 6: walking by it every time you go to hunt.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, let me run a different scenario by you. What
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: if it's five acres and you have clean access and
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: you like to gun hunt, and you have other places
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: to go, would you potentially plan it then and have
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: a blind setup where you can just walk twenty yards
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: into your property and have this big you know, green
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: to grain transition or whatever your imagination would be, and
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: have that as the centerpiece of your farm. Was that
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Is that a consolation prize to that to that issue?
• 47:40
  Speaker 6: I think so, I think you're you're making lemonade on
• 47:43
  Speaker 6: the lemons here. I think you could get a destination
• 47:46
  Speaker 6: food plot in there. You know, it's gonna be tough
• 47:49
  Speaker 6: getting under your truck and whatnot and getting to that spot,
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: especially after dark. But I think that if you screen
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: your your one edge, your access edge very heavily, you
• 48:00
  Speaker 6: get the blind hidden very well, and you're using the
• 48:03
  Speaker 6: right wind. You want that destination food, I do think
• 48:07
  Speaker 6: you do. If it's not on your neighbors or somewhere
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: else where, you can play off of that. But yeah,
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: I mean, I wouldn't just let it go to waste,
• 48:14
  Speaker 6: but there's got to be a plan to it and
• 48:15
  Speaker 6: a strategy to it, and walking through it or going
• 48:19
  Speaker 6: by it is not the right one. So if you could,
• 48:23
  Speaker 6: if you could get downwind of the majority of food,
• 48:26
  Speaker 6: if you could plant that and a heavy switch grass,
• 48:29
  Speaker 6: maybe a bunch of hingecuts so where you can get
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: by there up into your blind, then you have a
• 48:34
  Speaker 6: nice perch with your gun. I think that's doable.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, what about spring versus fall food plots? Right now,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: people potentially are maybe wanting to try a spring food plot.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: I think there's a ton of benefits to them. But
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: run through why someone should consider doing a spring food
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: plot versus letting to go to weeds or maybe they
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: had a fall food pot and there was no clover
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: in it, and there's rock. There's a bunch of riders
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: typically and a lot of food plots, and the rise
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: gonna get up and it's gonna seed out in June.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: What are the pros and cons of doing nothing versus
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: doing a spring food plot to either just give me,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: give me, give me the remedy because there's a lot
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: of there's so many different variables of this.
• 49:13
  Speaker 6: No, no, I have a couple of things coming to
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: mind that you mentioned. One of them weed suppression. That's
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: that's a good one. I do think that the droughts
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: we've had the past four years, you know, uh, planting
• 49:25
  Speaker 6: in August has been hit or miss, you know, even
• 49:28
  Speaker 6: for me.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: So mainly miss mainly. It really has been for a.
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: Lot of people, seriously has And I've seen that firsthand.
• 49:36
  Speaker 6: And I think that you know what I did this
• 49:38
  Speaker 6: year to combat those get out there and frost seed
• 49:40
  Speaker 6: a bunch. You know, that's even before spring. And then
• 49:43
  Speaker 6: I think, you know, you can take advantage of that
• 49:45
  Speaker 6: rainy spring, get some some food in the ground. I
• 49:50
  Speaker 6: like nitrogen fixing mixes. That's kind of what we normally
• 49:53
  Speaker 6: run soybeans a sorghum are our spring mix nitro boost.
• 49:58
  Speaker 6: But like that, even if it doesn't grow well or
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: I should say it has some weed competition in it,
• 50:05
  Speaker 6: you're still providing food on this parcel all summer. You know,
• 50:10
  Speaker 6: if you just magically pop a food plot up in
• 50:12
  Speaker 6: the fall, that's wonderful. But I mean if you get
• 50:14
  Speaker 6: a deer who's gets whose comfy there, you're not accessing
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: it all summer, you're not pressuring it and he's eating
• 50:21
  Speaker 6: soy beans, he's eating sorgum, he's he's munching on spring clover.
• 50:25
  Speaker 6: I think that behooves you for sure. And then you're
• 50:27
  Speaker 6: protecting the ground from you know, weeds, invasives, bare soil,
• 50:33
  Speaker 6: from the sunlight, drying it all out. There's quite a
• 50:36
  Speaker 6: bit of advantages to it. Now that being said, spring
• 50:39
  Speaker 6: food plots are not always the easiest. You know, you
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: do have weeds, you have grasses you need to control.
• 50:44
  Speaker 6: There are there are tricks to the trade.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: But what are some of the tricks of the trade.
• 50:50
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, I think a clothtum treatments very helpful.
• 50:54
  Speaker 6: I think using you know, the way you plant the
• 50:57
  Speaker 6: seed in the ground to get it started. You have
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: access to rent, maybe a drill, or if you can
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: get that seed covered up and get something going early
• 51:05
  Speaker 6: frost seeding. That way, you're not you know, sitting there
• 51:09
  Speaker 6: in late May, June, July, wishing your plot will get started.
• 51:14
  Speaker 6: It's good to get something out of the ground. And
• 51:16
  Speaker 6: even in the fall. You can do that by what
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: you plant to have it pop up first thing in
• 51:21
  Speaker 6: the spring. Rye grand red clover that'll come up in
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: the spring and give you a head start. We've just
• 51:29
  Speaker 6: been burned too many times recently with this drought, and
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: I'm doing the same thing over here, combating that that
• 51:35
  Speaker 6: same result again for twenty twenty six.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think that that makes a lot of sense,
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: so real quick for people who aren't familiar with clefton,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: what is that? What's the selected purpose side?
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: What is that?
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Is it pre emergent? Is a post emergent? What is
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: that killing? Or what are you mitigating by spraying it?
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a grass specific herbicide. And what that does
• 51:56
  Speaker 6: is it kills anything else to grass based. The problem
• 52:00
  Speaker 6: with spring plots is the cool season grasses come up
• 52:04
  Speaker 6: first before the plants that we want, you know, cooler
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: in the spring, they're coming up the same as the fall.
• 52:09
  Speaker 6: Late in the fall, they're still growing while the good
• 52:11
  Speaker 6: stuff we like has already died or terminated from the
• 52:15
  Speaker 6: frost and whatnot. So I mean, try think about your lawn.
• 52:19
  Speaker 6: If you go plant something in your lawn with an
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: already established mat of grass, it's not even going to
• 52:25
  Speaker 6: be able to get through that. So you got to
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: eliminate that competition.
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: We use some all natural fertilizers and stuff like that
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: to give it a boost, but the number one is
• 52:33
  Speaker 6: to eliminate that competition. So cleth is what we call
• 52:36
  Speaker 6: it is. It's available most places, and it's a good
• 52:40
  Speaker 6: one to start with because I tend to run into
• 52:42
  Speaker 6: cool season grass is quite a bit in the spring.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: So you on a farm in the upper part of Michigan,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: not the up but the upper part of Michigan, we're
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: soil aren't great. I live in Illinois pretty darn lucky.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's some plots where it's like, holy yeah,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: I think I got two hundred bushel corn out of this.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Uh so I'm spoiled from from that staff. But for
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: someone that has sandy, acidic or you know, not great soil,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: because a lot of times when you're carving out a
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: food plot, oftentimes it's not great soil. So what can
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: people Maybe that's the root of some of these issues
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: for some people who are like, man, you know, my
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: my Braskas are you know they look like golf balls
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: instead of what you see on the magazine where there's
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: big as your head. What are some things that people
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: need to be aware of. What if the soil quality
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: is not ideal, and what can you do short term
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: and long term?
• 53:39
  Speaker 6: I'm great, I'm glad you brought that up. I think
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: you know. The brask issue you mentioned there is is
• 53:44
  Speaker 6: usually an overpopulation of seed. You're planning them too close together.
• 53:48
  Speaker 6: They're over competing with themselves, they're out competing themselves. But
• 53:50
  Speaker 6: I think lining your soil is is going to be
• 53:55
  Speaker 6: one of the best things you can do on acidic
• 53:58
  Speaker 6: ground or you know loa me ground just just low
• 54:02
  Speaker 6: you know, luster food plot ground like I have quite
• 54:04
  Speaker 6: a bit of my area without lining, your fertilizer doesn't
• 54:09
  Speaker 6: work as well. The plants don't grow as well, they
• 54:11
  Speaker 6: don't taste as well, they don't uptake the nutrients like
• 54:14
  Speaker 6: they should. So really, before you do anything, and I
• 54:17
  Speaker 6: know this has you know, been talked about get a
• 54:20
  Speaker 6: soil test and line line that ground. It's a pain.
• 54:23
  Speaker 6: The bags are heavy. You know you're spending money, but
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: without that, you're kind of wasting money on the back
• 54:30
  Speaker 6: end with fertilizers and seed that don't really have the
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: true potential that they need. So that's a huge one.
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: What's your if you have what are you planning this spring?
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: I guess is and and maybe are you playing anything
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: in spring this spring? On the crappy soils? What are
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: you what's your silver bowl out here for people to
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: try to build up the organic matter and amend these
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: challenging soils so hopefully long term they start seeing more
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: success or there's more nutrition for the deer, and you
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: know all the fringe benefits of.
• 55:01
  Speaker 6: That great question. Down here, I'm planning which is which
• 55:05
  Speaker 6: is more clay based sweat. I'm planning a lot of
• 55:09
  Speaker 6: premium or annual and you know perennial clover along with
• 55:12
  Speaker 6: some alf alpha. I frosteded all that in and that's
• 55:15
  Speaker 6: going to be spring up north. On the sandy stuff,
• 55:18
  Speaker 6: I'm gonna be drilling in what we call nitro boost,
• 55:21
  Speaker 6: which is just a very diverse mix of clovers, legumes,
• 55:26
  Speaker 6: there's some there's some grains in there, and we just
• 55:29
  Speaker 6: let that grow all spring and summer. Save your sorghum
• 55:32
  Speaker 6: coming up, your soybeans, you know Forde soybeans, all this
• 55:36
  Speaker 6: stuff that puts nitrogen from the air into the ground,
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: into the dirt. It fixes nitrogen, is what that term is.
• 55:44
  Speaker 6: And they they work for us all summer. They fertilize
• 55:47
  Speaker 6: for us all summer. And what that's doing. When we
• 55:50
  Speaker 6: go to plant our fall food plot, we terminate that
• 55:53
  Speaker 6: and that just breaks down and feeds soil. So eventually
• 55:57
  Speaker 6: we're gonna be able to turn that soil into something
• 56:00
  Speaker 6: with a higher sec more organic matter, and you have
• 56:03
  Speaker 6: some food in there for the next planting. Where normally
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: on crummy sandy soil like I have like a beach,
• 56:09
  Speaker 6: it just drains out right. Fertilizer drains out, everything just
• 56:13
  Speaker 6: runs right out the soil. Sand drains very well. And
• 56:17
  Speaker 6: that's what normally happens. So I take a nitro boost.
• 56:20
  Speaker 6: I like to crimp it or even I mean, whatever
• 56:23
  Speaker 6: you have. You can till it in lightly, you can
• 56:25
  Speaker 6: disk it down, mow it off, but just feed that
• 56:29
  Speaker 6: soil like a system, over and over on top of
• 56:31
  Speaker 6: each other and you're eventually you're gonna you're gonna see
• 56:34
  Speaker 6: some improvements for sure.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: There Richard, we know Richard.
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love Richard.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: There was a really this was this is stuck with me.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: There was a we were on a farm and there
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: was a CRP buffer strip along this field and then
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: the rest of it was conventionally farm. We took a shovel,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: said look at this and it was, you know, completely
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: solid chunk of dirt and they took a chunk of
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: where the CRP where you know, like it's way more
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: organic matter, all those different roots, and you could actually
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: see life in that soil. And I feel like oftentimes
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: that's a really good comparison of what you're obviously trying
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: to aim to build the organic matter build up the soil,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: and that's what CRP does, or all these different things
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: that you're talking about, where instead if you have a
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: a clump of dirt or you have a little miniature
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: organism underneath the ground. So that's it was just crazy
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: because it's line boom boom, and it was two completely
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: different types of soils, even those same field.
• 57:25
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that what that's doing that
• 57:29
  Speaker 6: CRP and some of the different seed types in that
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: nitro boost mix that we plant. They are different root depths, right,
• 57:36
  Speaker 6: So those native grass is going on super deep, and
• 57:39
  Speaker 6: what that's doing is it's mining the nutrients is bringing
• 57:42
  Speaker 6: up for the plant, and it does that in all
• 57:44
  Speaker 6: different columns of the soil where the farm ground, the
• 57:47
  Speaker 6: disk ground. You're kind of resetting that every year and
• 57:50
  Speaker 6: having to redo that. So we try to keep living
• 57:52
  Speaker 6: roots in the soil as many days out of the
• 57:55
  Speaker 6: year as we can. The microbiology feeds off that they
• 57:58
  Speaker 6: do better for the dirt plants. And then, like I said,
• 58:01
  Speaker 6: those different root structures of sunflower versus the soybean versus
• 58:05
  Speaker 6: sorghum plants, clover, they all have different root depths, so
• 58:07
  Speaker 6: they're all grabbing nutrients from different spots or different depths
• 58:11
  Speaker 6: in the soil and bringing those up to that green plant,
• 58:14
  Speaker 6: which we then terminate and put right back down on
• 58:17
  Speaker 6: top of the dirt. So yeah, no, I'm not surprised
• 58:19
  Speaker 6: you saw that those buffer ships are awesome. Native grasses
• 58:22
  Speaker 6: are awesome for that and just different ways to keep
• 58:25
  Speaker 6: those roots living as long as you can.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wonderful. Any other from vitalized seeds where you know
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: an FAQ that you want to address right now, and
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: then we'll wrap it up here.
• 58:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I think one thing that people always want to
• 58:42
  Speaker 6: know is you know how much fertilizer? What do I use?
• 58:46
  Speaker 6: You know what do I do with my soil? I'm
• 58:48
  Speaker 6: having this issue. I'm having that issue. We take every
• 58:51
  Speaker 6: customer and we talk to them and we help them
• 58:54
  Speaker 6: out when they have questions. We sell soil tests, but
• 58:57
  Speaker 6: that's not the point. The point is when they get
• 58:59
  Speaker 6: the results, we know how to prescribe to that issue.
• 59:03
  Speaker 6: And I think that synthetic stuff that you can buy
• 59:07
  Speaker 6: it at the TSCs and whatnot, that's just going to
• 59:09
  Speaker 6: be a short fix. Your soil is going to tighten up.
• 59:11
  Speaker 6: I think some natural fertilizer, all organic slow release stuff
• 59:17
  Speaker 6: that's going to feed your soil longer. It's gonna be
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: healthier for your plans. And that's something definitely to to
• 59:21
  Speaker 6: do in the spring, anytime with the year. But just
• 59:24
  Speaker 6: get that soil test, get the micronutrients in there, get
• 59:28
  Speaker 6: that pH up, and then feed it the correct food
• 59:31
  Speaker 6: and then that's going to be your best way to go.
• 59:34
  Speaker 6: I mean, you can tell the dirt up, you can
• 59:36
  Speaker 6: do the stuff you have with the equipment you have.
• 59:37
  Speaker 6: But if you can move this way a little bit,
• 59:40
  Speaker 6: it's gonna pay off over time.
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: I like it.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, Jared. There you guys have it.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: There is Jared's opinion on why your food buses aren't
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: producing what you really are hoping for. Next up we
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: have Kyle with Team Radical. Let's go and kick it off,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: all right. Up next we have Kyle with Team Rat. Kyle,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: You've planted a lot of food plots over the years,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: You've shot a lot of big bucks over food over
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: the years, and I think it's likely a pretty big
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: part of your overall plan for success every year. But
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: for a lot of people out there, they plant the
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: food plots, they watch your YouTube channel and they're like, Man,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, I don't have mature bucks or I
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: don't have all these different things coming in and having
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: these magical food plot hunts I plan on every spring.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: I do fall food plots, but it seems like the
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: deer are not using them. What are some potential reasons
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: why this could be the case?
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 7: WHOA, that's loaded. But there's a lot of things. I mean,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 7: I guess the general consensus a lot of people think
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 7: that you just go plant a food plot and deer
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 7: just magically supposed to come there before you even decide
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 7: what you're planning. Really need to decide, in my opinion,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 7: the location, I mean, the design of the food plot,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 7: I think is equally as important as what the actual
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 7: product that you're putting out is. And the size is
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 7: going to vary, you know, is it a small little
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 7: kill plots, you know, quarter half acre? Is it a
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 7: destination plot where you can put three to four acres
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 7: of you know, soybeans or corn something like that. All
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 7: those things vary so and if you don't have that too,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 7: you know, I know we talked about this on one
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 7: of your other podcasts. Is you know, paying the farmer
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 7: to leave some mad crop, whether it's beans or the corn,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 7: and just knock it down periodically throughout the season. And
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 7: maybe you might have just a small little cove plot
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 7: that you can plant, you know, plant that in clover
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 7: and chicory. You know, I kind of talked to you
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 7: about this a little bit at the Peoria Show here
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 7: this past weekend. But you know, someone was really brought
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 7: someone that's really prominent in the honey world was really
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 7: actually batching clover, and it just blew my mind. I took,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 7: I took, I took a fence to it. Let's put
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 7: it that way, because we over in my opinion, is
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 7: like the easiest, most inexpensive, attractive, fail proof plots that
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 7: I feel like you can possibly plan. You know, we
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 7: just got done doing the frost seeding here Central Illinois,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 7: and it's it's just so easy and fail proof. You know,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 7: you're talking about fall plots. Fall plots. The last two
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 7: to three years we've had significant drafts in the fall,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 7: and you go and do a fall plot, I don't care.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 7: You can try to get a you know, a buggy
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 7: up there and water it and do every decoration measure
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 7: you can think of to try to get it, but
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 7: it's still not going to be sufficient enough. Really. If
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 7: it is, you put in a ton of time, money
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 7: and work to get that little fall plot to take off.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 7: But and then if you don't get it to come up,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 7: you know, then you don't have a good stand or
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 7: you don't have anything there for the season to draw
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 7: the deer, turkeys, whatever in. And the other thing too,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 7: when while we're on fall plots is I've noticed this
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 7: is a huge trend I've been seeing over the last
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 7: seven years which blows my mind, is planning the fall
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 7: plots too early. And I get planning around rain is
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 7: very critical, but you know, the last couple of few years,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 7: like I said, we've had a drought. But in a
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 7: normal year, if you do catch a good some rains
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 7: and you plan it, say really early, and I'm calling
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 7: you know, end of July, very beginning of August. In
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 7: my opinion where I'm at, that's too early because what
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 7: will happen is that that product will get too tall
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 7: and it'll be less palatable to the deer. It'll be
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 7: pretty mature by the time season rolls around. And so
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 7: many people, I think, forget that once deer season starts.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 7: It's like they think the fall plot is just done growing.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 7: That's not the case. I mean a lot of times
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 7: special the last few years, they're growing all the way
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 7: through November. So the taller once it gets over such
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 7: highth you know, as cerial grains, whatever it may be,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 7: they become unattractive. You know, you see all the time
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 7: these guys holding up these giant turn ups the size
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 7: of their head or these giant brass cause you know,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 7: and they're just like bragging about, like, man, this is the.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: Best thing ever.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 7: That didn't send it to me. That's the last thing
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 7: that I want. In my experience, they absolutely will not
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 7: touch them. If you ever notice, whenever they pick those
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 7: up and look at them, what do you notice first
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 7: thand there's not a mark on them. You know why
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 7: is because the deer weren't eating. Then that's exactly what
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 7: you don't want. So that's been frustrating seeing a lot
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 7: of people do that, and I hope they take that
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 7: to the heart. But you know, fall plots are great
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 7: if if you get the rain. They're also great to
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 7: have where jullir beans into. You know, it's real. It's
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 7: a like the cover crop. You know, farmers do it too.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 7: It's easy to kill off. It keeps them shaded. So
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 7: many benefits to that. But yeah, I mean that's a
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 7: mixed bag, right, I mean, food plot, size, destination, is
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 7: it a kill plot? The design is extremely critical.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: And talk about design. So yeah, I'm giving you a
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: paint brush. Paint me the perfect food plot. And I
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: know it's so situational, but think think of the average
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: guy that maybe has on the larger and an acre
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: to play with right. So maybe it's a permission piece.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: Maybe they just bought a small farm and they're like, man,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: I think I can. Yeah, you bring the chainsaw and
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: a brush hog, and I you know, I don't have
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: access to a skids deer or dozer or whatever the
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: case may be. Like, it's design the perfect budget friendly
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: food plot.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean we're gonna go with clover and chickery
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 7: right off the bat. I'm just gonna be honest with you.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 7: That's least expensive, easiest plant, most fail proof thing that
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 7: you have frost seeding in. I mean you can do
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 7: it with a handseater, you can do it behind a foiler.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 7: But my perfect plot if I had to design one,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 7: And again, this is gonna really vary on your deer
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 7: density too. You know a lot of guys are saying, oh,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 7: I've got a food plot, but the deer just destroy
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 7: it and I can't get it. The last you can
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 7: do deer fence, with electric fence, whatever it may be.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 7: But I really like an inside corner of a food
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 7: plot to be in greens, specifically chlover and chickery leading
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 7: into the beans or corn. And like I said earlier,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 7: if you've got permission on this ground and you've only
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 7: got a half acre. But it butts up to you know,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 7: the said farmer, big ag there. Well, is there a
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 7: way that you can purchase an acre or two of
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 7: that corn or beans, whatever it may be. But I
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 7: want it to be secluded too, right. I don't want
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 7: it exposed to the road. That's the last thing I want.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 7: I want everything as stafe away from the roads, out
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 7: of visibility, out of sight, out of mind as possible.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 7: And then the biggest key is access and exit. You've
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 7: got to be able to get in and out of there.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 7: You know, the last podcast I was on with you,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 7: I was hunting the two specific bucks there in December.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 7: I ended up having thirteen encounters with them before I
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 7: finally got a shot, and I ended up killing both
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 7: of them December twenty sixth and January. First, I think
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 7: is when I got done. But a lot of people
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 7: ask me like, well, Kyle, why don't you just go
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 7: do a hanging hunt. Well, when you're dealing with sixty
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 7: seventy deer a night coming in, you go and you
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 7: make a move. You might beat the first ten deer,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 7: but those two mature bucks they're gonna be the smartest ones.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 7: They're coming in last, and you might bump, you might
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 7: bust that, you know, fifteenth deer in his game over.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 7: And in my case, I was very fortunate to have
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 7: my wife and kids drive up there on side by
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 7: side and spook out the deer of an afternoon. If
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 7: I didn't have that, I would not have hunted. Seriously,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 7: if I don't have a backup of someone to come
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 7: up there and bump the deer out or something to
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 7: bump bust the deer off other than me getting down
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 7: and I can't get out of there smoothly, I won't hunt.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 7: It's it's literally that simple. So that was kind of
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 7: long winded there, I hope that. Yeah, so maybe answered
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 7: your question.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is a all right, I'm putting you
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: on the spot. I said I was gonna do that.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: How many gallons of water does it take to cover
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: EQUI the equivalent to an inch of rain? How many
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: gallons is your guests for, you know, three and sixty
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: square feet for an inch of rain? When he talked
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: about houling in water, I've done this figure and anyone
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: that's a serious food potter has probably done this at
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: one time.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: Like much water I've looked it up before.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 7: I can't remember, but I'm getting guess it's in the
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 7: hundreds of thousands of gallons.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: It's twenty seven thousand gallons of water for one acre,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: for one acre for one ache of an inch or one.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 7: Inchury yeah, yeah, so twenty seven thousand gallons.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: Of water, which is crazy when you think about how
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: much rainfall really is. How many gallons of water comes down.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: We get two inches of rain across the giant area.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: So you're you're a big proponent of clover and chickory
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: for the beginning of April. For someone's like, hey, I
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: I just got access to a new piece, or I
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: didn't frosteed. I knew I should have, but I didn't
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: do it. Is it too late for them, or what's
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: the strategy for them to get some clover and chickory
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: in the ground before you look.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 7: At the forecast, like right now we've got, you know,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 7: maybe a couple few days left in the forecast that
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 7: gets below freezing. The key the frost seeding is the
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 7: freezing thal freezing though, when you can get it right
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 7: around that day when everything is freezing and thalling, freezing
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 7: and thalling, that's whenever you want to be doing.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: Your frost seeding.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 7: So, like I said, you're right at the tail end
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 7: of it in my opinion, where I'm at at least
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 7: for it to work. Things have started greening up, you know,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 7: this past week and we had some seventy degree weather,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 7: so's it's trying to green up super fast right now.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 7: But there are still a few days left with some
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 7: freezing and falling. So yeah, you're right at the very
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 7: end of it.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: What if, at least, what if you miss the frost
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: seating is the next best thing to Can you just
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: broadcast right before a heavy rain? Should you lightly disk?
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: What are some options for someone.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 4: You could do it?
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 7: You could do a spring, I mean I would recommend
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 7: a spring, a spring planning, but that would be more
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 7: so using a drill if I'm being honest, Or if
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 7: you do broadcast, like you need to make sure it's
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 7: covered a little bit. You need to work to dirt
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 7: and make sure it's covered a little bit. But that's
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 7: tricky with clover, right, I mean, you can't. You do
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 7: not want the planet too deep. That's why I love
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 7: frost seeding. In my opinion, doesn't matter what the product is.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 7: If if I could frost seed it. Same with switch
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 7: grass for bettingh switch grass. I love the frost seed
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 7: because Mother nature will not fail as far as when
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 7: it comes to planning. It will get that seed in
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 7: there freezing falling. But hitting those dates is crucial. But yes,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 7: you could do a spring I would recommend it in
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 7: the spring if you miss the frost seeding, but yes,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 7: you need to have a really good seed bed if
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 7: you're going to do it in the spring.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: Do you ever add in a nurse crop like oats
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: on a spring planting of glover chickery or do you
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: typically only do that for a fall planning?
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 7: To be honest with you, I I don't even do
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 7: spring plannings at all of clover and chickery. I know
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 7: a lot of people do, but I I typically I
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 7: focus primarily on frost seeding when it comes to clover
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 7: and chickery primarily. Okay, but yeah, that would be that
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 7: would be great to do with some oats or a
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 7: cereal grain like that. It'll help give it shade whenever
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 7: it starts warm up and keep it covered. And that's
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 7: another thing is everybody wants to those really beautiful plots,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 7: you know, just thick lush I personally like to, especially
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 7: the last few years, you know we've had drought weather. Well,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 7: I mean something shading in that clover is very very
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 7: important because a lot of people mow it too often,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 7: and what it'll do is it'll burn up that clover.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 7: So I'll actually min' actually look pretty nasty honestly for
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 7: quite a while before I will ever mow it. You know,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 7: if I do mow it, I'm gonna mow it right
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 7: before a rain that I know for sure is coming,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 7: And I might mow my clover literally maybe once or
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 7: twice totally leading up the season, and it ends up
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 7: looking you know, phenomenal, about six eight inches high. You know,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 7: mow it just knocking those heads off on the on
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 7: the white ladino clover, and it works fantastic.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: Gore's question for you, as far as maintenance goes, you know,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: like a straight clover plot, I feel like the maintenance
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: might be a little bit more straightforward. Is there any
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: nuances for someone that does clover and chickory as far
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: as herbicide use? Are you just typically you know, clipping it,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: mowing it maybe on a on a normal year, twice
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: a year, three times a year.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 7: Right, I mean, yeah, you're gonna get some grass of
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 7: stuff and you can do some clethtum and stuff like that.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 7: But I'll be honest with you, I've been on a
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 7: no chemical program for like the last probably four or five.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: Years for everything, just doing.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 7: As far as for the clover chicker, yeah, yeah, I don't.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 6: I don't.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 7: I don't spray it. No, I literally just do the
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 7: mowing at the right time. Like I said, you know,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 7: whenever you mow it too many times and you're mowing
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 7: constantly throughout the summer months and everything, that's just going
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 7: to encourage new weeds and everything to grow. But if
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 7: they're shaded out, that clover will just sit there and
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 7: just create a carpet taller and lusher and thicker. And
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 7: that's why I wait, I mean, I'm really trying to
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 7: keep it shaded and keep it cool, let it grow
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 7: for when I wanted the most right for during deer season.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: I want you to think not exclude late season. So
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: exclude late season, exclude the soybeans when we got snow
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: and everything else, but from October and November, first part
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: of November or December. Excuse me, how many sits on
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: average are you actually sitting on a micro plot or
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: a green plot or something like to that nature, Just
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: to illustrate that, because I think a lot of people's
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: issues come down to they plan a food plot, they
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: want to sit in the stand, they want to sit
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: and look at their work multiple multiple, multiple times over
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: over the year, and a lot of times access gets
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: brought up in every single deer hunting podcast ever, but
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: it still doesn't hit home for a lot of people, Like,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: you know, they do mental gymnastics stuff like, well, it's
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: not that bad, but you know, I do scared deer
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: when I walk in, and I do scared deal when
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: I walk out, But I don't think it's that bad.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: So I'm trying to illustrate how often you're really hunting
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: these or how much are these you know, a key
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: component to the bigger picture for hunting, maybe one hundred
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: yards away or two hundreds away.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 7: Yeah, uh so, October, I'm primarily on those microplots, right,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 7: I mean the greens, specifically clover and chickory, And I
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 7: hunt a lot of observation sets which might not be
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 7: right over the plot, but I don't have the right
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 7: wind direction. But I'll be honest with you too. I'm
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 7: relying on trail camera intel as well, telling me you know, hey,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 7: well and historically you know this buck is hitting this
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 7: plot first two weeks he likes it on this win.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 7: Another thing too, I think is not overemphasized us enough
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 7: is more stands in a smaller area, meaning more stands
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 7: closer together. Because educating you can educate that target buck
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 7: you're after really quickly. It only takes literally one time
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 7: and you can educate them. So I'll bounce around quite
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 7: a bit. Or I've got some spots, you know, where
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 7: i just want to go sit that's further away, that's
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 7: not where my target buck's at. The wind direction's right,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 7: and i just want to see what's coming out out there.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 6: I'll go do that.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 7: Leading into November, it's really depending too on the weather,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 7: but primarily, you know, the rut is starting to kick
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 7: in and start the seeking phase. I'm more off of
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 7: those plots, whether it's a micro or a big plot destination.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 7: I'm more in the timber then in the transition areas
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 7: close to the food, but not right over the food,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 7: if that makes sense. I'm looking for those pinched down
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 7: areas that are really close to the food. In between
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 7: the bedding. The transition specifically is what I'm after, trying
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 7: to catch them from bed to food or from food
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 7: to bed in between that path there.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: I think that's all really great advice. And is there
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: any other again, And I'll.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 7: Be honest with you too, Jack, I didn't mention this,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 7: but e bikes.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they're great, life changing.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, you can call me lady whatever you want.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 7: But it is the least amount of footprint that you
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 7: could have right getting in and out. I've noticed lots
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 7: of times I've drove by deer on ee bikes and
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 7: they just will not run. But if I walk past them,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 7: they're they're ready to run to the next county.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 7: Those e bikes are fantastic for driving right up to
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 7: your tree, staying you're blind, whatever I mean, And I
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 7: will make them in accordance do that. So I can
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 7: do that, I can get in and out extremely quick,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 7: quietly and leave no footprint. That's also been huge, huge
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 7: for me.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: As far as if people think of a think of
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: a message or an example of someone will reach out
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: to you or someone called you and said, hey, Kyle, man,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: my I'm just struggling with my food plots. What is
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: the common theme with that is it? Is it planting dates?
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: Is it the location? What if you had to say
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: one thing to lead people with to be self reflective
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: of how to build a better plan for this upcoming year,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: what would you tell them?
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 7: Well, I think one thing is too many people plant
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 7: too many food plots in general. If they every square
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 7: inch they have, they want to plan a food plot.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 7: I think the general sense of what you need to
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 7: realize is that every single food plot that you plan
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 7: in decreases your odds of being in the right place
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 7: at the right time while you're hunting. But with that said,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 7: you need to have enough to where you're not educating
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 7: over just one plot. And if you only have one plot,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 7: you need to take into consideration that these deer are
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 7: going to pick up what you're doing, and you have
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 7: to adapt to the situation because the deer are going
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 7: to adapt to the pressure and whether it's you know,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 7: they might move closer to the dark, or they're taking
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 7: a new route to get to the plot, whatever it
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 7: may be. And I think, yes, again, you know, I
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 7: just talked about fall plots where I see a lot
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 7: of people planning them way too early. And they're way
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 7: too mature in the deer or just not hardly touching
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 7: their food plot, and they're mad about it. They'll send
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 7: me a picture and they've got the most beautiful lush,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 7: you know, cereal grain with rat whatever plot and it's
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 7: twelve eighteen inches tall, looks like just a carpet. And
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 7: I'm like, that's the that's the last thing that I
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 7: want right there, you know, I'm wanting it six eight
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 7: inches tall tops, and the deer will absolutely destroy it.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 7: It's young and tender. They they really like it better.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 7: And I've done it both ways. I've seen it firsthand,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 7: experienced it myself because I actually planning on the right dates.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 7: You know, I tried before I left for an out
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 7: west hunt, but we caught several rains back to back
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 7: to back, so that stuff just grew like fire and
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 7: they got too tall. By the middle of the season.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 7: It was too tall and less palatable to the deer.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 7: But that's a huge thing, huge mistake that I see.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 7: And then the biggest thing too for a lot of
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 7: food plots, whatever it may be, is the seed bed.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 7: They're trying to, you know, grow this beautiful food plot,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 7: and they just have a terrible seed bed, whether it's
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 7: just thick grass, you know, and they they kill off
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 7: the grass, but all that that is still there, and
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 7: they go in there and plant their food plot and
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 7: you know it's there. Don't get the stand that they
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 7: wanted a good seed bed. No matter what you're planning,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 7: is is always critical. So those are some common mistakes
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 7: that I definitely see quite often.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: Awesome, Well, thank you so much, Kyle. Where can people
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: fall along with what you have going on and maybe
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: watch some of your hunts where they're going to see
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: this in action.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of them.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 7: You can check us out on YouTube, Team Radical on YouTube,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 7: follow us on Instagram, Team Underscore Radical, and you can
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 7: find us on Facebook Team Radical Outdoors. But we're on
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 7: those three socials, and yeah, we've got a lot of
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 7: hunts on there, especially a lot of white tails, mostly
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 7: all bow hunting. That's an hard thing we didn't really
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 7: talk about much, but I'm primarily only bow hunting. I
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 7: focus primarily on bow hunting basically only. So everything I
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 7: do is set up for bow hunting, which will only
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 7: be better or as good great for you know, a
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 7: gun hunt, whatever it may be. So I did forget
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 7: to mention that, but yeah, if you're looking to watch
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 7: them good bow hunting videos, check us out.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: All right, folks, welcome back to Back forty. I hope
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: you guys enjoyed this episode. Next up, we're going to
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: have a topic that I think you guys will really appreciate,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: and it is simply the more effort you put in,
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: why are you not having more success? White tail hunting
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: is one of those weird things where not always the
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: more effort you put in the more you're able to
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: reap the benefits of that labor. Sometimes it is so
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: that will be the next episode of Back forty. I
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: hope you guys enjoyed this format. We're gonna be filtering
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: through different panel of experts and guests throughout the year.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 6: See y