Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 289: How to Improve Wildlife Habitat in Cooperation with Nature

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Ep. 289: How to Improve Wildlife Habitat in Cooperation with Nature · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
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  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
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  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyon in this episode number two eighty nine.
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  Speaker 1: Today in the show and joined by Matt Dye and
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  Speaker 1: Adam Keith of Land and Legacy to discuss their holistic
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  Speaker 1: approach to habitat management and food plots. All right, welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Wired Dun podcast, brought to you by on X,
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  Speaker 1: and today we've got Matt Dye and Adam Keith joining us.
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  Speaker 1: And these guys are the owners of Land and Legacy,
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  Speaker 1: which is a habitat consulting business as well as a
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  Speaker 1: content platform which they're producing all sorts of podcasts and
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  Speaker 1: videos and blogs and all sorts of things revolved around
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  Speaker 1: managing and improving properties for deer and other wildlife. But
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  Speaker 1: they're doing this in a way it's it's i think,
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  Speaker 1: pretty different than most others out there. Right, there's all
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  Speaker 1: sorts of different habitat experts out there. We've talked to
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  Speaker 1: someone them on the podcast and they're great, But Man
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  Speaker 1: Adam bring this unique perspective that's very focused on on
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  Speaker 1: trying to harness the natural processes and systems out there,
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  Speaker 1: trying to do things that are more in line with
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  Speaker 1: with the natural way of things, more in tune with
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  Speaker 1: Mother Nature, instead of fighting against it with these unnatural
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  Speaker 1: disturbances or whatever it might be. And I think this
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  Speaker 1: leads to a it's kind of a philosophical conversation to
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  Speaker 1: a degree, but then also we get to some very
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  Speaker 1: tactical things too. So we talk high level habitat ideas,
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  Speaker 1: why they look at the natural world in this way,
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  Speaker 1: why they try to approach their management projects in this way.
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  Speaker 1: But then also we get right into, you know, the
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  Speaker 1: nitty gritty details of how to plant better food plots,
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  Speaker 1: how to improve different parts of old fields or a
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  Speaker 1: timber stand, how to do these things in ways that
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  Speaker 1: that require less of this unnatural rule contact. You know,
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  Speaker 1: how we can get get away with getting great food
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  Speaker 1: plots with less herbicide. How can we do things with
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  Speaker 1: a reduced tillage. How can we find ways to to
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  Speaker 1: maybe go against the conventional wisdom to some degrees as
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  Speaker 1: far as the negative impacts we might have, but still
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  Speaker 1: getting great benefits for deer and deer hunting. Another wildlife
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  Speaker 1: that in a very vague, high level kind of sense
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  Speaker 1: is what we're gonna be discussing today, um, and I
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  Speaker 1: promise you it is very interesting and very applicable to
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  Speaker 1: what I think a lot of us will be focusing
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  Speaker 1: on here in the coming days, weeks, and months as
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  Speaker 1: we head into the season these final you know, this
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  Speaker 1: build up to hunting season for a lot of us.
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  Speaker 1: If you can manage properties to any degree, or even
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  Speaker 1: if you just want to someday, the content the kind
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  Speaker 1: of stuff we discussed today is going to be very
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  Speaker 1: very useful, all right with me on the line. Now,
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  Speaker 1: we've got Adam Keith and Matt Dye from Land and Legacy.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Guys, Hey, Mark, thanks for having us.
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  Speaker 1: Great to be here. Appreciate it, sir, Yeah, I appreciate
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: as well. And it's it's I probably should have brought
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Dan in here, since you guys are part of sports
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  Speaker 1: in his nation, and I'm kind of like yanking out
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  Speaker 1: his superstars out from underneath him and talking to you
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  Speaker 1: guys on on our show here. But I'm glad that
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  Speaker 1: the nine Fingered Wonder is willing to share with you
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  Speaker 1: you guys have wired to hunt, because I think you
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  Speaker 1: guys have a good, a really good thing going. UM.
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  Speaker 1: I've been enjoying the Land Legacy podcasts. It's one of
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  Speaker 1: the only other hunting related podcasts at all that I
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  Speaker 1: actually listened to because so much of it I'm consuming
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  Speaker 1: all the time. But you guys give me something that's
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  Speaker 1: a little bit different, a little bit outside of the
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  Speaker 1: norm um when it comes to habitat and management that
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  Speaker 1: I think is his relatively unique in our space and
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  Speaker 1: is needed, which is which is why I wanted to
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  Speaker 1: have you guys on the show to talk about that. UM.
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  Speaker 1: And it's also I told you this before we start recording.
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  Speaker 1: But I've been out west for like a month month
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  Speaker 1: and a half now, just kind of thinking about all
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  Speaker 1: the work I have to do once I get home,
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  Speaker 1: and like my blood pressure has been steadily rising. I'm
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  Speaker 1: having like night sweats. I wake up in the middle
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  Speaker 1: and I thinking, oh my gosh, you have to get
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  Speaker 1: this done and this done, and this done, this done.
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  Speaker 1: So you guys are gonna help prepare me for my return.
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be home and it's a matter of days.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm counting on you guys to have me all
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  Speaker 1: buttoned up and ready to rock. And roll once I
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  Speaker 1: hit the ground, So can you do that? That's a
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  Speaker 1: lot of pressure right there. I think we're up for
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  Speaker 1: the past. Yeah, that's definitely a big part of what
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  Speaker 1: we do is prioritizing the projects. So, yeah, exactly. So
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  Speaker 1: so what how is that going for you guys personally
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  Speaker 1: so far this summer? What are you what are you
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  Speaker 1: focusing on right now? Great question. Yeah, a lot. Probably,
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  Speaker 1: there's always a lot of irons in the fire. I
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  Speaker 1: think that's what's common among a lot of people. But
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  Speaker 1: right now, a big portion of is is taking inventory
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  Speaker 1: of what's out there and then kind of connecting the
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  Speaker 1: dots and and and making sure we're going back and
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  Speaker 1: looking at historical information of some patterns that we've you know,
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  Speaker 1: the past couple of years, and then from there that's
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  Speaker 1: going to guide the actual in the field tasks that
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  Speaker 1: get done. Yeah. And if you're asking specific projects that
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  Speaker 1: we're trying to line out, is you know, we just
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  Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, we're consulting. So a big part
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  Speaker 1: of our spring and early summer is consulting. So summer
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  Speaker 1: is when we get to do a lot of the work.
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  Speaker 1: We laugh, when we're consulting. The Cobbler's kids don't have shoes.
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  Speaker 1: We're laying I guess laying consultants. But we don't get
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  Speaker 1: to work on our own land most of the for
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  Speaker 1: a big part of the year, especially the best time
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  Speaker 1: of the year to be doing a lot of work.
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  Speaker 1: So we've got projects lined out where we're trying to
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  Speaker 1: get to the farm. We've got our trail cameras up,
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  Speaker 1: but we're we planted our food plots in mid May,
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  Speaker 1: and now we're really trying to line out and try
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  Speaker 1: to improve betting areas and edge feathering. That's a that's
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  Speaker 1: a big project for us this summer. And and do
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  Speaker 1: you guys have you know how many different properties are
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  Speaker 1: you may managing for your own hunting, your own family
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  Speaker 1: activity and stuff like that. What kind of work load
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  Speaker 1: is that? So there's basically two farms, but they're joining,
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  Speaker 1: so it's one big contiguous piece of ground that's about
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  Speaker 1: nine acres. Okay, so I'll keep you busy now, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it does. In between Matt and I and then my brother,
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  Speaker 1: it's it's the three of us that really do a
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  Speaker 1: huge part of the work. And and you know, I'm
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  Speaker 1: sure we'll get into it, but a big project that's
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  Speaker 1: been occurring with the timber harvest, and so we've seen
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  Speaker 1: our dear numbers. It doesn't appear that we have a
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  Speaker 1: lot of deer really active on the farms right now,
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  Speaker 1: because most of them are in the areas that's been
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  Speaker 1: then and there's all kinds of native brows and so
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  Speaker 1: that's where all our deer are. So it's been a
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  Speaker 1: little bit tricky to get pictures of the deer this summer.
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  Speaker 1: So you mentioned this, this timber harvest and the fact
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  Speaker 1: there's so much native vegetation and brows out there now.
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  Speaker 1: That makes me think about a statement I've heard you
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  Speaker 1: both make a handful of times, which is the fact
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  Speaker 1: that when you work on these different types of habitat projects,
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  Speaker 1: for for wildlife, for white tails, whatever it might be,
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  Speaker 1: you're trying to work with nature, not against it. And
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  Speaker 1: it seems like I hear that popping up again and again,
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  Speaker 1: and you apply it to different things. It's now like
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  Speaker 1: you're just using that phrase in relation to just food plots.
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  Speaker 1: It's something that seems to be like a holistic philosophy
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  Speaker 1: that goes across all the decisions you guys make. What
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  Speaker 1: does that mean you guys? Yeah, I think if somebody
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  Speaker 1: was to say some up landing legacy in your mindset
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  Speaker 1: in one phrase, it would probably be that would probably
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  Speaker 1: be one of them that we use often as working
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  Speaker 1: with nates. You're not against it, So explain that for me.
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  Speaker 1: What why does that matter? How does that actually manifest itself?
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  Speaker 1: And what you guys do. Okay, for example, let's what
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  Speaker 1: jump back into the member harvest in the native brow.
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  Speaker 1: So this area that was timber harvested, was it was
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  Speaker 1: neglected timber for years and years and years in this
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  Speaker 1: site historically was a woodland um. And a woodland is
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  Speaker 1: kind of a broad phrase, so I'll try to key
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  Speaker 1: in on that and say that a woodland uh an
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  Speaker 1: upland woodland, which is what this site is, was typically
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  Speaker 1: a lot of trees, but also had thirty to forty
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  Speaker 1: you could even drop down, say more sunlight than a
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  Speaker 1: closed canopy forest. And so with that amount of sunlight,
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  Speaker 1: you had herbaceous plants um and also more young young
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  Speaker 1: forest growing within these wood lots. In these forests, so
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  Speaker 1: you had sufficient amounts of forage and cover for wildlife,
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  Speaker 1: not just deer, but all for wildlife. UM. And so
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  Speaker 1: you know, as you neglect your timber as as this
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  Speaker 1: area had, it was really just becoming more of a
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  Speaker 1: an area that deer and wildlife passed through and weren't
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  Speaker 1: surviving and flourishing there. And so with this timber harvest, uh,
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  Speaker 1: of course the landowner made money, but at most importantly
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  Speaker 1: it opened up that canopy to where there's a huge
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  Speaker 1: flush of sunlight. And then we pulled up with some
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  Speaker 1: timber stand improvement um to really try to restore the landscape. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And once we open that canopy up, it's important that
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  Speaker 1: we returned prescribed fire um fired being a huge part
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  Speaker 1: of the landscape of what really shaped this part of
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  Speaker 1: the country and a lot of parts of the country.
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  Speaker 1: And so by doing that, we're just replicating nature. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the timber harvest, you're gonna say, well, that's not replicating nature,
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  Speaker 1: but the way fire went across the landscape but naturally
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  Speaker 1: thin timber and caused these openings and and would find
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  Speaker 1: weak trees and thin them out to where you had
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  Speaker 1: this landscape of kind of a mosaic of openings and
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  Speaker 1: timber and more of an open forest. And so because
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  Speaker 1: of that, we've now restored the landscape and it's going
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  Speaker 1: to be much more beneficial the wildlife because we're just
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  Speaker 1: restoring what was their presettlement. Did I get that? Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: You know that, that's right. I mean, that's that's the
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  Speaker 1: big thing is Okay, understanding what the soil type is,
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  Speaker 1: what historically was there, what disturbances naturally happen, and then
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  Speaker 1: you can understand, Okay, this site was let's say a woodland,
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  Speaker 1: or this site was a glade, that's what those conditions,
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  Speaker 1: based on the climate, based on the average rainfall, based
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  Speaker 1: on the pilotypes, that's what it should be. So if
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  Speaker 1: we're trying to make it something that it's not, it's
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  Speaker 1: gonna be inferior to the natural landscape that it should be.
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  Speaker 1: So why not just work with mother nature restore it
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  Speaker 1: to what the site tells us it should be. And
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: we know by default then with all these disturbances that
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: we're gonna follow up with, it's gonna be the best
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  Speaker 1: that it can be. And and that site now has
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  Speaker 1: got thousands I don't know how many pounds of food,
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  Speaker 1: let's say, probably two thousand pounds of food and ache
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: or each year that's producing. Whereas before close Cannaby you
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: were talking under a hundred. It was it was just
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  Speaker 1: leaves and sticks and and so kind of working with nature. Again,
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  Speaker 1: this was the only thing we had had we'd say, well,
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  Speaker 1: we need to have a food plot in here, and
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: because of the soil type and being a west facing
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  Speaker 1: kind of a southwest facing slope, it's definitely it would
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  Speaker 1: have been a problematic food plot where we would have
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  Speaker 1: had to pour soil amendments, um the fertilizer in line
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  Speaker 1: to try and get it productive. When we can just
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  Speaker 1: look at the natives and say that's good enough, and
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  Speaker 1: that's that's probably better than we could ever do with
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  Speaker 1: food blood. Yeah, I've heard you guys kind of walk
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: through other examples like this, where where someone tries to
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  Speaker 1: force a food plot into an area and then you
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  Speaker 1: raise the question, well, what was growing there naturally before?
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  Speaker 1: Or what should there be naturally? If you you know,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: what could you be producing without need to put all
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: this money into herbicide and fertilizer and seed and all
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: this um. How do you guys, how do you guys
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  Speaker 1: try to recommend people make that decision? Like, how should me?
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  Speaker 1: Is the average guy or girl? Look what am I
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  Speaker 1: trying to stay here? How do we know when that's
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the case? How do we know when we're making that mistake. Great,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: great question, and there's tools out there. UM. One thing
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  Speaker 1: that we utilize a lot is called the web Soil Survey,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: and that allows you go and look at the type
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: of soils that you have and then usually or or
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: in some instances, that will provide you with an ecological
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  Speaker 1: site assessment with a lot of big words to say historically,
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  Speaker 1: what was here? What was their way back when? Based
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: again on the soil types and the climate. UM. So
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  Speaker 1: those tools and you can go, you can look at
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  Speaker 1: this type in the Google Web Soil Survey and search
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  Speaker 1: your area UM and hopefully it'll pull up that information.
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  Speaker 1: But that then will allow you to okay, this is
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  Speaker 1: what it was. It will always pull up the soil type, sure,
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  Speaker 1: but the ecological side assessment. Again, sometimes that isn't pulled
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  Speaker 1: up on on each site, but typically it will give
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  Speaker 1: you a really good indication of what the area should
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  Speaker 1: be and then that will help guide you to make
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  Speaker 1: those management decisions down the road. So I guess in
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  Speaker 1: simple terms, there's two big, two big things that need
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  Speaker 1: to come in mind on whether you should have a
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  Speaker 1: food pot or their food pot or not there what's
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: the soil can it actually grow a a profitable or
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: successful food plot or crop, and then can you hunt
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  Speaker 1: it even if you were able to plant it. I
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: think that's where we see a lot of times where
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: there's a landowner just bought a property and there's an
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: opening down in a valley in a bowl, and it's like, well,
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  Speaker 1: that's already open, I'll plant it the food plot, and
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: then they try to hunt it and the wind swirls
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: and it's just you cause more problems, um than success.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: And so that would be another huge part of whether
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: or not you should plant this area in a food plot. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so back to the native vegetation. So let's say you
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: find a spot like that and you you determine, Okay, no,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: this isn't gonna work very well for a food plot
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason. Maybe historically that's just not what should
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: be there. Maybe it's the wind issue. But you want
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: to try to manage this native landscape and some kind
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: of way to make sure you're maximizing its potential. Um.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: You mentioned timber harvest is one thing you would do
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: in a closed canopy type situation. What are some of
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: the things that you're thinking through as far as managing
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: other areas let's say open areas that could have been
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: planted food plots, but for one reason or another, you
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: don't want to do that. UM. How do you think
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: through those types of situations. I'm actually this in a
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: I have some opportunities like that now with old fields
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: that I'm trying to fare out. What's the best way
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: to work with this? Um? What's it? Can be a
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: little bit daunting at this big field. Conventional wisdom is
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: spray it, burn it planet. Um. But to your point,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: maybe I can just work with nature and not need
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: to do that. UM. Can you kind of walk us
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: through your perspective on how do you think what that
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: kind of thing? What kind of potential is there? What
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: value is there for wild lift? I know there's a lot,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: but sometimes people don't realize that when they just see
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: a scrubby field. UM, where where's your guys heads that
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: with that kind of thing? Absolutely, that's one of our
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: favorite I guess open areas that aren't food plots would
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: be one of our favorite things to try to manage,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: because you it's a blank canvas um one of the
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: biggest things. And I think you see it a lot
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: in q d M A articles called old field management. UM.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: That's typically where we will take an area that's maybe
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: it was crop or maybe it was pasture, uh, some
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: sort of Typically if you say pastor, it might be
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: a cool season uh non natives such as tall fescue
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: or smooth brome, or down south it maybe a warm
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: season non native behavior grass or um mute umber muti grass,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: and so basically we're trying to convert it to something
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: more um for active, for the for the wildlife, and
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: so typically UM this is where we get into the
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: herbicide use, and probably the most popular way that we
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: use herbicides is a hopefully once or twice application during
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the peak time of that non native. So if it's
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: a cool season grass, we're going in after the first
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: couple of frosts in maybe in your area it's November
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: or late October and all the other natives have gone dormant.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: You're spraying that area out and you're letting that you're
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: basically killing that non native um or. It could be
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: during the during the warm season. Down south with behea grass,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: if you have a very dominated field of behey grass,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: you're spraying that out trying to kill it, and you're
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: basically just pulling the tarp if you will, off the
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: off the ground and saying okay, mother nature, nature fix it.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Put something back here. At Nature's way is always cover
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the soil um the nowhere nature do you find exposed
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: soil in a common practice basically for instance, like tillage,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: So you're pulling the tarp off and you're letting nature
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: fill back what should be there to cover the soil.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Sometimes if you're in heavy crop places and you cut
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: out a little bit. But if it's heavy crop places,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: you might have a little bit of problem of getting
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: those beneficial plants um back, and so you may have
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: to your best option maybe going into and trying to
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: plant some sort of pollinator blend or grass blend um
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: and trying to restore a grass and site um if
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: you're in a place that's experienced heavy tillage and heavy
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: herbal herbicide applications over the years. But a great option
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: for that would be equipped programs through the government um
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: to restore these grasslands and pollinator areas. Yeah, go ahead,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: go ahead, Mark, I should let you go, Matt, because
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: I'm about to pivot. Basically, you know, there's a lot
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: of times the opposition of that field really dictates what
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: the first moves are, and I say composition. It's like
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: what is in there, how much how much beneficial species
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: are in there. Let's say it's versus bad. You might
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: just be doing going in and targeting these bad species,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: maybe their non naving basis like autumolive or Terca left mediza,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: and you can just do spot spray applications to address
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: those trouble areas and then let that success that succession
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: take over producing annual weeds the first couple of years
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: and then turning over into more perennial things. But like
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Adam said, addressing the bad and then letting mother nature
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: to replace it. Um deer and a lot of wild
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: game species live from four foot down, so that first
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: bit of cover that naturally comes back, it's usually very
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: beneficial for a lot of different animals. And I think
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I want to share one story real quick on on
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: exactly what what we're just talking about. And it goes
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: to southern Iowa and a property that used to be
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a cattle property and it was all pretty much smooth
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: brom and um tall fescule. We went in assess the
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: ground and helped the landowner restore a prairie websital survey
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: told us that parts of this probably were prairie and
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: oak savannah, so we knew it was a grassland dominated
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: landscape historically. So we went in and we spread, helped
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: them spray uh during during the spring, actually it was
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: during March, and then we returned in early May and
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: burned it. And it went from shinn haigh to knee
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: high non native cool season grass to chest high and
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: above chest high or above head high grasses and forbes,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: golden rod, big blue stem, indian grass, all kinds of ragweed,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: um uh. The list goes on milkweed everywhere, um to
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: a point where a significant get chif in dear activity
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: happened on the sites that we were restoring. We didn't
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: do the whole landscape immediately, we did. We broke it
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: up into quadrants, and every time we focused in on
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: an area, that's where the deer with chiff could chase
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: those um chase that cover and those beneficial forbes in
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the burned areas. It's that story. There's just one example
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: of many that have been restored, but it's incredible to
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: see the response of the native vegetation and then correlate
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: that with the response of hunting observations and stories and
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: success based in and around those areas that have been
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: treated and restored as what they should be historically speaking.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: So here's the challenge that I've faced as I've been
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: thinking this through myself. Um the situation outline seemed like
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: it would work fair well. But if I'm in a
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: situation like I think it was you Adam who mentioned,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you have to come in and late
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: October or November and spray it for certain species, and
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: then the next year you can go in and possibly
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: replaying it with a pollinatir blend or whatever it might be.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: So many of these different management strategies will require that
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: heurb side application during the hunting seasonally during the heat
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: of the hunting season at the very best time. I
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: would rather someone cut off my pinky toes than me
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: go out there the first week in November and go
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: all over my property, you know, and spook every single
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: buck off the field. Um so in the spring, so
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: you can get away with the spring application, like it's
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: not absolutely have to do it enough all, No, but
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: we've had you don't get a better most likely a
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: better success rate out of a fall application, but we've
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: had great success in the spring because um, everyone's in
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: that same boat. Yeah, we're all sitting here going I
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: know I should do it, but I'm not going to
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: because I'm gonna be in the tree stable. Yeah. Spring, Yeah,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and it could be March s Bactually we always just
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: look and see, um, you you want to have that
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: whole clump of tall fest or smooth brome green and up. Um,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: And there's like a two week window in there where
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: it's already greening up before a lot of the other
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: natives start to pop. Okay, So so what about this
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: also the fact that we were talking all about these
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: these old fields and managing them and trying to you know,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: improve the type of cover types there and the food
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: source there and everything. But I do think that it's
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: not as sexy as the food. Plus, most people at
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: home want that beautiful green carpet of clover or whatever.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: They see the brushy field, and the average guy girls
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: just sees an opportunity to do something else. Um, can
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: you just speak to the value there, Like, I know
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: there's a tremendous amount of value, but can you just
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: help us they help illustrate that, Like, what does an
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: old brushy field that's well managed do for us as
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: you know managers, as hunters, there's a lot of value there, right,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I don't great, great question. Yeah, I
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: don't think there's anything sexy about what we do in
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the in the management. But I think it's a mindset
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: change that would need to occur. When you think about
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: to me, I guess the I'll go straight hill billy
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: on you here. Whenever you see when I see these
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: brushy fields, Automatically in my head, I'm like, oh, that
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: looks bucky, and it's like, man, you can we can
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: go in there in November and kick out a big buck,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: probably with the dough, or we'll go in there in
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: December and kick out a bunch of rabbits. It's just
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: very wildlife friendly. Um. But it's not aesthetically pleasing. And
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: I think anybody lists our podcast listen to us talk,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: aesthetics is not something and we go for because nowhere
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: in nature, once again, working with nature, not against her,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: is aesthetics is not something that nature cares about. Um.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: It's a very chaos driven way of management, and so
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: we're really just trying to be as chaotic. But most
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: importantly as diverse as possible, chaoic and strategic. I think
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I think you have to ask you what yourself. The
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: question is why am I? Why am I improving this?
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Am I improving it for myself? Or am I proving
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: it for the wildlife? Because again, the wildlife doesn't care
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: where it looks like it's sleeping. It just cares that
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: it's secure. And and to answer the question about you know,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: let's compare a food plot to let's say an old
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: field stand. Is that food plot, Yes, it produces a
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: lot of forage per year, but it's only producing forage.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Whereas in comparison to an old field stand, you take
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: an acre of that next door to a food plot,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: you have both forage and cover in the exact same acre,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: and not just forage during a certain time frame. If
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: if it's old field and you have that component of shrubs,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: you now have food. And you can look at almost
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: anywhere in the country and you'll see really browsed heavily
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: food plots during that late winter early spring. But you'll
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: also can turn around and go to a field of
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: an old field and see natives already pomp and the
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: deer could be browsing on. So they're already providing forage
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: during the very early ring, and then they're flourishing through
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: the summer providing tons of forage and then at the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: same time providing cover. But then you go into the
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: fall and you still have diversity in that old field
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: where you still have forage available with certain species, but
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: then you take it in the winter there's cover there.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: But then that's when those shrubs and that woody browse
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: is abundant to where you've got food year round and
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: cover a year round in an old field or prairie
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: grass and landscape. If I'm if I'm a guy who's
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: got limited acres toun and manage, I want each and
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: every acre. It's more important for each and every acre
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: to have multiple uses as in food and cover than
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: just one. So I wanted to my property to be
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: the most attractive the longer periods of the year or
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: throughout the entire year, not just these peaks that we
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: see in food plot acres. So old field is roughly
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: three thousand pounds of digestible wards a year. Food plots,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: depending on the species, is four to five thousands. Some
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: somewhere in that neighborhood but food plots don't provide cover
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: old field does. So you're killing two birds with one
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: stone in old field situations. And it also you have
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: to pay for the food plot every single year. You
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: have a lot more work. Yeah. So another benefit of
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: these of these old field type habitats or some other
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: kind of plantings you can do is that they benefit
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: pollinator species, things like monarch, butterflies, and bees and and
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Um. This, this the notion
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: of of managing or trying to improve habitat for pollinators
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: is something that's beginning to be talked about a little
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: bit more in our world, just a little bit. Um.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: It's something I've been paying on a lot of tension
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: to here recently and starting to try to factor into
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: my management plans. Um. Can you speak to why that matters?
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Like why should a deer hunter if someone would call
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: themselves a deer hunter first and foremost, why should they
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: care about something like that? Um? And how might that
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: benefit their dear related goals to absolutely? Uh, we'll have
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: to be very careful when you start mentioning monarchs and
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: and pollinators, so we don't nerd out on this. Um.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: So it kind of goes with that whole caring about
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the holistic um landscape. UM. And we're looking at trying
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: to manage for not only pollinators, for the microbes and
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: the microbial activity and the microbes in the soil all
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: the way up to other bird species. And if you
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: deer are relatively pretty easy to manage for when when
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: you look at them from a whole I guess nationwide landscape,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: you'll find them in residential areas, eaten zaleas or whatever
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: else in and plantings and so they're pretty adaptive. Um.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: But you start looking at monarchs and pollinators, they look
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: they take a little bit more um, a little bit
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: more management freeze. We should care about those is because
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: if you have this diverse landscape to where you're providing
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: benefits to species like the monarch, butterfly or some of
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: our native pollinators, you have them on your landscape, it
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: tells us we have enough diversity on the landscape to
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: provide all the benefits to the deer um to where
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: they don't have to go to the neighboring properties or
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: five miles down the road to find species to survive.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: You should have everything there when you get this diversity
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: of species. Yeah, it's kind of like a you know,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: you can use it as an indicator species or an
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: indicator of quality of the habitat that's there. If you
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: have a lot of pollinator species, oh well then I'm
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: doing a great job of managing my property. And I
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: know other species like deer and turkey and quail. Can
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: you look at quail and turkey polts. Most of their
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: diet when they're first born is all insect based. So
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: you can't have those types of the species without a
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: good population of insects aka pollinators things like that, you
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: won't have honetable population. So you need be managing and
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: looking for these indicator species to know where you stand
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: in the quality of habitat you're providing. Yeah, I think
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of species we look for. It would
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: go up to the northeast. It's like, oh, Matt was
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: in uh Pennsylvania at this spring or a couple of
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: months ago and got into an area where it's like, boy,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: the habitat looks like it's the habitat is getting good
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: around here. Out jump some rough grouse and it's like, oh, perfect,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: that's exactly what we're going for. Um down here in
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the Midwest, it may be northern bobwhite quail, but pollinators
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: compare it to close canopy forest that's not providing anything
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: for pollinators hardly, uh, specifically on our butterfly. And so
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: if you don't have them, if you don't have the
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: species within your timber, then you're not You probably don't
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: have the species that are providing much benefit to the
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: white tailed deer. But if you have them out in
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: your open areas, then those same species that the poll
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: that the pollinators are using the deer used as well
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: for brows. Um. And then some of them, like golden rod,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: grew up tall enough to provide cover as well. So
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: so um. One of the situations I've been encountering or
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: learning about a little bit more here recently are the
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: government programs that are out there to incentivize the improvement
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: of pollinator habitat. Because right there's there's at a very
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: high level. You guys can try speak to us better
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: than I can, but at a very high level, we're
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: noticing significant declines in many pollinator species population levels across
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: the country. And these pollinator species play a very important
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: role across a number of facets, especially agriculture. A huge
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: amount of our crops out there depend on some degree
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: of pollination as well as many other things going on
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: across the nation without these butterflies, about these bees, with
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: all these other insects, if we really do dramatically lose
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: many of those populations were in trouble. They do a
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: lot of natural They provide a lot of benefits through
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: these different natural systems. So, because we're facing this crisis
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: of some sort, the government, state and federal has a
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: number of different programs out there to incentivize private landowners
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: to put in or to try to manage their property
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: in some kind of way that will provide the habitat
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: these these animals need, these creatures needs. So they'll give
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: you maybe cost assistance with provide you know, get buying
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: seed or buying spray. Um. They might even pay rental
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: payments on stuff like this part of CRP whatever it is. UM.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: So the point being is that there are these programs
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: that you can get involved in that will incentivize you,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: help you manage the cost to manage an old field
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: like this, to put to plant a pollinator blend or something,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: so you'll get some cost assistance out of it. But
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: then like cremin if I'm wrong, but the types of
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: things that these guys are are helping you pay for
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: these pollinator blends, these native grasses and wildflowers and stuff
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: that's tremendous wildlife habitat across the board. Right, that's not
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: just great for butterflies and bees, that's great for deer
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: and turkeys and polls everything you just said, right. Absolutely.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I think if if you were to ask me, if
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: you were to put me in a corner and tie
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: my hands behind my back and say from November one November,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: you can either hunt food plots or you can hunt
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: old fields, I'll no doubt say I'll hunt an old
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: field because I know sooner or later I'm gonna it's
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: gonna pay off big for me. I'll be on the
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: other side of that old field with a bow in
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: hand too. Yeah, with doubt, a doubt, without a doubt.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: And I mean food is definitely important, and food plots
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: are great. We plant food plots ourselves. But at the
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: same time, I think cover is a huge part um
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: that that is sometimes overlooked and not used and sold.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: These pollinator programs not only do they help basically you're
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: coming at it from a pollinator approach saying, Okay, we're
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: doing this for the pollen, for the pollinators, but your
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: deer benefiting just as much. And in most instances if
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: it's a crop field, yeah, sure the crops provided some
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: benefit to the deer during a portion of the year,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: but this is year round benefit to the to the wildlife,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: and the government is helping you do it. And it's
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: not only making that area better, but the area around it,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: the other parts of the of the land much more productive.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: You talked about UM as we're kind of getting to
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: this topic. The fact that you are focusing your nerd
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: out really on a lot of the the minute aspects
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: of landscape health, things like microbes, things like pollinators, things
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: like soil health, UM and all of this is all
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: related to another topic that I've been really geeking out
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: myself on, which is this idea of regenerative agriculture and
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: how to apply some of these ideas. We're talking about
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: two now. If we are are going to actively manage
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: a piece of ground or some portion of it to
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: try to plant a crop of food plot of some sort,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: trying to do that in a way that's in sync
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: with nature, I think is a natural next step from
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: what we've been talking about here, there's there's managing what's
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: already there, and then if we are going to add
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: something new, how do we do that in a way that, um,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: that is as beneficial as possible without pulling in any
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: of the negative side effects of some of the tools
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: that are typically used within the conventional agricultural world. UM.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about just why or how
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: regenerative agriculture, however you guys want refer to this kind
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: of concept as how that became something you guys are
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: interested in and why it's still appealing. I know, I
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: think out of out of failures, definitely out of failures
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: and mentors of mine UM over the years. Uh. And
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: then that was I mean years ago, uh in the
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: two thousand, probably two thousand eight nine, and then also
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: again two thousand anti in I worked with some guys
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: that had this mentality before it was called reginative agriculture,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: but they had a very holistic mindset. One was a
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: cattle farmer who just tried to add as much diversity
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: in his pastors as austome UM to a point where
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: he was like, I'm not fertilizing, I'm not adding any
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: soil amendments. I'm using the cattle to fertilize my pastures,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: but i'm moving them. Basically, all I'm doing is replicating
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: what the bison hurts dead years ago. And back then
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: as a young guy, that really, I mean, I was
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: still focused on I want to kill the biggest beer
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: in this county. And so looking back, I'm like, man,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: he was so ahead of his time in that mindset. Um.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: And then I worked for another guy who was uh.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: He worked for the conservation apartment, and he was the
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: one who encouraged planting diverse food plots because we need
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: to be thinking about all the native species, not just here.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: And both those guys were huge and and really pouring
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: in that mindset of you know, there's more, there's more
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: out here than just deer. And if you focus on
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: trying to help species that need more help, pollinators, bob
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: like whail um, redhead woodpecker, all kinds of other species
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: that may be a species of concern, your deer still
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: benefiting just as much um and and probably gonna do
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: better than just your typical food plot, close canopy. For
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: it's management that you see a lot so for for myself,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: I grew up on the East Coast, specifically within the
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Chestpeake Bay Watershed, and there's a lot of of course
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: laws and things like that, um, nutrient management in that area,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: and that I'm not gonna say is the birthplace at all,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: but a humongous wave of cover cropping began in the
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Chesapeake Bay Watershed in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, those type of
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: areas Pennsylvania as well. UM, And so I was kind
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: of immersed in that to grow up in a farming
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: community background in the family, and so I've kind of
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: always known cover cropping, no till drilling, and just kind
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: of new, gosh, why why wouldn't you do this kind
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: of stuff? And then moving out to the Midwest, it's like,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: oh wow, that's that wave of information. Um, hadn't made
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: it this far out. Again, it's like, well, we can
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: apply it elsewhere too, not just from a farming standpoint,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: but why wouldn't we do it in in like food
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: plot acres as well. So that was kind of like
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: that information, like, wow, we can we can take this
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: application in a farming sense, And because again the soils foundation,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: why not why not learn the foundation the knowledge behind
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: how to manage it? Learn it and then apply what
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: we need to and the plot situations. So can you
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: walk us through your guys process for your typical food plot,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: because I know it's different than the usual the typical
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: person out there who's who's going to about doing things
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: in the conventional way. The way you guys are operating
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: is is pretty unique compared to that. Can you walk
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: us through what that process throughout the year looks like
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: for you and then as you do that, explain why
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: what you're doing is beneficial. Yeah, So sticking a food plots,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I guess our typical process and I don't know if
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: there's anything typical about what we do. I'm trying to
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: think of because we're always testing and trying new things.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: But a typical way that we would plant a food
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: plot is our goal is to have diversity UM and
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: we can't always do that. We weren't able to do
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: that on my family farm because of years of heavy
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: tillage UM and and problematic species like crab grass. But
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: our typical way is to spray UH two courts preaker
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: of life of states pre planting, So some in April
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: we will spray UM and then we will plant a
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: diverse blend eight or more species typically, and that's it.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: That's all we're gonna do until August rolls around, and
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: then we're gonna go back in. Let's make sure. Like
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of people would hear you say spray and
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: then plant, and they think, well, what about all the
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: in between stuff? There's no one between for you, right am?
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: I am I hearing you right? That you are spring?
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: And then how long the time period are you waiting
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: between the spray and then going and planting? And how
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: are you planting? Are you is this drilling it? Are
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: you broadcasting it? Are you what are you doing there?
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Give me a little more detail? Oh yeah, all the above. Yeah.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: So we've got two different techniques and and we've tried
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: because I think there's a in a food plot world.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: There's there's I guess, practical for most guys, and then
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: there's what our goals are are. The top of the
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: summit is, Okay, if I'm planting food plot, what is
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: the very best thing I can do to ensure a
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: productive food plot? And that's no till drilling. But at
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: the same time, that's not practical for a lot of guys.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: But for us, we have easy access. We can rent
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: a hotel drill right in our county U s d
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: A office, and so we spray and then it may
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: be two days or it may be a week before
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: we go in with the no tel drill and we
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: drill our food plot and then we don't do anything.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: If we plant what we want, and it's typically this
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: diverse blend has got sun, hemp, cowpeas, I can list
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: those out, some flowers, um my lot millets. We plant
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: that and then we don't do anything until August when
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: we plant our fall plot. Um. And we may do
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: the same thing or we may just drill right through
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: the standing. We we don't really have a system that's
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: like we do this every single time. It really depends, honestly,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: watching how that food plot grows throughout the summer, depends
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: on the incoming rains. Um, you know, what are what
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: are we expecting for the fall. And here's another important
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: thing to note is no till planting also includes broadcasting.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: That's a form if you're not doing any tillage and
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: you're simply broadcasting seed onto the ground into stuff or
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: or thatch layer. We've done that with a lot of success,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: and I think it's important to note that that's a
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: form of no tilling planting. It's just not utilizing the
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: no till drill. So a lot of people want to say, hey,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: I want to be conscious of the soil and not
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: till it, but I can't get no till drill. Well,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: we'll know that you're still doing no till practices by
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: broadcasting seed. But from our experience, you have to have
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: an adequate thatch layer and rains to allow that seed
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: to germinate. But it will absolutely work. Yeah, and so
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: I guess if you wanted to sum up our two
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: processes for planting food plots that we use most of
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: the time is spraying and within a week we know
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: till drill. Typically that's more important in the spring with
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: bigger seeds like corn or soybeans um. And then we
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: also use a technique that is basically we spray, we broadcast,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: and we then culti pac or roll or drag um
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: that area that we just sprayed. And basically that is
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: that is what we found as being the most successful
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: way to to have a food plot without having any
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: other equipment besides a four wheeler and a drag or
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: could patter um. But that that system is very It's
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: very important that you have main forecasting and coming. So,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: so give me a little more detail as far as
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: the specifics, because that that scenario right there is what
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: I was trying this spring myself, and I was trying
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: it to plant food plat screens. So I've never done
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: this before. I never tried the no tell broadcast only approach,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: but I thought, you're gonna give us a shot. Um.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: So what happened for me that was trying to figure
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: out what's the right order of operations, what's the right
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: gap in time between things between when I spray and
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: when I broadcast versus and what I did the throw
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: and MO. So I tried spray, broadcast MO over top, um,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: But can you walk me through the like the actual
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: details of the ideal scenario, like when you would do
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: the spray, how long you'd wait to broadcast, or what
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: the right orders and all that. What's worked the best
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: for you guys at least? And sorry, one more additional question.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: What types of seeds does this kind of thing work
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: for versus what types of seeds would not? So typically
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: the best case scenario for this to work is you
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: get some rains, you have moisture in the soil. You
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: go out and you broadcast your seed. You can do
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: this a couple of ways, but most importantly, you've got rain,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: so you've got moisture. You go out and you spray
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: it and you kill it, and then you return and
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: and we've done this the same day, spray it and
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: then turn around and broadcast the same day, or you
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: can wait a few days ads. But the key is
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: that you have thatch. That's gonna be the biggest thing
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: to ensure a success or one of the big things,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: because you need something to cause this almost vapor barrier
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: and hold that moisture in um to where you get
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: good seed um german nation. At the same time, it
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: protects those seeds from being eaten by birds and mice
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: and other and other animals. So having moisture in the
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: soil then also having a thatch layer. And it could
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: be only knee high grass, it could be just tall
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: festival to say, it could be your fall food plot,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: your spraying out, or it could be a pasture that
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: or a portion of a patch they have permission to plant. Yeah,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: that's that layer super important. So it's moist ground spray
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: broadcast either day of or or or day after and
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: then you hope for income and lay that thatch rate
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: or top of it, or you can drag it right
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: on top of it. Um that the biggest thing is
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: having thatch layer and having rain coming as what's going
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: to make that um and make sure that that rain
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: is not an absolute gully washer. Even if you have
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: some thatch that that water, that amount of water in
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: a short period of time is going to redistribute that
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: seed across the field and you'll have really heavy patches
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: really light patches. So just make sure it's a nice
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: general rain and and a strong um percentage of rain
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: coming and walk away and let nature run its course.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: Those seeds will germinate, come up through the thatch, and
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: that the beauty of the thatch is that once those
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: seeds germanate, let's say you've got a little bit of
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: a duck layer that's helping protect those seeds and and
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: that tender vegetation establish a root system so that when
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: it does jump above the thatch layer, it can resist
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: some of that browse. You know, it can handle some
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: of that pressure that's going to come. The most important
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: thing that you can do is protect young basically young
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: forage from getting over browned, and that thatch layer help
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: to do that absolutely. And and so when you're asking
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: about species that it works best with smaller seeds is
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: always better. UM. So that's why in the fall you
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: tend to. Everybody is probably at some point planted a
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: fall food plot of wheat and spilled some in the
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: back of the truck, and three weeks later they turned around,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: they've got a food plot growing in the back of
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: the truck. UM. It's a really hardy species that can
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: grow and gravel. And same with cereal rye and um.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: So those species do really well with this application. But
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: we've had success planting soybeans and UM. But it all
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: comes back to having the thatched layer and having an
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: adequate moisture UM to ensure success. I'll speak Mark, if
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: you don't mind. People are probably listening, going that sounds
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: way too complicated. I'm gonna keep tilling UM and I'll
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: speak a little bit on I guess my experience if
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: you want to dial it way back. Um over. I
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: think when I calculated this, I think it's about twenty
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: one or twenty two years we've been planting food plots
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: at my family farm Ozark Mountains, very shallow soil is
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: not a lot of organic matter. When we started planting
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: food plots, I almost cringe explaining this, but we had
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: a big plow disc plow um, so it's a two
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: disc plow. We plowed the entire field. Then we turned
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: around and we broke out the disk and we disc
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: the entire field to break up that sod layer, and
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: then we harrowed that entire field, and then we broadcasted
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: our seed and then we drugged the field. Um. It
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: was a long process. Weeks weeks we would start that
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: because we only had a thirty horse massy ferguson um
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: and so it took weeks of preparing it and getting
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: it ready and uh we I. You know, if we
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: go to some of the other parts of our farm,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: we have organic matter up close to six but if
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: you go into the areas of our food plots were
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: down around four UM. And so we had very poor soils.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: And with our heavy tillage for almost fifteen years, it
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: really really drained our successful food plots and and drained
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: organic matter to where it had to be almost perfect
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: conditions for us to get a successful food plot. And
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: when we realized what was occurring, when this whole no
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: till things started hitting the those arcs and we started
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: getting into it, we realized that what took fifteen years
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: to accomplish was going to take a lot more years,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: probably double to correct what had happened. UM And so,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: guys in in heavy you know, you've got all kinds
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: of top soil. You're in Iowa. You may never see that,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: you could tell until until and you may never see it,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: but at some point somebody is going to see the
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: negative impacts of that heavy tillage. And most people aren't
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: in those soils. The vast majority of deer hunters don't
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: have the luxury of planting food plots in that type
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: the soil that seemed to be endless. Most of us
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: certain situations like this where it's rougher, poor soils. So
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: you have to treat again, you're only as good as that,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: UM the food plot preparations. And if you're going in
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: and right out of the gate destroying the soil that
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: you're banking on helping you grow a crop, you're you're
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: kicking yourself in the shins right out of the gate.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: So treat the soil with respect as a foundation to
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: understand how it works. And that's why truthfully go back
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: to work with mother and nature, not against it. Is
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: we understand how soil works, the biology behind it, and
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: we don't want to destroy it right out of the
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: gate and then sit there. How many times have you
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: heard I've played my food plot sow, I'm praying for rain,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: I'm praying for UM this to occur. It's like, yeah,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: because you just destroyed your soil and you just are
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: legit sit there and bake, and now you have the
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: only chance you have is is for rain to come
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: within a certain period of time to make it successful.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: That's that's not smart. And so that's why are utilizing
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: thatch and no till techniques to get us through tougher
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: times UM and still have that success. So so in
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: addition to not telling up the soul and not ripping
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: apart all the life that's going on underneath the surface there,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: in addition to trying to maintain some kind of organic
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: matter on top that thatch is there. All things, like
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: you said, they're going to help build the foundation for
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: your food plot. Another thing that I know helps with
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: this is having that diversity of species that you're planting,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: because that's in line with nature, right, the mono culture
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: is not a natural thing out there in the natural landscape. Um,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: can you guys elaborate a little bit on why you
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: guys find diversity not just in line with nature but
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: also so beneficial from a wildlife Habitat standpoint, and then
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: one of you, I think maybe was Adam, you started
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: listing some of the species that you plant. But can
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: you give me a whole breakdown of of everything that's
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: going to be in your fall food plot, blend or
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: as much as you're going to share, and why each
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: piece of that puzzle? Absolutely? Um. So when it comes
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: to why why we try to plant diversity versus monocultures?
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: And I know a d h D and a horrible memory,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: I may forget part of this answer, but here we go.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: When it comes to trying to avoid the monocultures. UM.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: For instance, soybeans a huge, hugely popular summer food plot.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: You plant that and it's basically you have whatever bare
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: ground and soybeans, it's just perfect pickings for a deer
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: to go out and stand or move through and completely
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: overbrowse this area. But if you add diversity their species
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: within these um, most of our plantings that deer don't
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: eat until a certain stage. For instance, mile o or millet,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: they won't eat it until it produces a seed head.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: So that whole time you have this little bit of
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: a protection for whatever young species is a company in that,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: and so deer can't over browse those food plots nearly
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: as much. But at the same time, each species mines
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: or uses a certain nutrient out of the soil, So
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: they're putting roots down on the soil and mining those
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: nutrients from deep within and bringing that back up near
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: the surface to where the next crop once it's terminated,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: the next that adequately available um and so at the
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: same time, just like nature, they all lean on each
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: other and support each other. So some species may not
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: like the heat nearly as much as another species, but
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: because it's next to that species that can flourish in
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: the heat, it can withstand it a little better because
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: it's it's leaning on it for support. They're holding nutrients together.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: They have a different roots system. One may be a
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: tap root and the other one maybe a fiber root system,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: to where you have this diversity all working together to
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: create a ecosystem, if you will. Even some of some
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: of those species are shading out the other species until
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: those ones get browsed and then then it's basically their
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: next in line too for their time to shine, and
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: they're hitting that later portion of the summer um where
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: they're more attractive and palatable. So you're not banking on
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: one crop to do something for let's say, however many
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: months and withstand all the things that Mother nature is
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: gonna throw at it, whether it's bugs, whether it's disease,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: whether it's um when, whether it's a lack of rainfall.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: You have let's say ten different species, they are all
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: working together among each other, and that all can withstand
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: and and basically fight through those difficult times making that
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: food plot itself attractive from April till October. That's a
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: think about think about just the seasons that we go through.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: We go through spring, summer, and fall in that that
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: span of time, and you're trying if you're playing a monoculture,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: not diversity within food pots. You're banking on that um
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: that crop to be flexible with that biggest swing of
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: temperatures and everything like that. So if you're playing diversity,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: you know that all those crops are gonna be able
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: to again have their peak, have their time of attraction
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: and basically work with each other to make that food
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: plot out of the gate from April all the way
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: to October just shine and attractive and beneficial, or from
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: August to yeah, if you're planting ball and if you're
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: plant fall. So here's the species that we typically try
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: to include, and we tweak it every year. But these
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: are some of our favorites. UM, and i'll list explain
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: by plots. So we love purple top turnips. UM. We
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: love a different type of turn up, maybe a forage
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: turn up so it can handle browse pressure a little
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: better than the purple cop tournup. We love radishes, whether
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: it be a nitro or icon or go for radish.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: We love those um string in winter piece. UM. We
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: love getting into some of our grains. We love cereal,
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: rye trick, kayley oats and wheat UM. And then we
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: also love annual clovers and we're growing very fond of
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: the ansa and versine clovers uh and crimson clover UM.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: And I think that would pretty much. Harry Vetch is
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: another one that we really like. UM. And you combine
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: all those together and you have grasses and you have
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: legumes and you have broad leaves, and just like nature,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: and you've got the big the big three types and
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: the big three, and you can really bust up compaction,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: you can mind nutrients, and you can prevent erosion. Um.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: At the same time, if you look at each of
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: those species, just use the cereal grains. Oats are tremendous
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: attraction during the early fall, during that October early November
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: time frame. UM. We and trip kayley and cereal ride
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: and they take a little longer to get that root
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: system established and and get where deer actually brows on it.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: But those are tremendous plants to have in your food
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: plot acres for that late winter early spring when there's
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: hardly anything else green on the landscape. UM. Then you
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: look at radishes. They're really attractive during the early part
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: of the season. UM. But then as you get those
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: first heavy frost, that's when the deer can shift over
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: and really brows on the purple top turnips and the
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: forage turnips UM. And it kind of takes the pressure
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: off those radishes to where they can continue making a
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: tuber and break up the compaction. UM. Then you look
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: at the clovers and they're gonna provide great forage midway
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: through the fall. Um they're not doing a whole lot
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: during the winter, but then in the spring they take
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: off like crazy and provide more forage than almost anything
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: you could anything else you could plant at the same
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: time FIXATIONE, fixating on a nitrogen. It's incredible and you
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: think about, okay, that time span again, look at it
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: from what what that acre food plot is going through.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: From planting in late summer, all late till spring termination
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: um in in mid April. That is an incredible swing
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: of temperatures. And there's typically, let's I think that was
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: about fourteen species or so that we plant, and at
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: any given time early middle to late um in that
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: in that month's swing, there there's about four species that
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: are just getting it all together, and so each one
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: has its peak and you you can walk out in
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: the food plot let's say four weeks after German Nation,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, yeah, those oats are cranking, the radishes,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: the terms were doing awesome. You come back in December
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: and there's a whole another host of species. They're like, wow,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: they're really forging on this. And then come spring it's
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: a whole another suite in that same plot, in that
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: same mixture. That's like, this is incredible. This is why
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: we do what we do, because you're working with mother nature.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: There's not a point that I mean, if you just
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: planted oats the first couple, after the first couple of
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: hard froth, you're pretty much toast and sit and idle
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: till spring. Yeah, or weeds grow and your winter annuals
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: start growing, and uh, I guess the analogy I would
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: use is think of it like that. This is pretty lame.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: But the game red Rover Red Rover, where you all
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: join hands and you're trying to keep the other team
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: from once you do that with your diverse plantings, I
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: should have used defensive linemen, shouldn't I. Um, everyone's judging here,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: oh man. So basically they're all supporting each other and
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: providing they're all flourishing um to where you have something
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: on the table to eat, something on the table to
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: um to mind nutrients and prevent erosion from planting all
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: the way until terming nation are all the way through
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: the next summer. I mean, some of those those annual
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: clovers will be green if you didn't terminate them, they'll
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: be green all the way until almost July. Yeah, and
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: that's the thing. You know, it sounds super complicated and
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: really complex, but the principle is super easy. Just understand
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: how mother nature works and complement it in the way
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: that you choose to manage your land, and you're gonna
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: see incredible results by doing that. It's it's not like
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: this is anything new. It's just you know, we we've
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: looked at these principles and said, okay, how can we
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: compliment that in our in our strategies of managing the land,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: And luckily we're seeing awesome results with it. And so
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: we're clients. So it's it's fun to see, Okay, when
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: I really study this stuff and and do let's say
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: nerd out on biology, I'm I'm right there where I
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: should be, and I know that the land is healthy
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: because of the practices and the technique. It's in the
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: way I'm choosing to manage it. I think that's very
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: very easy to get caught up and just the methods
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: instead of just understand the principles the baseline and making
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: management decisions off of principles versus those methods. So so
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: one of the things that I when I got into
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: the food plotting world. I was definitely found a lot
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: like the conventional wisdom out there. And one of the
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: things that I was always worried about with diversity with
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: blends was that if you mash a bunch of things together,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: you're not going to properly. You're not gonna do things
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: right for any one of them perfectly, so you will
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: plant some stuff. If we're planning everything at the same time,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: that means nothing's planted just the right time. So I
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: would think to myself, Okay, I would rather plant my
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: brassicas at the perfect time to plant brassicas, and then
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: I want to plant my oats at the perfect time
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: to plant oats, and so to do that, I would
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: separate them out, so I plan. In my case, I
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: tried to achieve a small degree of diversity by putting
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: them in the same plot, but doing strips. So I
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: do a strip of Braska strip oats to pro brassicas.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: And I thought that was a way too too to
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: get things going as optimally as possible. And you also
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: hear the idea that if you plant blends, then you're
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: going to be shading out certain things that should be
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: getting sun, and then they're not going to be as
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: beneficial as they could be. Back to conventional wisdom of
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: why you know, industrial farmers plant monocultures, right, you get
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: your most bang for your buck as far as the
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: amount of production per acre. If it's all the one
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: thing knocking out of the park and managing specifically for
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: that for that one species, what is the argument against
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: those concerns? Is there anything to worry about? You must
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: have read the same article as me when I was fifteen.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: We we had that mindset to or I guess had
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: read that where you don't mix cereal grains with braskas
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: um and it was like, well, okay, that makes sense.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: One is try to take this nw trent and this
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: one's trying to take it from from him, and they're
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: just trying to steal it from each other. Um. And
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: I think that comes down to the mindset of managing
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: for a species and not managing for the land. Um.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: And think for us, if you plant it, if you
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: went out and you planted a straight monoculture of and
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: you stripped it out and you just tested and you said, okay,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: here's a straight test of purple top turnips. Here's a
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: test of oats, here's a test wheat. Here's a test
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: of annual clovers. You're gonna see gaps and every single
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: one of those um plantings, the purple topped turnips, they
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: may overbrowse it uh and so January hits and that
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: may be just a mud strip um. The oats is
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: going to be yellow by December and it's just gonna
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: lay there yellow until the spring when winter annuals grow.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: But if you plant them, if you took all those
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: and you mix them together, you'll see during those gaps
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: when purple top terms maybe declining that another species in
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: that mix, it's it's it's heyday and it's gonna shoot
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: through and flourish. So for us, it's been years of
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: testing those diverse blends and going there's really not a
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: time where we're not providing something. But if we looked
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: at the monocultures, there's a time where and it's usually
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: a lot bigger gap of not benefiting the wildlife than
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: when it is benefiting the wildlife. And so that's where
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: I think for us, it was like this is this
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: is we need to look back at the way nature
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: was designed and nowhere in nature if it's if it's
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: actually acting the way nature was designed that there's not diversity.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: And I think that you know, back to that the
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: agricultural standpoint of planting them this way and whatever. You know,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: their management strategies are different from our management strategies of
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: the food plot once it's planted, um and to they're
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: looking at it from a harvest standpoint, whereas we're looking
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: at it from Oh, they are going to be my
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: on bine. I want them to be the ones. And
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: I don't ever hear them complain as to the fact
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: I mixed plants together because their natural browsers. There's three
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: plus species in their diet that they can eat, and
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: we don't ever see, you know, in nature, just one
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: of those in the field, and they're just selecting to
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: go that field. Um there, Every every step through our
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: managed timber, there's something that they can eat that's different
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: from the last step because of the diversity. That's they're
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: no different from the food plot. And just from a
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: hunting strategy standpoint, right, I would want to thank or
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: throw all my chips in at one species that is
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: gonna peak just during November. I hunt from September all
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: the all the way to mid January here in Missouri.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: So why not make that food plot attractive from September
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: all the way through January. So by mixing things all
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: together and planting them, I can achieve that whereas a
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: single species, I'm not achieving that or making that again,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: food plot acres be most attractive it can be and
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: valuable to the property. It's kind of like economy of scale,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: Like it doesn't you can you can plant at the
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: same amount in the same amount of time all the
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: species mixed in one as you can let's say, just wheat.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: It doesn't take any more time, So why why not
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: do that and make it more tract Going back to
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: the comparison with agriculture, I think also market you've looked
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: enough into regentative agriculture to see that the guys who
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: are planting grain crops and using the regentative agriculture methods,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: they're still planting. Like, uh, one of our favorites to
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: follows Gay Brown, and he plants corn, and then two
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: or three days later he drills um over that planting
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: to where he's got different species growing underneath that the corn,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: which are basically helping him fight weeds and still and
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: fight erosion and really my nutrients and so I think
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: the whole regentave agriculture and then this holistic mindset go
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: hand in hand. It just depends on whether you're in
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: the wildlife field or agricultural field. Yeah, it makes It
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. And I am I am
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: taking the leap this year as I mentioned, so I'm
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: not only just gonna try no till, but also going
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: to go full diversity. Gonna be slinging all sorts of
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: seed out there and seeing how it goes. So you
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: have me convinced, um, you can you can join our
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: red rob oh I mean defensive line team if you
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: want perfect um. So, so sort of along these lines still, UM,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: as we're as we're talking about ways to work hand
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: in hand with nature, as we're talking about ways to
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: try to um, you know, take a look at ways
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: to depart a little bit from the conventional agricultural world.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: Is the whole top think of herbicide. You guys have
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: mentioned using herbicide through some of your management tasks as
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: we've talked today. But I also know from some previous
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: chats and stuff with Adam and reading and hearing some
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: other things that you do have some concerns or some
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: thoughts around how we use herbicides and what kind of
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: impacts that may or may not have. Can can one
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: of you just kind of give me the the Landing
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: Legacy perspective on herbicide use and then what that means
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: to how you use it. Yeah, well we can send
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: them back to your your article too and say if
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: you want to hear more, there we go. That's kind
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: of our mindset is always tried to, as we said,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: replicate nature and do what nature design. And obviously herbicides
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: aren't something that was happy presettlement, but at the same time,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: neither were invasive species or non natives. So that's where
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: we really come into using the herbicides. Like old field
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: management requires herbicide. You if you have a turf grass
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: it's non native. Tillage is not going to kill it.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: Heavy mowage is not going mowing is not going to
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: kill it. Herbside, a one time application can kill it.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: I guess our biggest concern um with her besides is
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: the and and we're not I mean, I'd hate to
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: say that we're jumping up and down saying ban all herbside,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: but we definitely want to think about our our use
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: of it and try to limit it as much as possible,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: not because I guess we're we're concerned and Matt and
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: I go out of spray and has Matt suits, But
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: more of it just doesn't. It's just not a natural thing.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: We can find other ways to to replicate nature and
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: still reach our goals, But when it comes to food
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: plot usage, our food plots and herbicide, I guess our
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: biggest fear and concerned where we always get is the
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: idea of spraining herbicide or chemical on a plant that
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: then that you spray it in the day and then
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: a group of deer moving during the night and then
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: they eat that forage that you've coated in a herbicide,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: and then you turn around and and go and kill
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: them in a few months, and raises some concerns for
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: us on I think there's not enough known about it
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: to say, yeah, your knee, and so because of that
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: unknown side of it, we're just going to limit it
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: as much as possible. Yeah, there's there's definitely instances where
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: that's the best practice and you're gonna spend your rules
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: trying to do anything else. And when we apply it,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: we try and find the scenarios where it's a one
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: time application. You're done and you walk away, and then
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: you choose to use other techniques like prescribed fire then
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: to manage that site like old fields or let's say
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: you have a wood lot that's just overgrown with bush honeysuckle.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: You go in do a cut stump treatment and you're
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: simply applying an herbicide to the ump itself. It's not
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: just this massive um broad spectrum just slinging her beside everywhere.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: It's very specific and that's okay. And then again you're
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: gonna follow up that that wood lot management with prescribed
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: fire and keep everything else at bay. So that's the
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: way we prefer to utilize it um and not just
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: go overboard and know why you're doing it how a
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: direct reason um and limited. It's it's uh, it's usage.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: I mean like like clover plots, how many how many
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: people are utilizing like a two four D b or
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: or a clepodym um And it's like go in and
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: you could you could simply just spot spray those areas
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: you're orm and you're coverage you know, with a broad
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: spectrum you're covering a lot of the food plot anyhow,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: just just going and spot treat those areas and and
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: just target those clumps of grasses um or those clumps
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: of broadly in the clover instead of covering the entire acre.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: Do you might you might limit it down tore feet
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: of herbside versus entire acre. Just your simple things like that.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: It goes a long way. So what if someone's listening
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: and they for whatever reason, if if it's some of
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: the things you've discussed, or they have other apprehensions around
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: herbicide you use. And there's a lot of people that
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: want to really go organic with the stuff they eat,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: and so they're thinking, Okay, if I want to be
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: really focused on organic produce at the same time, be
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: great if the food plots I'm putting out there for
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: the deer that I hope to eat our quote unquote
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: organic as well. There's there's folks that really want to
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: prioritize that kind of thing. If we want to do
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: an herbicide free food plot, which I know you guys
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: have been experimenting with, um, how would someone go about
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: adjusting the food plot regiment you've discussed. How do you
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: adjust that to become a food or an herbicide free
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: food plot quote apply herbside. I don't mean that's like
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: at the at the joke, but but truthfully, in this
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: year's experiment, it was, okay, here's a fall planting. It's
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: now mid May, it's a found two ft tall, and
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: and and that fall planting is all annual based, So
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: we're just gonna set the drill in it and drive
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: and plant the whole thing. And these annuals are all
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: going to mature, and that's going to kind of dry up,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: trivel up, and then the food plot itself is going
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: to grow up amongst all of this vegetation. So instead
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: of utilizing that thatch and laying it on the ground,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: you're simply letting it stay standing, and then your food
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: plot and the spring grows up amongst it, and you
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: haven't applied in your herbside. I think in simple terms,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: what you really I guess best advice for trying to
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: do an organic food plot with the diversity UM and
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: then also a plant or plants growing year round UM.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: Any time you leave bare ground or you leave an
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: area where you haven't put a plant to grow, whether
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: it be a cool season or warm season, nature will
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: put something there and so and it could be a
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: noxious weet. So if you're putting a species down, so
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: in the fall, you plant something. In the spring, you
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: plant something to where you keep that soil covered, you
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: keep something growing year round, but you pick that's going
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: to be your best way of avoiding having to add
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: her beside to kill noxious wheat. Yeah, that makes that
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: makes sense. So we're doing all these things. Let's say
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: we we've prioritized diversity. We are trying to find ways
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: to minimize our herbicide use or at least be thoughtful
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: about how we're doing that. Um, we're making sure to
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: take advantage of natural systems to to get the best
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: out of the soil, to get the best out of
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: the native landscape. Now we're getting into let's say this
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: time period August hunting season is a month or two
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: months away. Um, what are some of the other things
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: that folks can be doing And let's stay focused on
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: the food plat side of things for a moment. Here,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: are there any other things that we could be doing
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: to enhance our process? Um, Like, for example, I know
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: one thing you guys talk about is feathering edges. Can
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: you talk about that or anything else that we can
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: be doing to take things to the next level. I think,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, for sure. There's so one thing that we
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: see a lot, and especially in crop country, is the
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: dedication to a grain uh saying Okay, this field is
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: going to be standing corn or standing beans during the
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: late season, it's gonna be money. Well, that most likely
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: will be. There's a reason guys are planting those. But
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: at the same time, as soon as season's over, you
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: have high gar density. At some point, all that food
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: is going to be consumed and you're gonna have stubble
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: or you're gonna mow it down, and it's just gonna
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: be laying there vacant and opening up the window for
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: needs to grow, especially noxious weeds. So adding species cover
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: crops to those standing grand fields or standing bean fields,
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: food plots, whatever it is to get to get something
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: growing there. Um. At the same time, if you do
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: have a mild winter, you've got a very very productive
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: um food plot in case they're not eating the standing grain. UM.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: And I think the misconception is planting season is late
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: April early May or depending on your area. For our
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: area in Midwest, that's that's what it is. You say,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: late April early May, that's spring planting and August or
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: early September is your fault planting. But their species like
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: cereal ryan wheat, that you can plant them up until
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: it's four it's forty degrees um soil soil temperature, and
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: so you could wait until those leaves fall off the
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: soybeans and then broadcast your cereal Ryan there and if
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: you get the appropriate amount of rain, you're gonna have
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: a great cover crop. Um. So if you do have
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: a mild winterer, deer are still coming to that area.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: That thing um. Another big thing we recommend is adding
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: diversity to clover plots um and and so I think
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of times we plant clover plots and we
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: may add wheat as a as a companion or a
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: nurse crop in the first year, but year four five
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: we really start fighting weeds. And a big the big
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: reason for that is because you plan to the legum,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: which is fixating niagen every growing season is putting nirogen out.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: Over time, nature is replacing that trying to get something
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: to equal that soil out and use that nitrogen. So
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: adding taking it upon ourselves to say, I want to
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: pick what's gonna grow in my clover plot. Add that wheat,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: add those turn ups or add that chickory to your
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: clover plots or alph alfa um to where you have
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: a speed these that's tapping into that nitrogen source and flourishing,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: and now you're providing more forage and not letting nature
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: throw a noxious lead out there for you. You can
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: do the same thing in the spring, but since we're
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: focusing on the fall, that would be my two biggest
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: points for for this this fall planting season is adding
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: diversity to your grain fields through just broadcasting, and then
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: also adding diversity to your clover plots. And like you said, there, Mark,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: you know you can go in right now, chainsaw and
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: feather the edge of some of these food plots and
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: really begin to steer some deer closer to the stand.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: Maybe they're coming out between you, let's say thirty and
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: fifty yards away from your story or maybe your observations
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: from last year from the stand. You saw that and
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: you want you want them all to come out at
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: thirty yards. Well, feather the edge, lay some trees parallel
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: to the edge of the field and kind of create
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: a living fence, a border, um something that's going to
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: push them closer to the stand and just increase your
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: odds of having deer come within boat range. But you
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: can do that around lots of food plots and really, um,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: really increase your odds. And that can be done. July,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: it can be done. August can be done the first
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: of September. Um. You know, trees fall down, branches fall tops,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: come out of trees. I'll it's not like it's this
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: massive disturbance that of deer. Just stop and never enter
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: or turnaround and never come back even close to deer season.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: You know, cut it down, walk away and then let
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: let the deer kind of swing in closer to your boat.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: Stands simple, Yeah, And lots of times just those little
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: things though that are relatively simple, that can make all
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: the difference. Right. It's being thoughtful about every little piece
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: you can put in the puzzle in place, which is
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: why I geek out about this stuff so much myself. Yeah.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: I think a big part of our learning and what
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: we share today is learning from our own mistakes. And
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: for years we focused on maximizing food plots and trying
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: to create food plots, and then it was like we
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: had the best looking food plot in the world, but
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: they still come out on the other end. And I can't.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: I can't shoot them. And so adding betting areas or
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: a little clear cuts betting thickets and then edge feathering
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: is like, well, this is almost too easy to create
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: and steer dear where we want them. So so with
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: all this in mind, and maybe you've already maybe you've
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: already given me your answer, but if you were to
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: have to point your finger at the conventional wisdom out there,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: whatever it might be that most frustrates you, or that
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: you wish you could just like snap your fingers or
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: wave your magic wand um, and it would change. What's
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: that one thing for each of you that you wish
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: you could could just snap people out of it right now?
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: And it could be something we already talked about. You
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: can reiterate it if you want it, or something new.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm. That is such a good question, and I'm
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: all scared to answer. You're gonna be good. Uh, it's
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: really man, that's really hard. I was not expecting that question.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: But there's I almost this might make you mad, but
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit of a I just don't want
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: the prioritizing the little things. Um. And I know that's
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: a blanket statement, but I'll give you an example, I see,
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: let's take food plots for example, and I love food plots,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: I'll say that forever, but food plots most guys, I
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: want everybody listening to think about how many acres your
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: overall farm is, and then how many acres is the
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: food plot, and then think about how much time you
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: spend Whenever you look at a full year twelve months
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: and you say, how much time did I spend here here, here,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: here here? Overall in our experience, we see more time
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: spent on food plots and around food plots, and it's
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: still is less than five percent of the overall ratio
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: of land. And I think seeing people prioritize on my
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: newt tiniest of things, but putting all their eggs in
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: that basket, to me, it's just like Michael Jordan goes
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: out and he spends all practice, all the entire practice,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: shooting fadeaways in the corners, buzzer beaters. That was a
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: very small part of his game, but he's focuses his
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: entire time working on that shot. It's the same thing
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: we see with managing the landscape of I'm going to
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: focus on food plots, trail cameras and and right around
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: my food plots one of my just the biggest thing
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: that that's kind of just irks me, I guess and
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: I'll say yes, agree to Adams, of course, because we
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: see things very similarly and and and for me, it
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: is timber management or the lack thereof. So not focusing
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: on the fact that your property is dominated by timber
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: and you sit back and don't do anything. And we
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: go to properties all the time all across the country
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: that are unmanaged. There's um incredible brows lines through the
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: timber um, there's invasive species coming in the timber, and
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of people are very fearful for cutting or
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: harvesting timber. And I can understand stand that, but at
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: the same time, don't don't tell me that you want
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: to make improvements to your farm and then not address
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: the largest portion of your farm. There's there's ways to
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: educate yourself on timber management um, and there's ways to
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: get things done in timber that doesn't require a timber
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: harvest um. You know, aesthetics oftentimes play a big role
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: into that. And again we kind of have to go
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: back and say, what are you what are your goals
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: for this property? And aesthetics usually isn't the top end.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: It's I want to kill bigger, better, more dear, and
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: so to achieve that, though, we have to address of
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: your property that's timber and increasing because most times close
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: candy force isound digestible forage a year that deal were consumed,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: and why not increase that and make some of the
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: young forest and now you're producing thousand pounds of digestible
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: forage and it's better cover. It makes no sense to me,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: but oftentimes it's like the forgotten aspect of management is
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: timber management. Yeah, and I'll add to that by making
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: a little plug if you're wanting to learn more about
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: that topic. We did a whole episode with a couple
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: of guys from q DM a about for stree for
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: deer hunters, and there's some really interesting in the weeds
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: type content that we dive into on that side of
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: things when it comes to timber stand management um that
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: we don't have time to get into today, but highly
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: recommend checking that out too. And since we do need
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: to wrap it up and on this kind of line
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: of thinking with resources, if you guys could leave our
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: listeners with one recommended resource each for if people are
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: listening to this and are just intrigued to learn more
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: about any of these topics or want to learn more
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: about these ideas, or how you've been inspired to think
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: about habitat management in this more holistic way, in this
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: more regenerative, in sync in line with nature kind of way.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: Are there any things that inspired you or that you
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: would recommend other people look to to learn more um
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: that might be helpful for folks. I always enjoy, I
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: guess on trying to understand the natural landscape. It always
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: kind of goes back to that presettlement, pre European settlement,
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: and so I really enjoy And unfortunately there's not just one,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: but for me and I know you like books to market.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: It's fortunately because you can read journals of explorers all
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: across the country, and that has been a huge part
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: of what Matt and I study and research and look
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: at because if you if you even read one of them,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: chances are you're gonna understand that what they saw is
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: not what we see today. But at the same time,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: they see everything from tons of deer, elk bison, to
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: prairie chickens or grouse um. And you just automatically just
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: reading one of those journals will say, man, that was
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: a much more productive landscape and things have changed, and
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: so for us it's always been how do we get
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: that back? And my favorite will always be the Lewis
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: and Clark journals, um, just because of the details. And
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: then then the vast area that they covered and if
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: you listen to their or read their journals, you're gonna
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: see that the landscape was full of shrubs, grasses, and
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: tons of animals and um, it definitely is like we
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: need to really look at our landscape because there was
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: way more animals than what we had today, and yet
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: there wasn't food plots or hinge cuts or edge feathering.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: Thereon was prescribed fire and grazing, and so that's a
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: big part of what we look at. Yeah, I'm gonna
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: have a kind of a unique answer here, but it's
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: gonna hopefully challenge the listeners. And there's not a lot
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: of great resources out there for this type of thinking,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: specifically the hunting outdoor world. So I want to put
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: the pressure on everyone listening saying everyone goes to um,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: let's say your property. Every couple of weekends, we go
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: to public ground and you spend a lot of time
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: in the tree during the fall. And I guess my
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: charge is you'd be your own person to think critically
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: about your observations that you're seeing. Don't just sit in
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: the stand and look on your phone and play on
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: your phone. Look and see what's happening and occurring around you,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: and and hopefully that's going to allow you to better
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: understand how let's say a food chain works. Let's say, how, um,
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: you know a timber a timber stand is going to
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: progress over time. Maybe you planted an area for a
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: long time, or how go check out and see if
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: if the state or or the force your service, has
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: done some prescribed fire in an area. Go out there,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: make observations and be critical um of those observations. Don't
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: just take it in and keep driving or go back
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: to playing on your phone. Really look around you as
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: to what's happening. There's tons and tons of clues and
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: things that you can see just in the natural world
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: that I think after hearing this and hopefully adopting and
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: changing a little bit of a mindset, that a lot
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: of things will begin to click for people. So of course,
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: go and read, um hopefully listen to you know this
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: podcast and others and begin to just honestly adopt a
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: mindset and then I think your eyes are going to
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: be able to see things differently and you understand how
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: the natural world works better if you go into let's say,
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: the next time you're in the woods, with a little
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: bit different of a mindset and try and do things differently. Yeah,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a great suggestion. And if people want
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: to find more resources from you guys, which I know
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: there's a lot you guys are producing a lot of
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: great content, where would you recommend folks go to connect
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: with you to to learn more from you too? Specifically?
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Of course, we do too podcasts a
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: week over on Sportsman's Nation, and that's just laying the legacy.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: If they search us on iTunes, they'll find us. We're
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: also starting to put out more videos. Um, they're not
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: shoot I'm the one producing them, so they're not highly produced,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: they're not cinematic, but they have the information and tidbits
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: that we talked about on the podcast, and we have
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: some upland consultants as well, and so we're all the
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: time dropping new videos to show people exactly what it
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: is we're talking about. Um, So it just searched land
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: of Legacy there and then you're consulting business, they can
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: find your website just through Google Search. Yeah yeah, land
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: A Legacy dot tv and uh we should be there
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: and and or they can just shoot us a message
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: on social media land A Legacy either Instagram or Facebook
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: or email at info at landing Legacy dot tv. Perfect.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: Lots of wayte compact us and we're happy to help anybody. Awesome. Well,
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys helping us out here today sharing
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of helpful information. Um. Like I said, I've
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: enjoyed consuming a lot of your content and getting a
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: chat with you guys now just reiterates um, what I've
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: found to be true, which is that you guys are
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: are doing a great service bringing a slightly different perspective
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: to people to the table. And I think it's an
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: important one and I think a lot of us will
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: benefit from it moving forward. So thank you for that,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: Thanks to your time, and uh we should chat again soon. Absolutely,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: thanks for having us. Thanks. Mark really appreciate it and
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: that's gonna do it. So thank you for listening. Hopefully
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: you were inspired to look at your habits had management projects.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: Maybe in the new light now, maybe try some new things,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: maybe go against the grain just a little bit and
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: try one of these new ideas. I certainly will, and
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: if you do, to let me know. I'm really curious
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: to hear how your new management efforts go this year.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: So thank you all for listening. Appreciate you being a
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: part of this and until next time, stay wired time