With a food plot, which can be either an annual or perennial food plot.
An annual , for instance if you plant winter wheat on September 1, you are providing a food source, much larger than 2 gallons every day from when the plant is big enough to be eaten through winter and spring until you either harvest the seed when it matures, or mow it down and let it reseed itself.
If you chose to plant a perennial food plot, such as clover, you would plant that in the spring and leave it go for numerous years(except for mowing it every now and then) and killing of unwanted weeds. This plot would provide food many times throughout the year.
An acre of clover can produce 3-4 tons of forage per year. Not to mention that it is a food source for not just deer, but songbirds, turkeys, waterfowl, and pollinators, as well as nesting cover. It also creates nitrogen and oxygen, which are essential to life.
2 gallons of corn weighs approx. 12 lbs. In order to equal 3 tons of food you would have to place 500 buckets of corn. Sure the corn provides some food value for the deer, small game and turkeys and some songbirds we hunt and lines the pockets of the people who sell the corn. It does little else to help the environment and is only on the landscape until it is eaten, unlike a clover plot which lasts for 7 to 10 years.
I hope this helps.....
They do provide nutrients to mostly deer and some perhaps to turkeys, depending on what is planted. Corn seems to be the most versatile because it provides the most food for the most amount of animals/birds and such that visit. I would imagine soybeans would come in second?
Grossklw - As stated the plot provides nutrients, but don't believe for a second that the corn placed at a bait site does not and for a large amount of customers, just not Whitetail deer.
Bait provides a quick meal for Deer, Turkeys, Chickadees, Buntings, Jayco's , Pine squirrels, Grey squirrel, Fox squirrel. They provide food for rabbits, Cardinals and Blue Jays and woodpeckers as well. There are many visitor at the bait pile and they can put on quite the show. That is one of the many reason I bait - cheap entertainment while I "stare" at the "golden nuggets"....
Some complain, well Pat...that's just a "flash" in the pan, animals cannot depend on it. Yes, that's correct. It does assist them in their forage for food and they do have other food sources. Not one of the afore mention animal/bird lives on simply corn alone - None...they would die. When their done with my food plot hopefully they'll be visiting your bait plot.
Now if your bait plot is solely turnips and greens. They offer little to nothing but deer, thus making the bait pile a better source of food. Even if is a short one.
Thanks!
If the plot has only turnip and green (Brassica) what benefit would it havefor anything other than a deer? Thanks!
Look, I'm not here to start a verbal war, but if you think that crops don't offer many benefits not only for the soil, but for other wildlife, you'll never understand.
Thanks!
What get's me is when I get an a** jacking form someone who has the same opportunity as I do to own a piece of land and work to put in food plots, but chooses not to and complains that there are no deer on public land. For those that don't know it DMAP is also available for public land. There is help out there for hunters using public land.
As most of the regular posters know, I hunt farmland in central wi. The farms I hunt range in size from 80 acres to over 500 contiguous. The biggest wood lot we have is about 65 acres.
Would it be beneficial for me to plant some "edge" plots along some of the fields near my stands. What about a good size one right in the middle of our biggest woods? I guess the real question I'm asking is, will these plots even attract deer with so much other food available to them? I'm not interested in your judgements, just your input.
I plant logging roads, clover by the apple trees, on of my favorite plots is a logging road that leads to the neighbors fields. The deer stage there before the end of shooting hours and head into the field at the end of the day. It is easy to get deer to use any food plot during hunting hours if you plant something they like to eat and don't over pressure them.
Yes, if you can plant a narrow band of an annual along a corn field the deer will use it. Why? Because they will feel safe and they are always hungry.
To some putting a yard light in is food plotting, baiting, etc. Common sense isn't all to common anymore.
I have started to look at the age of the whiners and complainers. The younger the worse. Not all the time though. If they grew up, and matured from a hard working family they seem to understand the reasoning behind food plots. And then the other side of the coin, if they spent a great deal of time learning from TV and the internet they have a hard time grasping hard work. It the first thing they do is put on a pair of gloves so they don't get blisters or dirty fingernails I know where they are coming from.
Time to get the lime down in the next couple of weeks.
I'm thinking keep trees 10-15 yards a part?
You forgot about the dogwoods, pines and apple trees too! Maybe we should cut down the wild plum and old apple trees. Wait! We can't do that we would create browse.
Maybe it would be best if we just paved the whole damn wood......
Probably most start with plots, but many evolve their approach as knowledge increases and results are observed.
Specifically regarding plotting, I just had 14 tons of lime broadcast on my 7 acre 1/4 mile long food plot that is intensely rotated for soil improvements. Way more effort and money than any pile dumper does that I know, and I am not opposed to baiting where legal.
One of my close neighbors asked me to give him first chance at buying my place because he knows the soil has been dramatically improved over the abuse it took from 40 years of cash rent farming.
Strategically placing plots adjacent to thick cover benefits many species including ground nesting song birds.