Us game keepers are a special breed!

I know what yall do at the duck property.....seen it! Thousands of ducks filling the sky!! Love it!

A ton of work and expense that most will never understand.

The satisfaction of looking at all the effort and the game that is using the property because of that work is some fulfilling.

I can't accurately describe it, but you and I know.

Agreed!
It adds a whole dimension to an already dedicated outdoor lifestyle.
Doing habitat management on my lands and other lands that I hunt is second nature anymore.

A couple more interesting bucks showed up.

The wop-sided buck.....got pics of him last summer...but not after the velvet came off.

What are yalls opinions on winter wheat?

Cereal rye (not rye grass) and oats are better down here in the deep South, but wheat is in a lot of mixes.

Just a serious question, not to throw shade or anything.

But do you think that doing a food plot for deer helps more wildlife than it hurts? I mean your eliminating native plants/habitats that many invertebrates rely on, we all know that invertebrates are food for many other birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals.
Your prioritizing deer over hundreds of other species of wildlife, if your really concerned about the habitat wouldn't you look to increase the diversity of native plants for all manner of wildlife?
Deer don't need the food plots, do they?

Dirty D,

Your assumption that deer food plots preclude other wildlife is very naïve. There is much research supporting wide cross-utilization by other ungulates, birds, small mammals, and insects. I have amassed thousands of photos of numerous species sharing plots with deer in several regions.

Particularly with the conservation tillage practices popular today, these food plots & fields are likely to harbor more species of organisms than others because life cycles of inhabitants are not physically disrupted by major cultivation…this is a good thing for all wildlife.

The modern wildlife manager is an energy balancer, constantly manipulating and budgeting the costs of an animal's consumption to an animal's production. Input of food energy must equal or exceed output of energy lost from daily survival routines. This balance is best accomplished by providing supplemental nutrition within optimum natural environmental conditions.

IMO- winter food plots are far more critical for whitetails than summer plots (if budget or climatic conditions restrict planting both).

Every geographic region on the NA continent is different. Down here in the deep South, our woodlands are dominated by a pine monoculture. When these trees reach marketable size, they are cut and another "crop" of pines is planted. In many areas the hardwoods are also harvested, but are not re-planted...they are allowed to stump sprout...which takes years to produce hard mast again.

Where I reside/hunt the soil are mostly sand or sandy loam. This wildlife and the vegetation here has evolved with fire, but most landowners do not burn due to various reasons and the woodlands are allowed to grow up.....so thick you cannot see the ground. Man-made food plots/openings create lots of edge in a thick forest. And edge is where its at in wildlife management.

So, maintaining openings is a tremendous benefit to the local wildlife (some species depend on openings whether man-made or by fire). Early successional growth is great browse for deer.

My main goal is to provide more for the deer and turkeys, in addition to creating more accessible harvest opportunites/locations come fall and spring seasons. Any benefits to other wildlife is great, but is not my primary concern. I like to see all wildlife, but game management is #1 for me.

Its utilized heavily in the north and works well. In addition to planting WW only, it serves as a great nursery crop, as does forage oats, cereal rye, or my personal favorite, triticale.

Each summer evening reveals more bucks....

Another vote for triticale. Its cheap. A guy can almost always get it to germinate end emerge, A real challenge out here in the desert. We try to plant in August, ahead of a rain if possible, and it will explode. Son enough the deer will be on it. Mix a good rate of purple stop turnips in makes it even better. Interestingly enough several years back we learned that the turnips were being used by wild ring necked pheasants as winter food. Of course we also plant grain sorghum and Milo for the pheasants, but the deer tend to wipe them out during the milky stage.