Food Plots

Food plots can greatly increase the nutrition deer get on your hunting property.  Keep in mind that they can devastate your plants before they become established.  Areas planted must be big enough to withstand intense grazing pressure or they need to be protected.  I've had good results with electric fencing if done properly.  I do consulting through my Deer Man Consulting. You can follow me on Facebook at Deer Man Consulting 

• Forage soybeans produce more leaf tonnage than crop beans. 
• Eagle Seed in Arkansas developed a forage soybean mix.  These beans can grow to over 6 feet high and have over 40% leaf protein.    Game Keeper RR is a custom, blend containing both forage types, climbing soybean, and soybean varieties that are tall, high yielding
  and broadly adapted for your geography. The blend
  features varieties which mature at different times
  and allow the deer to feed on both mature
  soybean and green leaf tissue. You will get
  high tonnage, excellent browse tolerance
  and great seed yield all in one bag.  http://www.eagleseed.com/forage.html

Food Plots may limit EHD deaths

EHD and Food Plots

My theory of using Sudan in my food plots to limit exposure to Culicoides and therefore exposure to the EHD/BT viruses seems to be showing strong evidence at LSU.  The university started testing the theory with research last year.  Sudan and other plants give off CO2 and Octanol at night like mammals do.  The gnats, like mosquitoes, are primarily sugar feeders.  Only females seek blood meals and only during the time they are maturing the eggs they are carrying.  They find us for blood meals by following the trail of CO2 and Octanol we emit.  Since my Sudan gives this off too, it is likely that deer bedded in the food plots with tall thick biomass are 'hidden' from the insects. 

I noticed the behavioral change in 2012 when we had a severe EHD outbreak.  The only pen that I had Sudan in was my buck breeder pen.  At night my bucks had been sleeping outside of the Sudan along the fence in Bermuda grass.  About the time EHD hit us, the bucks all started bedding inside the Sudan at night.  That was a complete change of behavior that I found dramatic.  I lost large numbers of deer to EHD before I found the right dosage of Dexamethasone.  Deer died in all of my pens on both sides of the breeder buck pen but I didn’t lose any in the buck pen.  I asked Dr. Lane Foil at LSU about the Sudan and at first he said he hadn’t really thought about anything like that.  Later he contacted me and said he thought I might be on to something. 

They planted Sudan in 2013 and the initial results of the insect trapping showed dramatically lower numbers inside the Sudan with much higher numbers in traps outside the Sudan.  They will spend more time and greater detail studying the effects of Sudan on insect exposure this year.  It’s something to consider for not only our breeder pens but also in hunting preserves, whether high fenced or not.  Planting strips of Sudan along the edges of food plots may offer an escape from biting insects for all deer.

Hope this helps save some of your deer.  It’s easy.

Charles ‘Deer Man’ Black

Temporary Exclusion Fencing for Food Plots

I had some previous experience with electric fencing to exclude mule deer in the Texas Panhandle. A client had problems with mule deer entering her lawn area and devastating her flowers. She had a large yard on a lake in a canyon and planted $100's in flowers every year only to be destroyed by the mule deer. I installed a single 1" wide electric tape using rebar posts and screw-on insulators. In the years following until they moved, deer only entered the property twice. Once when the fence controller malfunctioned and once when a guy installing Christmas lights unplugged the controller.

I've tried it on one of my food plots for my white-tailed deer. I still have to tweak it but very few deer have compromised the barrier. I wouldn't use the fence as an inclusion fence but to keep them out I think it should work pretty well. The electric tape flutters in the wind and the deer walk up and touch their noses to it to check it out. Zap and they're gone. I've had a couple go under the fence without touching it but will make some changes in the next few days. I'll update you soon.