Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Quality Deer Management Throw n Mow Q&A

What would you gain by having beneficial plants out there now, instead of waiting to see what happens with the non beneficial plants? You already know that they need to be replaced. Why not maximize the effort instead of not maximizing it?

I don’t agree with your premise that the plants in my field have no benefit…neither does Aldo Leopold......Here is my answer again to that question…..

Yes that's definitely an option too....

Just keep spreading corn through there and eventually everything will be on the ground and you will have every deer within walking distance coming there. I sure hope that the deer just decide that they love your plot because I have a couple that are straight up fennel and thick Bermuda when it’s time to plant. I would love to sew seed, bush hog, and walk away but I just cannot bring myself to try it yet.

If deer are eating your dog fennel, then you have bigger issues. You can get rid of that crap and replace it with something more beneficial and accomplish the same thing. I thought you had been doing this long enough to know that by now.

WWAL do?

Well y’all bashing him must have the biggest best looking plots this side of the Mississippi... I agree with what’s said above... What does a good looking plot have to do with anything? It’s a food source, and that’s all the deer care about is a bite to eat. Y’all hating on a different way to plant is ridiculous... I imagine yalls feeders are big nice tripod feeders with battery powered monitored time spreaders on them set up right in the middle of yalls lushes fields that make the perfect sunset pictures. So you have your game cares set up just right to catch that once in a lifetime picture of green pastures, afew deer, a big feeder, and the sun hitting just right for a photo worth placing on the wall.


Quit thinking into it and sinking a bunch of money into something that’s simple... I don’t have a tractor so I have learned a new way to make a plot... it don’t have to look great to kill deer, or to even draw them in.

Now that's funny ^^^^^...…..

It baffles me to no end why they even come down here and get on the thread to do nothing more than hate on somebody. Actually I know why but.....we'll just let it go at that. I week from now they’ll be crying about how long the thread is again....

What's holding you back from trying it.....The worst thing that could happen is it just not work for you....not the end of the world or anything. I'm guessing you'll be pleasantly surprised though. Try it on one test field first....

257’s corn pile...

My interest is peaked! After seeing what I have this season I know I have a couple hand fulls of prime t&m locations. When I try it though it will be t&m not t& drag. I don’t like the look of the drag method although if that’s all you can do it will work. I have seen it in person.

What’s wrong with corn/soy filled feeder? Along with my plots?

I think you’ll be surprised what Turkeyneck’s plots look like by the end of deer season. I don’t know if mine will follow suite with all the dog fennel I have still standing but it’ll change for sure. One of the reasons I decided to experiment with something different than mowing is because my biomass is so thick that mowing it is actually pretty cumbersome. I have to go slow and run back over it at least twice to process it all up….It takes a lot longer than just dragging and laying the biomass over and it works my tractor pretty hard too. I was curious if I could achieve the same results with a lot less time and effort invested. It doesn’t look as neat but I believe its just as effective. If you have luck with your T&M plots then it’ll change you’re outlook on things and you’ll be more open later on down the road to just dragging and leaving it messy looking. This all takes some getting used to.

Doesn't dog fennel really like low PH? You seem to have an abundance of it CNC. you soil tested lately?

All this when we can just put corn out and kill deer guaranteed.

The place I have with fennel is probably super low ph. I have never tested it but I know I have never amended it myself in 4 years.

Do they eat the corn pile with all the kernels lined up in pretty rows better than a messy corn pile?

I don’t know I mix 60/40 corn/soy. It’s all mixed in a feeder

I didn’t test it this year but it was fine last year….still holding at 6.8. I believe that would have been 3 years after liming….it was either 3 or 4..…I don’t recall which. It’s a little deceiving though because actually what’s happening is that I have about a 10 inch thick layer of black humus as a top layer of soil and it tests completely different than the subsoil below it. The subsoil is still a harsh sand with a pH of 5.1 and no holding capacity….CA levels down there are like 200 lb/ac while in my humus layer they’re over 4000 lbs/ac….That humus layer is my whole world when its comes to growing quality plots. If I destroy it then I’m left with nothing but that harsh subsoil.

I think the dog fennel like “free nitrogen” in the soil. If you’ll notice a lot of folks have it take over their clover plots…..and I think that’s why….I think its basically scavenging all of the N the clover is putting out that’s not being used up. I do believe that its probably able to tolerate that harsh subsoil though and its sinks its roots on down deeper than other plants. Its amazing how green it stays even in drought conditions. Where you eventually benefit from plants that are able to tolerate the bad subsoil conditions and sending large roots down there is when those plants die and the roots decompose and leave humus deep into the soil profile. Then you start getting streaks of humus that's able to grab and hold some of that Ca and create tunnels with favorable conditions down deep where other less tolerant plants are then able to then sink their roots deep. Its not a solid layer of humus like across the surface of my soil....its done in streaks of black. The other plant roots that come in later follow these streaks.