Whitetail News Volume 21.2

Whitetail Institute of North America239 Whitetail Trail / Pintlala, AL 36043

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Whitetail InstituteOFFICERS AND STAFF

Ray Scott Founder and PresidentWilson Scott Vice President of Operations Steve Scott Vice President, Executive Editor

William Cousins Operations Manager Wayne Hanna, Ph.D. Agronomist & Director of Forage Research Mark Trudeau National Sales ManagerJustin Moore, Frank DeeseWildlife Biologists Jon Cooner Director of Special Projects

Brandon Self, John White Product Consultants Daryl Cherry, Greg Aston Dealer/Distributor Sales Steffani Hood Dealer/Distributor Analyst Dawn McGough Office Manager Mary Jones Internet Customer Service Manager Teri Hudson Internet and Office Assistant Marlin Swain Shipping Manager

Bart LandsverkWhitetail News Senior EditorCharles Alsheimer, Jim Casada, Brad Herndon, Bill Winke, R.G. Bernier, Bill Marchel, Michael Veine, Dr. Carroll Johnson, III,

Ted Nugent, Dean Weimer, David Hart Contributing WritersSusan Scott Copy Editor George Pudzis Art Director Wade Atchley, Atchley Media Advertising Director

®

Page 5

Page 38

Page 46

In This Issue…

Features5 A T

ale of Turnips — Tu

rnip is

Powerhouse Plantin

g

By Brad

Herndon

Tall Tine Tu

bers exhibits incre

dible protein

content, top-notch

digestibility and

provides a great e

nergy source for yo

ur

deer. And, deer abs

olutely love it whe

n the

weather turns cold

er.

10 “Magical and

Electrifying”

Opening Day of De

er Season

By R.G. B

ernier

Every step

, every breath, eac

h move is

calculated and de

liberate as you nea

r the

spot. The opening

day of deer season

has a

special feeling.

14 Everyone Wa

nts… Results

By Whitetail In

stitute Staff

The Whitetail In

stitute has long rea

lized the

value and utilized t

he benefits of high

-

quality deer feed. W

hitetail Institute Re

sults

is the culmination of

years of research

and

testing.

16 A Three-Ring

Binder

By Char

les J. Alsheimer

Developing

a great hunting pr

operty

requires a lot of wo

rk. Unfortunately, m

ost

landowners strugg

le to fulfill their dre

ams

because they und

erestimate the

importance of buildin

g a solid data base

for

their property.

20 No-Plow & S

ecret Spot — Fall

Annuals that Perfo

rm Many

Roles

By Hollis

Ayers

When you’r

e deciding which W

hitetail

Institute forage to

plant in each of yo

ur

sites, don’t overloo

k No-Plow and Secr

et

Spot. These two ex

tremely versatile food

plot products can

perform a wide variety of

roles in your fall/w

inter food plot syst

em.

24 First Time’s a

Charm… Make

Your Own “Luck” w

ith Pre-

Season Food Plot

Planning

By Matt

Harper

30 Good Soil: S

ound Agricultural

Principles Produce

Good Soil

So Food Plots Can

Thrive

By William Cousins

38 Creative Winter Stra

tegies for

Farm Country Food

Plots

By Scott Best

ul

This story

takes a look at two

90-day

windows faced by

farm-country whitetails

and how food plot

s can help alleviate

stress.

42 Tall Fescue —

Another

Perennial Weed He

adache

By W. Carroll J

ohnson, III, Ph.D.

44 “Chic” Magne

t is Forage “A-

Lister”

By Whitetail In

stitute Staff

46 Deep Woods

Plots Worth the

Effort

By David

Hart

It can make perfe

ct sense to build fo

od

plots back in the w

oods. Here’s how.

50 Reclamation

Food Plots

By Bob

Humphrey

How you c

an turn a negative

into a positive

food plot situation

.

54 Food Plots fo

r Very Busy

People

By Capt

. Michael Veine

The demands of w

ork, family and other

important functions

make finding enoug

h

time for off-season hu

nting activities

difficult. These food

plots strategies req

uire

a minimal investment of yo

ur precious time

60 Last-Minute

Food Plots

By Doug

Howlett

Departments4 A M

essage from Ray S

cott

28 Field Testers

Report

Stories a

nd Photos

33 Food Plot Pla

nting Dates

34 Record Book

Bucks

Stories a

nd Photos

68 First Deer —

The Future of

Our Sport

4 WHITETAIL NEWS / Vol. 21, No. 2 www.whitetailinstitute.com

A MESSAGE FROM RAY SCOTTFounder and President Whitetail Institute of North America

Learn From the Past

Not long ago, I was rummaging through a pile of “important” papers. Youknow, those documents you know are really important but don’t quiteknow what to do with or where to put them.

I pulled out a stack of handwritten pages in my scrawl and realized it was ahunting camp diary from about 30 years ago. As a matter of fact, my son, Stevewas still in college and I had agreed to let him take an entire fall quarter off towork on green fields and hunt. As you can see, whitetail has always been a pas-sion in the Scott family.

It mostly chronicled dates, times and harvest stats and a lot of the humorousstuff too. It brought back so many great memories. I could read between thelines as I recalled the many little back stories to our hunting trips.

But I’ll confess here and now I recall few management details much less whereand why we planted what we did (mostly the rye, wheat and oats of years past).Planting for deer — and the accompanying increase in the quality of whitetail —has come a long way. I am so proud of the concept of quality deer managementthat we have always supported and our Institute products and education thathave had such a positive impact on the quality of deer hunting in the countrytoday. The quality of deer in Alabama and across the country today versus 30years ago is amazing.

As much pleasure as I derived from the diary, it was accompanied by equal

dismay at how much I had forgotten! It was staggering. Things I thought I wouldNEVER forget.

That’s why I said a silent “amen” when I read Charlie Alsheimer’s article onpage 16 about keeping a 3-ring binder to record all the data of your plantingstrategies. Yes a simple 3-ring binder; the kind you had in high school and doo-dled in while you were daydreaming about deer season.

When I read in Whitetail News about all the ingenious, carefully calculatedplans for food plots — the forage selection, the placement, the soil, the season,the topography — I realize there is no way the average hunter could rememberexactly what he does from year to year, much less from several years ago. Do youreally remember the soil pH of your plots from three years ago? Maybe they’vechanged. Maybe your plots could be a lot better. Maybe it’s time to rotate a crop.

And I’ll add, write down the personal stuff too. Include all the funny things thathappen at camp. A few years from now, you’ll have a smile on your face as youtake a trip down memory lane.

Take Charlie’s advice Get your 3- ring binder today. Write everything down. Inevery aspect of life, we do learn from the past.

Ray Scott

www.whitetailinstitute.com Vol. 21, No. 2 / WHITETAIL NEWS 5

When I grew up in Indiana, both thewild turkey and coyote were nonex-istent in the state. Deer were also

as scarce as hen’s teeth at the time, andtherefore we country folk grew up huntingsquirrels, rabbits and quail. Back then, ourhunting time in November was consumedwith chasing cottontails instead of deer. Eachday we would walk several miles trying to getour limit of five rabbits each, and it wastremendously enjoyable listening to the bea-gles chasing the bunnies. On hot days, we would get both thirsty

and hungry, and if we were out near theShieldstown covered bridge on White River,we stopped in at Cy Perkin’s cabin. Cy didn’tlive there in the fall or winter, but he alwayshad a nice patch of turnips behind the quaintcabin. We would pull up a few turnips, cutthe outer skin off with our pocket knives, andhad an instantly refreshing treat at nocharge. We were then good for a few moremiles. Along about this same time I had a good

friend, Lester Lambring, who lived out in theGerman farming community and I would visit hishouse from time to time. His mom was a greatcook, and she made sure we were always well fed. Manyyears later when I was in my 40s, I went to the doctor for a checkup oneday. In the waiting room was Lester Lambring’s mom, who by then waswell up in her 70s. “Hi Brad,” she said. “I still feel bad about the last time you ate at our

house.” “Why?” I replied, “You always had great food.” “Not that time,” she sighed. “All I had fixed that evening was turnip soup,

and I’m sure you didn’t care much for it.” “Oh, it must have been fine,” I stated. “I can’t remember ever having a

bad meal at your house. Your food was always outstanding, so I’m sure youhad it doctored up to the point it was delicious. I bet you had a piece ortwo of your tasty country ham mixed in with the turnips.” She then felt better about my last meal at her house and we had a great

talk. At the time, I thought my conversation with her would probably bemy final tale about turnips since they had fallen out of favor with most localpeople by then. Boy was I wrong.

THE TURNIP TALES CONTINUE

In the late 1980s, I became an outdoor photographer and writer, special-izing in whitetail deer and wild turkey. Yes, things had changed in Indiana,and rabbit hunting had given way to deer hunting — and I loved it. I studiedevery aspect of the whitetail. I measured their racks, studied their move-ment patterns, and eventually keyed in on management strategies forgrowing top-notch bucks. This ultimately led to my writing relationship with the Whitetail Institute

of North America and their fantastic food plot products. I was in on usingImperial Whitetail Clover, Extreme, Alfa-Rack and other super seeds very

early on and I was always impressed with theirthoroughness in researching and producingnew and innovative products. Actually, theyinspired me to do more research of my own. I diligently studied CRP (Conservation

Reserve Program) ground and found thegovernment encouraged planting wildlifefood plots in them. Today, we have severalfood plots planted in CRP fields. Whilestudying CRP land, I also scanned many arti-cles relating to cover crops. In essence, covercrops are products planted to prevent windand water erosion on fields. While most folks think of grasses as usual-

ly being a cover crop, I found some othervery interesting varieties used as covercrops, such as cowpea, millet, sunflower,hairy vetch, clover, winter triticale, andturnip, just to name a few. Each of thesecover crops was interesting to me in someway, but I found turnips especially intriguing.

TURNIPS — A GOOD FOOD

As my stories revealed at the first of thisarticle, humans used to eat many turnips and in

the South especially it is still a favorite. They are agood food, and I discovered in my research they have

been an excellent food source for cattle for decades. For example, theabove-ground parts of a turnip — the stem and leaves — contain 20 to 25percent crude protein. That’s excellent. The digestibility of dry matter inthe leaves and stems is extremely high at 65 to 80 percent. The roots ofturnips also contain 10 to 14 percent protein and have an 80 to 85 percentdigestibility rate. They are also considered a high-energy food source. Add all this up, and I thought turnips would be a great food for deer.

Well, I wasn’t the only one making this discovery as I found out when I wastalking to Whitetail Institute V.P. Steve Scott one day. I was telling himabout my fascination with turnips when he shared the news with me thatthe Whitetail Institute had been doing some groundbreaking work on anew turnip variety and product for several years.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF TALL TINE TUBERS

The Whitetail Institute has never been a company to find a product deerlike and then simply pitch it in a blend and push it out the door. Instead,the company takes what they see as a good product and then they spendconsiderable time, effort and money making it into the absolute best prod-uct available. This is exactly what they did with the Tall Tine turnip variety. Research and development started with identifying specific traits that

would make their new turnip variety ideal for whitetail fool plots. Theseincluded rapid stand establishment, cold tolerance — and most important-ly — attractiveness to whitetails. In developing Tall Tine Tubers, candidate turnips were planted in plots

available to wild, free-ranging deer and then closely monitored for deerusage. Plants for which deer exhibited a marked preference were isolatedfrom further grazing with exclusion cages, allowing plants to mature and

A TALE OF TURNIPS— Turnip is a Powerhouse PlantingBy Brad Herndon

Photo by the Author

There are severalkinds of turnips,but Tall TineTubers stand atthe top of thelist.


produce seed. Exclusion cages also allowed continuing evaluation of othertraits important for deer food plots, including rapid stand establishment,early plant vigor, and resistance to disease, insects, heat, drought and cold.Plants that did not meet the Institute’s strict testing requirements wereeliminated at each selection cycle. In the end, the Institute ended up with a tuber product exhibiting incred-

ible attractiveness and high protein content both above and below theground, top-notch digestibility, and providing a great energy source aswell. Add in its improved disease and insect resistance capabilities, and Iknew it was a product I wanted to put into use.

PLANTING TALL TINE TUBERS

Your process in planting Tall Tine Tubers should be similar to other foodplot products you have used. My first step was to take a soil sample.Throughout the years I have limed heavily from time to time and I have thepH of my soils up to 6.5 to 6.8, which is really great for my area of well-drained soils. Turnips, incidentally, do best in well-drained, moderately deep loam, fer-

tile soils, and even in slightly acidic soils. Most plants don’t do well in acidicsoils, but turnips are an exception. If you can get your pH up to 6.0 to 6.5,you can expect a superior turnip crop. Turnips will be productive but notdo as well in wet or poorly drained soils. After my soil tests were back, I mowed all three of my food plots in late

July. When the plots were just starting to grow again I went in withRoundup and sprayed the plots. I then waited 10 days for all vegetation todie down. This made for clean, easy-to-work plots. After all three plots were broken up, I worked 400 pounds per acre of

20-20-20 fertilizer into the plots. This brought me up to mid-August. NextI waited until a rain front was coming in and I used a hand-operatedwhirligig seeder to plant each plot. I was a good weather forecaster, fortu-nately, and the next day the rains came. Within a few days, I had a dandycrop of Tall Tine Tubers coming up in each plot.

THE RESULTS

The rains were plentiful and timely in the fall of two years ago when Iused my first turnips and the stems and leaves grew at an amazing rate. Bylate September I had forage more than 12 inches tall — and growing!Interestingly, a few deer were hitting the tops at this time. Typically, deerdon’t hit the tops hard until after the first frost. Frost causes the plants tobecome sweeter and more favored by the whitetails. Keep in mind, too, that Tall Tine Tubers have the amazing ability to main-

tain their nutritional quality even after repeated exposure to frost. This iswhy deer keep hitting the leaves and stems throughout the fall and winteruntil nothing is left. Believe me, by the time this occurs the whitetails haveconsumed some serious tonnage. We killed deer out of our turnip plots throughout the fall and winter. Our

granddaughter Jessica killed her first deer in one of these plots, and anoth-er little friend of ours, Emma Winks, also got her first whitetail there aswell. Emma’s mom Shannon killed her biggest buck ever in one of theseplots on the last Saturday of muzzleloader season in December. Even afterthe hunting season was over, the deer were still digging out and eating thetubers. My overall rating of the product for a fall attractant and late-season food

source was a 10! I was simply amazed how the Tall Tine Tubers drew andheld deer within our lease. I rate them the best fall product I have everused.

A VERY UNUSUAL YEAR

This past fall here in southern Indiana was the most interesting deerhunting season I have ever experienced. On Aug. 20, I planted a plot in Tall

The Whitetail Institute239 Whitetail Trail, Pintlala, AL 36043

Research = Results™®

SpecificallyDeveloped forWhitetail DeerOur research staff has spentthe past 6 years developingthis new turnip variety. Thisnew variety was selectedespecially for it’s attractivenessto whitetail. This is a brandnew variety never beforeavailable to the public andonly available in ImperialWhitetail Products.

ExtremelyColdTolerantTurnips have long beenone of the favorites of bothearly and late seasonhunters. Once the foliageis eaten, the bulbs willprovide an additionalfood source for latewinter.

Easy toEstablishTall Tine Tubers areeasy to plant and quick toestablish.

Research = ResultsOur intensive research creates products thatare unsurpassed in attractiveness to whitetailgiving you the results you expect from the theWhitetail Institute, the leader in whitetailnutrition and attraction.

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Tine Tubers. It rained 3/10 inch the next morning and within a few days, theturnips were up. It never rained on this plot the rest of August.Astonishingly, it never rained on the plot in September. In fact, Septemberin southern Indiana last fall was the driest month ever recorded in Indianahistory! I just knew the horrid drought couldn’t continue. Nevertheless, it did. It

never rained on the plot in October, and the first three weeks of Novemberwere rain free as well. Finally, at the end of November the rains finally came— a full two months too late. Now I know most people wouldn’t writeabout a near crop failure, but I found the resiliency of Tall Tine Tubers tobe nothing short of unbelievable. The Tall Tine Tubers in this plot at the age of 34 days were small, for sure,

but still alive. Amazingly, no grass or weeds were evident in the plotbecause it was too dry even for them. As time went on, I felt every turnipplant in this plot would have to burn up, but a high percentage of themdidn’t. By December, the Tall Tine Tubers had somehow utilized enoughwater to grow 4-inch tops and even had small turnips in the ground! If any-one ever asks you if Tall Tine Tubers are drought resistant you can assurethem that they are! Fortunately, most other regions of our nation didn’t experience the hor-

rific drought we had here in southern Indiana. Most regions, in fact, hadadequate rainfall and excellent forage in their food plots. That being said,though, other harsh conditions pounded our nation. As you readers know, this past winter was brutal throughout the United

States. Record low temperatures, and snow and ice were the norm fromthe southeast, to the northeast, to the midwest, to the west. When I waswriting this article in early February I talked to hunting friends of minethroughout the nation, and I was especially observant of any who had TallTine Tubers planted. I heard several stories of hunters who had taken great bucks from their

food plots in late December or early January, times normally not thought

of as being conducive to trophy whitetail hunting. But a site full of Tall TineTubers changes all this since they are such a great nutritional draw in thelate seasons. Without exception when talking to these friends, I heard the same story

time after time, “The deer are digging right through the snow to get at theremaining turnips. It’s simply amazing how they are tearing up the plotsright now, in February.” I know you are going to see many other such tes-timonials in the Whitetail News about this fantastic new product. I do, how-ever, have a few words of caution.

USEFUL FACTS TO KNOW

All plants have diseases and insects that can negatively affect theirhealth. Turnips are no different. Although Tall Tine Tubers have been devel-oped to minimize these threats, some still remain. Clubroot, root knot, leafspot, white rust, scab, and rhizoctonia rot are just a few diseases that mayaffect a turnip crop. Two different flea beetles, the turnip louse and aphidsmay also cause considerable damage if left unattended. While insecticideswill control most of these problems, the best control to insure a healthyturnip crop is to make sure you rotate your food plot plants every year. Thiskeeps diseases and insects to a minimum. Regarding planting turnips, follow planting instructions carefully. Turnip

seeds are small but the turnip tops and the tubers themselves are bothlarge in size, so it doesn’t take a large amount of seed to get a sufficientstand. Because the deer literally tear up turnip food plots while digging out the

tubers in late fall and early winter, the soil is nicely broken up. This leavesideal soil conditions for frost seeding a plot with Imperial Whitetail Cloveror some other crop nutritionally beneficial to your whitetail herd during thespring, summer and throughout most of the year. Tall Tine Tubers are such a fine product that I will have them as a fall

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attractant and food sourcefor the deer on our land formany years to come. Ofcourse, I’ll have a variety ofother foods available forthem throughout the year toassure they have a well-rounded, balanced diet. In closing, I will have to

admit it’s pretty neat to kill adeer out of one of our foodplots and then go home withboth the deer and a bountyof turnips as well. SometimesI’ll just sit down and peel aturnip and eat it, and thememories of those turnips Iate out of Cy Perkin’s littleplot so many long years agocomes flooding back into mymemory. In addition, at other times

my wife, Miss Carol, will mixup a special blend of turnipsoup from one of our plots,and I’ll think of a nice Germangal who fed me so manytimes, and her last meal tome of her turnip soup. Yes,the turnip tales continue, andthey are special. W


30-06 is not a glorified salt lick or acattle mineral. It is a true nutritional

supplement developed specifically forthe needs of the whitetail deer. What is

good for a bull will do very little forantler growth in a whitetail.

30-06 and 30-06 Plus Protein contain allthe essential macro and trace minerals

along with vitamins A, D, and E necessary fora quality deer herd and maximum antler

growth.

30-06 and 30-06 Plus Protein contain ourexclusive scent and flavor enhancers which meandeer find, and frequent, the ground sites you

create by mixing these products into the soil. You can be assured 30-06 wascreated with deer, not cattle, in mind.Because of the 30-06 products incredible attractiveness, some states may consider it bait. Rememberto check your local game laws before hunting over the 30-06 site.

Research = Results™

800-688-3030whitetailinstitute.comThe Whitetail Institute

239 Whitetail TrailPintlala, AL 36043

®

A LATE-SEASON FOOD PLOT SUCH AS TALL TINE TUBERS not only can provide food for deer well into Januaryor February, depending on your location, but can also be beneficial when it comes to antler hunting. Because sucha plot can attract whitetails from a large area, it is much easier to discover cast-off antlers since many of the buckswill be in close proximity to the food plots. In addition, when bucks are working the turnips out of the ground they have a tendency to move quite vigorously

and this can literally shake an antler from their head. It is common for deer hunters who have Tall Tine Tubers foodplots to find shed antlers right in their food plots. Because of the nature of their large leaves, turnips, once estab-lished, usually keep weeds to a minimum. Just make sure to remove as many of the weeds in your plot as possiblebefore planting. Don’t underestimate the power of a turnip. Turnips can be rather large with a great root system. Inground that has a hardpan that prevents water from being retained deep within the soil, tubers can actually keepthis hardpan broken up and thereby help considerably in the retention of much-needed moisture within the soil. A friend of mine planted regular turnips and Tall Tine Tubers side by side in one of his food plots. If he’s going to

pay more for a seed, he’s going to test it to see if it does what it claims. He found the Tall Tine Tuber tops to be abrighter looking green with more moisture. Above-ground growth was also a greater height than the regularturnips, with overall better tonnage production. The supreme test, of course, was which product did the deer favor?While the deer did eat both products, they definitely favored the Tall Tine Tubers, so he assumed they had a sweeter,more nutritious taste that the deer preferred. He also told me he was very surprised the seed even germinated sincehe had planted it during a drought. Interestingly, after 36 years of managing his property, this past season he killed the highest-grossing buck he has

ever taken from his property, the result of a diverse and well-managed program. If you are a turkey hunter, it’s worth noting that wild turkey love to pick on the tubers after deer have dug them

up and eaten part of them. Just like deer, they find them a nutritious and tasty late-season snack. Turnips are very nutritional. Under optimal growing conditions, turnip roots offer dietary fiber, chromium, man-

ganese, protein, thiamin, riboflavin, iron, vitamin C, B6, C, calcium and copper. The turnip greens offer dietary fiber, calcium, magnesium, copper, chromium, manganese, protein, thiamin,

riboflavin, iron, vitamin C, A, E, K, B6, folate, pantothenic acid, and phosphorus.

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There is something both magical and elec-trifying about opening day of deer sea-son. Memories of past hunts flood your

mind as you drive the desolate road in thepredawn darkness. The coffee tastes especiallygood this morning; perhaps it’s the specialblend, or the fact that it was perked instead ofdripping from a machine. Conversation in thecab of the truck with your hunting buddy flowseffortlessly with more than a hint of excitementin each voice.As your rig nears the parking spot, the idle

chatter now turns to more serious business. Thewell-laid-out game plan is gone over one moretime. With the light of a full rutting moon illumi-nating the western sky, you quietly slip out ofthe driver’s seat and begin to retrieve your

accoutrements for the day’s hunt. First, theleather cartridge belt is cinched around yourwaist. After ensuring that lunch is stowed in theback of your jacket, that familiar woolen gar-ment that has served you well for many pasthunts is once again pulled on. It seems a littlesnugger than you last remembered; maybe ithas shrunk over time.The last and most important item you grab is

your rifle. No matter how often bullets areinserted into the magazine, there’s alwayssomething special about loading your gun onopening day. It’s really a simple process thatrequires little thought, but on opening day whenthe magazine is slammed tight against a liveround…well, it’s just not the same as being at therange.

Following the traditional ‘good luck’ hand-shake with your partner, you enter the dimly litforested abyss and begin your stealthy stalktowards a particular ridge. It’s really no differentthan any other part of the woods other than it’sa place where you have found success on manyhunting forays. You know it intimately. Althoughthat parcel of ground doesn’t really belong toyou, in your mind, on this morning it does.Every step, every breath, each move is calcu-

lated and deliberate as you near the spot. Yourecheck the wind. Never is the hunter any morecautious and careful than he is on opening day.I don’t know why it is, but psychologically we, ashunters believe our first and best chance ofscoring is always on the first day of the season.Even though deer are taken throughout the

“A sportsman’s life consists largely of

three elements: anticipation, realization

and reminiscence. We look forward to

the trip by rail, by canoe and then

perhaps a tramp on foot into the heart

of the wilderness. Then comes the camp

and its pleasant environments, and that

lucky, radiant day when the early

morning sun casts a glint upon the

branching antlers of a mighty buck.”

— George Shiras

“Magical and Electrifying”

OPENING DAY OF DEER SEASONBy R.G. Bernier

Photos by the Author

course of a deer season, and some as late as thefinal hours of the last day, the hunt is neverundertaken with the same intensity or attentionto detail.This is the place, that familiar spot where

many deer have been vanquished over theyears. It is not really a lucky spot as some maythink; there is a justifiable reason why deer trav-el this piece of real estate. Atop the ridge wherethe hunter has placed his stand is a maturegrove of oak trees that rain down their masteach fall. Beneath the bench runs a river withthick vegetation growing along its bank.Betwixt the two, the land formation has createda natural funnel that deer feel quite comfortabletraveling.It was bone-numbing cold perched aloft, 15

feet above the still darkened forest floor. In theexcitement to get into position before first lightit didn’t seem nearly that bitter. But then again,it’s always darkest and coldest just before dawn.Time ticks by excruciatingly slow while waitingfor the woods to awaken and its occupants tocome alive. The mind begins to race with ques-tions of uncertainties such as, “Is this the bestpossible spot? Will the big buck whose track Idiscovered weeks prior make an appearance? Ishe as big as I imagine him to be?” Once assuredthat all of these misgivings are completely outof your control, and with nothing left to do but

wait, you begin to reminisce about ‘big foot,’ thelarge buck that you chased unsuccessfully fortwo successive seasons. Reflections about the‘marathon buck’ and the ‘hemlock ranger’ andall that it entailed to capture them puts a smileon your lips and a warmth in your soul. It’s during these last few remaining minutes

between darkness and dawn that we’re remind-ed of how Mer Speltz vividly captures theessence of being in this exact place when hewrites, “It is this total silence that stirs your verysoul with a deep sense of eerie loneliness. Theabsolute stillness brings you back vivid memo-ries of past hunts and you fully realize that it isthis very solitude that keys your anticipationand lures you back year after year…”The solitude that only deer hunting can bring

divorces us temporarily from our responsibilitiesand awakens the sleeping senses that have laindormant while engulfed in civilization and all itstrappings. The mind begins to think clearer andslowly you start to reflect and reaffirm who andwhat you’ve become. The quietness allows oneto meditate without interruption or interference.Deer historian, Rob Wegner, described this

vividly when he wrote, “When pursuing white-tails we divert and distract ourselves fromindustrial madness and its laborious occupa-tions. When we leave the city of Degenerationand go the woods, it is astounding how mutually


The author proudly displaysa hard-earned buck.

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and quickly we free ourselves from worry, ten-sion and temper. A fresh and fragrant atmos-phere once again circulates through our bloodas we become submerged in nature. It’s almostlike returning to the old homeland.”Finally, at long last the blackness begins to

melt away as shadows transform into stumps,bushes and trees. The deafening silence is bro-ken with the first chirps of the chickadee’scadence. And so it starts like rush hour on thefreeway, the woods come alive as its occupantsstart their daily routine.Akin to a hawk perched high on a sturdy limb

waiting for his next meal to pass by, the hunteranxiously watches in silence for the mysteriousbrown apparition to appear. The leaves rustlebehind him. His pulse quickens as he fingers thesafety on his gun. Is that the footfall of a white-tail? Not daring to turn and look despite theagonizing curiosity looming in his head, thehunter waits. His heart thumps a little faster asthe noise gets closer. Straining his eyes as far ashumanly possible to get a glimpse of this intrud-er, he at last is able to identify the source. Asquirrel searching for nuts in the dry leaf litter isthe culprit.Twenty minutes into legal shooting time the

first shot isheard, the sea-son has begun.The hunter gripshis rifle a bittighter as if thesound of gunfirewill be the impe-tus that directs deer his way. Minutes tick byexcruciatingly slow. More shots have been firedfrom all around his position. ‘Perhaps my buddyhas scored’, he thinks to himself. Indeed,patience is a virtue just as long as you’re not theone that is waiting.It’s nearly nine-o-clock when the first deer

finally shows up. From out of nowhere it seems,where there was no deer a second ago, twodoes are now leisurely feeding on acorns. Withonly a buck tag in his pocket, the hunter canonly watch hoping that an antlered suitor is fol-lowing the pair.The does are very cautious as they feed, vigi-

lantly searching their surroundings for any hintof danger. Suddenly, from down below, the dis-tinct sound of a buck grunt is heard, then thechoppy steps heading directly for the waitinghunter. Immediately, his breaths come in short,

hyperventilating fashion. His heart is nowpounding in his ears and feels like it will jumpright out of his throat. His imagination runs wildwith thoughts of, ‘How big is this buck?’The buck has stopped just out of the hunter’s

view. The does are now within 30 yards of himand begin to act nervous. If they spook or catchany man scent on the fickle breeze the gamewill be over and he’d never get to see the hiddenbuck. There is nothing that can be done at thispoint but wait; the ball is in the buck’s court. The unknowing of what will transpire next

coupled with the adrenalin rush has caused thehunter’s right leg to begin rattling with nervousanticipation. His hands are shaking uncontrol-lably like an aspen leaf in the midst of a gale.“Calm down! It’s only a deer, not an enemy thatis armed and can shoot back at you,” he silentlyscolds himself. “Breath deep, think about the

hundreds of deer that youhave encountered, muchcloser than this,” he remindshimself. As the wind gust hitshis face, the hunter’s eyesbegin to water, temporarilyblurring his vision.As he wipes away the tears

it seems the stalemate isabout to end as finally, thebuck emerges only to quicklydash behind the security ofanother tangle of brush. Thehunter has his gun shoul-dered. Seconds tick by likehours. The rifle weighing a lit-tle less than seven poundsnow feels like the weight ofthe world. The buck is watch-ing the does, which are nowstanding statuesquely still.The buck begins, oh so tenta-tively to step out, and oh,what a towering set of antlersthat adorn his head. The wind

suddenly shifts and the does snort. The buckhalts — his shoulder is in the crosshairs — thehunter squeezes the trigger…Approaching the downed beast with its eyes

dim, its tongue out, its once vital body stretchedprone upon the forest’s carpet of moss and leaflitter, the hunter intuitively knows his prize isdead. A flood of pent-up emotion spills out asthe tension of the last few moments escapes.With a look of personal pride born from hisaccomplishment the hunter lets out a sigh ofsatisfaction; no ground shrinkage on this bigboy. And then, with admiration and respect hekneels, grabs a handful of antler and gives thisnoble, elusive, denizen of the forest wilds his justdue. Thank you Lord.Anticipation, excitement and the mystery of

opening day are all the elements that keep eachof us coming back…year after year! W

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RESULTSAs the old saying goes, “Good

things come to those whowait.” For some time,

Whitetail Institute fieldtesters and customershave asked the folks atWhitetail Institute tomake available adeer feedsupplement thatthey could use intheir nutritionalmanagementprograms. So theobvious questionwould be, “Why hasa Whitetail Institutedeer feed not beenintroduced?”

If you are familiar with the research program at theWhitetail Institute, you know that they don’t introduce a productunless it has been tested and retested all across the country to ensurethat any product made available to their customers is industry-leading andlives up to the claims it is given. For many years, Whitetail Instituteresearchers have been working with deer feeds both at their testing facil-ities and with field testers across the country. Many times, these feeds per-formed extraordinarily well, but all the demands were not fully met…untilnow. The Whitetail Institute is proud to introduce Results, a nutrient-pow-ered, research-tested feed supplement designed specifically for deer.Whitetail Institute has been the industry leader in food plot forages for

more than 20 years. This leadership was the result of painstaking researchwhich produced products like Imperial Whitetail Clover which contains the

only clovers genetically developed specifically for whitetail deer. TheWhitetail Institute has also been the industry leader in mineral/vitaminsupplementation with products such as Imperial 30-06 and Cutting EdgeNutritional Supplements. With this intense focus on food plots and miner-al/vitamin supplements it may be construed that deer researchers at theInstitute did not consider feed supplements a priority as a key componentin a nutritional program. To the contrary, the Whitetail Institute has long realized the value and

utilized the benefits of feed supplements in their research programs. Feedsupplements, like food plots and mineral/vitamin supplements, are com-

ponents or tools that can beused in a nutritional

programwhen

neededto help bring

about the overall manage-ment goal. For instance, in many parts of the country during the cold win-ter months, food source availability is limited. Even if you plant food plots,the tonnage produced may not be enough to supply food throughout theentire winter. This is especially true if you have a prolonged winter, limitednumber of acres available for planting food plots or high deer herd num-bers. Feed supplements can be an invaluable tool to be used in conjunction

with winter food plots in order to help deer maintain body conditions dur-


IntroducingWhitetail Institute’sNutrient-Powered

Deer Feed Supplement


ing this stressful time period. Even during the spring and summer,feed supplements can be a valuable tool in many different circum-stances. For example, a late, cold spring can cause food plots and nat-ural vegetation to have slow and/or stunted growth early on, causinga nutritional gap for antler growth and doe lactation. Further, in someparts of the country such as a the Deep South and the Southwest, hotdry weather can cause forages to have stunted growth and lowerdigestibility, causing a late summer nutritional gap. Feed supplementscan be used to help fill these nutritional gaps and ensure that yourdeer herd does not suffer from sporadic nutritional deficiencies. Feed supplements can also be used year-round as a nutritional

insurance program. While drought and cold weather can create acutenutritional stress, milder changes in climate and vegetation can causechronic nutritional strains. These particular nutritional stresses areoften not necessarily visual and therefore go unnoticed. Feed supple-ments can act as an ever-present nutritional source filling these nutri-tional gaps whether they are apparent or not.Results Deer Feed is the culmination of years of research and test-

ing. For several years now the Institute has been testing a multitudeof formulations, testing various ingredients and nutrient levels inorder to achieve maximum nutrition as well as incredible attrac-tion. Researchers at the Whitetail Institute arrived at the nutri-tional requirements needed in the feed years ago but stillwanted to do some tweaking on attraction. Further researchusing Devour (Whitetail Institute’s scent and flavorenhancer) showed a dramatic difference in palatabilityand preference over other competitive deer feed supple-ments. To complete the formulation, a special waterprotectant called Rain Shed was added to help ensurethe pellets better maintain their integrity duringadverse weather conditions.Results is packed with protein, a guaranteed mini-

mum of 20 percent. This protein is derived from thehighest quality, highly digestible ingredients providingrumen-digestible protein and by-pass protein. Bothprotein sources are needed for optimum protein uti-lization. Results also is also packed with energy provid-ed through carbohydrates and fat to help your deerherd maintain top body condition. Quality fiber sourcesare also essential for deer as they help to maintain rumenhealth and proper function. However, not all fiber sources

are beneficial to deer as some provide little or no benefit.Results contains only highly digestible and high-quality fiber

sources selected based on the particular fiber needs of deerand the deer’s digestive system. Minerals and vitamins are vital for antler growth, doe lactation,

fawn development and overall herd quality. Results contains all essen-tial minerals and vitamins formulated in specific amounts and ratiosthat were designed specifically for whitetail deer. As mentioned earli-er, Results also contains Devour to ensure the desired consumptionamount. While Results contains all of these important individual qual-ities, the real key to the effectiveness of Results is the sum or combi-nation of these attributes. Protein, energy, fiber, minerals, vitamins andflavor enhancers all derived from high quality, specifically selectedingredients formulated in precise amounts produce a feed supple-ment that gives you what you pay for and expect — Results.Results is manufactured and co-marketed with Southern States Inc.

and MFA Incorporated. Southern States and MFA Inc. have been lead-ers in the feed manufacturing industry for many years and are knownfor providing extremely high-quality feed products. With manufactur-ing sites across much of the U.S., Southern States and MFAIncorporated will help to ensure you can get Results efficiently andtimely. W

PremiumDeer Feedwith 20% ProteinResults is a complete deerfeed scientifically formulated toprovide maximum nutritionalbenefit to deer throughoutthe year. Results is de-signed to help maximizerack size in bucks, improve thequantity of milk production in does, in-crease birth weights and growth in fawns, andpromote overall herd health. Here are some of the specificbenefits Results provides: Helps Maximize Antler Growth!� 20% Protein to Help Maximize Antler Growth.� Contains Vital Minerals and Vitamins.� Helps Bucks Devote More Nutrition to Antler Growth Earlier in

Spring.Helps Maximize Doe Lactation, Fawn Birth Weights, Growth Rates and Overall Herd Health!� Contains Critical Protein, Vitamins and Minerals for Does.� Source of High Carbohydrates and Lipids for Fall and Winter.Specifically Designed for the Needs of Deer!� Scientifically formulated to meet the unique requirements of the small-

ruminant digestive system of deer. � Contains macro minerals, micro minerals and vitamins in the correct

forms and ratios deer need to help maximize genetic potential.Extremely Attractive to Deer!� Crunchy texture deer prefer.� Contains scent and taste enhancers including Devour, which drives

deer wild.Maximum Flexibility in Delivery Systems!� Can be use in most spin-type feeders,

trough feeders, and gravity feeders.� Rainshed™ Technology — Moisture resistant.� Pelleted form reduces waste.

Results is a trademark of Whitetail Institute Pintlala, AL.Devour is a trademark of Whitetail Institute Pintlala, AL.

RainShed is a trademark of Southern States Richmond, VA.

The Whitetail Institute239 Whitetail Trail • Pintlala, AL 36043

Call 800-688-3030 to find thedealer nearest you.


®


Developing a great huntingproperty requires a lot ofwork. Unfortunately, most

landowners struggle to fulfill theirdreams because they underestimatethe importance of building a soliddata base for their property.Philosopher George Santayana said:“Those that cannot remember the pastare condemned to repeat it,” whichsums up why documenting everyaspect of your land managementpractices is so important. If you can’tremember what you did in the past,it’s hard to track your property’sprogress, because as the years pass,memories fade. After all, Babe Ruth’s60-home-run season in 1927 wouldn’thave meant much if someone hadn’tkept track of Major League home runtotals through the years.

T h ebottomline is thatacquiringhistorical in-formation asit pertains toenvironmentalissues, soil types,which seed blendswork best for dif-ferent parts of theproperty, and howdeer navigate the landare keys to building afirst-class hunting para-dise. So, as with athletics,documenting the past isthe key to both current andfuture success.

BUILD A RECORD BOOK

Getting a handle on documenting the past isdaunting for many hunters and land managers.In too many cases one’s failure to write downand organize what takes place on a property

makesit difficult to

make a property bet-ter. When you consider what

it costs to develop a great huntingproperty the least expensive thing that can

be done is recording what went into makingeverything happen. And the easiest way I knowto accomplish this is by having everything aboutthe property organized in a three-ring binder.Neil Dougherty of North Country Whitetails

makes his living consulting and building great

A Three-Ring BinderYour Prime Tool for Better Food Plots

By Charles J. AlsheimerPhotos by the Author


hunting properties. One of the firstthings he does is build a reference document forthe landowner to use. Regarding this he told me,“It’s important to have a quick, easy-to-use ref-erence guide for use in the field. What I find thatworks well is an expandable three-ring binderthat is set up to hold different pieces of informa-tion about the property; everything from soiltype, its topography, to food plot locations, tothe forages that have been planted in the past.This information allows me to know what hastaken place and gives me a better handle onwhat to recommend in the future. Basically, thistype of filing system tells me nearly everything Ineed to know about the property, and it’s simpleto use.” Over the years I’ve used this system asa tool to help me manage all aspects of ourfarm, from food plots to forest management.Here is how it works.

STARTING POINT

To get started I recommend obtaining a qual-ity aerial photo of the entire property in ques-tion and insert it in the front of the binder. Next,note the prevailing wind direction as well as

north, south, east andwest coordinates on the photo. This willhelp you identify where feeding and huntingfood plots might work best. As you look at the photo understand that all

prospective food plot locations will probablynot have the same growing potential because oftheir orientation to the sun. According toDougherty, “Here in the North, all things beingequal, east/southeast-facing food plots have thepotential of being great set-ups because theyget early morning light, when the day is stillcool. As a result their soils tend to stay moist,and warm afternoon temperatures don’t bakeand dry out their soil. Such locations are greatfor seed blends like Imperial Clover, Alfa-Rackand Chicory Plus.“North-sloping sites generally have cooler,

heavier soils that stay moist, making them greatlocations for a blend like Imperial Clover.However, because of their angle to the sun theytend to begin growing later in the spring andstop growing sooner in the fall than plots with amore direct orientation to the sun.

“Though great inspring and fall, straight south or south-western facing openings are the least favorablefood plot locations during warm monthsbecause they receive a lot of direct sunlight.Because Chicory Plus, Alfa-Rack and Extremehave the ability to grow well in drought condi-tions they are great choices for these locations.However, when it comes hunting season a foodplot with this orientation to the sun is the bestbecause the ground stays warm enough toallow the plant to continue to grow.”

STUDY THE DIRT

With potential food plot locations identified,it is important to name each food plot in such away that everyone using the property knows thelocation. Once done, keep detailed soil informa-tion on the plot, beginning before the first sod isturned. Doing so starts the data base and makes


it easier to see what’s needed for the plot to reach its potential. Prior to working with Dougherty I tested our food plot’s soil pH before

tilling the location, and applied lime as recommended. Thinking I had cov-ered my liming bases I seldom retested the plot’s pH until it was threeyears old. It wasn’t until I heeded Dougherty’s suggestion and began test-ing each new plot’s pH every year (for at least the first three years) that Isaw the error of my ways. The data base I was building with each year’stesting showed that some plots needed more attention than I was givingthem. Had I not kept records I never would have known.Along with knowing the food plot’s pH, attempt to determine if its soil

is loamy, sandy or clay. This will aid you in deciding what seed blend toplant, as well as when to plant. By way of example, sandy soils do not holdmoisture well and tend to dry out quickly, making it difficult for plants togrow in the summer months. So, in sandy soil it is best to plant a drought-resistant seed blend, like Extreme, Chicory Plus or Alfa-Rack. Blends likeTall Tine Turnips, Chicory Plus and Alfa-Rack do particularly well in well-drained loamy soil. Shale and rocky soils have a tendency to dry quickly,especially if they receive direct sunlight, so a forage like Extreme, whichhas seeds with a very deep root system, does well in this type soil.The United States Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service



Extreme conditions call for extreme measures. And ImperialWhitetail Extreme is powerful enough to overcome the worstyour property has to offer. Thanks to Extreme, dry, hot locationsand soil with low pH no longer prohibit growing a successfulperennial crop. Extreme requires only 15 inches of rainfall a year,is both heat and cold tolerant, and will grow well in pH levels aslow as 5.4. Extreme is ideal for challenging growing conditions,but will also do great when conditions are kinder. An extremeresponse to extreme conditions.

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Imperial Clover is a crucial partof many food plot plans.


has documented the soil types of all the land inthe United States. You can obtain a photo copyof your property and its soil types by contactingthe Soil Conservation Service office in the coun-ty where your property is located. This is a vitalpiece of information that should become a partof your property’s data base.

LEARN FROM THE PAST

As time passes, strive to keep detailed notesin your file on each food plot—everything fromwhen it was prepped and tilled to what wasplanted. By documenting the history of eachplot you’ll be able to determine which seedblend works best for the location. The plot’s his-torical record will also make you aware of whenthe plot needs to be rotated to a different blend.As an example, my farm’s records indicate thatwith proper maintenance I can get four to fiveyears out of an Imperial Clover plot. Thoughpossible, my data base also reveals that yearfour and five do not provide the tonnage peracre that year one to three does. So, instead oftrying to milk five years out of my clover plots Inow replant after the third year.Record-keeping has also aided me in my

approach to planting annuals. I’m a huge fan ofplanting Tall Tine Turnips for late season utiliza-tion by the deer. Though I’m able to obtain good

results planting turnips two years in a row in thesame plot, the second year’s production is notas good as the first. Recording this kind of infor-mation allows me to see when I should considercrop rotation.It’s important to note that some herbicides

have residual effects on the soil to the point thatthey may affect future plantings in a particularfood plot site, so record-keeping is a must whenit comes to herbicide application. Arrest (spray for grasses) has no residual

effects on the soil so there are no lasting tracesof the herbicide, regardless of how many timesit is sprayed. Slay (spray for broadleaf weeds),on the other hand, does have a residual effect.The benefit of the residual effect of Slay is thatafter one or two spray applications you may nothave to do a spring spraying the following yearbecause the chemical is still in the ground. Thedown side of Slay and other residual herbicidesis that if you decide to till and replant the site insomething other than legumes (i.e., corn) thecrop may not grow. There is no end to the benefits of accurate

record-keeping because of what you can learn.Information is power and when you have theproper data at your fingertips it will be mucheasier to develop a hunting paradise. The bot-tom line is that if you know where you’ve been,you will be able to better chart your future. W

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Hunting season is right around the cor-ner. When you’re deciding whichWhitetail Institute forage to plant in

each of your sites, don’t overlook No-Plow andSecret Spot. These two extremely versatile foodplot products can perform a wide variety ofroles in your fall/winter food plot system.Most Whitetail Institute customers already

know that No-Plow and Secret Spot can beplanted with minimal ground tillage. That’s onereason they’re so versatile. But don’t forgetthat’s only a small part of the picture. Keep inmind that they are products of the sameexhaustive research, development and testingprocess that all Whitetail Institute forages gothrough. That means that they’re not only versa-tile, they’re also top performers.First, we’ll look more closely at each product.

Then, stay tuned because we’ll discuss someways you may have never thought of to use

them this fall.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

No-Plow and Secret Spot are “annual” forageproducts, meaning that they’re designed to lastup to one year after planting, and both can beplanted either in a fully prepared seedbed orwith minimal ground tillage. They’re alsodesigned to establish and grow extremelyquickly—it’s not unusual to see them growingabove ground even just a few days after plant-ing, and they also begin attracting deer rightaway.No-Plow is ideal for planting in the late sum-

mer or fall. Packaged for areas one-half acre andlarger, No-Plow consists of specially selectedforage grains and grasses, annual clovers andbrassica. Secret Spot, which is specificallydesigned for fall planting in smaller, remote

hunting plots, contains very similar componentsplus small amounts of other cool-season grainsand WINA chicory. Secret Spot is packaged intwo sizes: Secret Spot (4-lbs. covers up to4,500 square feet), and Secret Spot XL (10-lbs.covers up to 1/4-acre).Like most other Whitetail Institute forage

products, No-Plow and Secret Spot are blendsof multiple plant varieties. One reason mostWhitetail Institute forage products are blends isthat professional blends of different plant vari-eties in the right ratios can almost always out-perform single plant varieties in food plots.No-Plow and Secret Spot are designed to

attract deer throughout the fall and winter butthey also keep performing even after winter.When designing No-Plow and Secret Spot, theWhitetail Institute also kept in mind how impor-tant it can be to provide deer with highly nutri-tious food sources during the period from late

Fall Annuals that Perform Many RolesBy Hollis Ayres


winter into early spring. This is a time whennutrient requirements in deer are very high asthey try to recover their winter health losses.However, it’s also a time when natural foodsources can be extremely scarce or exhausted,and when what little food may remain is usuallylow in nutrients and unpalatable. It’s at this crit-ical time that the annual clovers in No-Plow andSecret Spot can continue to shine, providingdeer with a highly nutritious food source.

IDEAS FOR USING NO-PLOW & SECRET SPOT

As we’ve already mentioned, No-Plow andSecret Spot are perfect for areas where youcan’t fully work up the seedbed before planting.Below, I’ll give you some ways that this can be ahuge benefit in the fall, as well as some addi-tional ideas for taking advantage of the per-formance potential of No-Plow and Secret Spot.The following certainly isn’t an exclusive list.When it comes to finding new ways to use No-Plow and Secret Spot in your fall food plot pro-gram, you’re limited only by your imagination.

HIGHLY ATTRACTIVE FOOD PLOT

When it comes to fall/winter attraction, No-Plow and Secret Spot don’t take a back seat toanything. Like all Whitetail Institute forages,

No-Plow and Secret Spot are extremely attrac-tive to deer, so remember that they can be goodoptions virtually anywhere you want to establisha highly attractive food plot, even in placeswhere you can work up the seedbed.

LOW SOIL PH

Most high-quality forage products for deergrow best in soils with a soil pH of 6.5 or higher.Most fallow soils, though, have a lower (“acidic”)soil pH, which should be corrected by incorpo-rating lime into the soil prior to planting. Whensoil pH is low, the lime needed to raise it shouldbe incorporated well in advance of planting ifpossible to give the lime additional time towork. In some situations, you can have an exten-sive amount of time to wait for soil pH to comeup. One example is if soil pH is extremely low,meaning that the lime must raise soil pH a longway. Another is if the forage you plan to plant is

highly dependent on soil pH being 6.5 or higherat planting, for instance Alfa-Rack Plus and for-age products that contain alfalfa. In such cases,it can be a good idea to go ahead and lime thesoil, and then skip a planting season beforeplanting the perennial. While you wait, though,the plot can still be fully productive. No-Plowand Secret Spot can tolerate lower pH soils bet-

ter than many other forages, making them greatoptions for keeping a site attractive and nutri-tious during the fall and winter while you’rewaiting for soil pH to rise.

OLDER PERENNIAL STANDS

Let’s say that fall is approaching, an Imperialperennial you’ve had growing in a site for yearsis reaching the end of its useful life, and you planto work the seedbed up next year for a newperennial planting. Overseeding the existing for-age with No-Plow or Secret Spot this fall can bea great way to add new, attractive growth to theplot and keep it performing at a high levelthrough the coming fall and winter.

SOIL STRUCTURE ISSUES

While most soils are suitable for tillage, that’snot always the case. Although it’s uncommon,some soils should not be tilled under any cir-cumstances. An example is a soil structurewe’ve seen in Central Florida — one inch of topsoil above several feet of nothing but sand. Inthat situation, that one inch of top soil was allthat would sustain a forage planting, and tillingit would have mixed the thin topsoil with thesand beneath it, virtually destroying the soil.Planting No-Plow or Secret Spot without

SECRET SPOT is the only “personal” food plot planting. It’sdesigned to be planted in that small clearing in the middle of the woodswhere deer like to hang out. SECRET SPOT will attract and stop deerclose to your stand. It’s so easy to plant, and so effective, you’ll buy abag for every stand!

Each bag of SECRET SPOT contains all the seed you need to plant a3,000 sq. ft. food plot around your stand. It’s easy to plant and it growsquickly.

• Requires minimal effort; no tillage necessary (simply remove grass ordebris to expose soil, rake, broadcast seed and re-rake)

• Loaded with a pH booster for maximum growth• Plant late summer/early fall for a hunting season’s worth of attracting

and stopping deer close to your stand




®


ground tillage is ideal for such a situation.The same holds true for soils that wouldn’t be

harmed by tillage, but that you don’t want to tillfor other reasons. Examples are skidder roadsand ATV trails in soils that are difficult to stabi-lize. Skidder roads, ATV paths and the like oftenmake excellent food plot areas, but disking anestablished roadbed in such soil would render itvirtually impassible as soon as it rains. With No-Plow and Secret Spot, you can establish highlyproductive fall/winter food plots without com-promising the road beds.

LEASING HAY FIELDS

If you’ve ever leased property from a farmerwho makes his living producing hay in thespring and summer, you already know the firstdemand they often make on their leaseholders.It usually goes something like, “I don’t care whatyou plant for hunting season, as long as my haycomes back full strength next spring!” Hereagain, No-Plow and Secret Spot are excellentchoices. Once the farmer has taken his final haycutting for the year, wait until the grass starts togo dormant. Then, mow the grass stubble aslow as possible, and Plant No-Plow or SecretSpot according to the no-till instructions.Remember that the seeds must make contactwith the soil, so drag something over the field

after you spread the seeds to help achieve bet-ter seed-to-soil contact.

A SNEAKY (AND DEADLY!) USE FORNO-PLOW AND SECRET SPOT IN

POWERPLANT SITES

By now, most folks know that PowerPlant, aspring/summer annual, is a prolific producer.Stands often reach 5-6 feet in height, and it’s sothick that deer readily use the mass of vegeta-tion PowerPlant produces for bedding cover aswell as a forage source. PowerPlant spends itslife during the spring and summer producingmaximum tonnage of high-protein forage, andonce frost arrives it starts to die. There’s a greatway, though, that you can maximize PowerPlantas a hunting plot in the early season and evenkeep the site attracting deer throughout thehunting season. Step 1. Check your fall planting dates for No-

Plow and Secret Spot. Step 2. Most areas of the country have a

most commonly prevailing wind direction dur-ing hunting season. About a month before yourfall No-Plow and Secret Spot planting dates,locate a stand site on a corner or edge of yourPowerPlant site that’s most commonly down-wind during hunting season.

Step 3. A few weeks before your fall planting

dates for No-Plow and Secret Spot, mow narrowlanes (ballpark 6-10 feet wide) through thestanding PowerPlant so that you can look downthe lanes from the stand site.Step 4. During your fall planting dates, plant

the lanes in No-Plow or Secret Spot.This can be a great way to hunt all day long,

as deer bedded in the PowerPlant often step inand out of the narrow No-Plow or Secret Spotlanes all throughout the day.

CONCLUSION

I hope this article has helped you see just howversatile No-Plow and Secret Spot can be inyour food plot arsenal. Just like all otherWhitetail Institute forage products, No-Plowand Secret Spot are top performers—and thefact that they can perform well with minimumseedbed preparation is just icing on the cake.Whether you use them in all your plots or to fillspecific roles in a few, you can’t go wrong withfall plantings of No-Plow and Secret Spot. For more information about No-Plow or

Secret Spot or to order, call the WhitetailInstitute’s in-house consultants at (800) 688-3030. W

Some of the places deer like best are not the best placesfor maneuvering a tractor. With No-Plow, that’s not a

problem. If you can get in on a four-wheeler —or even on foot — you can plant this highly

attractive, high-protein annual. Obviously, the moreground preparation you do, the better, but No-Plowwill produce a good stand with only the prep you

can do with hand tools. Limited access andlimited time won’t limit the potential of No-Plow.

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The Whitetail Institute239 Whitetail TrailPintlala, AL 36043®


The small aluminum fishing skiff was rock-eting thru the rough river chop at a mind-numbing eight knots powered by a mas-

sive 30-horsepower outboard. The particularcraft we were using had been honed by colli-sions with rocks over an infinite number of yearsgiving it the exact configuration of dents andleaks that made it slice thru the water like abowling ball through pudding. Best of all, anodiferous masterpiece of beaver carcass, stale

bread, cooking grease and unidentifiable goowafted past our face from the front of boat. As you might have guessed, I was hunting

bruins, for the first time to be exact, along abear-infested river in Manitoba. This was thefirst bear hunt for my hunting partner as well,and he was the first to be dropped off. Ourguide said that he was going to a great spot, butafter the boat pulled away leaving him standingon the river bank, my guide confessed that I was

going to the “hot spot.” I guess the outfitterthought I deserved preferential treatment sinceI lined up the hunt, and I thought it would berude to argue with him; so I just went along withit. At the end of the first evening I had seennothing short of a ground squirrel, but my hunt-ing “buddy” had shot the biggest bear thatwould be taken that year in camp. Later thatyear, I went hog hunting in Texas with the samehunting “buddy” and you guessed it, he shot abig boar on the first night while I took picturesof cardinals (there was nothing else to do…nohogs).There seems to be two distinct groups of

hunters — those who struggle for days, weeksand even months to fill their tags and thoseblessed individuals who seem to have a horse-shoe located in a place that only a proctologistcould find. Most of the time I belong to the for-mer, but during Iowa deer season two years ago,I had the fortune to experience what it felt liketo be in the “first dayer’s” club.Oct. 4 was my first day afield in pursuit of

whitetail deer, and even though this time of yearcan be extremely productive, my past track-record for early season success caused me toconsider this outing more therapeutic in naturethan productive. I planned on hunting for a cou-ple hours then getting down to make a mockscrape near my stand. The morning was just asquiet as it was beautiful, and as the two-hourmark approached, I began packing things up tocall it a morning. I was fishing out my pull-uprope when I heard the tell-tale crackle of deerhooves running through the early autumn leaffall. I glanced over my shoulder expecting to seea young buck or doe but was met with thevision of gleaming trophy-class antlers and theywere moving directly down the trail leading pastmy stand. A few moments later, a quartering-away shot at 27 yards resulted in the earliestharvested trophy whitetail I have ever taken.A few months later on Dec. 26, my family and

I were celebrating Christmas at my in-laws.Around 3 p.m. things were winding down withthe kids playing, women chatting, and father-in-law asleep in his chair. Meanwhile I sat anxiousand nervous watching the minutes tick away ona great afternoon to hunt. Late muzzleloaderseason was underway and I had not yet had theopportunity to hunt any of my Winter-Greensfood plots. The temperature was about 10degrees Fahrenheit, there was a fresh coating ofsnow on the ground and the wind was out of theeast which gave me a perfect approach to a plotthat I had not stepped foot in since bow season. I finally mustered the courage to look forlorn-

ly over at my wife and attempt the “PLEASE”look. I’ll admit that the look seldom works, andit really didn’t work then either. But a few min-utes later, in one of those amazing Christmasmiracle moments, my wife came over to me andsaid, “If you’re going to go then…” I didn’t hear

First Time’s a Charm… TwiceMake your own “luck” with

pre-season food plot planning

By Matt HarperPhotos by the Author

One of the bucks the author hasshot as a result of his pre-season

food plot planning.


the rest because I was vaulting down the frontsteps to my truck. Luckily, my farm is close byand about 30 minutes later, I was creeping myway through the cedar trees heading toward atripod stand overlooking a ridge-top Winter-Greens food plot. I was late getting there and knew there may

already be deer in the field, but I had cover allthe way to the stand and the wind was right. Imade it about three steps up my stand, justenough to see the field, and discovered therewere indeed deer in the field — in fact a lot ofdeer. As I weighed my options on whether tostay on the third rung or try and make it to theseat, I caught sight of a large deer on the edgeof the timberline moving toward the field. Aquick check with the binoculars confirmed mysuspicions; it was a massive 10-pointer withCoke cans coming out of his head. Decisionmade, I stayed put, for 45 minutes actually, untilthe buck made his way into gun range. Fightingoff leg cramps and fatigued arms, I somehowwas able to squeeze off a shot that hit its mark.An hour later I was holding the 160-inch rack,amazed that for a second time in one year, myfirst time out was the charm.Every successful hunt involves a certain

amount of luck, some more than others; but as Imentioned earlier, my natural allotment of thatelusive characteristic is rather small. Therefore, Imust rely on other means to increase the likeli-hood of filling my freezer and making a housepayment for my taxidermist. The success I hadtwo years ago, for example, had a lot more to dowith pre-season planning than luck.One will normally find me in a tree stand the

first week of bow season, but typically I amhunting just to satisfy the nine-month itch to bedeer hunting. I do hunt food sources and I try toset-up on plots that contain forages that deerare utilizing heavily that time of year. However,that was about as far as it went, as I plan myhunting more around the rut than early season.After all, I have an understanding wife but she

has a limit as to how many weekends I spendaloft in a tree. But two years ago, a good friendof mine had drawn a coveted Iowa bow tag anddue to scheduling conflicts, could only huntearly in October and possibly again in late sea-son. So, with that in mind, I set out to design ahunting strategy designed specifically aroundthose two time frames which would hopefullyincrease our odds of success.

EARLY SEASON

Food sources are important elements no mat-ter what time of the hunting season you findyourself afield; but during early season, a prop-erly designed and implemented food plot pro-gram is essential. Early in the season, buckshave yet to lose their minds in pursuit offemales, so the only thing to draw them fromtheir bed is food. But not only do we want tolure an old bruiser to a food plot, we want themto come to a specific plot, using a specific pathand during legal shooting hours. The first partic-ulars to decide are where you are going to plantyour early-season plot and how many you aregoing to plant. Again, bucks are not venturing too far away

from their home area at this time of year, soplots need to be somewhere within that homearea and more specifically, as close to their corearea as possible. In fact, if I have a good idea asto where a buck is bedding, I try to get the plotsnuggled right up against the bedding area. Thiscan be a bit dangerous as you don’t want tobooger him; but you shouldn’t expect a maturebuck to leave his bed early enough, or go backto bed late enough, to get a daylight shot at himif your food plot requires a long travel distance. The closer you are to his bed, the more likely

he will give you a shot during legal shootinghours. Furthermore, if you plan several weeks inadvance being careful not to venture into hisbedroom and keeping the human disturbancedown (tractor noise is one thing, but human

• No messy liquids, Biodegradable

• Apply scent up to 10 feet away

• Prevents hunter contamination

• Reactivates with moisture

• Contains up to 300ft of scented foam string for use after use

www.awayhunting.com

The author puts Imperial Clover at the top of his list of early-season foods for deer.

noise is another), you will diminish the risk of pushing him to another area.Also, early-season food plots should be located in an area that will allowyou to access a treestand or blind with the very lowest possibility of detec-tion. Bust a roving buck on your way to a stand during the rut and you mayhave a chance at him again, either close by or at another stand; but do thatduring early season and the proverbial jig is up. You can also incorporate food plot shapes into the detection equation

by designing plots that are “S” curved or hourglass-shaped to allow forblind spots to use getting into the stand. Keep in mind that getting out ofyour stand undetected is just as important, if not more important, as deerwill very likely be on the plot when you decide to call it a night and climbdown. One other consideration in early-season plot placement is to takeadvantage of natural food sources. For example, we all know that acornsare powerfully attractive especially in early fall. Locating a food plotbetween an oak grove and a bedding area can be highly effective. Largeagricultural fields of soybeans and corn will also draw large numbers ofdeer, so I like to place early-season plots in staging areas on the edge ofthese fields. These staging-area food plots work extremely well during early season,

especially for bucks as they will stop in these small, protected food plotsduring daylight hours before moving onto the bigger agricultural fields atnight. In terms of the number of early-season plots to plant, keep in mindthat the more you plant, the more options you give the deer. You can onlyhunt one field at a time, so I recommend planting just one plot per beddingarea so you don’t go crazy wondering if you should be at the plot on theother side of that bedding area. However, I do like to have options, so lookfor multiple bedding areas and plant plots at each of them. That way, if youbust a buck, or the wind is wrong on one particular plot, you still haveother places you can hunt.Of course, what you plant for early-season plots is important as well.

Because deer prefer different types of food at different times of the year,it is vital to plant a food plot variety that matches up with the early-seasontaste buds of a deer. Topping the list of early-season forages is ImperialWhitetail Clover. Imperial Clover is without question, the most attractiveclover blend I have ever used (and I’ve tried nearly all of them) drawingdeer not only in the spring and summer but also in the fall. In fact, I seemore usage in the fall because other natural forages are maturing andbecoming less desirable. Imperial Clover is designed to stay vegetative, highly digestible and

therefore highly attractive for long periods of time and will remain that


The Whitetail Institute is proud to offer Imperial Whitetail Winter-Greens, our annual brassica blend designed specifically for late seasonfood plot sources and hunting opportunities. Winter-Greens blend ofbrassica is extremely attractive, and during tests was preferred 4 to 1over other brassica products tested. Winter-Greens stands tall and staysgreen, even in the coldest winter weather. The colder it gets the moresweet and attractive it becomes which creates perfect food plots for lateseason hunting. So this year plant our highly drought resistant Winter-Greens and give your deer a valuable source of nutrients for the winterseason.

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The Whitetail Institute239 Whitetail TrailPintlala, AL 36043



®

Winter-Greens helped draw in this brute during the late muzzleloader season.


way even as other forages are growing indigestible due to maturation.Also, Imperial Clover is a perennial which means that once it is planted, youonly need to spend some time maintaining it, which decreases the timespent on those fields close to a buck’s bedding area. Alfa-Rack Plus,Chicory Plus and Extreme are other perennials that work great for early-season plots. If an annual is what you are looking for, Imperial PureAttraction is a great option. This product contains plant varieties thatbecome attractive in slightly cooler conditions than the above mentionedperennials; and since weather can be finicky that time of year, a PureAttraction plot is a great back-up. You can even plant them in the samefield, not necessarily together; but if you have an acre field, you might con-sider planting one-half acre of Imperial Clover and one-half acre of PureAttraction. Also, the new Whitetail Forage Oats Plus is another greatchoice for the early season as well.

LATE SEASON

Late-season plot planning is similar to early season considerations inthat the plot should allow for low pressure access, contain varieties thatattract deer during that time frame and be located in areas and in shapesthat maximize the opportunity for a daytime shot. However, there are a fewdifferences to consider. Late-season plots are normally larger in size thanearly-season plots because utilization will be heavier with the lower avail-ability of other food sources. Also, most late-season plots are annuals, soonce the plant quits growing the plot will contain a finite amount of foodas opposed to an early-fall perennial plot that will re-grow once it has beennipped off. If you are hunting with a rifle or muzzleloader, the size of the plot does

not affect you as much as it does if you are carrying a bow. If you arebowhunting and a huge old buck is out in the food plot 200 yards away,he might as well have not even showed up in terms of getting a shot athim. Therefore, when designing late-season bow plots, create pinchpoints, blind curves, etc.., to try and get as close to feeding deer as pos-sible. I have used plantings of tall cane, heavily seeded, to produce a nat-ural funnel right in the middle of my late-season plot. The biggest differ-ence between early-season and late-season plots is the type of forageyou will be planting. Brassicas rank high on the list for late-season plots and Imperial Winter-

Greens ranks the highest among brassica blends, and I am not saying thatbecause it is a Whitetail Institute product. I have planted more brassicavarieties than most people even know exist, and year after year, Winter-Greens draws the most activity. In fact, last year I planted a late-seasonplot and split it up with different varieties but made the mistake of plantingWinter-Greens at the farthest end of the field from my shooting house.Each night I sat frustrated and watched the deer go to the Winter-Greenssection of the field just out of reach of my muzzleloader. If I had beenthinking more clearly in July when I planted, I would have likely harvestedthe largest 8-pointer I have ever seen. As it was, however, I sat on two dif-ferent occasions and watched the sun go down on this awesome buckfeeding in the Winter-Greens section of the plot, just out of reach.

SUMMARY

I would never go so far as to say that luck does not play a role in har-vesting a trophy-class animal. However, I am a firm believer in creating luckor at least doing all I can to increase the odds that luck will shine on me.Careful planning of your food plots and designing specifically for certaintimes of the year will undoubtedly increase the possibility of success dur-ing those times of the year you plan around. Rut hunting is exciting and Istill reserve most of my vacation for that magical time of year. But now,however, early-season and late-season plots have become a regular part ofmy overall plan. I figure it this way — the more chances you have to play,the better odds you have to win. W

BARRY KERN pulled

in this POWER BUCK

with TINK’SPOWER SCRAPE

WATCH THE VIDEO OF BARRY TAKING

THIS POWER BUCK AT .

created the Scrape Bomb™

Scrape Dripper to effectively disperse Tink’s Power Scrape™ Mock Scrape Starter. The Scrape Bomb keeps mock and nature scrapes fresh for 4 to 5 days. Dripping only during the day, the scrape drippers condition deer to visit your stand when you’re there.

2011

QUALIFIER


Robert Wert — PennsylvaniaSince I started to use Whitetail Institute prod-

ucts on my farm in PA, my deer herd over threeyears has gone from five or six deer to morethan 40 deer. The product that draws the mostattention is the Chicory Plus. The program hasworked so well we started the same program onour property in Virginia. We saw a quick turnaround in deer numbers. We have harvestedbigger bucks this past season than in any otheryear at both locations. We love Whitetail Instituteproducts. We will be adding more acres in Virginiato the program. See photo of a PA buck.

Joe Macri — Tennessee

We have a 110-acre farm, and we have beenplanting Imperial Whitetail Clover and Alfa-Rack

Plus for the last four years. We’ve been usingWinter-Greens for the last two years on two-acre food plots. We used to see around 15 deer(does, bucks and fawns) in the food plots, smallbucks and does. In the last four years we haveseen 15 bucks in the food plots. In the last threeyears we have shot a 142-inch buck and aneight-point that scored 154. Last year on my Ke -ntucky farm I shot a 13-point with my bow thatscored 164. This year on the same farm I killedmy biggest buck ever, a 14-point that scored 181.My buddy shot a 12-point that scored 152. Seephotos enclosed.

Will Sellers — AlabamaI shot this 20-point non-typical last year in Al-

abama on Dec 27. The buck came out in a patchof Secret Spot where I was fortunate enough tobe sitting that morning. We planted Secret Spotand No-Plow this year and have been using the30-06 mineral supplement as well. These products

are all paying off. We will definitely be usingmore Whitetail Institute products next year.

Derek Melchi — Indiana

I planted three separate plots on my property.Chicory Plus, Extreme, and a mixture of ChicoryPlus and Clover. They are situated in long thinstrips with tall grass rows dividing them. I huntedfor days looking over these plots and never sawless then 10 deer a night. It was usually closer to25 to 30. The deer absolutely demolished everyinch of the Chicory Plus first then moved on tothe Extreme and Clover. Many days I would haveto hunt in another stand because the deer wouldbed down in the middle of the plots and continuefeeding. That is what happened on the afternoonhunt that produced Bullwinkle. I went to thestand at about 1 p.m. and already had sevendeer lounging in the plots. I proceeded downthe tree line to my second stand. It is situatedbetween the plot and bedding area, and is trickyto get to without spooking deer. I sat there untilabout 4:45 p.m. without seeing much movement.I looked over my shoulder and saw a nice nine-point coming over a hill. I tried to rattle him inbut he wanted nothing to do with it and pro-ceeded to head right for my stand over the foodplots. I figured I was done for the night andupset that I was, again, in the wrong stand.

I sat back down and looked towards the thickcover and here comes Bullwinkle. His head wasrocking back and forth as he tries to navigatehis way through the trees. I had enough time toget the gun up and let a shot ring out. I couldclearly see where the bullet hit him as he ran offand I knew he wasn’t going far. After shaking fora good 45 minutes my brother showed up tohelp with the deer and the rest is in the picture


— a giant smile from a hunter that couldn’t behappier.

The property owner that hunts the other sideof the fence also shot a tremendous deer. Hesaid that he has been hunting that property for30 years and has never seen deer like he hassince I started my management program andplanted Whitetail Institute food plots. Thanksfrom both of us and we are looking forward toupping the size next year.

Austin Frees — KansasKraze is an amazing product. In three days

the deer had it gone. Enclosed is a nine-point Ishot during rifle season. Keep up the good workWhitetail Institute.

Bruce Archambault — MissouriAfter experimenting for a year or two with

some of the Whitetail Institute’s competitorsproducts, and I say competitors loosely becauseI now know Whitetail Institute has no seriouscompetition, I tried the Whitetail Institute’s Alfa-Rack Plus product at the suggestion of our localco-op owner. The soil in the area of the Ozarksof Missouri where I call home is poor. The resultswere instant and continue to be enduring as myfirst Whitetail Institute food plot enters its fourthyear of growth.

I now use Whitetail Institute products exclu-sively. In late Aug. I planted my fourth and fifth

respective food plots using Imperial Whitetailproducts and they are already receiving heavyuse from the deer on my farm.

Brent Moore — North Carolina

Thanks to Whitetail Institute products we haveseen more deer and turkeys on our farms thanever before! Enclosed are photos of a couple ofdeer taken on our food plots. One of which ismy 9-year-old son’s first buck. We have had alot of success with Imperial Whitetail Clover. Mywife says I take better care of my Imperial Cloverfields than I do our own yard. Ha! We have alsoreally enjoyed watching the deer eating Winter-Greens the way they eat those big leaves! I haveabout four acres of Imperial Whitetail Clover

and plant about four-to-five acres of Winter-Greens each year. Thanks Whitetail Institute forthe help with our success.

David Wacker — WisconsinWe are on our third rotation of replanting our

three Imperial Whitetail Clover fields. With theproper fertilizing based on our soil tests thefields have stayed productive for an average ofsix to seven years. This is amazing consideringour cold Wisconsin winters and the summer

drought the last two years. When grass invaded we kept it in check with

the Arrest herbicide. In addition to the tons offeed for the deer and turkey off the plots wealso take off two hay crops a year.

The deer have increased in size and numbers.Our only problem is the neighbors line up on ourfence line and harvest the deer, making theirdaily trip to feed on our food plots during ourgun season. As a result our best hunting is doneduring our bow season in September and Octo-ber.

The photo enclosed is of my son with his 140- class, 208-pound buck and is a typical buck wesee in our Imperial Whitetail Clover fields.

Tom Moses — OhioWe have been using Whitetail Institute products

for about eight years. My sons and I have plantedold logging trails through our 20 acres and wehave an outfitter that has land leased aroundour property. The outfitter puts out corn, carrotsand apples to lure in deer. We have always usedNo-Plow on our trails. We rake the trails and castseed by hand and we have been VERY SATISFIEDwith the results! Every year we have deer thatjust walk through and browse down the trails.This year during the last day of Ohio youth deerseason my son and I were in a ground blind rightoff one of the logging trails. After hearing his

(Continued on page 64)

Good SoilWhitetail Institute forage products are designed to establish and

grow quickly and perform at the highest level. Here are sometips to help you keep your soil in the best possible condition so

that your plantings can grow as well as they should — and help you savemoney in the process.

HAVE YOUR SOIL TESTED BY A QUALIFIED SOIL-TESTINGLABORATORY, AND FOLLOW THE LAB’S RECOMMENDATIONS ON

LIME AND FERTILIZER

That’s your first tip, and it’s the biggest one. And to regular readers ofWhitetail News, that comes as no surprise; almost every issue has areminder somewhere about how important soil testing is, both to forage

performance and to help you save money. Two important things your soil test report will tell you are the existing

soil pH of the soil in your plot and how much lime you’ll need to add to thesoil to raise soil pH if it is low. Most high-quality forage plantings will havea hard time growing as well as they otherwise could unless soil pH is “neu-tral” (in a range from about 6.5-7.5) because neutral soil pH is where theycan best uptake nutrients from the soil.

If soil pH is low, it should be raised before planting by disking or tillinglime into the soil. To see why this is so important, think of plants taking innutrients from the soil as humans eating food from a refrigerator. Wehumans can only take in the food we need if two things are true: the foodmust be in the refrigerator, and we must have access to the refrigerator.Even if the food is there, it does us no good if we can’t open the refriger-


Sound Agricultural Principles Produce Good Soil

So Food Plots Can ThriveBy William Cousins

Photos by Whitetail Institute

Most Imperial perennial blendsfix nitrogen, which can reduce fertilizer costs for

rotational crops.


ator door. The same is true of plants. The nutrients they need must bethere in the soil, either naturally or by applied fertilizer, and the plants mustbe able to uptake (access) those nutrients. Soil pH affects the ability ofplants to uptake nutrients from the soil. If soil pH is below neutral, forageplants are not able to uptake nutrients (open the refrigerator door) asfreely, and the lower soil pH is, the harder it is for them to do so.

Whitetail Institute forage products come with lime and fertilizer recom-mendations on the back of the product bags. These are generalized rec-ommendations for situations in which a soil test isn’t available, and they’llcover most situations. However, they won’t be exact for everyone becauseprecise lime and fertilizer recommendations depend on factors unique toeach site, such as soil type, existing soil pH and existing nutrient levels.

Taking these factors into account with precision requires physically test-ing a sample of the soil from the plot in a qualified soil-testing laboratory.That’s why only a qualified soil-testing laboratory can provide lime and fer-tilizer recommendations that are sufficiently precise to help you maximizeforage production and, at the same time, eliminate wasted lime and fertil-izer expenses. High-quality soil test kits are available from the WhitetailInstitute, County Agents, agricultural universities and many farm supplystores.

CROP ROTATIONS

Crop rotation is a best-management practice. It makes economic andagronomic sense, and offers the opportunity to improve soil structure,break insect and disease cycles, control problem weeds and improveyields.

Any soil that is asked to grow the same crop year after year, whateverthe crop, eventually may require a break. After removing the existing crop,it may help rejuvenate the soil in some cases by planting entirely different

forage types in the site for a growing season (“rotating” out of the old cropand into one that’s totally different). Crop rotation is usually not as big adeal to food plotters, at least not as big as it is with commercial farmerswho repeatedly plant the same crop in the same site. With food plotters,it’s occasionally an issue with perennial forages that have been growing ina site for years. Also, most Whitetail Institute forage products are blendsof different forage types, reducing the chance of a crop rotation beingneeded even further. But brassica and alfalfa bear special mention, so I’llcover them separately in a moment.

When is crop rotation necessary? Determining if and when a crop rota-tion is needed is usually fairly simple. Basically, you notice that despite hav-ing planted and maintained the forage according to directions, it’s just notgrowing as well as it should and has in the past. If you see that, then per-form the two-step diagnosis I’ll set out below.

Notice that I said “despite having planted and maintained the forageaccording to directions.” One critical thing that means is that soil pH is, orhas been raised to, at least 6.5. If soil pH is low, then the forage can strug-gle. Determining that crop rotation is necessary presupposes that soil pHis in optimum range: 6.5-7.5 (“neutral” soil pH).

The main reason a crop rotation may be necessary is the buildup of dis-ease organisms over time. Diagnosis is usually pretty straightforward.There are two steps.Step 1: Pull up some of the plants, and look at the roots. The roots

should be firm and healthy looking. If they are soft, spindly or weak look-ing, there’s a good chance that the soil has a build up of root-rot organismslike fungus, which can cause poor crop yield or even complete failure.Step 2: While you’re digging around in the soil, look for root-eating

insects and their larvae, which can also build up over time. Either of thesealso indicates that it may be time to rotate.Rotational Crops. When deciding what to plant as a rotational crop,

select plant types that are different from those you had growing in the site.Any Whitetail Institute fall/winter annual is a good rotational crop afterImperial Whitetail Clover, Chicory Plus, Alfa-Rack Plus or Double Cross. Ifyou had Tall Tine Tubers or Winter-Greens growing in the site during thefall and winter, you might consider rotating into PowerPlant the followingspring and summer. The key is that the plant types in the rotational cropshould be different from those in the existing crop.Brassica: Each situation is different, but due to unique characteristics of

brassicas it’s generally recommended that you not plant brassica back-to-back in the same site for more than a year or two in a row without a break.The issue can be substantially reduced, though, if the seedbed is correctlyprepared prior to planting, including ground tillage, and if tillage is startedseveral months before replanting. To clean the soil as quickly as possiblefollowing a brassica crop, though, plant the site in a completely differenttype of annual during the spring and summer. As I mentioned, PowerPlantis an excellent choice. Plan ahead with plot locations so that you can moveyour Winter-Greens and Tall Tine Tuber plots every year or two.Alfalfa: Alfalfa’s autotoxicity property can inhibit the growth of a new

alfalfa crop planted immediately after an existing alfalfa stand in the samesite. With Alfa-Rack Plus being a blend of various species, though, that’susually not as likely to be an issue, so you can diagnose the need for croprotation just as you would for any other forage.

NITROGEN FIXERS CAN REDUCE FERTILIZER COSTSFOR ROTATIONAL CROPS

Farmers commonly rotate long-term grain fields out of production andinto clovers and other nitrogen fixers for a while before returning them tograin production. This can help improve soil quality, protect soil fromexcess nutrient depletion and reduce nitrogen fertilizer expenses. If youhave had one of the Whitetail Institute’s perennial nitrogen-fixing products(Imperial Whitetail Clover, Chicory Plus, Double-Cross or Alfa-Rack Plus)growing in the same site for years and determine that it’s time to rotate thesite into a Whitetail Institute annual for a season, take advantage of thenitrogen that has accumulated by tilling under the existing crop and plant-ing Pure Attraction, Winter-Greens, Tall Tine Tubers or Whitetail ForageOats Plus and you will be utilizing the valuable nitrogen that is in your soil,creating a disease break and saving money on fertilizer. W




“ Research = Results™®

Getting big bucks with big racks takes an exceptionally nutritiousforage, and that can be hard to grow in hilly areas with lightersoils. Alfa-Rack Plus solves this problem. The extensive rootstructure of Alfa-Rack Plus allows you to grow this high-proteinforage in areas that might otherwise be inhospitable to the foodsdeer like best. Alfa-Rack Plus includes our special blend ofalfalfas, chicory, and Imperial Whitetail Clover. When the buckyou are after is King of the Hill, make sure the hill is planted inAlfa-Rack Plus.

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Imperial perennials such asAlfa-Rack Plus contain diversecomponents, which can help

keep soil fresh.

PLANTING DATES FOR DOUBLE-CROSS, PURE ATTRACTION AND SECRET SPOT � Call for planting dates

� Call for planting dates

� Aug 1 - Sept 1

� Coastal: Sept 1 - Oct 15 Piedmont: Aug 15 - Oct 1 Mountain Valleys: Aug 1 - Sept 15

� Aug 1 - Sept 30

� Sept 1 - Nov 1

� North: Aug 1 - Sept 15 South: Aug 15 - Oct 15

� July 15 - Aug 25

Aug 1 - Aug 31

Aug 1 - Sept 15

� Sept 15 - Nov 15

� North: Sept 5 - Nov 15 South: Sept 25 - Nov 15

Sept 1 - Oct 30


� Coastal: Sept 25 - Oct 15 Piedmont: Sept 1 - Oct 5 Mountain: Aug 25 - Oct 15

� North: Sept 15 - Nov 25 South: Oct 5 - Nov 30

� Aug 1 - Sept 1

� Aug 20 - Sept 30

� July 1 - Aug 15

� June 15 - July 15

� July 15 - Aug 31

� July 1 - Aug 15

PLANTING DATES FOR WINTER-GREENS™ AND TALL TINE TUBERS™� Call for planting dates


� July1 - August 1*

� Coastal: Aug 15 - Sept 30 Southern Piedmont: Aug 1 - Sept 15 Mountain Valleys: July 15 - Sept 15

� July 15 - Sept 15

� Aug 1 - Oct 1

� North: July 15 - Sept 15 South: Aug1 - Oct 1

� North: July 20 - Aug 1* South: July 5 - Aug 15*

July 1 - Aug 15

July 15 - Sept 15*

� Sept 15 - Nov 15

� North: Sept 5 - Nov 1 Central: Sept 15 - Nov 15 South: Sept 25 - Nov 15

North: Aug 15 - Oct 1 South: Sept 5 - Oct 20

� North: Sept 5 - Oct 30 Central: Sept 15 - Nov 15 South: Sept 25 - Nov 15

� Coastal: Sept 1 - Oct 1 Piedmont: Aug 15 - Sept 20 Mountain Valleys: Aug 5 - Sept 15

� North: Sept 15 - Nov 15 Central: Sept 25 - Nov 15 South: Oct 5 - Nov 30

� July 15 - Sept 1

� Aug 1 - Sept 30

� July 1 - Aug 15

� June 15 - July 15

� July 15 - Aug 31

� July 1 - Aug 15

* Earlier (spring) planting dates may beapplicable. Call Whitetail institute formore information.

** For northern Pennsylvania, earlier(spring) planting dates may be appli-cable. Call Whitetail Institute for moreinformation

IMPORTANT!For optimal production, plant atleast 50 days before first frost.

Food Plot Planting Guide…


� Apr 1 - July 1

� Apr 15 - June 15 Aug 1 - Sept 1

� Coastal: Feb 1 - Mar 1 Sept 1 - Oct 15 Southern Piedmont: Feb 15 - Apr 1 Aug 15 - Oct 1 Mountain Valleys: Mar 1 - Apr 15 Aug 1 - Sept 15

� Feb 1 - Apr 1 Aug 1 - Sept 30

� Feb 1 - Apr 15 Sept 1 - Nov 1

� North: Mar 15 - May 1 Aug 1 - Sept 15 South: Mar 1 - Apr 15 Aug 15 - Oct 15

� Apr 1 - June 15 July 15 - Aug 25

Apr 1 - May 15 Aug 1 - Aug 31

Mar 20 - May 15 Aug 1 - Sept 15

� Sept 15 - Nov 15

� Feb 5 - Mar 1 North: Sept 5 - Nov 15 South: Sept 25 - Nov 15

Feb 15 - Apr 1 Sept 1 - Oct 30


� Feb 1 - Mar 1 Coastal: Sept 25 - Oct 15 Piedmont: Sept 1 - Oct 5 Mountain Valleys: Aug 25 - Oct 15

� North: Sept 15 - Nov 25 South: Oct 5 - Nov 30

� Mar 1 - May 15 Aug 1 - Sept 1

� Feb 1 - Apr 15 Aug 20 - Sept 30

� Apr 15 - June 15 July 1 - Aug 15

� May 15 -July 1

� May 1 - June 15 July 1 - Aug 15

� May 15 - July 1

PLANTING DATES FOR CLOVER, ALFA-RACK PLUS, EXTREME, NO-PLOW,CHICORY PLUS, AND CHIC MAGNET

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22

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Chip Swindell — IndianaI had ob-

tained permis-sion to hunt asmall thicketnext to myhouse for thesole purpose ofhaving a closeplace to takemy 3-year-oldson on his firsthunting trip. Wehave alwaysseen a few doesaround, espe-cially in the

summer, but during the hunting season theyseemed to disappear. There just wasn’t anythingto keep the deer around after the warm weathermonths. The thicket is just 5 acres. It seemed thedoes would use it with their fawns but leavelater in the year. I wanted to try to keep a fewdeer around into October and November so Icould take my son hunting in a ground blind andsee some deer. I decided to clear a 1-acre spot inthe center of the thicket and plant some type offood. I did research and kept finding ImperialWhitetail Clover in stories and chat rooms so Idecided to try it. I followed the instructionsclosely and was amazed at how well the ImperialClover came in and grew. In fact, I couldn’t keepthe deer out of it. By Oct. 1, I had a beautifulgreen clover field tucked away in a thicket. Wesaw so many deer it was unbelievable. But evenmore amazing was the number of bucks thatshowed up during the rut. We had bucks allover, even in our yard! I was able to take this

buck on Nov. 7, with my son, from a groundblind next to our clover plot. It was a great timefor me and my son. I’ll be using more WhitetailInstitute products in the future. My wife was soexcited about our new deer “honey hole” thatshe decided to hunt for the first time during gunseason. She took a nice 8-point on Nov. 14. I’veincluded a picture of her and her trophy as well.Thanks Whitetail Institute.

Sarah Hudzinski — Wisconsin

I have been an avid hunter since I was 12 andbegan bow hunting four years ago with myfiancé. We live in Central WI, and began managingour small property by implementing food plotsand QDM practices. We have been using ImperialWhitetail Clover for years with great success,and this year we created a new food plot ofWinter-Greens thanks to a suggestion from oneof the Whitetail Institute staff. I was lucky enoughto be sitting over that food plot on Oct. 27 whenthe buck of my life decided to visit the foodplot. This is my first buck with the bow, and mylargest buck to date (137-inch P&Y). Thank youWhitetail Institute!

David Nelson — IowaWith trail camera pictures of Big Twelve on

one of our eight 30-06 mineral licks in July andAug. we knew he was in the area, and we alsoknew he was working a two-acre Pure Attractionfood plot close by.

My son, Jordan, hunted the food plot a coupleof times, and saw lots of does, and passed upthree different good bucks. With all the does inthe food plot we knew Big Twelve would even-tually show. Then it happened — a huge scrapeshowed up on the south side of the Pure Attrac-tion food plot, so we set up our stands on thehuge scrape. With so many deer feeding in thefood plot a north wind is what we needed to

hunt thisstand. Wehunted acouple dif-ferent standloca t i onsand Jordanpassed up acouple ofgood buckswaiting forthat northwind weneeded to hunt the huge scrape. The weatherforecast for the next day was cool temperatureswith a 5-m.p.h. north wind. Perfect. Jordan wasexcited about hunting the huge scrape hopingto harvest Big Twelve. We were in the stand onlyabout one hour when Jordan spotted two buckscoming our way, the second buck was Big Twelve,the smaller buck was leaving his scent in everyoverhanging branch as he headed to the foodplot with Big Twelve following, and when he was20 yards away, Jordan made an awesome shotand Big Twelve went down at 30 yards. BigTwelve scored 176 inches.

Charles Grantham — North CarolinaYou just got

to love thewhitetail deerrut because youget up and goat “0-darkthir-ty” every morn-ing when youreally thoughtyou were tootired to go andsometimes itpays off. My lov-ing wife encour-

aged me to go this morning and lo-and-beholda “newbie” shows up on one of our small farmswhere I was hunting. I have had a trail cam onthis farm since early July and never got a pic ofthis buck. He was with a doe and trying his bestto get her away from me grunting to him. I hadto take the shot while he was walking away at190 yards. He dropped in his tracks though at al-most the same spot as I shot a nice 8-point withmy bow back in Sept. That funnel has been mas-saged and tweaked with hard work and somebeautiful food plots using Chicory Plus over thelast 6-7 years and is a real honey hole now. He isvery narrow (14-1/2 inches) as a lot of bucks offthis farm appear to be but still grosses 142-6/8.(Picture 1)

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Trail camera pictures showed the buck inpicture 2 was very typical at 2-1/2 years old. Hegrew a little at 3-1/2, and became a monster forNC at 4-1/2 when I killed him with my bow. Hegrossed 144-4/8 at 4-1/2 and easily made myfirst entry into the Pope & Young records. Thisbuck lived his whole life on or near a 68-acreparcel with three well maintained Imperial White-tail Clover and Chicory Plus plots. No-Plow wasalso used on this tract of land in the early yearsuntil I got the soil pH and the fertility right. If thisisn’t proof positive of the power of nutrition andage impact on deer quality, I don’t know what is.

Robert Glenn — West Virginia

Photo 1 shows the size of the deer I had on myproperty before I started using Whitetail Instituteproducts. Now the deer are just getting biggerand bigger. Igot my firstPope & Youngdeer this year.Photo 2. Every-one around myproperty is nowgoing to startusing WhitetailInstitute prod-ucts after see-ing what theyhave done forme and mydeer. The class

of bucks I’ve taken over the last three years hasmade them all want to know what I’ve beenusing. I look forward to using Whitetail Instituteproducts for many years to come. Keep up thegreat work Whitetail Institute, you have done somuch for whitetail hunters. Thumbs up to you!Thanks so much. I hope to have more Pope &Young deer in the years to come and hope toget my first Boone & Crockett buck soon.

David Scytkowski — TexasBy following the instructions on the Whitetail

Institute products completely, starting with soiltest and pH adjustment I have been able toobtain a 85 to 90 percent seed yield in my foodplots. The plots have held up under drought

conditions andhave beenavailable fordeer usageyear round.With intervalsof fertilizer ap-p l i c a t i o n sthese cropshave beenmaintained forseveral yearsafter initial

plant ing.Here is apicture ofone of myfood plotsas well asa deer har-vested be-cause ofthe foodplot.

Greg Bock — MissouriWithout a doubt Whitetail Institute products

are the best (PERIOD). I’ve tried all the otherbrands. Nothing, and I mean nothing, draws inbig deer and holds them on a pattern like 30-06and 30-06 Plus Protein. Magnet Mix and 4 PlayBlocks are also number one. All year ’round I useCutting Edge supplements. It’s worth the moneyto have a mineral lick site established all yearlong. Both my 14-year-old son, Tom, and I tookour biggest bucks to date last season. My 160-class 14-point Missouri deer with archery gearand Tom’s 156-gross Missouri buck (9-point)were taken with the benefits from our mineralsites. Thanks for a great product that is made in

the USA. Whitetail In-

stitute mineralsites define bigbuck hunting.Using WhitetailInstitute prod-ucts helpsyounger gener-ation hunters

stay focused and in-terested in hunting.They know theirodds are better atseeing deer! Thanksfor helping keepdeer hunting alive.

Robert Peterson — WisconsinOur deer keep getting bigger as proven by

the photo enclosed of my friend. He shot thisdeer with a bow as it approached one of ourthree Imperial Whitetail Clover fields. It weighed240 lbs. dressed and scored 158. There are two more out there that are bigger. I hope to connectwith one this late bow season. Keep up the goodwork Whitetail Institute. W

Send Us Your Photos!Do you have a photo and/or story of a big buck, a smallbuck or a doe that you took with the help of Imperialproducts? Send it to us and you might find it in the FieldTester section of the next issue of Whitetail News. Sendyour photo and a 3 to 4 paragraph story telling how youharvested the deer and the role our products played to:

Whitetail News, Attn: Field Tester Response239 Whitetail Trail, Pintlala, AL 36043

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1 5/2/11 11:47 AM


CreativeWinter Strategies

for Farm CountryFood Plots

By Scott Bestul

Icall it March Madness, and it will start aboutthe time people get excited about theNCAA tournament. But the insanity I refer to

has nothing to do with college basketball.About this time, I will start talking to people —some serious deer guys, a few casual hunters,even the odd wildlife watcher who thinks heknows something about whitetails — and theywill say the same thing. “Well, another long win-ter is almost gone. The deer have made it foranother year.”

I am writing this in Minnesota on the last dayof February, and the truth, of course, is this: Ourwhitetails are facing the toughest 45 days of theyear. I don’t care that turkeys will be gobbling ina week or two. It doesn’t faze me that waterfowlare making their first tentative northern flights.And I am not fooled that the odd tulip will pokeits nose from the flowerbed of the little old ladydown the road. Most of the deer I’ll watch forthe next month-and-a-half will look like crap;patchy hide stretched over a framework skele-ton, nosing around for spare kibble like aban-doned puppies.

If it doesn’t sound pretty, you’re right. It’s alsoironic. I live in farm country, where you can picka spot in late summer, turn a slow circle withyour eyes on the horizon, and imagine that yourneighborhood alone could stop a global famine.But come December, I wouldn’t want to be anycreature trying to make a living from an agricul-ture field. The same places that once pumpedout an embarrassing richness of corn and soy-beans are not only covered in snow, they’replowed-up wastelands.

Not long ago, I had a hunting buddy wonderwhy — the previously mentioned “amber wavesof grain” scenario obviously fresh in his mind —he needed food plots in farm country. I stoodthere with an open mouth, nailing my patentedvillage idiot impersonation. I couldn’t engagemy brain before he hopped in his truck anddrove off. So this article is my hope at redemp-tion; a short look at two specific time periodsthat are the most rugged 90-day windowsfaced by farm-country whitetails and how foodplots can help alleviate that stress.

FALSE SPRING

If you’re a serious deer manager — a fact I canassume because you’re reading this magazine —you probably long ago passed a serious bumpin the road; the one that tells us food plots areall about killing deer. This is something thatcasual deer hunters and the general public don’tget about us. Sure, we might start out withhearts full of evil intent, and I’d be lying if I saidI never grow a green field designed to helpbring a giant to the ground. But after a while,shooting things takes a back seat to doing rightby deer.

Which is why I’ll start with the least sexy time


frame first; the tail-end of winter and beginningof spring. As noted, this is a critical period fordeer, and any boost they can get from foodplots now can be huge. But there’s a common,albeit no less frustrating problem with mostplantings; many of them don’t last long enoughto carry deer through this time. Let’s look atsome of the reasons as well as some things I’veexperimented with as solutions.

Two other factors combine to help deer runout of food during this time; plot size and deerpopulation. Small plots just don’t carry enoughfood to keep many deer fed for several months,which many deer managers learn in a hurry. Themost obvious solution, of course, is to simplyenlarge plot sizes when possible. The other is totake a long, hard look at area deer numbers, anoften-preached-about but rarely practiced areaof management. We all like to see deer, and it’stempting to adopt a the-more-the-merriermindset. Do your best to resist it. Whitetails livebetter when their numbers are aligned to avail-able habitat and food sources, and (anothertough-to-swallow fact) our hunting experiencetypically improves.

Naturally, we don’t all have the ability orspace to enlarge our food plots, but that doesn’tmean there are no other options. In my region,it’s common for deer to make seasonal moves topreferred winter habitat. For example, I current-ly have a half-acre of standing corn and a 1/4-

acre of Imperial Winter-Greens within 100 yardsof my country home, yet there has not been adeer in those food plots since mid-December.These plots remain almost untouched becausearea deer move at least a half-mile away eachwinter, to a couple of nearby farms with south-facing slopes that help whitetails conserve ener-gy during the coldest months.

This is a dramatic example of seasonal shiftsin whitetails, but it’s not uncommon to findmore subtle movements and capitalize on themwith food plot location. Across much of theupper Midwest, whitetails will move to preferredwintering habitats — areas they’re likely toignore the rest of the year — and any food plotin those areas can help deer survive the criticalmonths of late winter. It can be frustrating andamazing to plant a food plot in such an area andwatch it grow relatively untouched for much ofthe year. But visit the same spot in late winter,and it will be covered with deer sign (hint: anexcellent place to start the year’s shed hunting).Preferred winter habitat will vary from region toregion. In my area, deer gravitate toward south-facing slopes and coniferous cover, such ascedar, pine or spruce groves.

Choosing a winter-hardy and winter-pre-ferred plant type can make food plots last wellinto the season. I’ve had tremendous successwith Winter-Greens, even in relatively smallplots. Each year, I help a friend on his 120-acre

farm; a gorgeous piece of deer habitat, yet onewith very limited room for food plots. The firstyear we worked on his plots, I suggested aplanting of straight Winter-Greens in a well-litplot of less than a half-acre. My friend was over-joyed when the plants germinated well andgrew like mad. Then he called in frustration afew weeks into our archery season.

“We made a major mistake,” he said. “Thedeer aren’t touching that stuff in the lower plot.”

I had only one word of advice for Kent. “Wait.” By the time our late bow season rolled in,

deer were piling into the Winter-Greens and,somewhat amazingly, kept hitting that littlesalad bar until spring green-up. In addition tosome fine late-season bow-hunting, Kent foundtwo sheds in that patch of hardy brassicas. He’sbeen a believer since.

Shortly after snow melt, and until the land-scape begins that wonderful process known asgreen-up, deer continue to struggle for calories.This can be another time when tImperialWhitetail Clover can really shine. There’s a rea-son why clover remains a favorite of deer man-agers everywhere: Deer can’t get enough of it,and it’s good for them. I’m still weeks away fromseeing the first whitetails return to my neighbor-hood from their wintering haunts. But whenthey come back, I can bank on them hitting theplot of Imperial Clover I maintain close to my


house. It’s the first thing that greens up inspring, and as the ground becomes saturatedfrom snowmelt, that tiny plot will be pepperedwith deer tracks.

THE EARLY WINTER CRUNCH

The second critical 45-day period for deeroccurs, strangely, during the most exciting timeon the deer manager’s calendar: the rut.Whitetails have skated through the salad daysof summer and early fall; the world a literal feastof fruit and mast and grain. They enter thebreeding season like well-conditioned athletes,their backs saddle-fat and their muscles thrum-ming. But the clock, as they say, is ticking.

In these parts, farmers begin their harvest justas the bucks are feeling feisty. Assuming goodweather, the crops are off when the chase phaseof the rut kicks in. Right behind the monstrouscombines come the stalk choppers and thediscs. Long before the last buck has found thelast willing doe, fields that once fed whitetails allthey could eat are little more than oceans ofblack dirt. In years of a great acorn crop thisisn’t as much of a concern, but when naturalfood sources are scarce, bucks can go into thewinter a lot skinnier than they were just a fewweeks earlier.

This situation creates the perfect storm forfarm-country food plots. The rut is tailing down,

grain crops are plowed under, and bucks arerunning out of gas. I had this hammered homefor me just this past fall, by a buck I call Beefy 8.He was 3-1/2 going into the hunting season, andhe was what I call an “oh-crap” buck. Give himanother year, and he’ll be a giant, but youwouldn’t blame a soul if they shot him. We hadtrail cam pictures of him on the better part oftwo farms. He was one of those deer that knewhe was big and tough and wasn’t afraid to walkwhere he wanted. He was also something of anenigma. I had more pictures of that darn deerthan anyone, but do you think I could lay eyeson him from a tree stand? Not a chance.

Well, as I’ve said, Beefy 8 was a wanderer.He’d be in Food Plot X in August, then in MockScrape Y in late September, and then BeddingArea Z in October — locations separated by alot of rough country that he didn’t have to travelthrough if he didn’t want to. One hunter saw himone time during the rut, and that buck was dog-ging a doe across acres of real estate, living upto his reputation.

But guess what happened in late November?Beefy 8 went from a hobo to a homebody,camping out on a high-quality food plot thatwas a buffet of Imperial Whitetail goodies. Heremained there into December, when every starin a late-season bow-hunter’s sky lined up; deepsnow, intense cold, and a buck stuck on onefood source like Charlie Sheen stuck on ______

well, you can fill in that blank. About mid-December, a friend from a long way away cameto hunt with me, and I put Tom on the Beefsterwithout hesitation. I knew he’d shoot that deerand be happy as a Cheesehead after the SuperBowl.

“He’s living right here,” I said to Tom as Iwalked him to the food plot. “You will know himin a second from those pictures I showed youand … hey! What’s that?”

It was a shed antler, a tall-tined right sidelying in the snow. And guess which buck haddropped it there just to irritate me? Next fall,Beefy 8 will be 4-1/2, and we are gonna have atalk — hopefully in the bed of my truck — abouthis behavior.

CONCLUSION

When I started food plotting, I was just likeeveryone else. I put seed in the ground becauseI wanted to kill more and bigger deer. I haven’tlost that motivation, of course. But I’m gettinggrey in my sideburns now, and I think a little dif-ferently. March Madness is right around the cor-ner, and while the rest of the world is praying fortheir favorite hoops team, I’m crossing my fin-gers that a few select food plots will be enoughto help the deer I love survive the tougheststretch of the year. W

CALL TOLL FREE

1-800-688-3030OR MAIL YOUR ORDER TO:Whitetail Institute239 Whitetail Trail, Pintlala, AL 36043FAX 334-286-9723

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Try a full “menu” of Whitetail Institute Products at one lowprice… and get a FREE 2-year subscription to “Whitetail News”and a FREE DVD as well! Your Super Sampler Pak includes:• Imperial Whitetail™ Clover — 1/2 acre planting (4 lbs.)• Imperial ALFA-RACK™ PLUS — 1/4 acre planting (3.75 lbs.)• Imperial EXTREME™ — 1/4 acre planting (5.6 lbs.)• Imperial CHICORY PLUS™ — 1/2 acre planting (3.5 lbs.)• Imperial N0-PLOW™ — 1/2 acre planting (9 lbs.)• Imperial WINTER-GREENS™ — 1/2 acre planting (3 lbs.)• Imperial 30-06™ Mineral — 1 lick (5 lbs)• Imperial 30-06™ PLUS PROTEIN™ — 1 lick (5 lbs.)• Imperial DOUBLE-CROSS™ — 1/2 acre planting (4 lbs.)• Cutting Edge™ INITIATE™ — 1 site (5 lbs.)• Cutting Edge™ OPTIMIZE™ — 1 site (5 lbs.)• Cutting Edge™ SUSTAIN™ — 1 site (5 lbs.)

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Ensure the success of your food plots.The Whitetail Institute line of herbicides protect your investment by making sure that the plants you have socarefully planted can compete with grasses and weeds for nutrients and water. Arrest kills most grasses, but

won’t harm clover, alfalfa, chicory or Extreme. Slay eliminates broadleaf plantsand weeds, and is designed for clover and alfalfa. Both herbicides areextensively field-tested and can be easily applied by 4-wheeler or tractorsprayer. Easy and effective protection for your crop.

TREATED UN-TREATED

The Whitetail Institute — 239 Whitetail Trail, Pintlala, AL 36043



THE WEED DOCTORBy W. Carroll Johnson, III, Ph.D., Agronomist and Weed Scientist

Tall Fescue – Another Perennial Weed Headache

Every region seems to have its own nightmarish perennial weeds that defyall reasonable control efforts. In the southern coastal plain, it is commonbermudagrass. In the Mississippi River Delta and Piedmont, it is john-

songrass. Elsewhere, tall fescue carries that dubious honor. In each case, theseperennial grasses were/are forages for grazing or hay. The resiliency that makesthem ideal forages makes them tenacious weeds. Fescue is not an exception tothis pattern.

Fescue is an introduced cool-season perennial grass that is commonly plant-ed for livestock forage and as a cover crop for CRP and strip-mine reclamationsites. Individual fescue plants tend to grow in clumps, with established plant-ings forming a seemingly impenetrable mat of fescue. In addition to the robustcompetiveness of established fescue stands, the species produces compoundsthat inhibit growth of other plants (allelopathy). The importance of fescue as acrop is shown by an estimated 32 million acres planted in the United States.These diverse uses, particularly those as a cover crop at locations that havepoor soils, are testimony to the adaptability of fescue to a broad array of soiland environmental conditions. The importance and value of fescue as a cropcannot be overstated.

Despite the value of fescue as a forage and cover crop, in some settings thespecies can be a serious weed that necessitates control. Fescue has a symbioticrelationship with a fungus (called an endophyte) that lives in the intracellularspaces of fescue leaf sheaths and seed. The endophyte produces an alkaloid

that sickens livestock and possibly wildlife. Cattlemen invest considerableresources to kill endophyte-infected fescue and convert the sites to endo-phyte-free fescue. Further, fescue is not a desirable food source for wildlife andproduces a poor habitat. This became particularly evident when fescue wasplanted large-scale on CRP land. Now, there is interest in converting fescue-planted CRP land to native grass species that are more conducive for wildlife,particularly ground-nesting birds. There has been considerable research effortto develop systems of fescue control for these two distinct situations.Embedded in those research results are clues for effective fescue control infood plots for whitetail deer.

HERBICIDES FOR FESCUE CONTROL

Fescue will not be easy to control and will require a multi-year effort. A crit-ical component in a long-term fescue control program involves treating fescuestands with glyphosate during fallow periods before food plot establishment,with two applications needed for adequate performance. Dense fescue standstend to have copious amounts of dried fodder that impedes herbicide sprayfrom contacting new growth. Therefore, it is often necessary to closely mow orburn established fescue sites before applying glyphosate. This stimulates fes-cue re-growth, which will readily absorb glyphosate. This initial treatment istypically in late-summer to early-autumn, when fescue growth is resuming after


®


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summer dormancy.A sequential glyphosate application is required the following spring to

control fescue originating from seed and re-growth of plants that survivedthe initial treatment. The second application should be made once fescuegrowth resumes after snow melt and when frost/freezing temperatures arenot expected.

It pays to not be chintzy when using glyphosate for fescue control.Remember, fescue is a tenacious perennial grass and glyphosate rates needto be within the recommended rate range of 0.7 to 2.0 qts./A, based on thestage of fescue growth. Although glyphosate often does not need additionaladjuvants, fescue control is an example where additional surfactants andammonium sulfate might be needed to ensure maximum efficacy. Refer tothe glyphosate label for detailed information on rates and adjuvants, whichvary among the many glyphosate products.

A discussion on herbicide options to control fescue would be incompleteif I did not discuss the role of selective post-emergence grass herbicides likeArrest and other herbicides in the same chemical family. The post-emer-gence grass herbicides as a group are not overly effective in controllingestablished fescue. Higher rates and multiple applications help control fes-cue emerging from seed. However, established fescue is very difficult to con-trol outright with any of the post-emergence grass herbicides. Fallow appli-cations of glyphosate are much more effective.

Some readers may have determined through their own literature searchesthat the residual herbicide imazapic (Cadre, Plateau) is often combined withglyphosate to control fescue in transition to plantings of native grasses inCRP plantings. This is not an option for fescue control in food plots. Imazapichas significant soil residual properties, and carryover from applications tocontrol fescue will stunt or kill most forage species planted in food plots.

TILLAGE TO CONTROL FESCUE

In regions with extreme winter temperatures, fallow tillage with a heavydisk in the autumn will fragment dense fescue mats and predispose fescueto winter kill. However, autumn tillage alone is marginally effective sinceseedling emergence from the seedbank and surviving plants may regeneratethe fescue stand. Follow-up spring tillage once the soil has thawed willimprove overall fescue control. Fallow tillage to control fescue may not beadvisable at all locations due to potential for significant soil erosion. If sitesare erodible, consider leaving non-tilled swaths along the contour to slowlateral water flow. These non-tilled strips can be tilled later once the initiallytilled areas are planted to another species. Of course, glyphosate is anoption in erodible areas.

COVER CROPS

Cover crops serve two roles in the management of fescue when used inconjunction with glyphosate and tillage. First, warm-season cover cropsplanted after the spring treatments will further suppress any remaining fes-cue survivors and emerging seedlings. Ideal cover crops are those that arequickly established and produce dense growth that shades the soil surface.Second, the warm-season cover crop can easily be a forage tailored toattract and nourish whitetail deer. Whitetail Institute’s Power Plant, an annualwarm-season forage blend, is an ideal choice for this use.

Previous articles stressed the importance of a balanced system of weedmanagement for food plots. Fescue is a good example of a weed that needsa balanced, integrated strategy for long-term control starting in fallow peri-ods. Trying to control fescue once the permanent food plot is established isusually futile. Each food plot system is unique and a “one size fits all” recipefor fescue control is not possible. Consider your food plot location, logistics,forage crop rotation sequence, and availability of equipment to create yourown plan to control fescue that uses multiple applications of glyphosate, fal-low tillage, and strategic plantings of weed-suppressing cover crops. Thismay take at least 18 months to implement, but it is necessary to effectivelymanage this troublesome perennial grass. W


Anyone who has surfed TV channels atnight and stumbled across a celebritygossip show has probably heard of the

“A-List,” a name by which Hollywood describesa small group of the movie industry’s top stars.Referred to as “A-Listers,” actors who make thecut are automatically invited to any Hollywoodparty, no matter where it’s held or who the hostis. And there’s a reason: A-Listers make theparty a whole lot better just by showing up.

Most of us deer hunters aren’t A-Listers, and in fact it’s pretty likelythat most of us will never even see one in person — at least not theHollywood kind. However, we deer hunters have access to anotherkind of A-Lister that can be of much greater benefit to us than theactor kind. It’s a forage A-Lister that, like the actor type, is well suitedto a broad variety of situations and can make all of them even betterjust by being there. The A-Lister I’m referring to is Imperial Whitetail“Chic” Magnet, a Whitetail Institute perennial forage product that iswell suited to a variety of soil types and climates, does great by itselfor can make existing food plots even better. Plus it will draw and holddeer as well, as its name implies.

“Chic” Magnet perennial forage Chicory has lots in common withother Whitetail Institute forages and forage components. One simi-larity is that, like all other Whitetail Institute forages, “Chic” Magnet,which contains the Whitetail Institute’s WINA 100 Chicory, is extreme-ly attractive to deer, much more so than other Chicories that canbecome waxy and stemmy as they mature. Another is in how theChicory first became a component in Whitetail Institute forage blendsthrough the Whitetail Institute’s painstaking research, developmentand testing process. This is the same process that first brought otherindustry-leading forages to the food plot market, such as ImperialWhitetail Clover, the lettuce-type brassicas in Winter-Greens, thePersist forb in Extreme, and the Whitetail Oats in Forage Oats Plus,just to name a few.




• “CHIC” MAGNET is specially formulated for deer• “CHIC” MAGNET is more palatable to whitetails than chicories traditionally

planted for whitetails• “CHIC” MAGNET provides truly incredible protein levels – up to 44%!• “CHIC” MAGNET can be planted in the spring or fall in most areas• “CHIC” MAGNET provides deer with a highly

attractive and nutritious food source evenduring the heat and low rainfall of latesummer and early fall.“CHIC” MAGNET can last up to three yearswith a single planting

• “CHIC” MAGNET can tolerate a broad varietyof soil types, from moist to moderatelydrained

• “CHIC” MAGNET can be planted alone,overseeded into existing forages to provideadditional attraction and drought resistance ormixed with other seeds prior to planting.

• “CHIC” MAGNET attracts, holds and growsbigger bucks!

DRAMATICALLYMORE ATTRACTIVE

THAN TRADITIONALCHICORIES!

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PROVIDES UP TO44% PROTEIN!

Perennial Chicory

Featuring the Whitetail Institute’s own

WINA-100 Brand Chicory!The Ultimate Perennial Chicory for Whitetail Deer!

“Chic” Magnet Is Forage “A-Lister”

By Whitetail Institute Staff


In fact, it’s the same process that assuresWhitetail Institute customers that no productwill bear the Whitetail Institute name unless anduntil it is the very best the Institute can make it.That process is long and tedious. But it’s worthit because Whitetail Institute customers havecome to expect nothing but the best from theWhitetail Institute products.

Those are just some of the things “Chic”Magnet has in common with other WhitetailInstitute forage products. But, it is unique in oneway in that WINA-100 perennial forage Chicorystarted as a component in other WhitetailInstitute forage products and remains so to thisday, and later the Whitetail Institute startedpackaging it separately as “Chic” Magnet inresponse to customer demand.

Perhaps this is the best possible evidence ofjust how attractive and versatile WINA-100Chicory is. First, consider how broad a varietyof forage products contain WINA Chicory. Onesuch product is Imperial Chicory Plus, a peren-nial product designed to do best in heavy soilsthat hold moisture and have a soil pH of a least6.5 in areas that receive at least 30 inches ayear in rainfall. Another is Alfa-Rack Plus, aperennial designed for sites that drain well.WINA-100 Chicory is also a component ofImperial Whitetail Extreme, also a perennialdesigned for well-drained sites, but that cantolerate annual rainfall levels as low as 15 inchesper year and soil pH as low as 5.4. And WINA-100 Chicory is even in Secret Spot, a fall/winterannual product designed to grow with minimalground preparation.

Like all Whitetail Institute forage products,“Chic” Magnet is a top performer. More tenderand less stemmy, “Chic” Magnet is highly palat-able to deer and provides protein levels up to44 percent, even during periods of excessiveheat and drought when other forages can slowor cease production. It’s also versatile, designedto grow well in a variety of soil types anddrainages, and it’s even one of the easiestperennials to plant — by itself in a preparedseedbed, by mixing with other seeds, or simplyby overseeding into existing forage stands.“Chic” Magnet can be planted in the fall, and inthe spring in most areas, and it’s designed tolast up to three years. A single 3-lb. bag of“Chic” Magnet will plant up to one acre.

If you’d like an extremely high-protein peren-nial forage that’s highly attractive, well suited toa wide variety of climates and soil types, toler-ant of lower rainfall, resistant to late-summerheat and drought and easy to plant, “Chic”Magnet is what you’re looking for. Give it a try;plant it by itself, mix it with other seeds or over-seed it into your existing forage stands to addattraction, variety and nutrition.

For more information about “Chic” Magnet orto order, call the Whitetail Institute’s in-houseconsultants at (800) 688-3030. W

By David Hart Photos by the Author

Curt Lytle had two primary concerns inthe days after he settled on a 160-acresoutheast Virginia farm: building a house

and planting food plots. An avid traditional bowhunter, Lytle was eager to make his new oasis aswildlife-friendly as possible. That plan includedfood plots — lots of them. In all, he created nineat calculated locations in the pine forest thatcovered most of his ground.

Surprisingly, however, 50 acres of Lytle’s landconsists of a field that is leased to a farmer whoplants either peanuts, beans or corn. Why notcarve out a few corners of that field and plantfood plots there? Lytle did, of course, but hewanted more.

“I did a lot of research and learned that theideal situation is to have a large feeding areaand several smaller hunting plots that don’t getdisturbed often,” he said. “It made perfect senseto build food plots back in the woods. I live in anarea with lots of hunting pressure, so I wanted

Deep Woods Plots Worth the Effort


Scratching out a food plot in the woods byhand isn’t impossible. However, you need tochoose your spot wisely and put in lots of

serious labor to succeed.

Building plots deepwithin your property

boundaries allows you tobetter manage your deerherd. Bucks will spend

more time close to thosefood sources during therut, and they will be less

likely to wander insearch of food later in

the season.


to give the deer food sources back in the woods where they feel moresecure.”

Many hunters do not have the option of planting in existing fields. Theirentire hunting property consists of planted pines or mature hardwoods.There is nothing wrong with hunting those woods, of course, but some-times the deer prefer different habitat and food sources. A food plot — orseveral — within big woods will give the deer a variety of foods and can bethe perfect antidote to a bad acor n crop.

MAKE A HOLE

Before you drop any seed, you will need one basic ingredient to estab-lish a successful food plot back in deep woods: sunlight. Without it, yourplants just will not grow, no matter how fertile the ground. In most cases,food plot plants need at least four hours of sunlight per day so you mightneed to knock down some trees. “I was fortunate that all my plots are inpines. They were pretty easy to knock over and push aside,” noted Lytle.

He owned a backhoe that he bought for the construction of his house,but he used it to build his plots, as well. He simply scooped the roots outand pushed the tree over. Lytle also was careful to knock the dirt off theroot ball before pushing the trees to the sides. It was a smart move, he laterdetermined.

“I’ve seen other plots back in the woods that were cleared by bulldozers.They pushed all the topsoil to the sides when they cleared the trees andthe plots aren’t growing nearly as well as mine,” explained Lytle. “It’s realimportant to leave as much topsoil as you can.” Habitat and food plot con-sultant Neil Dougherty subcontracts an excavator who specializes in foodplot clearings and says it can cost several thousand dollars to clear an acre.That may seem like a lot of money but he says it is no different from buyinga house and then remodeling the kitchen.

“I think you have to look at it in terms of overall value. Putting somemoney into improvements will pay off in the long run, especially if youmeasure your return in terms of your deer herd and the hunting opportu-

®

The foundation of Pure Attraction’s early-season attraction and nutrition areWINA-Brand oats which are winter-hardy and drought-resistant. Their high sugarcontent makes them exceptionally attractive and palatable to deer. WINA-BrandOats performance is unsurpassed by all other forage oats tested. WINA-Brand foragebrassicas are also included in Pure Attraction to provide abundant forage during thecoldest months of the winter.

Read the early reviews from all over the country:

• From Virginia: “The Pure Attraction blend is extremely winter-hardy and lasted throughthe winter. It really grew well the whole time too. Even though it was heavily grazed, itcontinued to provide food for the deer during the cold weather.”

• From Michigan: “The deer ate the Pure Attraction like crazy. The WINA-Brand oats andwinter peas came up first and then the brassica. The deer hit the WINA-Brand oats and win-ter peas first. As of Nov. 18, both plots had been grazed low, but the plants were still green.”

• From Maine: “Pure Attraction is awesome. The blend seemed to click with my soil and the deer. Another great product.”

• From Missouri: The Pure Attraction blend was “among the most attractive I have everplanted.”

• From Alabama: “Deer completely mowed the Pure Attraction plot down. Even so, itcontinued to provide forage and grew well all through the winter. Deer were in the plotevery night.”

Plant Pure Attraction during the same dates as the fall-planting dates for Imperialperennials. Since Pure Attraction does not require the sort of deeper ground tillagerequired for planting some perennial blends, it is even easier to plant. Looking for aproduct that will establish quickly and give your deer the one-two punch of bothearly- and late-season attraction…? GIVE PURE ATTRACTION A TRY!

The Whitetail Institute239 Whitetail Trail • Pintlala, AL 36043 • 1-800-688-3030www.whitetailinstitute.com


nities,” Dougherty said. One way to recoup at least some expense is to sell the timber. It is not

always easy to find a logger who will buy a small amount of timber, but ifyou can, you might be able to recover upwards of $1,000 per acre in thetrees you take out. The more land you clear, the more likely you can find abuyer for the timber. If you cannot, that is okay. Lytle made some phonecalls to local foresters but learned that the trees just were not valuableenough to justify the labor so he ended up pushing the trees to the side.

Dougherty will push the felled trees to the sides, creating funnels thatforce whitetails into specific locations as they enter the food plots. Hewarns not to make the wall around the plot too confining because deer willbe reluctant to spend much time in it if they do not have enough escaperoutes.

“Piling up the trees also creates good habitat for a variety of wildlife, soit’s not necessarily a bad thing to leave the trees you knock over,” Lytleadded. “I have foxes and woodchucks living in mine. It’s pretty cool know-ing I have a diversity of wildlife on my property as a result of my work.”

HOW BIG, HOW MANY?

Dougherty says the height of your trees will dictate exactly how muchspace you need to clear in order to get that necessary sunlight. He typical-ly recommends clearings of at least 3/4-acre. Smaller plots are also morelikely to be overgrazed before the season ends in areas with high deer den-sities. All nine of Lytle’s plots are about a half-acre, but he does not havehigh deer numbers.

“The pines aren’t that tall and pines in general tend to let more sunlightfilter through than hardwoods,” he said. “I’ve had very good success withthe half-acre plots and they are the perfect size for me because I almostalways hunt with traditional archery equipment. If they were bigger I might

not be able to get a shot at a deer in front of me.” Dougherty notes that a 3/4-acre plot will not equal the same area in

plant growth. The shade from the surrounding trees will prevent propergrowth along the edge of the plots. Dougherty says a good rule of thumbis that you will lose a distance equal to a third of the height of the sur-rounding trees. In other words, if the trees are 30 feet tall, expect to have10 feet of “dead” space around the edges of your plot. Do not be too con-cerned, though; shade-tolerant native vegetation will fill in and createmore food. Blackberries, honeysuckle and other beneficial plants will givedeer and other wildlife even more food choices.

CHOOSE A SPOT

If you have unlimited resources, you can build and maintain afood plot almost anywhere you want. Naturally, you will be limited by steepterrain or perpetually wet ground, but with enough money, you can knock


Deer have complex nutritional needs that change throughout the year. But because CuttingEdge meets these changing needs, it is not complex at all — in fact it’s very simple. Thanksto our extensive research and development, getting the right supplements to your deer herdat the right time is as easy as opening a bag and creating a ground site or mixing with otherfeed such as corn or beans. Devour flavor enhancer is included in the Cutting Edge formula tomake sure the deer find and frequently use this state-of-the-art supplement.

The Whitetail Institute239 Whitetail Trail | Pintlala, AL 36043



Late winter to mid-spring — When bucks are regrowing theirantlers and doe are entering the thirdtrimester of pregnancy, Initiatemeets their increased need forprotein, energy, minerals andvitamins that early spring vegetationis not yet able to provide.

Late spring through summer —During this period deer need aspecific array of vitamins andminerals to support continued antlergrowth and lactation. Optimize is theperfect blend of nutrients tomaintain a healthy herd during thiscrucial period.

Fall through early winter — Cold weather, food shortages andthe stresses of he rut make fall andwinter a difficult time for deerheards. Sustain provides theprotein, energy, vitamins andminerals necessary to bring the herdthrough this difficult period.

Cutting Edge products are greatdeer attractants and some statesdon’t allow their use. Check your

local game laws before usingCutting Edge products.

Sometimes you’ll need to bring inheavy equipment to carve out a food

plot in a forest. It can be expensive, butit can increase the value of your land.


down a hole in a forest, clear boulders and even truck in prime topsoil ifyou need to. Most of us do not have that luxury, of course, so we have tochoose our sites carefully.

Dougherty recommends planting hunting plots in strategic locationsand a larger feeding plot nearer the center of the property. He preferssmaller hunting plots up to an acre within a few hundred yards of buildingsand access points to minimize disturbance of the deer herd.

“You want to be able to get in and out of the hunting plots without blow-ing every deer out of the woods, so I recommend placing them near theproperty edge, but not so close that neighboring hunting pressure willspook them,” he said. “You should also consider bedding areas. I like toestablish plots pretty close to bedding areas because deer will tend to usethem during daylight hours more.”

Lytle built nine smaller plots on his land for a variety of reasons. First, itgave him the freedom to rotate hunting pressure to avoid burning out spe-cific areas. He can also vary his locations based on wind and other environ-mental factors, and he considers deer usage as well.

“As the seasons change, the deer tend to shift their use of the differentplots based on the foods in them,” he said.

More important, planting several plots in various locations can haveunintended yet beneficial consequences. Lytle was reluctant to plant onefood plot because it was poorly drained. Turned out, that was a blessing.His region suffered a major drought, but that plot stayed green and vibrantand he killed a couple of deer off it after other plots literally dried up.

WHAT TO PLANT

Lytle has experimented with virtually every type of food plot plant avail-able at one time or another. He has since settled on just a few. He is a bigfan of Whitetail Institute’s Imperial Whitetail Clover. Dougherty also likes

Whitetail Institute’s products and uses Imperial No-Plow and Secret Spota lot because they require less labor overall.

“I also really like Tall Tine Tubers in northern regions and Imperial Cloveris an excellent all-purpose plot because it can withstand heavy grazingpressure, which you’ll get in woods plots.”

Lytle can attest to that. He has noticed a distinct pattern as the seasonprogresses.

“They’ll be in the big field early in the season, but as soon as they startgetting bumped around during gun season, they start working my woodsplots over pretty good,” he said. “It was definitely worth the effort to putthem in.” W

Quality Control Specialist since 1997

No Dozer? Is it possible to clear an area by hand and expect to grow a work-

able food plot? Possible, yes, said Dougherty, but it is going to takea large amount of manual labor. Ideally, look for an area that alreadyhas some plant growth, particularly grasses and vines. That is agood indication of decent sunlight penetration. However, you willstill have to undergo a lot of work. First, you will have to fell anystanding trees and cut them up and push them off to the side. Thenyou will have to clear the ground of leaves and other debris in orderto get seed-to-soil contact. “I know a lot of people who have triedit and they ended up bringing in a dozer to clear the stumps. Theyjust get tired of trying to run their disks and other equipmentaround those stumps,” Dougherty said. “I think it’s a whole lot bet-ter to do it right and spend the money up front.”

Ed Gaw owns a 200-acre parcel of land in westernPennsylvania. On the surface, it is nothing special;just another patch of wooded ground, a place to

hunt and spend time outdoors. However, it overlies aformation of sedimentary rock known as the MarcellusShale Formation, which spans West Virginia, easternOhio, southern New York and most of western and cen-tral Pennsylvania. Within the impervious limestonebeneath this formation is a reservoir of natural gasonce thought to be marginally worth the investment torecover. During the past decade, however, geologistshave significantly increased their assessments and nowestimate the formation contains enough natural gas tosupport the entire United States consumption for atleast two years, though estimates keep increasing.

That discovery has been something of a windfall for landowners such asGaw, as gas companies are willing to pay more than $2 per acre to leasethe drilling rights. However, everything comes with a price, as Gaw discov-ered soon after signing a lease in 2005.

The process of drilling a well affects at least five acres of land per wellsite, not including construction of access roads. Gas companies arerequired to restore the property when the well is built, but that typicallyamounts to little more than a token effort. Former agricultural land can beput back into production, but forested land, such as Gaw's, won’t berestored to its former state — at least not in his lifetime.

Gaw looked beyond the problem and saw an opportunity to work withthe contractors assigned to restore the site.

“Ordinarily, when they fell trees they just make a big pile and burn them,”Gaw said. “We asked them to create a brush row on the windward side ofthe site.”

Normal procedures called for high-compaction grading. Gaw requestedlow-compaction grading and asked that they not track in the final grade.“We called it the final grade, they called it the ugly grade,” he said.


RECLAMATIONFood Plots

How You Can Turn a Negative into a PositiveBy Bob Humphrey

Photos by the Author

Stock dams are another good locationfor reclamation plots. Just make sure

your planting addresses potential erosionproblems on steep slopes.


Next came the re-seeding. “Gas companies typically contract out the seeding,” he said, “and con-

tractors are ill-equipped for anything more than more than a quick coatingof standard conservation mix.”

Gaw took over and planted Chicory Plus. “We had to out-compete theragweed (which typically takes over such disturbed sites) and stabilize thesloped hillside,” he said. “This gave us a good compromise of stabilizingthe hillside, giving whitetail something to eat and competing with rag-weed.”

The next thing they did was create a gap in the brush line.“We pulled a chunk (of brush) out of the middle and placed it to the side,

giving deer a highway to our new food plot,” Gaw said. It was a good start,but Gaw wasn’t done yet.

On each well site with grade, there must be a drainage pond, which isgraded when the work is done.

“We saved that,” Gaw said, creating a year-round water source. However,he still wasn’t finished.

“We planted 100 seven-foot spruce trees on the hillside,” he said. “Theygrew slowly, but are beginning to provide good bedding cover right abovethat pond.”

And on the highest part of the hillside, they planted an orchard of whatGaw calls Charlie Brown fruit trees.

“We went to all the local nurseries and picked out their poorer quality,misshapen and otherwise undesirable trees,” he said. “Knowing it would bea low-maintenance situation, we didn’t want to invest a lot of money.”-

The result was a wildlife Eden instead of an ugly patch of disturbedground.

OTHER RECLAMATION SITES

Well sites are not the only areas that can be reclaimed as wildlife foodplots. What you do and how you go about it is usually dictated by soils,accessibility and personal goals, according to Whitetail Institute’s SteveScott.

“What you’re capable of doing might depend on what type of equip-ment you can get into the site to prepare and properly maintain it,” he said.“If you can get bigger equipment in, you have more options to plant peren-nials or annuals, or some combination of the two. If limited access preventsyou from preparing the site correctly, you can still go in and plant annualslike Secret Spot or No-Plow using ATV implements or even hand tools.”

Soils also make a big difference when you are planting perennials“On good heavy soil, there is no better choice than Imperial Whitetail

Clover,” Scott said. “On well-drained soils, you’re better off with blends likeChicory Plus, Extreme or Alfa-Rack Plus.”

It also depends on your goals. “If you want to produce a lot of tonnage for antler growing and fawning,”

he said, “use Imperial PowerPlant. “If it’s strictly for hunting — fall and win-ter — there’s a long list of possibilities including No-Plow, Winter-Greens,Pure Attraction, Tall Tine Tubers, Secret Spot and Whitetail Forage OatsPlus.”

Log landings are another example of easily restorable sites. The activityassociated with stacking and loading logs leaves a patch of bare soil. Thebiggest problems, according to Scott, are usually weeds and grasses andcompacted soil.

“Often, all you need to do is spray with a glyphosate and use whateverequipment necessary to loosen up the compacted soil,” he said. If there isa lot of slash and wood litter, you might need to power-rake the site, too.Then, simply amend the soil according to soil test recommendations, plantand pray for rain.

In a similar vein are logging roads. It is probably not news to anyonefamiliar with food plots and habitat improvement, but logging roads makeideal reclamation projects and great places to plant, often with minimaleffort. The act of skidding or hauling logs out does most of the work for

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With ATVs and smaller implements you canaccess and work harder-to-reach sites.

you. You simply need to soil test, follow the recommendations from the soiltest and spread the seed. Deer are far more likely to use narrow, linear plotsduring the day. And they quickly become travel corridors, too. S t o c kdams are another overlooked reclamation opportunity. The key, accordingto Scott, is to make sure you do not create an erosion problem on some ofthe more severe slopes. If possible, you can try to do more drilling, but thatis most often not realistic. Scott recommends exposing soil lightly andusing products such as Imperial No-Plow or Secret Spot.

“In the Northeast our customers have been planting old strip mineground in recent years.

On sites that are accessible, Imperial Whitetail Extreme has been per-forming extraordinarily well,” Scott said. “It grows great on these marginalsoils and it’s a perennial, extremely high in protein and extremely attractive

Old skid roads make great recla-mation plots, and deer are morelikely to venture into narrow

openings during daylight hours.

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to deer. You get many of the same benefits of Imperial Whitetail Clover.One of the biggest differences is Extreme needs a lot of nitrogen addedand Imperial Whitetail Clover does not.”

On less accessible sites, he recommends annuals designed for fall andwinter, like No-Plow, Pure Attraction, Winter-Greens, Tall Tine Tubers orSecret Spot or Whitetail Forage Oats.

Old abandoned orchards can be restored and even enhanced, often withminimal effort, depending on how long they have been abandoned. Thefirst, most important step is removing competition. That means cutting outother trees and shrubs that compete for water, soil nutrients and sunlight.But do not overdo it.

Reclaimed orchards can actually be more productive for hunting. Aworking orchard consists of little more than fruit trees and mowed grass.There is often not a place to hang a stand, and deer seldom venture intothem during daylight hours. With an abandoned orchard, remove justenough cover to improve fruit production, but leave enough so deer willstill use the area during the day. You can even leave some overstory treesfor shade and hanging stands.

CONCLUSION

In the end, you are merely taking advantage of openings that alreadyexist on your property and following many of the same steps you wouldfollow with conventional food plots. The first thing you need to do underany circumstances is a soil test.

“It’s the best money you’ll spend to improve your hunting,” Scott said.You can get soil test kits from a land grant university, the Natural

Resources Conservation Service or the Whitetail Institute for about $10.Then you amend the soil as recommended, and prepare the site and plantthe seeds. Perhaps best, the cost associated with materials, equipment andlabor can often be defrayed or covered entirely by revenues from well leas-es, timber harvest or agency-sponsored incentive programs. W

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FOOD PLOTS forVery Busy PeopleBy Capt. Michael Veine Photos by the Author

Read on for some awesomefood plot strategies thatrequire a minimalinvestment of yourprecious time.

In today’s modern world, people are busier than ever. The demands ofwork, family and other important functions make finding enough timefor hunting activities difficult to say the least. Unfortunately, many peo-

ple are turned off from food plotting because they mistakenly believe thatthey just don’t have enough time in their busy lives to take on food plotprojects. I can certainly relate as my busy spring and summer work sched-ule as a Great Lakes charter captain makes finding time for food plots verychallenging at times.

My main hunting property is located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (U.P.)and is approximately seven hours of driving time away from my home in

southern Michigan. My fishing charterbusiness keeps me extremely busy fromice out (March) though mid-September.I typically fish seven days a weekthroughout the spring and summer.During my charter season, I’m busierthan a rutting buck in a deer herd with a1-to-20 buck-to-doe ratio. Fortunately, Ihave lots of time to hunt after my fishingseason is over, but finding time for foodplots is always tough.

I steal away a day or two during thelate spring and head to the U.P. and steal


This food plot was seeded with Imperial Whitetail Clover.This plot was never tilled. Imperial Whitetail Clover is the

author’s favorite seeding choice because it creates awesome forage with minimal maintenance.

another day or two for a second brief effort later during the summer, butthat is about all the time I can spare during my fishing season. Even withthat meager effort, I still maintain nine food plots that encompass abouteight total acres. Those food plots have really helped me to achieve a highlevel of consistent success on adult bucks for over a decade. If I can do it,you can too.

BASIC NECESSITIES AND PRIORITIES

The key to having great food plots on minimal time is planning and tim-ing your efforts to maximize your efficiency. It also helps to have a foodplot strategy tailored for minimal upkeep in the first place. You’ll also needthe right equipment, which doesn’t necessarily mean expensive stuff. AnATV with food plot implements can be great for small to medium-sizedfood plots. I have been using such equipment for many years with greatresults. I use an older 4x4 with an ATV disc, drag, boom sprayer, broadcastspreader and a drop-style lime spreader.

I mow with an old lawn tractor with the deck modified to rise up to aheight of about seven inches. Sure, it would be great to have a tractor andall the accessories, and someday I will invest in those niceties, but it’s justnot in the cards for my immediate future. Besides, most of my food plotsare small little rascals that I created and maintain with just hand tools. Ican’t even access them with an ATV. It’s those little micro plots that reallyput the deer in my sights during hunting season so they are priority-one.The basic hand tools that I would consider essential are a backpacksprayer, leaf rake, shovel, chain saw, string trimmer and a crank-style seedspreader.

PLANNING AND TIME MANAGEMENT

In a past life, I used to be a project leader where I managed huge com-puter upgrades that would sometime involve more than 100 people andyears of work. That job taught me the huge value of time management andtask lists. I’m still a big-time task list guy. You can use a simple wordprocessor to maintain task lists of all the projects, big and small, that needto be done on your land. When I head up to my hunting property for awork stint, I always have a prioritized, coordinated task list showing what Iwant to accomplish.

I try to estimate the time each task will take and will hit the highest pri-ority jobs first and then I’ll knock off the lower priority tasks as time per-mits. As I accomplish tasks, I cross them off the list and update my maintask list when I get back to my computer. That way I can start planningmy next work trip to my property. My hunting property task list is a livingdocument.

Before a work trip, I like to shop ahead to make sure that area supplierswill have any needed bulk materials such as fertilizer and lime. By shoppingahead, I can oftentimes negotiate favorable pricing on bulk purchases, andthey will usually have my order ready for me to load up when I arrive,which saves time too. I always pre-buy all the hard-to-find items though,like seeds and herbicides. That way I know I’ll have the right critical ingre-dients for my food plots and won’t waste time searching for supplies.

SITE PREPARATIONS AND SEED SELECTION

When available food plotting time is very limited, perennials give themost bang for the buck. I rely very heavily on Imperial Whitetail Clover forthe bulk of my food plot acreage because it is easy to establish, hardy,takes minimal time to maintain and the deer love it. Imperial WhitetailClover is hard to beat when it comes to a spring-through-fall food plot. Ifeel that it gives me the best overall performance of any product given mytime constraints during the growing season. One of my Imperial WhitetailClover plots was planted 10 years ago. Every year the deer graze it downto the dirt by season’s end, yet it still keeps coming back strong; now that’s


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Soil testing is one of the most important things you cando to ensure the success of your plantings — of anykind. The Institute is pleased to now provide soil test kits andresults for all Imperial products or any other type seeds. (Com-plete instructions and all related information will come with kits.) Testresults include pH, phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). Fertilizer and limerecommendations for maximum performance from your plantings will be provided.The average turnaround time is 24-48 hours after our lab receives the sample.

The charge for the kit and results is $9.95. If ordered alone, add $2.50 shippingand handling for unlimited number of kits. If ordered with other Imperial productsthere is no shipping charge.Please send ______ soil test kits at $9.95 each. Add $2.50 shipping and handlingfor each order regardless of number of kits desired. (There is NO shipping chargeif kit is ordered with other Imperial products.) Cost of kit includes test results.SHIP TO:Name ________________________________________________________________Address ______________________________________________________________City _______________________________________State ______Zip _____________Phone _______________________Email ___________________________________Payment: : �� Check or Money Order enclosedCharge to: �� MasterCard �� Visa �� DiscoverCredit Card # _______________________________________ Exp. Date __________Signature _____________________________________________________________

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the kind of hardiness and performance anyone will appreciate.I plant Imperial Whitetail Clover everywhere possible on my U.P. food

plots. My main food plot is several acres and it is seeded entirely with

Imperial Clover. I also have two medium-sized plots and they too are 100percent Imperial Clover. Those three larger plots were bulldozed out of theforest and the seedbed was prepared using an ATV with implements.

Notice the flooded puddles on this plot on the left. The photo on the right shows the plot during late summer with a mixture of Imperial Whitetail Clover on thehigh spots and Secret Spot on the low spots.

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I also have a bunch of small micro plots that are of the no-till variety. Allthose micro plots were prepared the same way, using nothing but handtools. I first cleared the site with a chain saw and removed all the debrisfrom the ground by hand. A soil test was taken at each site and lime wasapplied as prescribed. I sprayed with Roundup throughout the growingseason until everything was brown and dead. After that, using a large,handheld leaf rake, the sites were thoroughly cleaned up, exposing andloosening the bare dirt.

Then, either during late summer or the following spring, I seeded theplots with Imperial Whitetail Clover and fertilized liberally. It is amazinghow well Imperial Clover will thrive on a properly prepared, no-till seedbed.

I have a few locations where seasonal flooding, tough soil types orheavy trampling by deer or turkeys is not conducive to perennials of anykind. On a new food plot, I typically seed the whole thing with ImperialWhitetail Clover because it requires minimum annual maintenance. If anyzones of the plot fail, like areas that flooded, I’ll then plant annuals on thosefailed zones from then on. That way I’m maximizing forage productionwhile keeping things as simple as possible for minimal maintenance.

I’ve had exceptional success using annuals like Imperial No-Plow andSecret Spot. These products are extremely easy to use and super attrac-tive to deer. Site prep is simple: Proper pH is achieved by adding lime.Spraying with Roundup using a backpack sprayer will kill all the plants off.After everything is dead and brown, rake the site down to the dirt, spreadthe seeds and fertilize liberally. I have a bunch of plots that are a patchworkof Imperial Whitetail Clover and select annuals. Those plots have proven tobe deer magnets.





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Those little micro plots really put the deer in your sights during hunting seasonso they should be priority-one.

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MAINTENANCE

Because my time is often very short for food plot work, I’ve learned tocompromise by cutting as many corners as possible on my plots, but thereare some tasks that are critical for optimal food plot forage production.Using herbicides on a smart, regular maintenance schedule has been ahuge time and money-saver for me. Weeds, grasses and other nuisanceplants can out-compete your desired forages. As I mentioned earlier, I freeup a couple days during the spring and this is a perfect time to spray her-bicides and kill unwanted grasses in my perennial stands. The WhitetailInstitute’s Arrest grass herbicide is perfect for this application. Mixed withSurefire Seed Oil, Arrest typically clobbers 99 percent of the grasses withone application and it does not harm clover or alfalfa. During my springtrip, I also spray Roundup on all my annual seeding locations to kill any-thing taking root there.

The Whitetail Institute’s Slay broadleaf herbicide mixed with SurefireSeed Oil is perfect for knocking out those tough weeds that can take overa food plot. It is also a selective herbicide that will not harm clover or alfal-fa. I have found that it’s best to vary the application date of Slay from oneyear to the next. For instance, one year I will apply the herbicide duringspring and the next year I will spray it a little later. This way you’ll key in ondifferent types of weeds as they emerge and ultimately keep the wholeplot more weed free.

During my spring work trip, I also fertilize my perennial stands. I fertilizemy food plots using three methods. On my larger plots, I use a broadcastspreader that I pull behind my ATV. On my smaller plots, I use a hand-crankspreader or on the real small areas, I just toss the fertilizer out by handfrom a bucket. I’m looking for speed and efficiency. Lately, due to financialreasons and time constraints, I only fertilize my large plots once a year.However, my small plots get two fertilizer applications annually—one in the

spring and the other during the late summer.My soils are very acidic on my U.P. property, so I’m constantly soil testing

and applying lime to keep the pH up. I typically do the soil tests during thelate summer or fall every year and spread lime whenever I get the chance.On my small plots, I typically apply a little lime every spring.

On my larger plots though, liming is a major project that requires a bulklime delivery and a couple days of labor. I shovel it from a pile into mydrop-style lime spreader and then deposit the lime onto the fields usingmy ATV. To be honest, I hate liming those big food plots, but it is a neces-sary evil. Because I just don’t have time for a regular liming routine on mybig plots, I lime very heavy when I do get the chance. Oddly enough, I typ-ically find time for big liming jobs right during the fall deer hunting seasonsafter all my deer tags are filled. It’s a symbiotic relationship: ImperialWhitetail Clover feeds and draws deer so I can fill my tags early. Then inturn, I have more time to feed and care for the Imperial Clover.

I did some testing where only portions of some food plots were mowed.I found that the unmowed areas actually grew better. Based on that, I’vestopped mowing my food plots on my U.P. property over the last coupleyears. It’s true that mowing helps to stimulate growth and that new growthis highly preferred by deer. However, on my plots, the deer are doing themowing for me. I have put up small fencing enclosures in my plots and wasshocked to see how much grazing the deer really did all through the grow-ing season. I still mow my roads and trails and if needed I can mow prob-lem areas in my food plots at that time. Mowing also helps control weeds,but the only way mowing can be skipped or reduced is if you maintain arigorous herbicide spraying regiment.

I suggest doing your own testing with herbicide applications and mow-ing strategies. You’ll be able to see what works best and may be able tosave some time and money. W

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Last-MinuteFood PlotsDidn’t get plots planted in spring?No worries. These plantings willattract deer like magnets and canbe put in the ground with littletime left before opening day.

By Doug Howlett Photos by the Author

It happens to a lot of deer hunters every year. Whether you own yourown land or manage leased land, your intentions are good. Sitting ona stand or relaxing in camp with your hunting partners toward the end

of the season, you’re not quite ready to let the deer hunting bug leave youfor another year. This year is going to be different. In spring, you’re goingto rally the troops and get those spring food plots planted to hold andgrow big bucks on your property. Then life happens. You start gettingcaught up on the work and projects around the house that fell behind dur-

ing hunting season. There’s yard work to do with the coming of spring andsummer. Children have baseball and soccer games scheduled. There arecookouts to attend, summer vacations to plan, and maybe — just maybe —somewhere in there you squeeze in some turkey hunting (hopefully a lotof it, actually). But extra time for planting food plots? “Hmm, I’ll get to thatnext week,” you promise.

And next week becomes the week after that and then the week afterthat until you find yourself in the middle of a dry, blazing summer withnothing but withered weeds scattered about the ground that should belush with clover and other nutrient-rich greenery. Well, don’t feel so bad.You are not alone. “For reasons of time, cost or just simple priorities, a lotof well-intended deer hunters find themselves in the same situations,” saidNorth Country Whitetails Craig Dougherty.

Fortunately, there are plenty of fall planting options that are designed togrow fast and provide a nutritional boost in the fall and winter that willattract deer to the areas you want to pull them into.

TIME IT RIGHT

As summer boils into its final weeks, thoughts return to deer hunting,and many hunters suddenly start trying to think of what they can do toimprove their odds going into the season. Fall food plots are a great solu-tion, but accept them for what they are.

“Fall food plots usually fall into the category of attractants,” CraigDougherty said. “They are not going to provide the sustained boost thatspring plots will provide to grow big healthy deer or grow antlers.”



By the time fall plots are growing, a whitetail’s antlers have gotten as bigas they are going to be that year.

“But deer will be able to use them through the fall and into winter tohelp sustain their energy as other food sources become scarce. So there isstill that nutritional benefit,” Dougherty said.

Ideally, no matter where you live, whether it is in southern Alabama orupstate New York, you want to plant your plots at least 60 days before thefirst frost arrives. In New York, where Dougherty lives, that means gettingplots planted by mid-August. But don’t just pick a date on your calendarand start disking and planting on that day. You need to look at the weatherand try to schedule your planting around that as well. “It’s a balancingact,” Dougherty said. “You need those 60 days before the frost, which willgreatly reduce most plants’ growth, but you also need to try to catch somelate summer or early fall rains that will help plants take root and begin togrow.”

It doesn’t matter what you choose to plant: Without rain, it will obviouslynot grow.

Check weather forecasts and look for high-probability days where agentle, steady rain is predicted. Then try to get your seed out a day or twobefore the rains come. This means you might need to take a day off fromwork instead of waiting for that perfect Saturday.

MAKE THE PROPER PREPARATIONS

Just like spring plots, most fall plots require lime and fertilizer. For thatreason, you should still have soil tests performed wherever you plan toplant. Look at the available open areas you have, determine the amount oftotal acreage and then decide if you have the resources and time to plantthem all. If not, look at which plots are more strategically set near goodbedding areas for when hunting pressure turns up and deer are reluctant

to wander far for feed, which ones are more remote and off of traveledroads or paths so that deer feel more secure in them, and of course, whichones will best serve the various sectors of your land. You wouldn’t want toplant two or three plots all on the same side of the property, without plant-ing some on the other side.

Plantable areas may also include log decks and logging roads. Justbecause an area of your farm doesn’t have an open area, doesn’t meanyou can’t plant deer-attracting foods along a seldom-used logging road.You might even want to identify an open area or two in the woods thatwill allow you to create a small, isolated plot where no other hunter wouldexpect and that will take little more than some hand implements andelbow grease to plant. Such areas can provide a vital link in your foodplot strategy. When you determine which plots you will plant, identifywhat you want to grow (more on that later), and get soil tests of thoselocations. This will tell you how much lime and fertilizer ideally needs togo in the ground before you plant. If for some reason you fail to get a soiltest, there are general recommendations on the back of the bag of qual-ity seed products.

If costs and or time are forcing you to choose between going with limeor fertilizer, go with the lime. While your plants need both, lime to aid yoursoil’s pH is critical for plants to receive the benefits of fertilizer. Also, youcan lime your land at any time and still gain benefits from it months later.

WHAT TO GROW

Fortunately, recognizing that a lot of us hunters are busy and distractedfor various reasons and we don’t always get our plots in when we should,Whitetail Institute has developed high-quality products specificallydesigned for late summer/early fall plantings and they are designed to ger-minate and mature quickly. These products include Whitetail Forage Oats

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Plus, Winter-Greens, Pure Attraction, Tall Tine Tubers, No-Plow and SecretSpot.

Dougherty likes using an annual like Imperial No-Plow with grains andbrassicas to give the deer more variety to attract them and provide foodthroughout the season. If Tall Tine Tubers are planted, deer will be attract-ed to the leaves after the first frost and they will also dig the tubers out ofthe ground and eat them when cold weather sets in.

At this time of year hunters also have the option to plant a perennial likeImperial Clover, which takes a little longer to get established because itputs roots down first, but it can offer great attraction if planted earlyenough. And when spring returns, the clover will be going strong andshould last for several years, providing your deer herd with high proteinlevels that will benefit both the bucks with antler development and doeswhile they carry their fawns and produce milk.

Even if you’ve procrastinated all spring and well into the summer, youcan still plant and grow great food plots that can provide whitetails withthe necessary foods to hold and attract them throughout the early and latehunting seasons.

“The good thing is that fall plots are some of the easiest to grow, whichmakes for a much more successful season for the hunters who put in thatlast-minute effort,” Dougherty said. Not sure what to plant… see the next page. W

What is TalkHunting? TalkHunting is a web forum that centers around hunting.What is a forum? A forum is public meeting place for open discussion of varioustopics (in this case, hunting related). A forum may also be referred to as a bulletinboard or discussion area. You "post" questions or comments for others to commenton or you post on their comments. Think of it as a delayed chat room.Do you just talk with each other? No, you can also share pictures, recipes or askabout non-hunting items. You can get to know people and even arrange swap hunts.We also have hunting championships and many events throughout the year formembers to meet and have fun.It sounds like a club. Is it? In a way. You will get to know people here and that almostmakes it like a family. You also will learn a lot about hunting here gaining fromthousands of people's knowledge and advice.My experience with forums is that they are a place for people to argue, fight andtalk bad. That is not the case here at all. First of all, we maintain a fun, friendly, familyatmosphere where bashing, fighting, cliques and vulgarity is absolutely not tolerated.Second, we have real people looking after the site to ensure no offensive material isposted. This site is safe for kids and adults of all ages.I see that I can read everything without joining so why join? First, as a guest, youcan only read, you cannot make comments or start new posts. Secondly, not all areasare available to guests. Once you join, you will see more areas. Third we have prizedrawings each month for members from nationally known manufacturers of huntingproducts. Guests are not eligible to win. Fourth, as our numbers grow, so does ourinfluence in the outdoor world. This will help us as we push for a cleaner, more familyfriendly industry.Thank you for visiting the "TalkHunting" website. We encourage you to register andjump right in. Since membership is free, you have nothing to lose? This is a place tolearn, have fun, express ideas and have a chance to win some prizes. If you areaddicted to hunting... this is your fix!

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When properly limed and with decent rainfall, fall-planted brassicasgrow quickly as this three-week-old plot reveals.


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Awesome Autumn OptionsNot sure what to plant? These Imperial Whitetail seed blends are tailor-made for fantastic fall food plots.

Winter-Greens: This annual blend of brassicas is for late summer or fall planting and delivers sweet, tasty leaves that deer will hammer afterthe first frost. Deer will sometimes eat the leaves even before a frost as well, so from that standpoint there are still some potential early-seasonbenefits.

Tall Tine Tubers: Like Winter-Greens, this blend includes leafy brassicas for forage but also includes tubers in the form of turnips, which deerwill dig from the ground and eat in the late season. On my place, we’ve grown some turnips from this blend the size of softballs.

Pure Attraction: This is a great annual blend that offers fast-growing foods that will sprout quickly and have deer pounding them in the earlyseason and also provides long-lasting hardy brassicas for attraction and nutrition later in the season. The blend includes Whitetail forage oats,winter peas and brassicas.

Whitetail Forage Oats Plus: This new annual product from the Whitetail Institute is a top option, especially for early-season hunting. ForageOats Plus includes Whitetail Institutes proprietary Whitetail Oats, which are winter hardy and are extremely attractive because of their highsugar content.

No-Plow: This seed is exactly what it says: It doesn’t require plowing to establish, something of particular appeal to the hunter who doesn’thave the equipment to undertake a massive planting project. This seed blend is great for hard-to-reach spots where a tractor or other imple-ments are hard to get in. To be successful with No-Plow you do need to achieve seed-to-soil contact.

Secret Spot: This is the ultimate option for putting a small, hidden, personal food plot in a clearing in the middle of the woods. Just rake outthe area and expose and loosen the soil and plant. The seed blend is also fortified with a pH booster. Like with No-Plow, you need seed-to-soilcontact to be successful.

Extreme: For situations where rainfall is not as plentiful or the soil pH still not where it needs to be, this perennial seed blend makes it easyto get a nutritious plot established. Extreme can be planted spring or fall. I have personally had amazing success with it in fall. Even better,because it is a perennial, it can continue to grow up to five years without replanting saving hunters money over the long haul. W


brother shoot (he was hunting with my brother-in-law), my son, Abe, was excited for his brotherbut sort of discouraged. After about ten minuteswe had a 10-point come right down the traileating all the way. Abe got into position for agood shot and downed the buck with his muz-zleloader. I was the proudest Dad ever! We esti-mated this buck to be about 150-inches grossand we are hoping it will make the Ohio BigBuck Club. Thank you Whitetail Institute for mak-ing a wonderful product and thanks for the greatcustomer service we receive when we call. Goodluck in the woods and God bless!

Jason Hall — PennsylvaniaFour years ago we lost the majority of our

deer herd to a midge fly epidemic. It wiped outall of our mature bucks and the majority of our

does. It affected most of southwestern Pennsyl-vania. Thanks to Imperial Clover and 30-06 ourdeer herd is almost back to normal after fourlong years. Thank you Whitetail Institute!

Donald Choiniere — VermontI love Whitetail Institute products because it

keeps deer in the area. Here are some of mydeer that I shot in Vermont and Canada.

Wayne Hughes — GeorgiaI planted Extreme last fall and this spring it

exploded out of the ground with patches overmy knees (I’m 6’3”). At the lowest it was overmy ankles. I bush hogged it in May to stimulatesome new growth and set up a camera. With alittle studying I knew these photos were of the

same deer and he’s by far the best buck I’veseen on our 185-acre farm in more than 20 years.I could only hope to get a shot at him this year.On Friday, Nov. 5, at approximately 8 a.m. I har-vested this deer on his way from that plot to abed. He’ll score roughly 140 inches and is thebiggest buck I’ve ever shot. I didn’t expect thesekinds of results for several years. This makes meextremely optimistic for the impact this plot willhave on the future generations of deer. Theamazing thing to me was being able to look atthis deer throughout the year and monitor hisantler growth. Even better was seeing a buck ofthis magnitude for the first time in more than 20years, and even more amazing than that was tobe able to take a deer that I felt like I knew. Ex-treme sure did the trick! Thank you, Whitetail In-stitute for giving me the tools to make thishappen!

Gary Lapier — VirginiaI watched this buck all summer feeding in my

Alfa-Rack Plus food plot. I nicked him 10 daysearlier shooting a shotgun off hand from mytreestand with rifled slugs at 120 yards. This 11-point buck gave me another chance at redemp-tion. I had prayed for another chance to get thisgorgeous buck and the Good Lord answered

(Continued from page 29)


my prayers.The rack isawesome witha 20-1/2-inchinside spreadand nine-inchG3’s and veryheavy basesand he scoresaround 155inches. TheAlfa-Rack Plusfood plot, was

a big part of his size because no one in my areahas agricultural products growing. I called himthe Creature Buck all summer, as I filmed him afew times in the food plot. In fact, I actually, had10 bucks at the same time feeding this summerin my food plot and you might say that blew mymind as I was filming them. By the way, I onlyown about 16 acres of land with about four acresopen and with my house on that part. Needlessto say, I was eagerly looking forward to the startof hunting season to pursue the Creature Buck.

Colin Davies — Indiana

Harvested this bad boy over the Secret Spotthis past season on Nov. 18 — gross score 171B&C. Thanks Whitetail Institute, keep up thegreat work.

Louie Jensen — WisconsinWe have

planted Impe-rial WhitetailClover andAlfa-Rack andthe deer arethere yeararound. Nowwe have buckswith brow tinesand bettermass. We used

to just have small six and eight-pointers. Nowwe have taken big nines, 10s and a 16-pointer.We love 30-06 Plus Protein too. Deer hit it sohard in the spring we can barely keep up. ThanksWhitetail Institute for great products. Here is apicture of last seasons opening day 10-point.Thank you. I will never stop using Whitetail Insti-tute products!

Thomas Goodman — West VirginiaThis 10-point buck was killed by my neighbor

Mike Eaton last bow season. We were not seeingthis kind of buck before I started using foodplots. Now it is common. I only have 35 acresbut have approximately four to five acres in No-Plow food plots and the deer love it.

Ron Allison — KentuckyI m p e r i a l

Whitetail Cloveris a staple in myseven-acre plot.I have owned myfarm for 22years. Only sincemy seven-acreplot was plantedhave I seen somany deer, largeracks and tur-keys. Now we’llsee 50 plus deer.

I am a retired engineer and am happily verychallenged with having great looking food plots.Year ’round passion to plots. Since retiring I haveacquired a tractor and all implements. Can’t readenough about all this. I enjoy growing more thankilling. My cousin (by marriage) Ronnie Bickertkilled this 145-inch 12-pointer (8x4) 200 poundschasing several does in the Imperial WhitetailClover. Imperial Whitetail Clover truly makes adifference! Thanks for the products Whitetail In-stitute!

Jeff Gourlie — Michigan

We have 78 acres in the thumb of Michigan.Up until about six years ago, we had been tryingto grow food plots using an economy seed mix.The results were disappointing at best with littleimpact on deer and terrible weed problems. Welearned the hard way that the economy seedmix was really a waste of money and time. Whenwe started using Whitetail Institute productseverything changed. Since the areas we plantedwere sloped and drained well, we chose Alfa-Rack Plus. It grew very well and immediatelystarted attracting deer. My wife, Cindy, notedthe increased deer traffic and thought she mightlike to try deer hunting. She practiced diligentlywith her 20-gauge shotgun and soon could out-shoot my son and me. She has taken a deereach year since. These were does and supple-mented our freezer meat nicely.

The Alfa-Rack Plus has thrived. The increasein the amount of deer we started seeing fromthe very first year was tremendous. We havealso seen an increase each year in the number ofbucks we see both “on camera” and in person.Through fertilization and applications of bothArrest and Slay herbicides we have been able toextend the life of the Alfa-Rack Plus plantings,which are now in their sixth year.

Whitetail Institute products have worked verywell for us and given me the opportunity tospend some incredible quality time with my wife.I have had the pleasure of sitting next to hereach time she has taken a deer. I have found it isjust as much fun being the coach as it is actuallytaking the deer myself. I could not be moreproud of her accomplishments. W

Send Us Your Photos!Do you have a photo and/or story of a big buck, a smallbuck or a doe that you took with the help of Imperialproducts? Send it to us and you might find it in the FieldTester section of the next issue of Whitetail News. Sendyour photo and a 3 to 4 paragraph story telling how youharvested the deer and the role our products played to:

Whitetail News, Attn: Field Tester Response239 Whitetail Trail, Pintlala, AL 36043


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Tyler and Raven Becnel – LouisianaNinety percent of my hunting lease is heavy

swamp with a few high areas along the road. I clearedabout an acre of small trees and shrubs and estab-lished a food plot last spring. I started seeing somegood signs of deer activity right away. In SeptemberI planted No-Plow and Winter-Greens. As the vegeta-tion grew I was getting some great shots on my trailcamera. The plot also gave my daughter the chanceto kill her first deer. Now she is hooked on huntingand wanting more.

Gibson Stuart – New YorkLast November, my dad and I decided to see if we

could go get a deer before the season ended. It wascold and it was raining. We ate breakfast and got ourhunting clothes on. We got our guns and set off intothe woods. Towards evening we found a good spotwhere we knew they would be bedded down, behindthe Imperial Clover field. We sat and waited as therain would just not stop. About 45 minutes went byand still there was nothing. Once in a while we wouldsee a squirrel here and there but that was about it.Just when I thought we wouldn’t see anything, a largedoe came walking in through the woods from theclover fields. It looked like she was moving closer butstarted to veer away so I couldn’t get a good shot off.Just when the doe went out of sight, we heard a sticksnap and then we saw a pretty big buck about 60yards away. He seemed to have lost the doe’s trail andcame towards us. I moved the gun up slowly to myshoulder whenever it went behind a tree. 50…40…30yards. I was shaking everywhere and I could barelykeep my one eye closed. Finally, my chance wasthere. He moved out into a clearing. I put the site onhim, slowly pulled the trigger, and BOOM!! He ran offlike I didn’t hit him. We sat there for a moment and Istarted to get worried. Did I hit him or not? My dadreassured me that they can run pretty far eventhough you hit them right but I still was questioning.

After a while, we went over to see where he wasstanding when I shot him. Sure enough, there wasblood and hair everywhere. I started to get tinglingsensations in my whole body. I was eager to go andfind him. We tracked him using the blood and finallyafter about 70 yards, there he was. My first deer. Mymom was with my sister for hockey at the time sowhen we got home we decided to make a call. First,my dad told her that we didn’t see very much andthat we didn’t have much luck. Then he told her thatI had a question. When I had the phone, I asked her,is it okay if we get an 8 point mounted? She was over-whelmed. That was my GREATEST HUNT EVER!

Pat Cope – PennsylvaniaHere is a photo of my 8-year-old son Andrew’s first

buck. He practiced shooting his 30-06 with 125 grainlow recoil all summer long. Deer season rolled aroundand he could not wait to go hunting. I got him up at

5:30 a.m. to get ready. We headed to our standaround 6:45 a.m.. It broke daylight and we heard ashot close but we hadn’t seen anything yet so heplayed his gameboy for 5 to 10 minutes with volumedown. He got tired of that so he turned it off. He thenlaid his head down against the rail of the 2-man lad-der stand and fell asleep. So I watched for both of us.It was about 8:15 a.m. when I saw a buck come intothe food plot so I reached over and gave him a nudge.He woke up and I told him not to move that there wasa buck standing out there in the food plot. He lookedand I asked him if he wanted to shoot it. His answerwas YES, YES with excitement. My son got ready andI whistled at the buck to stop him, my son was readyand the shot rang out. The buck jumped straight upin the air and then turned and ran down the hill. Myson asked if the had got the buck. As I watched thebuck run down the hill, I told him that I didn’t know.As we were watching the buck run down the hill hestarted to stagger and then crashed over. I turned tomy son and said you got him, you got him. My sonscreamed YEA, YEA. When we got to him I lifted thehead up and told him it was a 7-point he screamed injoy. After we were done cleaning the deer he came upto me and thanked me for taking him hunting andgave me a big hug.

Chris Sneed – South Carolina

I wanted to be sure that my 8 year old son, River,would see plenty of deer and not get bored with sit-ting and seeing nothing so I planted a small foodplot with Imperial Clover and oats. We did not get toour stand until 4:45 p.m. but we saw our first 2 doesat 5:20. This nice 8-point came to our food plot justafter 6 p.m. River missed clean on his first shot butthe deer did not run out of the food plot. His secondshot was true at 145 yards. By the way, we werehunting within a few miles of the city limits.However, with the food plot, it is absolutely unbe-lievable how many deer we are holding on a smallpiece of property. W

The Future Of Our Sport

Imperial Whitetail Clover changed deer nutrition forever. Now after years of painstakingresearch, the Whitetail Institute has added newly developed Insight clover to our super-nutritious blend of clovers. Insight is genetically formulated specifically for whitetail deer.With the highest level of protein available, up to 35%, Imperial Whitetail Clover provides optimalnutrition throughout the year for the entire herd. Whether your deer are producing and feedingtheir young or building antlers, Imperial Whitetail Clover provides them with the nutrients theyneed to do it well.

And when the deer get what they need to maintain healthy herds and grow big healthy bucks withimpressive racks, you increase your odds of bagging record-setting deer. For decades now, deerhunters all over North America have enjoyed the results of our innovative and aggressive approachto deer nutrition, and have planted over a million acres of Imperial Whitetail products. All thoseyears of research continues to produce results – in the fields and in the record books. We do theresearch. You see the results.

Since its introduction in 1988,Imperial Whitetail Clover has becomethe standard by which other food plotproducts are judged.

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f yf yf yf you hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!f yI

ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!


ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!

ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!

f yf yf yf you hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!f yI



ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!

ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!ou hunt big bucks then practice on big bucks!

Documents

Whitetail News Volume 21.2