Jesse from MO asks,
Hey bill- I have followed you for a while. Love Midwest whitetail because of your ability to tell a story. I think that separated you guys from many others. I have inherited 120 acres in mid Missouri that I would like to prepare and do what I can for growing bigger deer. Unfortunately there is little to no cover. What little cover there is is pretty open. The deer tend to reside on the land to the south where it’s thick cover. What do you recommend to start doing to prepare this land? How do I make this work? We are going to be living on the property so I’m not going to sell it. Thanks in advance.
Bill responds,
Topic: How to Create Permanent Deer Habitat:
This is one example of a successful direct seeding the spring after planting. Planting was done in early October. You need to maintain weed control that first spring but after that you can let nature run its course. The oaks will grow about a foot per year (without deer browsing pressure) and within about five or six years you will have the start of your permanent deer habitat.
Jesse,
In a situation like yours, I would focus on creating quality long-term (permanent) deer habitat. It can be tempting to take short cuts and plant something that grows very quickly but those plants often have a short life cycle. An example would be switchgrass and even some types of trees (like cedar and willow hybrids).
In my experience, you are better off establishing oak and other preferred hardwood species that take a bit longer to grow. I don’t just want instant cover, I want really high quality long-term cover, that’s where the hardwood trees come in.
Diversity is important so you can mix in a few pockets of wild plum and crabapple, but the predominant species should be favorable hardwoods – oaks. There are two ways to plant them: via bare root stock seedlings using a tree planter or tilling up the ground and planting the seeds directly. I have done both and prefer the direct seeding method whenever possible.
It doesn’t always work for white oak because you can catch a dry falls and the acorns start to germinate and then die, but red oak and bur oak germinate in the spring so they generally do well when planted in the fall. The only exception is if you have a really wet area and the seedlings germinate and then stay most all the time. In that case, I will favor planting swamp white oak from bare root stock.
Like I mentioned, for diversity, you can mic in small patches of wild plum and crabapple. I would definitely plant them in separate patches and not mix them in with the oak trees.
I would lay out the property so you have at least 15 to 20 acres of food plots in two to four acre sizes on the better soils and the rest I would put into permanent cover. You can have run designing the way the plantings lay out, that is not super critical. Not as important as food plot locations. I would also plan to have good, natural travel routes from nearby areas where deer live to the food plot locations you plan to plant.
Should be a fun project. Good luck. (11/29/21)
