Facts from the Field 2009 An exclusive 4 season trail camera study of food plots and their effect in Ontario hunting strategies This program is brought to you by:             Joe Dampier's 2009 Food Plot Program Location: NW Ontario Deer Density: moderate Property Type: big bush/very little if any agriculture Nutritional Target: all four seasons    I was born and raised in NW Ontario and grew up hunting and fishing. I am married to my beautiful wife Lisa and have 2 children, Alex and Kaitie. I am very fortunate that my entire family enjoys the outdoors with me. With the whole family enjoying hunting the challenge lies in providing quality hunting opportunities for everyone. My hope is that by expanding my food plot sizes, increasing the number of sites, and varying the type of crops planted, that I will not only increase both animal sightings and harvest opportunities but also provide highly nutritious forage that is lacking in my area.    One of the major factors to consider when food plotting in Northwestern Ontario is the shorter growing season. As I write this we still have over 2 feet of snow on the ground with a threat of up to 25cm coming. After a harsh winter like we have just experienced, one of the challenges will be to provide blends that produce nutritious forage as quickly as possible to allow the deer to recover from the nutritional deficit that winter imposes on them. My goal is to plant blends that will provide quality feed from spring green-up right through to late hunting season.    One of the difficulties of hunting the big woods is that the deer have a lot of area to disappear into. I know that some large bucks live in the vicinity as I have had occasional trail camera photos of them. One of my goals in those areas is to try to hold these large bucks around the food plot with the plan of hunting them during the pre-rut period. This period also provides a more enjoyable time frame for my wife and children to hunt as the temperatures are much more favorable compared to that of November and December. I think that one of the other big benefits of food plots is the ability to place a trail camera on it and see what is hanging around. It is fun for my whole family to see what has showed up since the last time we checked; just another great way to include the family in your outdoor endeavors!    I will have food plots in a wide variety of terrain this year. The soils in these areas range from clay to dark top soil. I can access some sites with large equipment, some with ATV, while others will be hand equipment only. Some of the frequent questions in this neck of the woods are "what kind of seed will grow best?" "When should I plant?" "What about pH?" I look forward to sharing my results with you so that we can find the answers to these and many more questions about food plotting. A simple hand-spreader will do a good job in planting your seeds as Joe demonstrates while planting his. Food plots don't have to require a lot of equipment and these seed spreaders can be purchased at most stores that sell lawn seed.    When I was asked to be a part of the “Facts from the Field” program I was very excited and eagerly awaited the spring thaw. As April rolled around, Northwestern Ontario was still in the clutches of ol’ Man Winter and he did not want to let go! While making my seed selections I half-jokingly asked, “What grows best in snow?”    As May approached, my sites were slowly shedding their snowy blanket and my patience was wearing thin. To keep my mind at ease, I used this time to analyze the strengths and weaknesses associated with my existing plot sites and hunting locations. This assessment was very important in helping me decide where I would plant this year and just as importantly, what I would plant.    Though it was later than hoped for, the day finally came where I was able to get into some of my previous plot sites. I disked them and tested the soil by gathering a number of small soil samples from around the plot and mixing them together, I then took a sample from that mixture to give myself an overall average for the entire plot and sent it away for testing. The results indicated that my pH was a little lower than the optimum level so I purchased some lime and spread it on the plots, disking it into the top 4-5 inches. I had decided that this year I was going to try a pellet and a chalk-type of lime to see if there was an advantage from one to the other, and I will do some follow-up soil testing later to see the results. This procedure was repeated at every site with the average pre-liming pH between 5.5 - 6.5.    In my largest plot to date I had decided that I was going to expand into an area directly in front of one of my favourite treestands and plant some annual brassica’s like Whitetail Institute’s Winter-Greens, Backyard Wildlife’s Sweet Success or Biologic’s Maximum with the intent of this being my Fall “kill plot”. The area is irregular in shape and has a lot of cover in close proximity; it is also happens to have a major trail which funnels through in front of the stand. Due to the short growing season up here in the Thunder Bay District, and the small amount of working land in this area, the remainder of the existing plot was planted with a half acre each of blends of perennials and annuals like Biologic Premium Perennial and Backyard Wildlife Products “Superb-uck” which both run roughly 70% perennial and 30% annual plants.    The real challenge for me this year was to find a new location for a food plot on a piece of property I have permission to hunt which has a number of crops in the area and also has a large area of mature timber on the property. Last year, this food plot was thoroughly enjoyed by the deer every night after dark; yes...the deer tend to be very nocturnal on this property so part of my planning for the plot location involved locating it in an area where the deer would feel comfortable in daylight and also allow for good ambush sites while the deer are enroute to the food plots. After hours of hiking, looking at Google Earth maps of the area, and a few discussions with the land owner we finally settled on two areas which we feel will possess all of the desired characteristics I mentioned earlier. When selecting seed for this site we took into account some of the other cash crops which are already abundant in the area and settled on Whitetail Institute’s Pure Attraction which has a blend of Oats, Brassica and winter peas for one section, Backyard Wildlife’s “Superb-uck”, Whitetail Institute’s Alfa-Rack Plus and Biologic Green Patch Plus. The downside of these locations was the fact that I had to break new ground. Breaking new ground was a recurring theme this year – and though time consuming, it’s one which I know will pay big dividends in the future. Fortunately for me, I was able to utilize the property owner’s large farming equipment which made the job much easier.    In deciding where I would put my plots this year I knew that I had to try and work something up on two new pieces of property which I have permission to hunt, neither one has been hunted for many years and both hold good numbers of deer, in fact one of the properties has some of the largest scrapes I have ever seen! I will try to include a photo in a future issue. The difference with both of these properties is that they are quite unlike the first two in that there is far less crop in the area and the majority of the property consists of mature timber and swampy areas. These deer will benefit greatly from the addition of food plots to their diet and will take some of the pressure off of the neighbourhood flower and shrub gardens. I chose Whitetail Institute’s “Secret Spot” for one of the properties and Backyard Wildlife’s “Sweet Success” for the other, at the time of writing this I am just finishing the plots which included making a new access trail through one property which will allow me to hunt it with a wider variety of wind directions.    I have also added Backyard Wildlife Products Mineral Fountains to 2 of the properties - one is in the pail on a tree while the other I poured into/on a tree stump as recommended on the directions. So far I have trail camera photos of a number of does at the tree stump as well as numerous rabbits. I look forward to seeing what kind of action these sites get as more deer find it.    I hope that I have raised some issues or provoked some thought into why and how you would plant a food plot and just as importantly where you would put that plot and why. I know from past experience that a food plot in the wrong spot will not help you harvest a deer like a plot planted in a strategic spot will, it will however provide them with great nutrition so it’s important to remember what your goals are for a specific plot and plant accordingly. I have to acknowledge the great support and interest I have received from the property owners as well as from Thunder Bay Co-op which has a disker/roller available for the many do-it-yourselfers out there, they also carry a wide variety of products to help with soil prep and overall plot health.    Where has the summer gone? It seems like only yesterday that I was busy planning out where I would be putting my plots and trying to decide which crop would best increase my odds of harvesting the deer I wanted this fall. As stated in the last article, we had a very late spring here in Northwestern Ontario and once all the snow melted we actually had a very dry spell which did not help the plots during their first month in the ground. In fact it reached the point where I thought I may have to replant a few of them. Ironically, while I was praying for rain up here in the Northwest, the rest of the guys in the more southern areas were getting hammered with the wet stuff and looking for a little sunshine to dry things out. When the rain did finally arrive my fears were laid to rest as all of the plots took off. I could literally see the growth from one day to the next.    In preparing the ground for my food plots I knew that pH was going to be an issue up here so I took the time to test and add lime to the soil. Even in the short period of time, I managed to get the pH up into the 6.5 range in almost all of them. The one area of soil preparation that I needed improvement on is the addition of fertilizer. I did not add fertilizer to all of my plots because I wanted to see if I did in fact need to. I know that most people planting food plots don’t worry about pH or fertilizer and the usual reasons for neglecting these steps is that they don’t have time for it or it is simply too costly. Another group of people question if it is even necessary. I wanted to be able to make an informed decision based on my own experiences as to whether or not it makes a difference and if so how much?    Last year I added lime to some of the land I planted, but not all of it, and from that experience I learned that liming is a “must”. I will be able to compare my results from this year with next years “well fertilized” plots and see if there is a big difference in production.    I had purposely planted my Whitetail Institute Winter-Greens a little earlier than the planting dates on the bag due to the shorter growing season here in the North and hoped that the extra time in the ground would get the plot up a little higher by the time the snow arrived. The Winter-Greens did really well at first and came in very thick, however, I think I may have overseeded the plot as it seemed almost too thick and once it got to a certain height seemed to stall and even die off a bit. Overseeding is very easy to do and should really be avoided if maximum growth is desired. This is a situation where there is such a thing as too much.    At first I wasn’t sure if the problem was how wet the ground was or if the plot was choking itself out so I had a friend of mine, who is a local farmer, come and take a look at the plot. His assessment was that it was in need of some fertilizer. I followed his advice and the plot is now rebounding nicely. My Biologic Maximum plot in the same field started off much slower than the other two seed mixes planted here but has been really coming on strong in the last 3 weeks. It just goes to show you that not all plants have the same timing and cycle so don’t give up on something just because one blend is starting faster than another. Once again, this plot also received very little fertilizer and I strongly suspect that it would have done a lot better had it been able to maximize the nutrients from the soil. My plot of “Sweet Success” from Backyard Wildlife Products has been strong from day one. This plot was planted about 10 days after the other two and I believe that it benefited from this as the seeds got rain on them much quicker than the others did.    If you recall from a previous issue, I had a great property which presented a challenge in trying to select a site that would help get deer into shooting lanes during daylight hours. After much consultation with a hunting buddy and the landowner, we settled on a spot which was in a secluded section of the property with brush surrounding the field on 4 sides and bedding areas in fairly close proximity. The unique thing about these plots are that 4 completely different seed blends are planted there in sections which are about 10 yards wide and 45 yards long but have rows of undisturbed field grasses and residual alfalfa growing in between each plot. It was later in the season before we had this area cleared off, turned over and prepped and although it was later than we had hoped, it was unavoidable as the ground just got too wet to plant and we had to wait for more favourable conditions. Even with the late start it has still produced a very promising selection of crops which has already seen numerous deer feeding on them. The true test will be to see if the plot serves it function by drawing the deer out of seclusion during daylight hours.    I had actually hoped to include a couple of pictures of deer which I had harvested over the food plots with this article as the archery deer season has been open for almost 2 weeks now here in Northwestern Ontario. The trouble is that we have been enjoying early August-like temperatures and not only has deer activity slowed considerably but so has my desire to take a deer in this heat. The up-side to all this great weather is that it has been providing us with some great growing weather for the plots and has really been helping them fill out. This extra growing period really should help extend the effectiveness of the plots heading into the cold weather and inevitable snows. I look forward to sharing the rest of the season’s results with you as well as the on-going development of the plots. Joe's son, Alex, is standing in his brassica plot. Below is one of his perennial plots. What a great result out of NW Ontario "big-woods" food plots. Return to Main Page CLICK HERE to return to the participants page