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:             Lee Nilsen's 2009 Food Plot Program Location: Central Ontario Deer Density: low Property Type: solid bush/little to no agriculture Nutritional Target: late fall through to spring green-up    Hunting, fishing, and trapping have always been a large part of my life. Before I could walk my grandfather would carry me in his pack out on his traplines. At the age of 15 I was introduced to bowhunting and it has become my obsession ever since.    Three years ago I moved from the rich agricultural region of Southern Ontario to the "big bush" agriculturally deprived Parry Sound District. It was obvious that my previous methods of bowhunting would have to change if I was to become successful. In the past, funnels, bottlenecks, old apple orchards, and farm crops were the ticket. Now what I have to work with is miles and miles of thick bush with the odd hay field. It is hard to see the same deer twice and even more difficult to pattern them. That is why planting deer specific high quality food plots are not just great ways to attract deer during hunting season but in an area where most deer migrate to wintering yards they also provide much needed nutrition. This allows the deer populations to achieve heavier body weights and add more fat reserves. Both of which help post rut bucks and the rest of the herd through tough winter months.    There are a lot of key factors that I had to take into consideration when I was planning out my food plots. First off, the soil conditions here are very poor. It is mainly an acidic sandy loam that produces very little agriculture. Since there is such large tracts of mature timber which create heavy canopies leaving small wildlife openings and choking out quality browse. The deer here also face harsh winter conditions that contribute to extended stress periods. All these factors combine to make for low deer densities.    I have a total of 330 acres to work with. One hundred of it is my own and 230 acres belongs to my good friend Alex, who, along with his hunting buddies strictly use the property for hunting purposes. This winter we brought in a logger and opened up areas for feeding, bedding, and cover for the purpose of a deer management program.    I am going into my fourth year of planting food plots and over this time I have observed nearly 3 times more deer, greater antler growth, and seen their average body weights increase. Food plot's have changed my hunting forever and I look forward to sharing that with you. This picture was taken on May 30, 2009 in central Ontario and is exactly what you DON'T want to see if your plots are already in the ground. Lee played it safe this year and held off his plantings until early June and luckily escaped the wrath that a snowfall can leave on a newly germinated food plot. Late frosts, or even worse a snowfall, sometimes cannot be avoided but this is why it is best to seek the advise of farmers or other food plot experts in your area to determine best times to plant. The picture above and below demonstrate natural clearings in Canadian Shield country that Lee is turning into whitetail food plots. This is a great example of taking land that is doing very little if anything to benefit deer and turning it into a highly nutritious plot. The picture above is a road through Lee's property while the picture below shows a 4 wheeler trail through his property. Lee is taking advantage of both of these access points to further enhance the nutrition available to his deer by planting them in seed blends that don't require a lot of sunlight and grow in less than ideal conditions. Blends like Whitetail Institute's No-Plow and Secret Spot, and Backyard Wildlife's Walk 'N Toss are great examples of such blends. This little plot has tremendous hunting potential! Buried deep in the forest, this plot was once fully treed, just like the rest of the woods. Using some elbow grease, Lee cleared this area and will be planting perennial blends like Biologic's Clover Plus, Whitetail Institute's Chicory Plus or Backyard Wildlife's Superb-uck.    In the last issue, I outlined my goals for planting food plots as wanting to increase the attraction, nutrition and growth of whitetail deer in my area. In this issue, I want to look at the Where’s and How’s regarding these plots.    Due to the vastness of standing timber and the lack of cleared land in this area, my first food plot site selections were easy; wherever there were open areas already occurring. At this point I had 3 small, 1 acre fields, a log landing from when the area was timbered and a couple of roads that wind through the middle of the woods.    A new program that I’ve implemented on my property this year is the process of adding plots that are specifically tailored to the whitetails needs. This meant choosing sites with good soil conditions, in natural travel corridors and close to bedding and cover. Naturally, in an area of big timber like we have here, these sections were in heavily wooded areas that were logged. To ensure that these plots had a minimum of 5 hours of sunlight which is necessary for suitable plant growth, they were constructed in an east-west orientation. Furthermore, I made them no more than 40 yards wide so I could still get an arrow across them no matter where the stand placement needed be.    To prepare the 3 small naturally occurring fields for planting, the first step was to spray a “kill all” herbicide. The idea is to do this early when growth is only 4-6 inches high. Spraying a herbicide will help reduce the competition in your plots from grasses and weeds. Two weeks later after everything was dead, I pulled a plow over the area to break up the hard ground that hadn’t been worked in years. Then about a week later, after the newly turned ground had dried up, I switched the plow for a disc to break up the sod and level the plot. Having now exposed a new layer of soil, this is was a good time to get a soil sample.    After the soil test results came back, I found that I needed 2.5 to 3 tons of lime per acre to help neutralize the acidic soil. Digging deeper into books, I learned that acidic soils provide poor growth and nutritional value, and in fact, adding fertilizer to acidic soils was just a waste of time and money. The decision was made and one single phone call had 10 tons of lime delivered to my property. Once the mountain of lime was dumped I realized there was no way of spreading it! Oops. Lucky for me a local farmer had the right equipment for such a task and was generous enough to loan me his equipment only asking for the fuel gauge to look the same upon return.    With the lime added, now the idea was to fertilize. This job was made easy with a spreader towed behind the ATV. The next step was to jump back on the tractor lightly disking in the lime and fertilizer to no more than 4 inches. I then jumped back on the 4 wheeler and using a homemade cultipacker (an over grown lawn roller), I firmed up and leveled the seed bed ready for planting. Expecting rain in the next few days, I selected the rate on the hand broadcast seeder, weighed out the amount of seed needed for the plots and started walking, always being careful not to overseed. With the seed now spread, I jumped back on the 4 wheeler and rolled the plot with two passes this time in the same direction. Packing your seed bed again after seeding is important for establishing good seed-to-soil contact.    These 3 plots were planted in Whitetail Institute’s Chicory Plus, Backyard Wildlife’s Superb-uck, and Biologic’s Clover Plus with a strip of Biologic Maximum in the middle of the third field. These are all my perennial plots.    I now headed for the log landing and forested roads. I chose Backyard Wildlife’s Walk N’ Toss, as well as Whitetail Institute’s No-Plow and Secret Spot for these areas and although I could get the tractor into these plots, these products are designed to be used with simple hand tools. I used a rake and a small hand tiller to clean the ground of debris and break up the soil a bit before hand broadcasting the seed. I lightly raked the soil to finish the job.    The final plots to get in will be the newly logged areas. These require some heavy equipment and a lot of man hours. There are still some trees to cut, stumps to pull and lots of tree tops, litter and debris to remove.    I have not yet finished these plots but the plan is to have them ready for a late summer planting of annuals like Biologic’s Maximum, Whitetail Institutes Winter-Greens and Backyard Wildlife’s Sweet Success.    Although the entire process may sound like a lot of work, it really doesn’t seem like it when you are doing it. There is a great feeling of accomplishment when those first plants start breaking through the ground and an even greater feeling of satisfaction when the deer start mowing down all your work. Return to Main Page