Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the white Tail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand saddler blind, First Light,
Speaker 1: Go further, stay longer, and now your host Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyan, and today in the show, I'm joined by
Speaker 1: Jared Van He's host of the Habitat podcast, to discuss
Speaker 1: small property land improvements, soil conserving, food plot practices and more.
Speaker 1: All Right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
Speaker 1: to you by First Light, and this week on the
Speaker 1: show we are continuing Habitat Monk and joining me today
Speaker 1: is Jared Van. He's he's the host of the Habitat podcast.
Speaker 1: He's the co owner of Vitalized Seed. He's a land consultant,
Speaker 1: and he is a real life practitioner of small property
Speaker 1: land management strategies. He owns a fifteen acre property and
Speaker 1: a seventy acre property, both in Michigan that he's been
Speaker 1: building into these little white tail and wildlife mecca's while
Speaker 1: you know, also having some really darn good hunting considering
Speaker 1: the size of that, and I mean fifteen acres fifteen acres.
Speaker 1: That's it, and he's loving it, and he's having success
Speaker 1: and having fun. And you know, that's about as affordable
Speaker 1: as a start as you could imagine when it comes to,
Speaker 1: you know, getting a white tail property and doing stuff
Speaker 1: with it, and it's working for him. So that's what
Speaker 1: I'm really geeked about today is talking through you know,
Speaker 1: these land management ideas that are applicable. I'd say for anyone,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't need hundreds or thousands of acres,
Speaker 1: you don't need big tractors, you don't need fancy equipment
Speaker 1: to do any of the stuff you're gonna hear about today. UM.
Speaker 1: And I find that empowering. I find that exciting for
Speaker 1: a lot of us, you know, like me, maybe like you,
Speaker 1: who don't have a bunch of land or fancy equipment.
Speaker 1: So that said, Jared brings this this really helpful kind
Speaker 1: of everyman's perspective, UM, and a lot of it insight,
Speaker 1: you know, glean not just from his years of personal experience,
Speaker 1: but also from the fact that you know, on his
Speaker 1: podcast he's interviewing dozens and dozens of the best white
Speaker 1: tail habitat gurus around. So with that in mind, today
Speaker 1: I chat with Jared about the importance of creating dynamite
Speaker 1: cover on a small property and how he's done that.
Speaker 1: We talked about building better access routes and so you
Speaker 1: know how key that is in these kinds of situations. UM.
Speaker 1: We talked about a bunch of different screening ideas, how
Speaker 1: to create food plot screens, how to screen access routes,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, how to make dear feel
Speaker 1: more secure on a small property and keep them there.
Speaker 1: We discuss soil friendly food plotting, what the benefits of
Speaker 1: that are, how to plant no till without a tractor
Speaker 1: or drill, uh, and a bunch of stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So I enjoyed this chat. I really think you will
Speaker 1: to UM. If you do, be sure to check out
Speaker 1: the rest of Jared's work. He's a good guy and
Speaker 1: a great resource. So without further ado, I say we
Speaker 1: get into week two of Habitat month. Let's go all
Speaker 1: right with me. On the line now is a fellow
Speaker 1: Mr Gander, Mr Jared Van. He's Jared. Thank you for
Speaker 1: joining me, Mark. Good to talk to you again, sir.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you having me on. UM. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you. You know you've you've built quite the platform
Speaker 1: here and I've been a long time listener. So well done,
Speaker 1: and thank you, thanks man, I appreciate that. It's uh,
Speaker 1: it's been cool to you know, get to spend a
Speaker 1: little more time with you here in the more recent past.
Speaker 1: You you're someone who I have like known of for
Speaker 1: a long long time. I think you know, either through
Speaker 1: wired hunt, you've reached out to me at some point
Speaker 1: through social media or something. And then I think we
Speaker 1: start bumping to each other at at like QT m
Speaker 1: A events or um uh gosh, I'm trying to remember
Speaker 1: what the first thing was where I bumped into It
Speaker 1: was either b h A or n d A or
Speaker 1: q D m A. And you did some stuff in
Speaker 1: my buddy. Further, I think at some point with with
Speaker 1: Hugh d m A and then we're at the oh
Speaker 1: the back forty feel the fork stuff bumped into you there,
Speaker 1: I think one of those times. And then and then
Speaker 1: you were my night in Shining Armor last year helping
Speaker 1: me out with some food plot challenges I had on
Speaker 1: my own, and uh so you came in a big
Speaker 1: way help me find someone with some equipment that I
Speaker 1: you know, that would help me get some food plots
Speaker 1: into a tough spot with weed issues. UM so it's
Speaker 1: been nice getting spend some time getting to talk more.
Speaker 1: And I figured, you know, I was thinking about what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do this month, which is Habitat Month
Speaker 1: here on the podcast. Um, you were a guy that
Speaker 1: I knew like this, we have to have you on.
Speaker 1: It's time to talk to Jared. You know, you You've
Speaker 1: got a really interesting set of personal experiences, and then
Speaker 1: you layer on top of that the fact that you
Speaker 1: run your own podcast talking to all sorts of different
Speaker 1: people about Habitat improvement. I think that gives you this
Speaker 1: very interesting, um foundation to talk about these things you're
Speaker 1: you're personal plus then like what you've consumed from all
Speaker 1: these people, and and that's why I'm that's why I'm
Speaker 1: glad to do this. So so pressure is on Jared
Speaker 1: because I'm I'm thinking this is gonna be a good chat. Um.
Speaker 1: So that said, you just told me before we start
Speaker 1: recording that you broke your collar bone, right, and uh
Speaker 1: so broke your collar bone trying to impress your kid,
Speaker 1: uh skiing or was it skiing or snowboard? Okay, skiing,
Speaker 1: and you've got like a two to three month recovery
Speaker 1: period now during the winter, Ah, right out the gate.
Speaker 1: I gotta know, are your habitat projects screwed? Like is
Speaker 1: your whole plan for this year? Like capoot? Did you
Speaker 1: have these big plans and dreams of what you're gonna
Speaker 1: do in this kind of late winter early springtime period
Speaker 1: and now you're picking up the pieces and trying to
Speaker 1: struggle with what you're gonna do, or you not worried
Speaker 1: about it at all, and you're you know, you've got
Speaker 1: a plan to get past this. Where's your head at?
Speaker 1: Oh man, No, I'm I'm crying over here. I'm sitting
Speaker 1: here in tears. Um. You know, we we talked about
Speaker 1: this stuff all year long, and we talked a lot
Speaker 1: of deer hunting too, But you know, January one, it's
Speaker 1: time to fire up that saw for me usually and
Speaker 1: get out there. And oh man, I am bummed. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I was trying to be a hot shot in
Speaker 1: front of my son, he's four, and I screwed that up,
Speaker 1: broke the collar bone up north skiing. Um, my wife
Speaker 1: is not very happy about that. And it's just now
Speaker 1: it's just inconvenience to do about anything. But what's what's
Speaker 1: cool is I can still go visit some of our
Speaker 1: client properties and helped them all by walking around and
Speaker 1: making our plans. But to your point, yes, I had
Speaker 1: I had projects down here, I had projects up north, um,
Speaker 1: a lot of it with a saw, opening up, food plots,
Speaker 1: edge feathering, the whole gambit. And now I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: do nothing for like three months, um. And I'm not
Speaker 1: a guy who sits around very often, you know, for
Speaker 1: more than like an hour. So I'm kind of I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm still learning how to cope. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: hopefully hopefully talking about habitat stuff scratches the edge a
Speaker 1: little bit because you still get to do that quite
Speaker 1: a bit. And today we'll we'll do some of that too.
Speaker 1: So one of the big things, Jared, I like about
Speaker 1: your story and I like about what you bring to
Speaker 1: the table is that you have this personal experience working
Speaker 1: small properties like so many of the habitat gurus out there. Um,
Speaker 1: they've got tons of property, they've got big properties, they've
Speaker 1: got medium properties, they've got bunches of them, um. And
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of insight we can glean from
Speaker 1: those folks who have worked on on lots of different
Speaker 1: places and have a large scale of of property they
Speaker 1: can work with. Like, certainly I love talking to people,
Speaker 1: and I know you talk to people like that too. Um,
Speaker 1: but a lot of us listening me included, we don't
Speaker 1: have that big property. We've got forty acres or eighty
Speaker 1: acres or twenty acres, and we're sitting here thinking, man,
Speaker 1: is any of this relevant to me? You know? Can
Speaker 1: I do anything on my little piece? Um? So that's
Speaker 1: a question, Like I'm I'm asking myself that all the time.
Speaker 1: And you with a fifteen acre piece that you're working
Speaker 1: on in a seventy acre piece, like you're living the
Speaker 1: realistic dream for most of us. You're living the thing
Speaker 1: that does seem possible for me, that does seem possible
Speaker 1: for a lot of folks. So I guess that is
Speaker 1: all to say out the gate, Jared you, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: I should ask you what was that process? Like in
Speaker 1: a cliff notes, he kind of version to finally take
Speaker 1: the leap to start out with a small property, and
Speaker 1: now a handful of years into it, um, hasn't been
Speaker 1: worthwhile taking finally taking that leap into buying a piece.
Speaker 1: Starting small has the the return on your investment from
Speaker 1: a satisfaction and joy and even hunting perspective been what
Speaker 1: you thought would be, Oh my gosh, overwhelmingly yes. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, like you, I'm super obsessed with with white
Speaker 1: tails and and bow hunting and got hunting all the
Speaker 1: above Michigan. We have a long lasting tradition on deer
Speaker 1: camps and just been enamored by my entire life. And
Speaker 1: you know, that first step in buying your property is
Speaker 1: definitely scary financially for your family. But once you once
Speaker 1: you make that first step and you realize that you
Speaker 1: know you can make some sacrifices elsewhere to make things affordable,
Speaker 1: it's it's totally worth doing. Um. My first property was
Speaker 1: is fifteen acres. I still own it. I've owned it
Speaker 1: for this month, will be six years. Um botot when
Speaker 1: I was twenty nine, and you know, it was the
Speaker 1: first one. You don't really know what you're getting into.
Speaker 1: You really don't, but there's only one way to learn,
Speaker 1: and that you know, sink or swim type whatever show
Speaker 1: you want to use. So I jumped in and right
Speaker 1: off the bat. Um started started with what knowledge I
Speaker 1: had in my head or what I had read on
Speaker 1: the internet or washed on YouTube, and and started going
Speaker 1: after it um. I screwed up many times between now
Speaker 1: and then and and made some backwards moves, but that
Speaker 1: first fifteen acres I will remember that property for the
Speaker 1: rest of my life because it was so many first
Speaker 1: for me, so many feelings. My kids are a little
Speaker 1: planning apple trees with them. But also it's like a
Speaker 1: testing ground for everything that I do. That I talk
Speaker 1: about that we recommend, you know, everything I've I've put
Speaker 1: in a small scale. I've tried it for the most part,
Speaker 1: and really it's it's the juice is worth a squeeze
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly for that that investment. And and I'm not positive
Speaker 1: on on equity at this time with it too, So
Speaker 1: you know, I don't see how you could you could
Speaker 1: really lose learning, the family experiences, the hunting, which has
Speaker 1: been great, and then an asset that's has equity. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, so do you imagine or was the plan
Speaker 1: with that small piece. Was the plan to that this
Speaker 1: is going to be like a forever fifteen or was
Speaker 1: the plan to buy it, build it, flip it for
Speaker 1: something bigger in the future. What's the game plan now
Speaker 1: on that front? Yeah, So initially it was just get
Speaker 1: my own piece of land. I grew up hunting state
Speaker 1: land in West Michigan, um Mannessee National Forest, my entire life,
Speaker 1: shot my first buck out there. Everything so nobody in
Speaker 1: my family owned property. UM. And it was just tough hunting.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've been over there, and so I've always
Speaker 1: wanted something better. And my body. He had eighty acres
Speaker 1: his uncle and eighty acres growing up, and he was
Speaker 1: shooting eight points and ten points and I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I gotta buy a piece. So my whole
Speaker 1: life has just been sitting like that. UM. And my thought,
Speaker 1: as you know, I talked to Damn per As a
Speaker 1: long time ago and he you hear his story, and he,
Speaker 1: you know, goes smaller, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. And That's
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to do. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: if a piece is producing and it's affordable, I don't
Speaker 1: see the reason in and selling it. At least that
Speaker 1: was my thought at the time. So the fifteen is done,
Speaker 1: has done well for hunting. Um. But now I'm kind
Speaker 1: of I've kind of come to the part where, man,
Speaker 1: I wish I would have a little more income out
Speaker 1: to help justify some things. UM. And I kind of
Speaker 1: want to get that bigger piece, that next step. Finally,
Speaker 1: it took me a while to get to that step.
Speaker 1: My goal was every five years, address the situation, to
Speaker 1: make a decision. So I'm one year six. I didn't
Speaker 1: hit my goal on I'm making a decision. Maybe I
Speaker 1: did internally because it hasn't sold. I haven't sold it,
Speaker 1: so um kind of all up in the air there.
Speaker 1: But I would love something bigger, there's no question about that. Interesting,
Speaker 1: but the fifteen was still it seemed in you just
Speaker 1: said definitely worth it as a starting point, and it's
Speaker 1: like you said, it's producing. So you're you are having
Speaker 1: success and you're having fun on a fifteen acre property.
Speaker 1: It's possible to do it on fifteen acres? Is that?
Speaker 1: Is it? An unequivocal yes to that. Ye. So I
Speaker 1: want to get to how you got there. But at
Speaker 1: first you said something that I have to dig into
Speaker 1: more first, which is you made a lot of mistakes.
Speaker 1: What were these mistakes that you made along the way
Speaker 1: over these six years with this first property, your first
Speaker 1: fifteen One of the things you did that took steps backwards. Well,
Speaker 1: the first mistake I did was that one out there,
Speaker 1: and first day we were there, I runted a skid
Speaker 1: steer from a friend of mine and we bulldozed or
Speaker 1: or bushog, I should say, a lot of cover, a
Speaker 1: lot of um area to make food plots. You know,
Speaker 1: food plots, food food plat, food plot are the big
Speaker 1: things that everybody talks about, and they're important. But in Michigan,
Speaker 1: you cover to me as king, and I've spent you know,
Speaker 1: I spent in the next three years building that cover
Speaker 1: back to try to reverse what I had done. And
Speaker 1: the reason that that's important is because our deer, as
Speaker 1: you know, are wired a little bit differently. So to me,
Speaker 1: that was one big mistake. What percentage of that fifteen
Speaker 1: would you say, um did well? I guess what was
Speaker 1: the breakdown of the fifteen acres when you started and
Speaker 1: then after you went and knocked down all that cover
Speaker 1: as far as like what was cover? What was open space? Now,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, before you crushed everything or brushed everything, brush
Speaker 1: hoogged everything, and then afterwards, great question. So to give
Speaker 1: you a little bit of a layout, it's kind of
Speaker 1: split in two pieces. It's it's a big L shape.
Speaker 1: The back part of the parcel is lower wetland um
Speaker 1: A lot of burr oak back there, and then after
Speaker 1: and then after me behind me, it's a big swamp.
Speaker 1: Very uh hopeful to have one of those nearby. So
Speaker 1: so the first I guess the back half of the
Speaker 1: of the property is wet lowland, kind of mature canopy
Speaker 1: forest with trees that like you know, wet feet or
Speaker 1: roots in the water, which are in the borough I have.
Speaker 1: Then up from there there was about five acres of
Speaker 1: some higher ground with a dish running through the middle.
Speaker 1: And that's where I did a lot of brush hawking.
Speaker 1: I bet I brush hawg probably two and a half
Speaker 1: to three acres worth of area right off the bat,
Speaker 1: you know, the wide expansive food plot. I was satisfied.
Speaker 1: We were all high five, and you know, it looked
Speaker 1: great and m and I still I still killed the
Speaker 1: nice buck that year. But I I realized that in Michigan,
Speaker 1: or certain states like Michigan, we have to address this
Speaker 1: a little bit differently. So now fast forward to follow.
Speaker 1: I bet I'm down to an acre total acre and
Speaker 1: a half total, so cut in half about of opening
Speaker 1: of opening that's up. That's for food, yep, exactly everything
Speaker 1: else I've let grown in or grow in thicken up.
Speaker 1: UM between you know, my access location and the food
Speaker 1: plot is all now cover. Interesting, So can you walk
Speaker 1: me through since that initial opening up of stuff? What
Speaker 1: are some of those other best projects that you've done?
Speaker 1: What have been the most positively impactful things? Sure? Sure? UM,
Speaker 1: Access proper access is always number one. You've talked about
Speaker 1: that a hundred times. So if we I just I
Speaker 1: can't push that enough. I don't step off of my
Speaker 1: access shraw with my boots uh two yards to go
Speaker 1: into the property unless time, you know, tracking and or whatever.
Speaker 1: I hold very true to that access. UM. I planned
Speaker 1: some some mass trees, some chestnuts, and some apples, but
Speaker 1: those just started producing last year, so I really don't
Speaker 1: have a good beat on on what that's done, if
Speaker 1: anything for me yet. UM screening it kind of goes
Speaker 1: with the access, but screening your plots so there so
Speaker 1: they're not as big and wide open or having cover
Speaker 1: around your plots so they're not that deer can't walk out,
Speaker 1: which happened to me two years ago. They walked out
Speaker 1: nice buck looks across and see any deer turn around
Speaker 1: and walked back in the woods. UM I killed him
Speaker 1: about an hour later, but it was, but he did
Speaker 1: what and it was my smaller food plot, but he
Speaker 1: still did that check that they do on large fields.
Speaker 1: They stay in the brush. You look out during these
Speaker 1: large plats, I don't see anything, you don't smell anything.
Speaker 1: They bugger out before you even know they're there most
Speaker 1: of the time. UM, So cover around the food plats
Speaker 1: or screening. I always have a screen, whether it's strass
Speaker 1: or um an annual screen, you know, sort of Egyptian wheat,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And then high quality food. Food.
Speaker 1: Food is very very important. I feel like it's one
Speaker 1: of the most important things. But it has to be
Speaker 1: surrounded by the right type of cover, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: in Michigan to get a nice buck to use it
Speaker 1: in legal hours. Right. So I've always had food plots
Speaker 1: since they one, They've always done pretty well. Um. I
Speaker 1: take like a no till approach, or I leave clover
Speaker 1: just in case something goes goes drought. I have a
Speaker 1: clover backup established. So between those three, I would say
Speaker 1: the access, the seclusion of the plasta with screening products,
Speaker 1: you know, given the deer there they're low pressure, and
Speaker 1: then some high quality of food. UM that's pretty much
Speaker 1: what I've done since then. Okay, so let's take into
Speaker 1: the access side a little bit, because, like you talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, especially in a heavily pressured state like Michigan,
Speaker 1: and even more on a small property in the state
Speaker 1: like Michigan, the pressure is king. Like that's the thing
Speaker 1: that's going to influence deer movement almost more than anything. Um,
Speaker 1: you can really really easily booker that area, I would imagine.
Speaker 1: So how did you go about creating or designing an
Speaker 1: access plan or actual paths you know, around this place
Speaker 1: so that you could hunt it sometimes but not educate everything? Like,
Speaker 1: like was it? I guess I'm curious to hear, Like
Speaker 1: what how did access work? Where did you put these trails?
Speaker 1: How did you know? Did you have a timing to win? Like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm never going to hunt the back of the farm
Speaker 1: until X time period. I'm curious about kind of that
Speaker 1: whole swath of of things. Yeah, no, you nailed it. Um.
Speaker 1: The first access that we made with that rush hog
Speaker 1: Day one was on the very southern line of the property.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm figuring, after listening to all your stuff and
Speaker 1: hunting cold fronts, that's what I wanted to do. So
Speaker 1: i'd go down My main data hunt would be expectedly
Speaker 1: a north wind, something with the north to it, So
Speaker 1: access would be on the south side of the property,
Speaker 1: right on the fence line. UM. That way, I can
Speaker 1: keep an eye on the neighbors too, and et cetera
Speaker 1: and vice versa. But so I have one main access
Speaker 1: on the south line. Now, we recommend you, a lot
Speaker 1: of our folks that we help out, um to have
Speaker 1: access around your whole property if you can, If you
Speaker 1: can take a skid steer and make a a road
Speaker 1: or a lane around your entire square, that's gonna beho
Speaker 1: view in one way or another on certain winds. You know,
Speaker 1: as long as you can get around, you can hunt
Speaker 1: most days, most winds. I'm not saying you should, but
Speaker 1: you can't. And so that's what the goal is. My place.
Speaker 1: The north border of the property butts up to my
Speaker 1: neighbor's field, which is overgrown kind of autumnile of thicket. Um.
Speaker 1: The deer really like that. And so after some you know,
Speaker 1: a year of of hunting from the south side, I
Speaker 1: could see that I'm not gonna bulldoze a path right
Speaker 1: through the middle of that. There's no way, So I
Speaker 1: don't hunt on a lot of south winds on that property.
Speaker 1: So you get you got this this investment that I
Speaker 1: put all this money into in time, and I have
Speaker 1: to hunt on a certain wind, which to most guys
Speaker 1: sounds pretty crazy, but to some guys sounds kind of normal. Um.
Speaker 1: I just I could never get myself to cut through
Speaker 1: that north side for to hunt any south winds, and
Speaker 1: that burned me this year in we had a lot
Speaker 1: of south, a lot of east and and I I
Speaker 1: got burned on it. Now I did get access from
Speaker 1: that one neighbor over there um to the north his dogs.
Speaker 1: I've called in trail cam running my deer around during
Speaker 1: November as coles have been over um. But he lets
Speaker 1: me walk in from that side, so I you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of those give and take things that it's like, man,
Speaker 1: how hard do you do? You push this kind of
Speaker 1: fix his fence and when he's letting you do that,
Speaker 1: so I do have a way to walk in. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: that's been kind of grown up too. So now it's
Speaker 1: more like you mentioned, I keep those north side spots
Speaker 1: for November three, November five. Remember one, whatever, if I
Speaker 1: have a south wind that I need to get in there,
Speaker 1: I will burn burn some area by walking on it.
Speaker 1: It's all it takes, right walking through an area for
Speaker 1: that hunt, expecting to kill on that hunt. And if
Speaker 1: I don't, that sucks. I burned it for probably a
Speaker 1: few days and and and maybe longer than that. So
Speaker 1: my main, so to wrap it up, my main access
Speaker 1: is always in the south n hunt the north and
Speaker 1: the west winds. But if there is something on the
Speaker 1: south and I have to get in there, I'll try
Speaker 1: to get access from a neighbor, or I will slide
Speaker 1: in there trying to make sure I'm sent free, boots,
Speaker 1: are are are treated, was the allite everything, and just
Speaker 1: hope that I get him killed before he knows I'm there.
Speaker 1: H So I guess tagging onto that whole general idea,
Speaker 1: how often can you get away hunting this fifteen acre
Speaker 1: piece in a given season without you know, negatively impacting
Speaker 1: it so much that you're hurting yourself? What I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've been trying to test that out for yourself.
Speaker 1: You've been trying to figure that out over the years.
Speaker 1: I imagine what have you learned. Is this like a
Speaker 1: you get three four hunts a year, or do you
Speaker 1: get us what's what's it been in your experience? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I bet you could do between ton and
Speaker 1: fifteen uh and and and I have and be successful.
Speaker 1: I have three kids under nine years old and and
Speaker 1: everything else, so I don't. I don't get out and
Speaker 1: hunt as much as I wish I could. But I
Speaker 1: ont it with my four year old a few times
Speaker 1: this year and we're successful. I bet that hunted it
Speaker 1: seven eight times, um list an hour and fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: way too, so that weighs in. But it's uh, if
Speaker 1: you do it right and your access is bulletproof, you
Speaker 1: can hunt it times. You know, you just really have
Speaker 1: to pay attention and and it depends how your property
Speaker 1: sets up. You have the cover where they feel safe,
Speaker 1: you have the food is your win not blowing in there? Ever,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're diligent and detailed about it, the
Speaker 1: more you can hunt, in my opinion, Yeah, So what
Speaker 1: else is important to do? Like? What other projects have
Speaker 1: you done on the property that are particularly important because
Speaker 1: of this small scale to allow you to keep hunting,
Speaker 1: Like you talked about some of the stuff you did
Speaker 1: to try to add cover back. I imagine that was
Speaker 1: part of it. What kind of things like that. Are
Speaker 1: you doing to to make sure that this place can
Speaker 1: can handle some hunting and still hold year and still
Speaker 1: make dear feel safe even though it's a small size
Speaker 1: of ground we're talking. Yeah. Number one would be do
Speaker 1: not let your wind blow into that parcel zero. I
Speaker 1: know sometimes you have to give the wind to a
Speaker 1: big buck, and I've done that and I get that,
Speaker 1: but if you want to hunt it more then less.
Speaker 1: Don't let your wind blow into the parcel really, ever,
Speaker 1: if you can help it. I know nothing's perfect. I
Speaker 1: don't walk into the parcel. I use a lot of
Speaker 1: cellular cameras. I know there's there's um some morality conversations
Speaker 1: going on with those lately, and I get it. At
Speaker 1: my point is I don't want to walk fifty seventy
Speaker 1: five yards out into my property and leave my sn
Speaker 1: That's that's a no no, no matter what um. And
Speaker 1: then I guess some some tools of the trade that
Speaker 1: I love to use would be max scrapes. Those have
Speaker 1: been cut popular the last five years or so. I've
Speaker 1: been using those religiously forever. And I don't go make
Speaker 1: like fifty of them, but I'll make a dozen or so,
Speaker 1: and and really put a dripper on it and a
Speaker 1: camera on it, and let them tell me the story
Speaker 1: in those scrapes. Is that is the the benefit of
Speaker 1: them is just to get the photos? Or are you
Speaker 1: adding those scrapes because you think that's making more bucks
Speaker 1: want to hang out in season checking those and they're
Speaker 1: spending more time in daylight hitting those and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. I think the ladder or both, really, buddy,
Speaker 1: I think, um, the max scrapes will tell you a
Speaker 1: picture or tell you or paint the picture for you
Speaker 1: when daylight is there, you know, daylight movement. So I
Speaker 1: use them for that and when I should hunt. But
Speaker 1: more importantly, the social aspect get these bucks feeling like,
Speaker 1: all right, well here's my night tonight. I'm gonna travel
Speaker 1: here and hit these four and the scent and checked
Speaker 1: this betting area and and repeat the next day or
Speaker 1: the day after. Right. So I'm more intrigued and relying
Speaker 1: on the social aspect of it. And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of small property owners need to be doing that
Speaker 1: at every tree stand location. I have wanted every stand location.
Speaker 1: What's your mocks grape kind of process? What all I mean?
Speaker 1: There's a lot of a lot of different approaches to it.
Speaker 1: Some people just use us out there. Some people will
Speaker 1: bring in a rope or a different stick from somewhere
Speaker 1: else or anything like that. What's your style. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can use a vine or whatever else. Right, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of different stuff out there. I like to
Speaker 1: take a white oak branch and cut it while it's
Speaker 1: green and hang that dangling dial with some zip tized
Speaker 1: or pair of cord um that is licking branch, and
Speaker 1: it hangs down, you know, pretty far, a lot of
Speaker 1: leaves on it. My thought is the more matter up
Speaker 1: there to catch scent and hold scent um, the better
Speaker 1: off it will be. And maybe it's overkilled, but that's
Speaker 1: what I do. And they love, you know, walk down
Speaker 1: the field edge and don't you know and look for
Speaker 1: the oaks that have overhanging branches. They're all hit. So
Speaker 1: why why go crazy and add something foreign? You know,
Speaker 1: Let's use what what mother nature is already using. So
Speaker 1: that that's what I do for my looking branch. I
Speaker 1: will hit the ground with the rake. I've used herbicide
Speaker 1: to clear that ground. I make that ground extremely obvious,
Speaker 1: like I'll do a five or six ft circle. And
Speaker 1: again it could be overkill. But to me, you're opening
Speaker 1: up that much more ground scent, the smell of dirt,
Speaker 1: et cetera. It's visual now at this point. And then
Speaker 1: I like to use um in combination with all that.
Speaker 1: You can just do that and let the dear takeover.
Speaker 1: But I like to start out with something some synthetics
Speaker 1: two to start, and I don't go back and touch
Speaker 1: it ever, I don't go back and refill. I don't
Speaker 1: do anything I do. I said it, and forget it
Speaker 1: really and then monitor from afar the cameras or from
Speaker 1: tree stands, etcetera. All right, so I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: accruing a set of small property rules here or guidelines
Speaker 1: on when you're hunting it. Make sure you have that,
Speaker 1: or make sure from the get go you established a
Speaker 1: bomb access like make sure you've got very smart access plans,
Speaker 1: and then create the routes you know, cut them brush
Speaker 1: hog and whatever, so you have a quiet, easy access
Speaker 1: route in from a safe wind perspective. Never blow your
Speaker 1: wind into the quarry of property hunted carefully and sparingly.
Speaker 1: Only when those things are right established mock scrapes throughout
Speaker 1: to you know, have those social hot spots. UM. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about cover, because you mentioned that one of your
Speaker 1: big mistakes is removing too much cover. So you start
Speaker 1: with fifteen acres, you took out three acres of it,
Speaker 1: so you're left with twelve acres of some kind of cover,
Speaker 1: three acres open. Now you've added an acre and a
Speaker 1: half or more back to that. And I think i've
Speaker 1: heard you talk about other things you've done to improve
Speaker 1: the cover that you did have. Can you talk about
Speaker 1: how you've created cover from nothing and how also you've
Speaker 1: improved the cover that you already had. You know, are
Speaker 1: you one of those guys who you know follows the
Speaker 1: I don't know, like the Jake Elinger approach or Jim
Speaker 1: Browker with like hinge cutting like crazy and just like
Speaker 1: tons and tons of these hell holes? Or are you
Speaker 1: taking a more broad strokes t s I approach to everything?
Speaker 1: Like what's you know? You've been able to talk to
Speaker 1: all these different people. What have you chosen to do
Speaker 1: on your own? You know, twelve thirteen acres a cover
Speaker 1: working there? Yeah? Great, great question with multiple answers. I'd
Speaker 1: say that the back eight acre Woods I called it
Speaker 1: um I had that it was logged probably two years
Speaker 1: but before I bought it and I had it logged
Speaker 1: again like three years later, and so in the laggers
Speaker 1: were all like, Okay, your trees aren't quite big enough
Speaker 1: to cut yet. If you just wait, you'll have more
Speaker 1: value in these trees later on. That wasn't really my goal.
Speaker 1: My goal was to create a better deer habitat now
Speaker 1: not and how much money you're really going to make
Speaker 1: off of eight acres of of you know, sparing sparing
Speaker 1: oaks a lot more than I than I did, probably,
Speaker 1: But so I had that cut as soon as I
Speaker 1: could get back in there and and learned and realized
Speaker 1: what I was missing. I had that cut. And that
Speaker 1: probably happened in twenty nineteen or that's grown up to
Speaker 1: be nice and things. So that was my t S
Speaker 1: I approach that that was letting the sunlight come in
Speaker 1: so full, full eight acres kind of select logging. It
Speaker 1: sounds like across the board making an eight acre slad
Speaker 1: timber with better understory. Is that accurate? Yes? If you've
Speaker 1: ever seen a picture of an oak savannah, or if
Speaker 1: somebody googles oaks savannah, it's like sparing oaks excuse me randomly,
Speaker 1: you know, or space out if you will. Planted pretty
Speaker 1: far apart, so they can they can do well, and
Speaker 1: then the rest of the ground gets hit with sunlight
Speaker 1: everywhere else and nothing above five foot is really beneficial
Speaker 1: to a deer unless it's dropping acorns. Um. So I
Speaker 1: really was trying to put the percent of what's left
Speaker 1: back into that five ft or under range. So that's
Speaker 1: that's what we did there. We cut it hard. Um.
Speaker 1: I didn't make very much money, but I also didn't
Speaker 1: have to do it and put my safety at risk
Speaker 1: um time. So so everybody kind of one and the
Speaker 1: deer one to now that being a little bit of
Speaker 1: a lower land back there, a little bit of wetlanded,
Speaker 1: it's taking longer to regenerate than I'd like, but it's regenerating,
Speaker 1: and the deer are responding to it, um, and then
Speaker 1: moving up to the the front half of the property,
Speaker 1: if you will. I've I've done it at all. I've
Speaker 1: hinge cut a bunch. I believe in hinge cutting. I've
Speaker 1: seen it. I've been on Jake's farm, I've been on
Speaker 1: my friend Allan's farm. I've been on these farms where
Speaker 1: these guys cut hard, and I'm talking hard, they cut
Speaker 1: hard like tornado. It looks like a tornado came through. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's nothing left standing, really like there's nothing left. Unless
Speaker 1: you see that firsthand, you're not You don't understand how
Speaker 1: hard how hard you need to cut, Including me, I
Speaker 1: didn't know, but where I think hinge cutting is extremely beneficial,
Speaker 1: especially in the Midwest and the North. Um, it's a
Speaker 1: tool in your tool belt. People think because I'm pro
Speaker 1: hinge cutting that and I made a bumper sticker one time,
Speaker 1: like a pro hinge cut bumper sticker is pretty funny
Speaker 1: kind of as a joke. But it's just a tool
Speaker 1: in our tool belt. We don't recommend you go in
Speaker 1: a hinge cut your forty acre woods. I don't do that. Um,
Speaker 1: it's more of it's very situational. What I after six
Speaker 1: years of doing this on the property, my recommendation is
Speaker 1: to get a forrester in their first explain your goals.
Speaker 1: What are your goals? You want to grow timber, you
Speaker 1: want to go dear, a little bit of both out
Speaker 1: of our class with a a little bit of both, and
Speaker 1: how do you how do you address that. The more
Speaker 1: you go for timber, the less it's going to be
Speaker 1: beneficial for deer or wildlife in general. So now I
Speaker 1: t s I first with a Forrester select cut. I
Speaker 1: tend to go heavy if I can, and then come
Speaker 1: in with the hinge cutting architecture or just felling more
Speaker 1: more junk trees. Either way, get them on the ground,
Speaker 1: get the sunlight to the forest floor. That's rule number one. Um,
Speaker 1: I hinge cut for along my access where I parked
Speaker 1: my truck. You can't walk from the woods to my
Speaker 1: truck in a certain area because of like the tornadoes created.
Speaker 1: But that hides me, you know, it allows me to
Speaker 1: park and and get in there. Um. I think's got
Speaker 1: some betting areas in the fifteen and the deer betting
Speaker 1: in them. So it's it's I'm kind of a all
Speaker 1: around guy at this point when it comes to which
Speaker 1: type of timber tool you want to use. And you
Speaker 1: also think I've heard you talk about doing some some
Speaker 1: grass stuff, right. Have you done some switch grass out
Speaker 1: there somewhere too? Oh? Yes, you mentioned that, it's part
Speaker 1: of the question. Yes, I've planted some cave and rock
Speaker 1: switch grass and three different spots. One of them was
Speaker 1: to hide my access walking in. I frost seeded that
Speaker 1: that was pretty good. I don't I don't want a
Speaker 1: no tell drill or or UM. I have an h
Speaker 1: TV and some tools and i'll have a tractor here
Speaker 1: finally soon. But I don't own the no chill, so
Speaker 1: I broadcast and frost seed, and that was for access.
Speaker 1: That's working great. Now I'm hiding one of my deer
Speaker 1: my tower blinds with some nice switch that's coming in.
Speaker 1: And but the main thing that I did was out
Speaker 1: in the middle of the food plots where I talked
Speaker 1: about replacing that cover that I that I brush hugged down.
Speaker 1: Now that I've practiced with an annual screen for two
Speaker 1: or three years and knowing I can divert the deer
Speaker 1: enough to come by my tree stand location at twenty
Speaker 1: three yards, now I've replaced that annual screen with a
Speaker 1: perennial screen being switch grass. So now what I'm doing
Speaker 1: is I'm taking that that task of having to get
Speaker 1: out there and plant every late night early June and
Speaker 1: hoping my screen comes into something that's established. Um. That's
Speaker 1: kind of a cool project where I'm using it more
Speaker 1: for diverting than betting. On this fifteen they kind of
Speaker 1: already bet where they bed. It's hard to force them
Speaker 1: to bed in new spots um with with switch grass
Speaker 1: if you're not dealing with a big open field or
Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, so what's the note till approach
Speaker 1: that you took with that switch How did you apply
Speaker 1: herbicide the fall before or something and then frost seed
Speaker 1: or or how did you handle that competition? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: nailed it. Um, I sacrificed the fall before by having
Speaker 1: this big dead brown spot out in front of me.
Speaker 1: It was that like a I'm sorry sorry to interrupt,
Speaker 1: but like when when exactly did you spray? Was that
Speaker 1: like a round up spray in in August preseason or
Speaker 1: did you actually have to apply it like in hunting season?
Speaker 1: And did that freak you out? I did both. I did.
Speaker 1: I did to sprays to make sure it was good
Speaker 1: and dead, and um yeah, it always it always freaks
Speaker 1: me out. I'm pretty anal about it. And it didn't.
Speaker 1: It didn't hurt anything. I don't think if you say
Speaker 1: in your equipment and you're quick about it, but you know,
Speaker 1: I just I don't want to be in there if
Speaker 1: I don't have to be during those times. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I sprayed with herb side twice. Got it very nice
Speaker 1: and death and I'll seated at and then the next
Speaker 1: year I hit it with simazine early on, which is
Speaker 1: a pre emergent helps keep anything else from coming up
Speaker 1: and establishing before your switch German eates and and and
Speaker 1: comes up and then um, I mode once it hits
Speaker 1: that second So switch grass will split when it's growing.
Speaker 1: Once it hit that second splitter, that second or third
Speaker 1: leaf if you want to call it that are blade,
Speaker 1: then I'll mowe it. And that tends to take out
Speaker 1: a lot of the weedy growth broad leaf competition in there.
Speaker 1: Now and now, I mean it's it's looking good. I'm impressed.
Speaker 1: You just have switch grass. You just have to give
Speaker 1: it time. And I know everybody's impatient, at least I am.
Speaker 1: And you want things to be done now and and yesterday,
Speaker 1: and switch grass, don't give up on it. Keep at
Speaker 1: it and you know it'll you'll you'll reap the rewards there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So year one, what kind of growth was there? Probably
Speaker 1: three ft? Okay? And then by year two was it
Speaker 1: five six something like that or yeah it was five?
Speaker 1: Last year was year two was five. So I'm pretty
Speaker 1: excited to see what it will be this year. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm hoping that what it'll do. I'm just still
Speaker 1: going to travel through it. But if I can give
Speaker 1: them a path of least resistance that goes around it
Speaker 1: and a nice big mark scrape there right at the
Speaker 1: tip of this funnel. And oh, by the way, my
Speaker 1: tree stands, you know, like I said, just within bow
Speaker 1: range of their I'm hoping that'll pull them up. And
Speaker 1: it's worked in the past. So that's kind of my
Speaker 1: thought process there. Yeah, that sounds pretty nice. Uh So,
Speaker 1: speaking of screening cover then and that kind of thing. Um,
Speaker 1: what are the other screening techniques or you know, blocking
Speaker 1: techniques that you've you've used outside you switch because you
Speaker 1: mentioned switches like the long term excuse me, but you've
Speaker 1: you've used some annuals to get you by in the past. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: is that Egyptian wheat or sorghum? What are you doing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Great questions. So a lot of companies, you know, everybody
Speaker 1: can find their their favorite food plot company and and
Speaker 1: find a screening next. Usually that's what I was using
Speaker 1: with a local one here in Michigan. Um, and that
Speaker 1: was a mix of sorghum, Egyptian wet some other stuff
Speaker 1: in there. Ah, I should probably know more what was
Speaker 1: really in there, but I didn't really look I planned
Speaker 1: it and it worked great. But the main stuff with
Speaker 1: sorgum in Egyptian wheat, and so what that would do,
Speaker 1: that would be twelve ft high um each year, I'd
Speaker 1: planned about six to eight foot wide, and and that
Speaker 1: would be more of a screen for the deer to
Speaker 1: kind of funnel them. Now, if I'm screening myself, at
Speaker 1: least i'm this property, you can use those same types
Speaker 1: of screens. My friend in Illinois he plants the same
Speaker 1: stuff and we walked behind it to hunt on his
Speaker 1: wide open terrain. But what I did on the fifteen,
Speaker 1: since I didn't really have a bunch of wide open fields,
Speaker 1: had more more trees. I would end up hinge cutting
Speaker 1: along there and felling trees along. They're letting that sunlight
Speaker 1: come in and just thicken it right the heck up
Speaker 1: with with briars and you know, early successional growth and
Speaker 1: that works as a great screen too. So just kind
Speaker 1: of I've kind of done both of those. I've also
Speaker 1: planted Muscantus. That's a touchy subject depending on who you're
Speaker 1: talking about. We're talking to um gigantism. Scantus is a
Speaker 1: rhizome based plant that you can plant in the ground
Speaker 1: one time and that grows after, you know, to three years,
Speaker 1: six to twelve fifteen ft tall and kind of um,
Speaker 1: so we're I'm looking for here. It kind of propagates
Speaker 1: itself underground and it starts to bread and fill in
Speaker 1: a little bit. But that's a that's a great screen.
Speaker 1: It's a little more of an initial investment. And some
Speaker 1: folks are are claiming that there's a invasive risk to it. Um,
Speaker 1: and that's that's above my pay grade. But I've used
Speaker 1: it and it's effective. It's just another way to do it.
Speaker 1: Hybrid willows would be a fourth way. Hybrid or stream
Speaker 1: co willows. You get those and cuttings or propagate yourself
Speaker 1: in the basement over the wintertime when you're bored, and
Speaker 1: you can plant those in some wet feet areas. Those
Speaker 1: can become a nice wall of cover. Um. Do you
Speaker 1: like to rub on them and and bust them off?
Speaker 1: And so it's there are multiple ways you can do it,
Speaker 1: and I've done I've done all those. Okay, So let
Speaker 1: me paint a picture of a scenario I'm faced with.
Speaker 1: I've used Egyptian wheat in the past and it works awesome,
Speaker 1: and it has screen some plots that I have one
Speaker 1: in particular that's within view of the road and asent
Speaker 1: to a big open field, and so screening was was
Speaker 1: really important. Um. The thing with that is that, as
Speaker 1: I understood it, it's important to plant it when it's
Speaker 1: warm enough. So I don't always been told you gotta
Speaker 1: wait till late May early June ish somewhere in that
Speaker 1: ballparked to planet, otherwise you know you can't do it.
Speaker 1: And so I did that. But then starting I don't know,
Speaker 1: some number of years ago, I started living and I've
Speaker 1: got a weird situation. But I go out west for
Speaker 1: the summer, and so I'm not home in late May
Speaker 1: early June anymore to to plant this stuff. So now
Speaker 1: I'm trying to fare is there any other screen I
Speaker 1: can get out there that I could be planting at
Speaker 1: the end of April or or otherwise, to somehow get
Speaker 1: some kind of screening cover out there in these places,
Speaker 1: you know, without having to wait till the middle of
Speaker 1: the summer when I'm gone. And I thought about mscanthus um,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if I don't I haven't looked
Speaker 1: further than far enough into it to know if that's
Speaker 1: something you can plant earlier in the year or not.
Speaker 1: If I could plan it late in the summer, you know,
Speaker 1: and plan on coming in the next spring and actually growing,
Speaker 1: um is mscant That would mscantus work given that limitation
Speaker 1: I have with time? Or is switch you know, planning
Speaker 1: switch really the only way I could get away with
Speaker 1: something that's always going to be there and doesn't require
Speaker 1: me planning in June? Um? Or Am I an idiot?
Speaker 1: And I could be planning Egyptian week April and and
Speaker 1: get away with it? Do you know? That's a great question.
Speaker 1: I know you wanna wait till the soil temperatures um
Speaker 1: up in that you know, high fifties sixty to remark
Speaker 1: for for that annual Egyptian we type stuff, or in
Speaker 1: that that general general time frame um mscantus. I normally
Speaker 1: plan around that same time. I have to double check
Speaker 1: what the exact date is. I don't know why you
Speaker 1: couldn't plan it earlier or even you know, in the
Speaker 1: fall or another time possibly, But how long are you
Speaker 1: going to be at this certain area? Four? Is this
Speaker 1: a long term gig? You mean? Like when I gone
Speaker 1: for the summer or like the property that I'm hunting, Like,
Speaker 1: how long do I plan on continuing to hunt there?
Speaker 1: The ladder? Uh? I hope for a long time. Well,
Speaker 1: then I'd probably go with UM, a combination of like
Speaker 1: Swiss grass in Norway spruce. So the spruce over time,
Speaker 1: we'll grow up, you know, over more more time than
Speaker 1: we want to wait again, I know, but that will
Speaker 1: be a great screen along roads. UM that that you
Speaker 1: plant once? Now hybrid willow. UM. There's a guy that
Speaker 1: I know in southern Michigan. He has a really nice
Speaker 1: hybrid willow screen along his road. And I planted four
Speaker 1: or five of them behind my house to block my
Speaker 1: neighbor's house four or five years ago. They're thirty ft tall,
Speaker 1: and you can and you can copass them and cut
Speaker 1: them off at you know, the three footmark, and they'll
Speaker 1: just bush out and be a very nice screen. The
Speaker 1: loser leaves in the fall. So there's that. UM. So
Speaker 1: if you do a combination of something that's more permanent,
Speaker 1: more perennial, UM, that's gonna solve your issue of hey,
Speaker 1: I'm not around at this certain time a year plus.
Speaker 1: Those annual screens suck up so much nitrogen out of
Speaker 1: the soil every year that eventually, if you're not replacing
Speaker 1: that nitrogen, you're gonna be you know, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: lower and lower returns on your on your planting. If
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Yeah, it does. What's the process with
Speaker 1: those hybrid willows and how quickly did those establish? Um?
Speaker 1: I've never messed with willows at all. Is that literally
Speaker 1: a steak that you're just sticking in the ground and
Speaker 1: then it just starts going? Is that what I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of or something different? No, that's right. Um. I've learned
Speaker 1: though that if you're in a wetter area, which I'm
Speaker 1: not sure which spot you're talking about, but I know
Speaker 1: you have a certain wet area that this is the
Speaker 1: this is the Yeah, okay, well then they're they're gonna
Speaker 1: do great there. Um. I've tubed them so that deer
Speaker 1: don't at them off as you're trying to get established.
Speaker 1: And yeah, there are the steaks or the cuttings. You
Speaker 1: can come into my house or I'll bring it some
Speaker 1: cut them. You cut them in a make sure the
Speaker 1: directions right, you know, over the top and the bottom
Speaker 1: are But you take a big branch and cut it
Speaker 1: into five steaks, and you can put them in a
Speaker 1: jar of water with some rooting hormone first, or you
Speaker 1: stick them in the wet ground. Um, I've done both,
Speaker 1: and yeah, they if you can get them potted first.
Speaker 1: Anything that you can get potted from my experience, whether
Speaker 1: it's a a bear root tree, pine tree versus a
Speaker 1: potted pine tree or a willow that I can get
Speaker 1: going in a pot first, you're gonna have a better
Speaker 1: success rate. But it's more time up front. So there's
Speaker 1: really a bunch of different ways you can do it.
Speaker 1: But those things and the wet shouldn't be pretty prolific
Speaker 1: in a short amount of time. So how you know
Speaker 1: to to visually provide some kind of visual barrier, you know,
Speaker 1: up to let's say five ft tall, give or take.
Speaker 1: Is that a two year thing maybe, or what's that's
Speaker 1: the timeline to get that kind of growth out of
Speaker 1: something like that? Yeah, those those will get five foot
Speaker 1: and one to two years. Yes, interesting, we should definitely
Speaker 1: talk about that because that might be you know, I
Speaker 1: don't even need I don't need a very long row
Speaker 1: of that kind of thing. I just kind of need
Speaker 1: one like I don't know, even like forty yards of
Speaker 1: it would would give me the main area block that
Speaker 1: I want. Um, something like that might be the trick. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, interesting, especially if we can go add some
Speaker 1: add some depth to it, right like one, if you
Speaker 1: think about one line of pine trees, that's a pretty
Speaker 1: good screen. You can kind of see through it here
Speaker 1: and there. If you have four rows, it's a totally
Speaker 1: different conversation. So the same thing with this area. If
Speaker 1: we have some more freedom to go more in depth,
Speaker 1: more deeper versus length, that's gonna be who of you
Speaker 1: even more. Yeah, that's a cool idea. I like that. Um. Okay,
Speaker 1: So screening, I think is another key thing that could
Speaker 1: really help you on a small property like we're talking about,
Speaker 1: because it's going to provide that visual cover from neighbors
Speaker 1: or roads, but also of your access. So that's that's
Speaker 1: a big thing on our our set of small property
Speaker 1: foundational ideas here. Um, we talked about your cover ideas,
Speaker 1: you know, doing the hinging, doing some serious cutting, bringing
Speaker 1: in a forest, or figuring all that kind of stuff out. Um,
Speaker 1: we haven't really talked about food, but people love talking
Speaker 1: about food and it's hard not to get excited about
Speaker 1: it on in your experience on a small property this
Speaker 1: fifteen or or maybe on the projects you've worked with,
Speaker 1: you know, consulting for people, or on your seventy acre piece.
Speaker 1: You know, how much food? And I know that this
Speaker 1: is situation and location dependent, but if you had to
Speaker 1: give me a ballpark idea, how much food do you
Speaker 1: need to make a difference, you know, to actually to
Speaker 1: get started and be like, okay, this is this is
Speaker 1: enough to actually change your property in a positive way.
Speaker 1: You know, do we need to do we need an
Speaker 1: acre to or is an eighth of an acre or
Speaker 1: half an acre still enough in your mind to you know,
Speaker 1: start moving things in the right direction. I guess I'm
Speaker 1: thinking here from a starting point, what's our minimum viable product?
Speaker 1: So how about how about the infamous answer it depends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that doesn't get anybody anywhere, but as it really does. Um,
Speaker 1: but if I had to generalize, do what you can do?
Speaker 1: Get started? I mean, if you can do an eighth
Speaker 1: of an ancre a quarter acre um and it's in
Speaker 1: the right location. You know you mentioned with the screening
Speaker 1: quick before we switch gears, keep people from driving down
Speaker 1: the road looking into your farm. Make sure they cannot
Speaker 1: do that. That's very important. Your deal will not come
Speaker 1: out on the daylight, at least the ones that we're targeting.
Speaker 1: So for food, again, it has to be in the
Speaker 1: right location. Can people see it from the road? Um
Speaker 1: that's a huge no no. So where do you have
Speaker 1: the room to do it? How much space you know
Speaker 1: is your property allowing you to get started? Make sure
Speaker 1: you can access it if you can't get to or
Speaker 1: you have to walk through your food plot to hunt
Speaker 1: the tree, stand behind it, start over, or don't plan
Speaker 1: a food plot there? Um, all all things that that
Speaker 1: we see and that and that folks do because it's
Speaker 1: easier to do it where there might be a preferred opening.
Speaker 1: But in general, if you can get again and deer
Speaker 1: population comes into this too, dear density, but if you
Speaker 1: can get a quarter raker started or an eighth of
Speaker 1: the akre started, do it start there? Um. You know
Speaker 1: the cliche thing is what time per cent of a
Speaker 1: property and food plots? I've I've heard a lot of
Speaker 1: people say that's great. I haven't reached that level yet.
Speaker 1: Um too much. Maybe I'm close, but you know I
Speaker 1: don't have wide open fields to that allowed me to
Speaker 1: to do it in large numbers, So I would just
Speaker 1: urge you to try it and get started and make
Speaker 1: sure you're growing good quality stuff because then you're gonna
Speaker 1: see the biggest bang for your buck and your time spent. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So what's what's your take then these days on what
Speaker 1: that high quality stuff is? I mean, how do you
Speaker 1: there's all right, You've heard a thousand different takes from
Speaker 1: people on what you should plant your food plots. You've
Speaker 1: experienced experimented with a bunch of different things. We've we've
Speaker 1: all heard the you gotta buy this thing, or you
Speaker 1: gotta buy this thing, or you need to plant this,
Speaker 1: you need to plant that. There's there's more opinions on
Speaker 1: food plots than there are stars in the sky. Um.
Speaker 1: But but where have you landed as far as your
Speaker 1: philosophy on how you choose what you want to plant? Um?
Speaker 1: Can you? Can you give me some background into your thinking?
Speaker 1: They're like, how you got to this point and then
Speaker 1: what you personally choose to to to put out there
Speaker 1: in the world, both for people to to use themselves
Speaker 1: and to plant yourself. Yeah, and I yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: for allowing me to go into the back story, because
Speaker 1: I kind of explained how I got here. I was
Speaker 1: just gonna ask you that. Um, it first started with
Speaker 1: getting a disk and working up the dirt and spreading out. Um,
Speaker 1: you know buck on the bag style food plot mixed
Speaker 1: from company A, B or C. We all have them.
Speaker 1: Every local store has something. Um, that's where I started,
Speaker 1: and we're good. Um. Initially the soil had not been
Speaker 1: planted before. It was a cattle pass yere many years
Speaker 1: before that. There was some nutrients in the ground. Well,
Speaker 1: mission we have pretty sandy soil that drains out nutrients quickly,
Speaker 1: gets depleted quickly. And uh, it's not that Iowa rich
Speaker 1: black dirt. It was some parts we have it, but
Speaker 1: not for the majority. No, So I started that way.
Speaker 1: And again time has always time and efficiency is always
Speaker 1: important to me. I always, uh try to try to
Speaker 1: be most efficient, spending most time my family as I
Speaker 1: can while they're young and everything else. So I'm always
Speaker 1: trying to get stuff done with one fell swooper or
Speaker 1: you know, one one afternoon instead of four. So you know,
Speaker 1: back with the disking, I have to go out there
Speaker 1: and have to spray two weeks ahead of time, go
Speaker 1: out there and spray again. Then you come back and
Speaker 1: disk it planted, and then you hope for rain. Your
Speaker 1: soil is exposed. Um, I've had I think two or
Speaker 1: three drought years, at least two drought years in the
Speaker 1: past five seasons that I've been through. Well, I interviewed
Speaker 1: some people way back when on the podcast that you
Speaker 1: could plant food plots without working the ground up at all.
Speaker 1: Spray and pray, throw and whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1: You spray with her beside. You'd plant small seeds, you know,
Speaker 1: Brasica's clovers, etcetera, prior to a rain, and you let
Speaker 1: that rain drive the seeds down into the soil and
Speaker 1: that dead dachelaar acts as you know, you planting the
Speaker 1: seed or baring the seed. Once I saw that starting
Speaker 1: to work, I stopped using a disk um, you know,
Speaker 1: for I could do all of it. One day. I
Speaker 1: could spray and broadcast my seed and drive home. I
Speaker 1: started doing that about four years ago. And you know
Speaker 1: that's it's it's not quote unquote like perfect no till,
Speaker 1: but it's it's kind of my hillbilly not till, and
Speaker 1: it works great. Um, you have to up your seed
Speaker 1: right a little bit and etcetera. But the principles are there, right,
Speaker 1: the soil health principles are there of minimal ground disturbance.
Speaker 1: I haven't just my food plots in four years. Um,
Speaker 1: so you're helping build some of that organic matter and
Speaker 1: nutrients back into this that very sandy soil I mentioned.
Speaker 1: And my time was cut in half, my trips were
Speaker 1: cut in half, gas money cut in half, if not
Speaker 1: into thirds. Um. So let's let's making sense to me, right,
Speaker 1: and the deer still there. And so I did that
Speaker 1: for up until last sheer with the same sort of
Speaker 1: mixes that you can buy at the big box stores,
Speaker 1: local sporting and stores. And then I mean, and Mark,
Speaker 1: what helped me? What helps solidify me in this no
Speaker 1: till disturbance? Your podcast you did with Dr Grant Woods, Um,
Speaker 1: I think it was to seventy nine. You did a
Speaker 1: few of them with him, But when I heard that one,
Speaker 1: he made it so simple stupid to me that I
Speaker 1: was like, what am I doing? And ever since then
Speaker 1: I've listened to podcast two or three times, um, and
Speaker 1: I follow all his stuff anyways, but ever since then,
Speaker 1: he just made it seem so just easy to do
Speaker 1: and the right thing to do. So that was kind
Speaker 1: of the first toe in the water towards diversity and
Speaker 1: no till planting for me. And then I did kind
Speaker 1: of like I said that, he'll building no tell for
Speaker 1: a while. Um. And then a good friend of mine,
Speaker 1: a long time listener of our podcast. He's been on
Speaker 1: a bunch of times. We call him a soil guy
Speaker 1: because he's he's like Mark Drewy is mad scientists when
Speaker 1: it comes to your hunting. He's like that about soil health.
Speaker 1: Um and and I'm not I I know enough to
Speaker 1: be dangerous, but I'm not. I'm not near as as
Speaker 1: uh well versed in it as as als. So he's
Speaker 1: been playing some mixes, some very diverse mixes, you know,
Speaker 1: ten seed mixed, ten seeds in a mix, twelve seeds,
Speaker 1: sixteen way mixes the past five six years, just like
Speaker 1: Grant talks about and etcetera, to to try to get
Speaker 1: that diversity back into the food plot program. Still no till,
Speaker 1: and and just kind of kind of simplified. He was
Speaker 1: making his own mixes. Um, having a lot of luck
Speaker 1: in southern Ohio. And he's been a friend of mine
Speaker 1: for for years now. Well, we we went to the
Speaker 1: table and um, my good buddy who I was working
Speaker 1: with food plasts in our podcasts for a long time
Speaker 1: passed away from covid Um, so we were kind of
Speaker 1: at a loss and they didn't want to keep moving
Speaker 1: with that company in terms of partnership of our podcast, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So it kind of came down to what are we
Speaker 1: gonna do here? We love to plant blasts. We decided
Speaker 1: to two come together and come up with some simple
Speaker 1: mixes for folks like me who just want to be quick,
Speaker 1: be effective, be efficient at a good cost, and get
Speaker 1: it done. So that's where Vitalized Seed was born, and
Speaker 1: that's where I'm at now. These mixes are extremely diverse.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, let's see, I think the spring mixes
Speaker 1: thirteen different plant types and the fall mixes sixteen different
Speaker 1: plant types. So that just kind of took my no
Speaker 1: till story, um, the spray and prey into even the
Speaker 1: next level. Well, now you're doing this with clover, cero,
Speaker 1: cero grains Ambraska's all mixed together. Um, And that's all
Speaker 1: been kind of my story for the past six years
Speaker 1: of where I started and where I'm at now now
Speaker 1: being fully diverse plant mixes one in the spring, one
Speaker 1: in the fall, highly attractive in diverse to white tails,
Speaker 1: and all promoting soil health, nutrient cycling, less fertilizer, less serbicide. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. So you you stop the tiling. So now
Speaker 1: you're not disturbing the soil. You're not you know, losing
Speaker 1: moisture from your soil. You're not encouraging further erosion of
Speaker 1: the soil. You're not destroying the biological life that's within
Speaker 1: that soil. Um, and instead you're building organic material on
Speaker 1: top that is then you know, becoming part of that soil.
Speaker 1: You've better fiel water filtration. Now, Um, you have new
Speaker 1: and and encouraged additional growth of bio apology and all
Speaker 1: those little microbes within the soil to give that soil
Speaker 1: the power and the punch it needs to grow stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: So that all makes a lot of sense. You you know,
Speaker 1: then move to this diverse planting. Now, can you describe
Speaker 1: for me a little bit more wide diversity is a
Speaker 1: good thing for our food plots and for for getting
Speaker 1: stuff there on the ground, because there's you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of talk about this. There's some people who say, man,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't plant blends because you know, you're never gonna
Speaker 1: do it at the right time for any one of
Speaker 1: those things, or you're not gonna get any one of
Speaker 1: these plantings quite right. Um, But then there's this whole
Speaker 1: other suite of reasons why the blends are a good idea.
Speaker 1: What's your take on that? What? What what makes diversity
Speaker 1: a good thing when it comes to food plots? And
Speaker 1: how does it help both from a hunting standpoint and
Speaker 1: from a you know, soil health or food quality standpoint? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you really know your stuff? Um, are you
Speaker 1: available for higher? I mean you you said all the
Speaker 1: nails on the head, and I'm just gonna agree with
Speaker 1: with what you're saying honestly. I mean for those who
Speaker 1: say you can't plant mixes together, a diverse mix together,
Speaker 1: I would I would disagree because I've done it and
Speaker 1: seen it. I get there point where maybe, okay, you're
Speaker 1: not hitting the one time percent most optimal optimal time
Speaker 1: for this seed or this seed or this seed. But
Speaker 1: like like my goals, I'm trying to be efficient and
Speaker 1: simple and and as effective as I can. So we've
Speaker 1: we've planned these highly diverse mixes and they work and
Speaker 1: all the scenes grow and it's it's not quite a
Speaker 1: bit of a red alarms as some people say. Um,
Speaker 1: the reason for doing that though why we like it.
Speaker 1: So in the spring we call it the nitro boost
Speaker 1: next to plant nitrogen. Right, so the atmosphere is like
Speaker 1: almost nitrogen in the air that we breathe. Our lungs
Speaker 1: are able to filter the O two the oxygen out
Speaker 1: of that and and et cetera. But air is the
Speaker 1: majority percent in nitrogen. Well all the a lot of
Speaker 1: the plants in our spring mix legumes can take that
Speaker 1: nitrogen from the air, push it through their there's their
Speaker 1: system into the roots and have root expedition. We have
Speaker 1: a picture of sun hemp plant that literally pulled it
Speaker 1: out of the ground and you look and there's little
Speaker 1: white balls on the roots that look just like the
Speaker 1: double zero nitrogen palace you buy attract or supply um So,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're seeing it happen. And the other reason
Speaker 1: for the diversities because well, now you have sun ham
Speaker 1: fRoots that might go down six inches, you have sunflower
Speaker 1: roots that go down further. You have certain clovers that
Speaker 1: are shallow where what we're doing is we're taking nutrients
Speaker 1: from the top two three four ft of the soil
Speaker 1: a column and that plant is pulling them all together
Speaker 1: into one plant. When you terminate that spring mix, all
Speaker 1: those nutrients are right there on top of the soil,
Speaker 1: not four ft down, not in the air above you,
Speaker 1: but right they're ready to be used. That's why we
Speaker 1: do diversity in this in our mixes, in the spring mix.
Speaker 1: So what the spring mix does is its cycles all
Speaker 1: the nutrients, heavy on putting nitrogen into the ground, which
Speaker 1: is free fertilizer um from all these different levels, and
Speaker 1: when you terminate it for the fall planting, it's all
Speaker 1: readily available right there. Over time, I mean like it
Speaker 1: doesn't break down overnight and you can't use it exactly
Speaker 1: the next day. But our system is more of a
Speaker 1: year after year it gets better and better. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: in the fall the carbon load plant carbon. That's what
Speaker 1: plants feed on, right, the sugars, the carbohydrates UM so
Speaker 1: the natro boost the nitrogen is feeding the fall plant
Speaker 1: that you planted and helping that grow for free. And
Speaker 1: then in turn that big diversity of Clover's Brassica's cereal
Speaker 1: grains in the fall sixteen way mix is doing the
Speaker 1: same thing. You're grabbing nutrients from three or four ft down,
Speaker 1: You're you're keeping all of this at the right level
Speaker 1: in the soil the top six inches. And when spring
Speaker 1: comes along again and your fall plant has been terminated, Um,
Speaker 1: it's all dead carbon laying there. It's like the corn.
Speaker 1: They disks the cornback into the ground. It's hiding carbon.
Speaker 1: They dis get back in it feeds the soil. UM.
Speaker 1: That's what we're doing. We're doing no till. All those
Speaker 1: cars that fall carbon mix place right into what the
Speaker 1: spring nitro mix wants to wants to feet off of again.
Speaker 1: So it's a cycle, and it's how Mother nature does it.
Speaker 1: And it's diverse in the way that it grabs nutrients
Speaker 1: and cycles them throughout the year. And what that means
Speaker 1: for animals. They understand nutrient density. They'll walk through a
Speaker 1: soybean field I've heard, I've heard and seeing some of
Speaker 1: where they'll pick certain leaves off certain plants. Um. Maybe
Speaker 1: they'll walk by your food plot to eat the golden
Speaker 1: rod that's on the side of your food plot. They
Speaker 1: can tell, you know, the selective browsers. They can tell
Speaker 1: what has the best nutrients and what tastes the best. UM.
Speaker 1: A metaphor we always hear about is the fruit plantings.
Speaker 1: You know, oranges and apples and whatnot. Don't have the
Speaker 1: nutrients they used to know that. You might still have
Speaker 1: a bigger, larger orange, but it doesn't contain the same
Speaker 1: amount of nutrients it did twenty years ago. Um, that's
Speaker 1: nutrient density of the plant itself, and it tastes different.
Speaker 1: So do you know that. And they're getting more nutrients
Speaker 1: out of each plant. They're getting their minerals out of
Speaker 1: the out of these plants. You can't I can't put
Speaker 1: minerals out in Michigan anymore. So this is another way
Speaker 1: where we can help everything really um and just find
Speaker 1: what works for you. Now, if some of those seeds
Speaker 1: and those diverse mixes don't come up right away attempt
Speaker 1: you know, maybe get a cold front or something happens
Speaker 1: or a drought, you know, some will pop up right
Speaker 1: away and then some of the other ones might fill
Speaker 1: in later. Like some clovers don't establish as fast as
Speaker 1: say a sorghum or um our buckwheat right, buckwhet is
Speaker 1: an easy one to talk about. So, but what you
Speaker 1: have now in the column, you have food, Like in
Speaker 1: our fall, I think we have three different types of
Speaker 1: beans of eagle beans in there, um regular soybeans. We
Speaker 1: had an American joint vetch and lab lab for the
Speaker 1: boys down south and like what but what you have
Speaker 1: now is you have food from four ft in the
Speaker 1: air all the way down to the clovers and the
Speaker 1: vetch that's right in the bottom floor where a braska
Speaker 1: or like a soybean field. You know, once those leaves
Speaker 1: fall off, you have some beans in there, or corn,
Speaker 1: for instance, you have a copper corn. But we're filling
Speaker 1: in that that gap with all food. The sunlight is
Speaker 1: penetrating through all of that, and now we have a
Speaker 1: more mass of plant matter with every square foot. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting you mentioned, you know, how it'll different
Speaker 1: things will start growing at different speeds in different times.
Speaker 1: It made me think just how diversity, in addition to
Speaker 1: what you said, also provides a really nice insurance policy
Speaker 1: for bad conditions or for you know, any number of
Speaker 1: things that can go wrong with the food plot. If
Speaker 1: you plant all one thing, if you plant a monoculture,
Speaker 1: it's either boom or bust. Right, you either did it
Speaker 1: perfect with the perfect soil conditions for that plant type
Speaker 1: and the perfect you know rain, you know timing, and
Speaker 1: the perfect nitrogen content or whatever it is pH level, YadA, YadA, YadA, Um,
Speaker 1: so you might nail it or it might just be
Speaker 1: a complete failure on the side of diversity. You know,
Speaker 1: you can get away with things maybe not being just
Speaker 1: right for one of those because you've got fifteen other
Speaker 1: things that you know have a chance of succeeding. So
Speaker 1: you're gonna have something work. Maybe maybe twelve out of
Speaker 1: the fifteen work great, and you get three that aren't
Speaker 1: don't turn out as well in your conditions, but you've
Speaker 1: got something altogether there that's gonna going to work and
Speaker 1: going to provide some level of benefit and attraction. And
Speaker 1: I love the idea of having something that is attractive
Speaker 1: throughout the entire season. Um. I've had I've done food
Speaker 1: plots in the past where I was doing mono cultures
Speaker 1: and it was like, all right, man, this food plot
Speaker 1: is gonna be banging from opening day till the beginning
Speaker 1: of November. But then it's kind of slowing down and
Speaker 1: by late season ats toast like it's just not going
Speaker 1: to be attractive because of what I chose to place there.
Speaker 1: And then I'd have another food plot that would be
Speaker 1: like my late season spot. Um, but you know that
Speaker 1: there's you know, I guess there's reasons to do that maybe,
Speaker 1: but I have found better success now with these diverse
Speaker 1: blends that I've used the last I don't know, three
Speaker 1: four years, be because I get attraction from the very
Speaker 1: first day of the season to the very end of
Speaker 1: the season and beyond, because you know something within that
Speaker 1: blend is attractive. So I've got you know, three or
Speaker 1: four things that are attractive early, three four things in
Speaker 1: there that attractive mid season, three or four different things
Speaker 1: that are attractive at the end. And so dear now
Speaker 1: form this pattern and this behavior where they just know, hey,
Speaker 1: year round, I know there's something good there. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have this back and forth, back and forth, back
Speaker 1: and forth thing that doesn't ever have to change. And
Speaker 1: that's very beneficial obviously. Then from a hunting standpoint, so
Speaker 1: you've got you know, the nutritional component and then the
Speaker 1: hunting pattern and component. Um, not to mention the soil
Speaker 1: health stuff, which, like you said, great podcast we did
Speaker 1: with grant Um. I've read a lot on I've tested
Speaker 1: some of those things first in the back forty and
Speaker 1: now I've been doing it more and more on my
Speaker 1: other local pieces, and it's um, it makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense to basically work with Mother nature to enjoy
Speaker 1: the benefits of natural fertilizer and you know, natural water conservation,
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff, rather than pumping in chemical
Speaker 1: synthesized substitutes that cost a lot of money, especially these days. Man,
Speaker 1: I bought a little bit of fertile as the last
Speaker 1: year and that stuff is expensive now, I mean, like
Speaker 1: crazy how much it roseen costs. So you know, going
Speaker 1: this route, you know, regardless of what blend do you use. UM,
Speaker 1: I think diverse and trying to apply these different notel
Speaker 1: ideas just as U. It's a it's better for the earth,
Speaker 1: it's better for the soil, it's better for the deer,
Speaker 1: it's better for your wallet. I it's hard to argue
Speaker 1: with it from everything I've been seeing and learning. UM
Speaker 1: that I do have a question for you, rather than
Speaker 1: me ranting about why I like it. Oh you just
Speaker 1: you just wrap that up very nicely and hit the
Speaker 1: spots that I missed. Um. If there's one thing I
Speaker 1: can add quick mark there, you know, get going back
Speaker 1: to the six soil health principles. You know, you want
Speaker 1: to keep a living root in the ground at all
Speaker 1: times for for the microbes in the soil if your
Speaker 1: if your beans are done, there's nothing going on in
Speaker 1: that soil till you're planting next year. Um And like
Speaker 1: do you know that your soil knows that? So you
Speaker 1: know that the fact that it's not amount of culture
Speaker 1: um drought resistant. You get a warm day in December,
Speaker 1: that rise is going to start popping again, or even
Speaker 1: January in certain southern Ohio that that rye and that
Speaker 1: we in the mix and whatever it makes you use
Speaker 1: is gonna start popping again. It's made to do that.
Speaker 1: Um So Yeah, and I mean pretty much whatever it
Speaker 1: makes you use or mix your own diversity is extremely helpful.
Speaker 1: We've just we've gone through it with the seed mills
Speaker 1: where you walk in there and they look at you
Speaker 1: like you're crazy. You want to do what you want
Speaker 1: to buy and mix all this No, we don't have this.
Speaker 1: Then you gotta buy fifty pounds awry and then you're
Speaker 1: starting to have all this extra seed line around. We
Speaker 1: just pretty much try to button all that up and
Speaker 1: simplify it. Yeah. Um so the spring and fall plantings,
Speaker 1: so the spring late summer plantings, how would you recommend
Speaker 1: someone go about doing that? As far as like the
Speaker 1: best food or best. You know, there's a number of
Speaker 1: different ways to do this kind of thing, right, you
Speaker 1: could use a drill, you can do the hill billy
Speaker 1: approach you took, and there's different ways to terminate. Um
Speaker 1: and and I guess I'm basically what I'm looking for
Speaker 1: here is could you walk me through your recommended process
Speaker 1: for how you go about planting your spring planting and
Speaker 1: then if you should terminate, how you terminate, and then
Speaker 1: how you go about it in the fall planting. How
Speaker 1: you recommend doing that? Um and uh and yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess I'll let you run with that. Yeah, great question.
Speaker 1: There's there's a multitude of ways you can do this,
Speaker 1: depending on what equipment you have. UM, I would I
Speaker 1: would urge people to start with a clean slate. You know,
Speaker 1: don't don't go out in your your pasture and just
Speaker 1: start broadcasting onto a thatched layer of grass. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna win. Um. You know, so I I would recommend
Speaker 1: or I start with an herbicide treatment and or even
Speaker 1: tillage for for day one. Now, this is just to
Speaker 1: get a clean slate. I have no problem with that.
Speaker 1: We're just trying to minimize soil discerbants over time. And
Speaker 1: herbside use over time, not saying we never use them,
Speaker 1: but if we can decrease that, the more the merrier.
Speaker 1: So a clean slate in the spring or the fall
Speaker 1: is how I like to start. Um, So what then
Speaker 1: I would do? There's multiple ways you can plant. If
Speaker 1: you have a no til drill, God bless you. I'm jealous.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. I hope to have one some day. Um,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be your probably number one way to get
Speaker 1: the best seed to soil contact. And we have like
Speaker 1: an average depth that we use for the mixes, so
Speaker 1: you're getting a little bit of everything. That's one way
Speaker 1: to do it. A friend of mine uses a two
Speaker 1: real corn planter, you know the kind that you run
Speaker 1: through disc to ground, and you know John Deere Alice Chambers.
Speaker 1: You can use those. Um. It might not be the
Speaker 1: most effective way, but I've seen it done and it
Speaker 1: does work. How I normally do it would be just
Speaker 1: a broadcast method. So I would spray the ground and
Speaker 1: or till it, or just get get myself a fresh
Speaker 1: clean start at the very beginning of my system. I'm
Speaker 1: about to commit for the next five years. UM, and
Speaker 1: I broadcast and I went right Sorry, what time of
Speaker 1: year is this, Jared, that you would start this spring planning?
Speaker 1: Great question mark. We like to wait till the soil
Speaker 1: attempts between fifty five and sixty. I'm a little bit
Speaker 1: more on the fifty seven fifty eight to sixty degree range.
Speaker 1: So depending on what that is, could be may up
Speaker 1: here in our neck of the woods late May, early June.
Speaker 1: But that's where we wanted to be. I mean there's
Speaker 1: there's you know, soybeans, sunflowers, ego beans, that sort of
Speaker 1: thing in these mixes. We want to make sure that
Speaker 1: you're not you're not putting it in the ground at
Speaker 1: the wrong time. So better about that sixty degree tent mark.
Speaker 1: And then I broadcast I add about extra seed per
Speaker 1: acre than if I were to drill it um. You
Speaker 1: can even go fIF um if if you have a
Speaker 1: good price seed and you're not playing out the wazoo
Speaker 1: for it, you can afford to do a little more.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna hurt you. I'd like tend to do
Speaker 1: usually more on So what I do is I'll broadcast
Speaker 1: that and I will call to pack it in. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're on your two or three of this system,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have rye et cetera. Popping up from your
Speaker 1: fall plot from the season before. You're going to have that.
Speaker 1: You know, shoots of growth may from the fall plot.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna have a clean slate. So what you
Speaker 1: do then as you broadcast or drill into that live
Speaker 1: standing vegetation and you terminate that vegetation over top of
Speaker 1: the seeds you just spread. Now, they're multiple ways of terminate.
Speaker 1: You can use a brush hog, you can use herbicide,
Speaker 1: you can use a roller crimper, you can use a
Speaker 1: lot more um one that's not talked about enough as
Speaker 1: a flail more. It's an attachment for a tractor that
Speaker 1: that's meant for more heavier duty brush than a brush hog.
Speaker 1: But if you notice beud a brush hoog, sometimes you
Speaker 1: get like a wind row or the thatched kind of
Speaker 1: all piles up in the middle or off to one side.
Speaker 1: The flail mower will cut it a lot more even,
Speaker 1: giving you more even coverage over the seas you just
Speaker 1: threw down. So that's that's a tip there, that and
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't really really talk about. So
Speaker 1: plant terminate over top. Now, any any more questions on
Speaker 1: the spring Next before we shift gears, I do one
Speaker 1: last question, um, just in case somebody is is well,
Speaker 1: two things I guess One the big benefit to doing
Speaker 1: the spring planting correct me if I'm wrong, But by
Speaker 1: doing the spring planting, you are essentially this is a
Speaker 1: way to fertilize and prepare for your fall hunting plots.
Speaker 1: But you're doing it in a way that you know
Speaker 1: isn't pumping synthetic fertilizes into the ground. It's not costing
Speaker 1: you as much from that perspective, and you're building the
Speaker 1: soil content. And as a bonus, you are now adding
Speaker 1: high quality food for all sorts of wildlife for an
Speaker 1: additional three months of the year. Um, to then build
Speaker 1: into your fall hunting plot. Is am I right on?
Speaker 1: Like a cliff notes version of the benefits of doing
Speaker 1: the spring planting, It is that right yep. And I
Speaker 1: would go as too far say as you would are
Speaker 1: you're also suppressing weeds at that time as well for
Speaker 1: all summer long, which again relates to lower side use. Okay, cool.
Speaker 1: So then the second question would be, um, if if
Speaker 1: we're trying to build a spring mix ourselves, if we're
Speaker 1: just trying to d I, y, what are the like
Speaker 1: just foundational like types of you know, do give me
Speaker 1: a high level broad strokes idea of what kind of
Speaker 1: stuff I should try to include if I'm d I
Speaker 1: Y in this myself. Yeah, So, what's what can be
Speaker 1: unique is trying to get the carbon to nitrogen ratios
Speaker 1: perfect between the spring and fall planning. That's what that's
Speaker 1: what we tend to do this kind of our niche. Um.
Speaker 1: But if you're going in there, you know a lot
Speaker 1: of guys will plant rye and buckwheed um, sunflowers, some
Speaker 1: clover's lagoons right. Any legum will put nitrogen into the ground.
Speaker 1: Beans um will help prepare for the fall planting. There's
Speaker 1: a bunch of different soil soil building mixes you could
Speaker 1: call them out there. Um, So, just just to understand
Speaker 1: that spring food plots can be harder and more challenging
Speaker 1: the fall food plots based on what you're dealing with
Speaker 1: the summer, you may or may not get rained. Um.
Speaker 1: You might have some more weeds in there, warm season
Speaker 1: type plants because you're not planting in the fall, and
Speaker 1: they do look a little messier sometimes. But just think
Speaker 1: of it this way. All that is going to go
Speaker 1: back into the soil to feed your next round. So
Speaker 1: I think the upside outweighs downside. Yeah, okay, I follow
Speaker 1: you there. So now we have this messy summer food plot,
Speaker 1: but it's great. It's providing all sorts of cool stuff.
Speaker 1: There's some weeds in there, but that's fine because weeds
Speaker 1: in many ways are good for all sorts of other
Speaker 1: critters and pollinators and fun stuff like that. Now we
Speaker 1: edge into late summer and we're getting ready to plant
Speaker 1: our fall planting, which is the you know, our hunting plots.
Speaker 1: And can you walk me through how you are terminating
Speaker 1: your spring plot when you're doing that, and what you're
Speaker 1: thinking about when we play this next version for this
Speaker 1: next round? Right, definitely. So if you have a drill,
Speaker 1: you can you can drill right through the spring mix.
Speaker 1: They call it planting green. You can fire that thing
Speaker 1: up with your tractor and drive right over it and
Speaker 1: plant in between it, and you're gonna kill some of
Speaker 1: the some of the spring makes by running it over.
Speaker 1: Some of this is gonna mature and die out with frost, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And you don't use any sort of herbicide. Um, you're
Speaker 1: just literally keeping living roots in the soil all the time.
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Again, it looks a little messier, but
Speaker 1: you know, it depends what your goals are. What I
Speaker 1: do with the equipment I have, which is pretty average,
Speaker 1: um for every you know a lot of people that
Speaker 1: I run or talk to. We you know, I'll go
Speaker 1: in there normally in August. Normally I'm in August. I'm
Speaker 1: playing the weather. I'm looking for that rain. I want
Speaker 1: to make sure that that I have a good rain coming,
Speaker 1: so sometime in August, because I want to give my
Speaker 1: basket some time to grow that are in the mix.
Speaker 1: And if you're only cereal grains, you can wait a
Speaker 1: little bit longer, even even September. So but since it's
Speaker 1: we're talking diverse mix here, I try to hit the
Speaker 1: middle of all of it. I'll go in there. I will.
Speaker 1: So now I'll have a four or five ft standing
Speaker 1: spring food plot. You know, tall is me? I guess
Speaker 1: I'm taller than four or five ft, But you're right
Speaker 1: in that area. And I'm gonna be with my age, yeah,
Speaker 1: four ft two, driving through with my a t V.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna be I have a a like a
Speaker 1: salt spreader for for ice on the front. I just
Speaker 1: filled that thing up and I'm broadcast through the standing
Speaker 1: mix and now all that seed is getting you know,
Speaker 1: falling down in between all these plants down to the
Speaker 1: ground and or close. Then I come through and I
Speaker 1: terminate it. I have an a TV cult to packer
Speaker 1: works pretty good. Um it has a roller crimp for
Speaker 1: attachment that works pretty good. Herbis side, I've used herb
Speaker 1: beside because that works great. And really, if I'm using
Speaker 1: herbicide and I'm doing this system, I'm using it twice
Speaker 1: a year max. And really that's a lot better than
Speaker 1: then what I've done in the past. And I'm trying
Speaker 1: to go to once a year. Soon maybe no, you know,
Speaker 1: no use of that a year. But long story long,
Speaker 1: better your seed terminate with either cramper can roll that
Speaker 1: down and terminate those plants on top of your seeds.
Speaker 1: You can spray the combination of both, or again back
Speaker 1: to the mower. You can grab a mower. And that's
Speaker 1: where that throw and mo came from. Years ago. You're
Speaker 1: mowing and all this dead plant matter what we call
Speaker 1: thatch or duff, that's covering up your seeds, acting as
Speaker 1: if you planted them under the dirt. So then you
Speaker 1: need that rain. So that's pretty much how I would
Speaker 1: do that, as I mean pretty standard. You're just instead
Speaker 1: of covering your seeds with dirt, you're covering it with
Speaker 1: dead plant matter, if that makes sense. Yeah. So it's
Speaker 1: it's really key to make sure you broadcast first before
Speaker 1: knocking down any of that stuff, right, because if you
Speaker 1: knock down your your spring planting first and then your
Speaker 1: seed never makes it beneath it, right, So that timing
Speaker 1: is is pretty key. Your order of operations can really
Speaker 1: mess things up, right, It can with a diverse mix
Speaker 1: like that where we're we have peas and and oh
Speaker 1: it's some big, big seeds in there. That's why I
Speaker 1: do it that way. I've done it the other way though, too,
Speaker 1: with if you're just planting like braskas and clovers. Um,
Speaker 1: I've sprayed first, let it die for two weeks, and
Speaker 1: then just wait for that rain and then run out there.
Speaker 1: And the smaller seed with a good rain can get
Speaker 1: down there as well. But now you're starting to depend
Speaker 1: on how much thatche layer do I have, how much
Speaker 1: soil is exposed. It can get a little bit tricky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I do it like you said, I do
Speaker 1: it prior and then I terminate over top. Okay, um,
Speaker 1: and all right, so we've got we've got the process.
Speaker 1: It's such a cool, simple, cheap way to do it,
Speaker 1: Like you don't need any big equipment to do it
Speaker 1: like this. You really could do it with You almost
Speaker 1: don't even need a You could do this with a
Speaker 1: backpack sprayer or you know, over your shoulder broadcaster. And
Speaker 1: that's basically it. I mean, you don't need to have
Speaker 1: a tractor. You don't need to have a TV. And
Speaker 1: a TV helps a lot with certain parts of this,
Speaker 1: but you don't need it. Um. I mean that's a
Speaker 1: that's pretty darn cool. What if again, I know, I
Speaker 1: I used your um, your carbon load, I think you
Speaker 1: call it, or whatever the heck is called your fall blend.
Speaker 1: Last year I had some issues with water flooding, but
Speaker 1: the stuff that did come up came up really good. UM.
Speaker 1: And I end up having a mature buck in their bunch, which, uh,
Speaker 1: it's a story I actually haven't told in the podcast yet,
Speaker 1: but I almost killed a mature buck with my four
Speaker 1: year old this year twice. UM. And it was revolving
Speaker 1: around this spot that you and I, you know, work
Speaker 1: I'm planning. Last year which is a story for another day.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna tell the story of this particular hunt
Speaker 1: until I kill this deer, which hopefully will happen someday. Um,
Speaker 1: but but what if if someone's trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: do something like this themselves, or if they are you know,
Speaker 1: if they already have some stuff and they're wondering, hey,
Speaker 1: will this work for a summer planting? Noe till like this?
Speaker 1: If I want to do this year round cycle? What
Speaker 1: are the key elements of this kind of fall blend
Speaker 1: in your in your mind, key elements being like seed
Speaker 1: types or what's it bringing to the table in general?
Speaker 1: I guess both. So, so what what general categories of
Speaker 1: seed would you want in a fall mix? And you
Speaker 1: can speak to what you guys use yourselves or otherwise,
Speaker 1: and then you know and why Oh, first of all,
Speaker 1: if you kill them mature buck with a four year old,
Speaker 1: then a vitalized food plot, I would be high five.
Speaker 1: And yet all the way down to that'd be I
Speaker 1: can't wait to hear that story. Um, hopefully hopefully it
Speaker 1: happens this fall. Now I'll tell you what. I brought
Speaker 1: a four year old out like six times and we
Speaker 1: killed a dough and we killed three doughs together. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't for lack of a challenge. So if to
Speaker 1: get a mature buck and ball range or holy cop um,
Speaker 1: well done. An this was like, oh okay, well still, yeah,
Speaker 1: you understand the four year old in the dear blind
Speaker 1: still was a miracle to be close to playing off
Speaker 1: still exact exactly. Um. So for the for the fall load,
Speaker 1: you know, we we like to the main goal of
Speaker 1: this was to just cycle nutrients, like Grant talks about
Speaker 1: with whatever seed bud you go to and get off
Speaker 1: of the fertilizer in the herbis side. It's actually what
Speaker 1: I've learned from the process. This is super attractive to
Speaker 1: white tail, more so than I would have ever thought
Speaker 1: in the first a minute. Um. But now that I
Speaker 1: know no more about it, I know what's in it.
Speaker 1: I understand. So in the fall mix we do a
Speaker 1: sixteen way we have I hope I get this right here.
Speaker 1: We have like four or five clovers, we have four
Speaker 1: or five grains like cereal grains, and we have four
Speaker 1: or five brassicas um and we have as as. In
Speaker 1: general is pretty much what it is. There's different turn
Speaker 1: ups and braska's there's you know, buckwheat, oats, wheat rye,
Speaker 1: try to kale. And then you know, you have your
Speaker 1: different types of Dixie, crimson clover, medium red clover, frosty
Speaker 1: brow seem you know, some good name brands stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: but in general it's a mix of clover, Braska's and
Speaker 1: grains for the most part. And what that does you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier with kind of insurance policy. We had a
Speaker 1: drought year this past year, and finally when we started
Speaker 1: getting that rain in October, boom, here it comes and
Speaker 1: the deer notice that. And I was just blown away
Speaker 1: by how they can again selective browsers tell what is diverse,
Speaker 1: where to go, which food plot to walk across to
Speaker 1: get to which other one. It's really very cool. So
Speaker 1: those are kind of the principles there is, just you
Speaker 1: have something for each part of the season. You have
Speaker 1: braskas for late, you have grains for early, and and
Speaker 1: clover for browse tolerance. Um. I'm not sure if that
Speaker 1: answered your question ful you or not? Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: you covered it. And then do any of those clovers.
Speaker 1: I gotta believe some of those clovers will be greening
Speaker 1: up again in the spring before my spring planting of
Speaker 1: the next round. So I'm getting year round coverage of
Speaker 1: some kind of food out there, is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Living roots in the soil all your long is what
Speaker 1: we're trying to do here, you know, upp here, you
Speaker 1: know it's tough in February, right, But like down south,
Speaker 1: it's a different story. Those guys have it going on,
Speaker 1: um with the longer planting seasons all the time. So
Speaker 1: that's the idea. And in the spring, that rise going
Speaker 1: to bowl that we's gonna bolt up. Your clover is
Speaker 1: gonna start popping up again, and you're gonna have the
Speaker 1: first green food source out of anybody around. That's kind
Speaker 1: of what we try to do with everything with our
Speaker 1: properties is be the outlier, be the exception, um, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of your terminology, be the icing on the cake.
Speaker 1: You don't need to be the fourty acre corn field
Speaker 1: that holds all the deer, but you can get them
Speaker 1: to swing in and spend some time there while you're
Speaker 1: in the tree sand. That's a goal. Yeah, that's awesome, man.
Speaker 1: Well we are running out of time. So there's like
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other things I was thinking I
Speaker 1: want to talk about, like a whole other property you
Speaker 1: have that you've been working on that we didn't get there.
Speaker 1: But but I guess that means we have to do
Speaker 1: this again. Um Man. I appreciate talking through all this stuff.
Speaker 1: It's really fun to get to talk through these ideas,
Speaker 1: um and and talk to someone who's proving them on
Speaker 1: you know, not a big, huge giant farm, but doing
Speaker 1: on fifteen, doing on seventy, you know, doing it like
Speaker 1: anybody else, with doing it without tractors and no tills.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're doing it very simple, very basic budget
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So it just I think gives myself
Speaker 1: hope and I think a lot of people that this
Speaker 1: is something that's available to just about anyone. And uh
Speaker 1: and I appreciate that. So before we wrap it up
Speaker 1: the really quick Jerry, can you give us the quick
Speaker 1: scoop on where we can you know, learn more about
Speaker 1: your content, consume your content, learn more about the seeds,
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Where can we get it if you
Speaker 1: want to hear more about this habitat stuff. We talk
Speaker 1: about it all year long. Habitat podcast Again, I'm very
Speaker 1: simple habitat podcasts. Find that on all of the iTunes
Speaker 1: and spotifyes of the world. Happy podcast dot com and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we've had you on there a couple of
Speaker 1: times and it's just it's just it's it's what we
Speaker 1: nerd out on all the time. We love it and
Speaker 1: we talk about making your deer hunting property better with
Speaker 1: the use of habitat improvement. Um As far as the
Speaker 1: food plot stuff that it's called vitalized seed on the
Speaker 1: idea behind vitalizes to put strength and energy back into something.
Speaker 1: That's what we're doing with our our soil and our wildlife,
Speaker 1: so vitalized seed dot com. If you have any questions.
Speaker 1: We we pride ourselves on service, so call us up,
Speaker 1: email us, we'll take your call, we'll take your email,
Speaker 1: take your soil tests, will help you out. Feel free
Speaker 1: to reach out. You will hear back from us at
Speaker 1: vitalize seed dot com. And Mark, just thank you again, man,
Speaker 1: had a great time chatting with you. Yeah, I appreciate.
Speaker 1: It's good to catch up again and hopefully we can
Speaker 1: talk more again soon. While while standing over some dirt
Speaker 1: or hopefully not dirt. Hopefully it's living roots and something
Speaker 1: growing and we're talking about the next round and continuing
Speaker 1: continuing this food plot process. So thanks buddy. You bet
Speaker 1: I'll see you this spring, all right, And that's a wrap.
Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in, Appreciate you. Hope you found
Speaker 1: this one interesting and inspiring. I hope maybe you're gonna
Speaker 1: go grab a chainsaw or shovel or your ut V
Speaker 1: or something and head outside and get to some of
Speaker 1: these projects. You know, spring and summer is gonna be
Speaker 1: here before we know it, so let's get out there
Speaker 1: and get started. And with that said, thank you for
Speaker 1: tuning in, and until next time, stay wired. Done