No Till Food Plots - So Easy

[Henry III]

I just watched your video, it was great. Do you have any concerns about mining since your not fertilizing?

 

[triple_duece]

this thread is great!! I see where he mentioned Jay Brandt - Jay's father, David Brandt is from Central Ohio and is a father of REGEN AG!! Super cool. Also this dude has some impressive $$ to spend on deer! I am about 10 pages in and I will keep reading! Awesome stuff.

That thread will give you 20 years of trial and error and a lot of money savings. You getting the learning curve for free!

 

[at1010]

That thread will give you 20 years of trial and error and a lot of money savings. You getting the learning curve for free!

Heck ya! I notice he references several biologist - I am curious if they are any of the ones I have read or followed. I am enamored with the guys passion. Do you know if he had a thread on the QDMA forums? It sounds familiar to me in some ways but could just be a similar guy from LA I suppose.

 

[at1010]

I just watched your video, it was great. Do you have any concerns about mining since your not fertilizing?

I continue to monitor soil tests, I have around 3+ years of consistent soils tests on each field, and I evaluate each spring.

With that being said, I don't have fear of that as these are deer plots and there is more OM on the fields and being added by deer/other critters daily. I am not harvesting any crop off the field either. I have a mix that is feeding each other vs. monocultures. So for example - I have clovers/vetch (legumes) mixed with 4 grain types and then brassicas. This spring the radish/turnips will be decaying and stinking - the rye/clovers will be bolting! The wheat/rye/triticale/oats are all shooting different root structurers down into the soil, sequestering nutrients from varying levels of said soil. Not to mention also sequestering carbon from the atmosphere, that is being secreted through the roots as sugars into the rhizosphere. This is what will feed the mycorrhizae in the soil - this is the symbiotic relationship we are hoping to enhance and make extremely efficient!! The idea is plants/soil communicate and the plants give the fungi food and the fungi give the plants the needed nutrients - without need for synthetics. This takes time to achieve but can happen once we have hit our stride in soil health, and plant diversity!

This spring I will plant another mix - although I don't know how successful it'll be without a drill but I hope to continue to feed the soil through spring/summer diversity plants and sophisticated root structures (beans, peas, sunflowers, etc.).

I am never tilling, I will mow/spray gly/ eventually crimp (once I get a crimper) to create a thatch layer that will continue to feed microbes and simultaneously feed the continually growing crops/roots/mycorrhizae!

The problem with fertilizing, even modern fertilizers, we are not sure how much is actually even taken up by plants! I was shocked to learn this but there are several scientist who believe that up to 70% (I believe I got that correct) of synthetic fertilizers end up as run off.

All in all, I dont recommend quitting cold turkey. Even Gabe Brown talked about slowly coming off Fertilizer applications - I think it is similar to a strong antibiotic the doctor might give you. Often they slowly increase and then decrease dosage, as to not shock the body.

Hope my ramblings make some sense. Time to take a break from soil, poor a drink and enjoy the day with my wife.

AT.

 

[triple_duece]

You have a lot of reading and trying to push your eyeballs in after seeing his deer.

 

[at1010]

“*pour a drink” I’m embarrassed I used “poor” haha in above. My bad!

 

[at1010]

Here is a fairly good presentation by Ray Archuleta. I watched this today, due to it being at a conference - there are a few parts that are a bit quirky. However, pay attention to the "slake test" and the "disrupted water cycle slides".

As Allan Savory said "it is not drought that causes bare ground, it is bare ground that causes drought"

 

[at1010]

You have a lot of reading and trying to push your eyeballs in after seeing his deer.

I am about half way through this thread.... This is the same guy from the QDMA forums (no longer available) - he is awesome!! I appreciate you sharing it with me! As for big bucks, I have never been one to be blown away by big deer grown inside a fenced area. I respect the guy and his passion. 450 TONS of protein feed with antibiotics to prevent parasite stress on the deer, is amazing! Just not my cup of tea - absolutely no disrespect.

For all following along - I am going to try to keep this thread solely focused on soil healthy through regen ag practices. I am super open conversations, questions, tips, etc. Please comment or DM anytime. I will continue to share resources that are specific to this topic that I believe others may find interesting albeit not always directly related to deer.

I think I will start another thread that talks about forestry management - maybe one about managing herd dynamics based on podcast/readings/studies from MSU deer lab, any interest?

Keep after them boys! Stay safe.

 

[triple_duece]

His big deer are all native deer. No introduction of genetics. What he has grown from age, improving the soil and management is unbelievable. He tried without a fence and the rednecks around him mowing the deer down, to get the age structure was impossible. So yes the size and caliber of bucks he kills is absolutely impressive. Most times he’s not killing his top end bucks that hunters kill. He’s all about improving the habitat and improving the deer. Think it’s over 2,000 acres here in Louisiana.

 

[at1010]

His big deer are all native deer. No introduction of genetics. What he has grown from age, improving the soil and management is unbelievable. He tried without a fence and the rednecks around him mowing the deer down, to get the age structure was impossible. So yes the size and caliber of bucks he kills is absolutely impressive. Most times he’s not killing his top end bucks that hunters kill. He’s all about improving the habitat and improving the deer. Think it’s over 2,000 acres here in Louisiana.

Absolutely - he has some impressive bucks, his management is extremely hands on, which is awesome. I mean how he strategically targets certain bucks to open up the nutritional availability for all the other deer, so they can reach their full potential is amazing. I also thought the poaching piece was unreal! He talked about how he had hired a deputy to basically be security against poachers - that is incredible!!

If you are interested in seeing some other impressive situations on some free range whitetails - checkout Growind Deer TV. He has 2500 acres in Ozark mountains of MO. His county has never had a booner killed. Through years of intense habitat management, fire, food plots - REGEN AG style, doe harvests, and trying to get deer to 4 or 5, he has grown some incredible deer - especially respective of his area (150+). They are not able to protein feed in MO per state guidelines.

Mississippi U. deer lab has an awesome study where they took deer from the lower costal plains of Mississippi (not known for large antlered bucks), put them in a fenced in area and fed them unlimited high quality food- they deer could only breed with others from their same region. It took 2 or 3 generations but the deer ended up grossing scores way higher (near or above deer from the Delta region of MS - known for big bucks) than the average areas they were from. They were able to show it takes around 6 years ( 2 generations of 3 year old bucks) to see a substantial impact on the whitetails antler growth. This is where they start to see where the epigenetic triggers are switched on, basically allowing the deer to grow larger racks as their potential is inherent but nutritionally they were suppressed based on the habitat they resided. The book "Strategic Harvest Systems" is a good read on this, and they also have a couple podcast episodes, if anyone is interested. In the end, this shows that if and when the deer have more than enough food to eat, they can then grow large antlers - irrespective of their region (caveat potentially being some smaller sub species - although with better habitat/nutrition - we should be able to increase their antler size above avg.).

Thank you for reading all.

AT

 

[at1010]

Going to be at farm tomorrow. I hope to be able to provide some updates on several plots. Varying from fantastic to poor soil.

I’ll try to take several pictures. Look forward to updating you all.

 

[at1010]

Alright yall - today, as they say, was a DAMN good day. I do believe one my shooters was killed during gun but I cant blame anyone for killing a 155+ inch deer. I was blessed to have tons of pictures of him and have my cousin chase him all season since I was tagged out. I hoped he lived but I learned a long time ago - build it and they will come. So I will continue to work on my soils and habitat, there will be more bucks next year to chase.

So now lets talk soil, plots and some thoughts I have on each. Here is a small plot. As you can see from the atv tracks, it is wet. This is a .25 acre plot, that is always way over browsed and has a propensity to stay wet. In the second picture below, this is a plot I call "lane" - it is about .50 acres. The plot is long and skinny - the proximity to bedding sets it up for over browsing. Again, it is wet this time of year due to seasonality and the pure number of deer that are going through the area.

So what do I take away from these pictures? I have my work cut out for me and I have failed to keep a continuous root growing. I plan to frost seed clover into both of these spots heavily in March. I will then probably plant some type of spring mix (even though these are smaller plots) to try to continue to feed the soils.

Lastly, I will seed these plots far heavier next fall, specifically with grains to help reduce some of the browse pressure. Rye grain is one crop that can be put on late into the fall. I will most likely seed these at the same time of all my other plots, but hten continue to touch up thin spots with rye/oats to fill in any gaps.

Barring no major changes/issues before next season - I will also continue to shoot does to balance the ratio and available food on the farm for the deer.

 

[at1010]

This entry is going to be the ugly, then bad, then good - first entry was UGLY!

Now is the bad- this is a small plot on a red pine ridge, that is surrounded by red, and chestnut oaks. They draw the deer in regularly and throughout our history on this farm - it has been a great spot to harvest deer.

As you see below - the pines/oaks are starting to shade out the small plot (there is more behind me of the plot, I am in center of plot when I took picture).

The deer browse the hell out of plot - as you can see by the exclusion fence

I have been fortunate to build the OM on this small plot! I will continue to frost seed, over seed with my highly diverse summer mix, and as in above examples - I will focus more on grains/clovers/vetch and less on tuber production here. I will still have radish/ptt/kale but I am only doing it for diversity in the soil sub structure and not focusing on it growing deer or tubers. Also, I will continue to top seed these with rye/oats/triticale/ww as my time permits to fill in gaps.

 

[at1010]

Before I go into "the good" - I want to share why I believe I have been able to continue the OM increase on these small plots without fertilizers (natural or synthetic). I believe I am increasing OM for the below reasons.

1. Using a multi crop species to heavily take advantage of the symbiotic relationship between plants and soil - root exudates are powerful! Always trying to have a root growing, diversity is king!

2. Herd density and browsing density - specific to an area. The deer continue to come back to these plots due to the diverse mix of plants. If these were a monoculture, they would be wiped out, and that would be it, essentially I would be left with a biological desert. These plots are so diverse that even a warm winter day, some of the grains and clovers will start to pop again. The brassica remains are always a draw on cold days as well. As the deer are constantly being drawn to the fields, they are eating, stomping/crushing biomass into the soil, and pooping all over! Other deer come in and are stomping on the deer poop, urinating, and so goes this cycle.

As you can conclude, not one of these steps functions by in solidarity, but all working together the relationships between the plants, roots, deer, and back again are symbiotically benefiting one another - not to mention the micro bacteria that makes the soil, soil - that is also benefiting from and to all aspects of the system.

 

[at1010]

Here is the good

Thatch is still breaking down in some areas it was thick but overall it is doing its job and grains are germinating through the thatch layer still! The thatch will continually fed on by the biology in the soil! It also is acting as a weed mat - as I am not disturbing it, other than when I frost seed this Spring!

Here is some of the type of production that is growing out of that thatch

For a reminder, this is all being done with ZERO inputs, other than working to balance CtoN rations and take advantage of the already existing nutrients in the soil.

 

[at1010]

Lastly - here are a few other images of some plots. As you can see, they are far from perfect but if you look closely you can truly see the amount of tonnage that is available for the deer. I have around 10 acres this year in plots and I do plan to increase that in the future.

Base on the location, browse pressure ,etc. I will adjust how/what I seed. I will continue to take soil tests to monitor my success or lack there of and work to remedy all situations without synthetic fertilizers.

 

[at1010]

There is a TON of science that goes into all this and I am learning more about it all every day. I listened to a good podcast today with Gabe Brown that had me rewinding on several occasions to listen over.

At the end of the day to grow highly nutrient dense food, we need good soil. To have good soil, we need to mimic mother nature. There is roughly 36TONs of atmospheric nitrogen available per acre. We can harness this nitrogen with legumes, which in turn feed bacteria, and make that nitrogen bio-available in the soil for other plants - example, brassicas!

As Gabe Brown mentions, root exudates liquid carbon into the soil - the bacteria in the soil can communicate with the plant and will give the plant what it needs, as the plant feeds the bacteria what it needs - hence symbiotic. Some plants are known to likely mine certain nutrients better than others - example Buckwheat is known for mining phosphorus, through the relationship described above.

All in all, I don't believe the specific nutrient mining matters. Through diversity, similar to what our native prairies had, we can build soil OM, by priming the biology in the soil.

I hope one or two of you all enjoy these write ups. I post this information - not to brag in any way, but to simply share the little I have learned and gathered along the way.

If I can help anyone - please reach out, anytime.

AT.

 

[Stressless]

Do you lime? see that you're dead set against "synthetic fertilizer". Where are you at on adding the corrective pH additive?

 

[at1010]

Do you lime? see that you're dead set against "synthetic fertilizer". Where are you at on adding the corrective pH additive?

Stressless - thanks for reading along, I’ve enjoyed you’re threads as well.

I have used lime and will when needed. As I have built my OM in the soils through these practices my need for lime has continued to be reduced year over year.

To be clear - I am not “dead set” on not using synthetic fertilizers. I just don’t think they are needed - as was once thought. I’m am strictly trying to follow regen Ag practices in this thread and why.

I am most likely going to start looking into all Dr. Rick Haney soil tests which actually test for active availability of nutrients in soil. Current tests don’t account for nutrients that will become available through natural biological processes - this is one of the reasons why actual fertilizer absorption is so low (70% run off in some cases).

Lime and fertilizers also have a heavy salt content - this can reduce/and kill soil biology. Also fertilizers added heavily it can make your soil biology lazy and reliant on these additives.

I know this thread probably makes me look like a “loon” haha but there is a ton of science backing this idea now and farmers who have been doing this for years as some of the successful farmers in the USA.

Let me know if and when I can answer any questions. I can also provide additional links or sources to listen to - some posted earlier in thread.

Thank you.

 

[at1010]

"We dont have a run off problem, we have an infiltration problem" - Ray Archuleta

"The more we put cover crops, the more we get cycling, the less lime we have to put because we build these biotic glues- now we hold on the calcium, zinc - it is the fungus and bacteria that build the OM" - Ray Archuleta

Great video - Ray is the man!