That low pressure will pay off, promise. Add the new crop and I’d say you are golden (like a shower) come late fall.
The Farm w/ No Name - Habitat Projects
- Thread starter bowhunter1023
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My youngest is a wild one and she's generally glued to my side. K went to the theater with Tracie today, so I took Kenna to the farm. As soon as she say the four-wheeler and Kubota, she started in on the "daddy, ah wide peeze". Bet I heard that 7,000 times over the next hour!
This pic is from Friday morning and what we checked out from the Kubota today. Six years ago, this was brushhogged field. Sometimes the best habitat management projects are the ones where you do nothing!
A lot of the projects I'll share in this thread are based around this and a couple other areas that look similar now that I've stopped my dad from mowing it all. I call this "CRP" and it may be my favorite type of habitat.
This pic is from Friday morning and what we checked out from the Kubota today. Six years ago, this was brushhogged field. Sometimes the best habitat management projects are the ones where you do nothing!
A lot of the projects I'll share in this thread are based around this and a couple other areas that look similar now that I've stopped my dad from mowing it all. I call this "CRP" and it may be my favorite type of habitat.
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Jesse farm is looking good... Love the pic of you and your daughter... I can see a lot of good times down the road... Best of luck with the project...
cspot
Member
Jesse,
on your CRP field are you planning on just letting that revert completely back to woods or do you plan on mowing all or sections of it occasionally to keep it in a brushy weedy stage?
on your CRP field are you planning on just letting that revert completely back to woods or do you plan on mowing all or sections of it occasionally to keep it in a brushy weedy stage?
tracker 6
Junior Member
Your "crp" looks great,good place foe a couple of Early Harvest apple trees.Keep an eye on these pines they get big quick.Good sidekick you got there.
I will probably manage the trees in another year or two with the chainsaw. I've seen fields like this that look the exact same as they did 20 years ago when I first saw them, so this won't go to "woods" in my lifetime. As long as it self-regulates, I have no plans to mow it except for some of the briars along the edges. I hope to selectively spray some of the multiflora at some point.
cspot
Member
Ok. Just curious of what your long term plan was. Not sure if there is herbicide that you could use to help maintain or not. Spraying is easier than a chainsaw. LOL.
Yes on doing a burn, just not here. I don't want this to change, so I won't interfere too much unless provoked. The property behind my house butts up against a field that has almost identical vegetation as this. (After season, I'm flying the farm with a drone, so this thread will get a little more visual.) That field looks today much like it did when I first saw it in 1994. It could use some tree work, but the undergrowth is remarkably similar year in, year out. In most areas of the state where this type of habitat exists, you'll notice good edge as well. They go hand in hand and the deer love it.
The area I want to burn is going to be an experimental bedding area, but I need my dad to sign off on it first. Sometime in January, he and I are going to walk the farm so I can layout a few projects and see what's a go/no go and then it'll be time to get to work. The bedding area will require us to finally get a dozer out there and it'll results in a lot of firewood too!
The area I want to burn is going to be an experimental bedding area, but I need my dad to sign off on it first. Sometime in January, he and I are going to walk the farm so I can layout a few projects and see what's a go/no go and then it'll be time to get to work. The bedding area will require us to finally get a dozer out there and it'll results in a lot of firewood too!
Burns are a great management tool. Just be sure and get yourself up to speed Ohio's open burning laws if you're not already. It'd be a stupid way to get your tit in a ringer... Either on the legal side or the safety side of things. A burn can go really well or really really bad in a hurry.
Big_Holla
Senior Member
Mowed paths through areas like that are a great idea especially if you combine them with stand sites. Our so-called sanctuary has blown up this year all of a sudden and some of the paths are getting thick again.
Spent a much needed morning at the farm working on a punch list I made a couple months ago. I was able to hang a cam over my minerals, which is the first to be deployed this season. I spent some time in the Corner Pocket dropping some trees to form a 30 yard long wall to force deer around either end. Should keep anything from walking directly under the stand and it helped increase view of deer feeding where the Wide 8 appeared last year. Also confirmed we have beans, which means I may not spend much time reclaiming this food plot. It looks like my spraying helped, but I'll likely till this under in favor of an annual, then reestablish cover in the spring. I also cut a new road into my southern most food plot, then sprayed it and the Runway Plot. I'll return in a month to nuke them again. Shaping up to be a nice year.
I need to remember this thread more often...
Putting this video here and tagging @giles in case he hasn't seen this. Jeff made a comment on another video once where he sort of contradicted himself (matter of interpretation) in this video. To paraphrase, he said you can have a great buck farm OR a great doe farm, but you can't have both. That is among the few "lightbulb" statements I've heard in recent years from the whitetail "pros". In this video, he mentions (and provides reasons why) that if you have a mediocre farm in the summer, you'll have a great farm in the fall. In the evolution of our farm, we went from lack of stem count cover and browse, with lots of open woods around, to super thick and tons of browse. It makes sense now, after watching this video, that this change in habitat is why we went from holding bucks in the summer, to only holding does and becoming a "pass-through" farm in the fall. This means, per his comments, we have a "great" thing going and I should stay the course when it comes to being the holding and hangout location for all the ladies. This helps me plan future projects and eventually, I'll have more to share in this thread!
Putting this video here and tagging @giles in case he hasn't seen this. Jeff made a comment on another video once where he sort of contradicted himself (matter of interpretation) in this video. To paraphrase, he said you can have a great buck farm OR a great doe farm, but you can't have both. That is among the few "lightbulb" statements I've heard in recent years from the whitetail "pros". In this video, he mentions (and provides reasons why) that if you have a mediocre farm in the summer, you'll have a great farm in the fall. In the evolution of our farm, we went from lack of stem count cover and browse, with lots of open woods around, to super thick and tons of browse. It makes sense now, after watching this video, that this change in habitat is why we went from holding bucks in the summer, to only holding does and becoming a "pass-through" farm in the fall. This means, per his comments, we have a "great" thing going and I should stay the course when it comes to being the holding and hangout location for all the ladies. This helps me plan future projects and eventually, I'll have more to share in this thread!
Great interpretation, Jesse. It is one thing to watch these videos, but another to take the pieces and put them together in your own places.
Productive morning at the farm thanks to help from my buddy that hunts out there occasionally. My two skinny creek bottom plots were getting skinner by the year due to encroachment from multiflora rose, autumn olive, and grape vines. It's hard to see the real difference in pics, but we added a good bit of additional plantable ground to each plot, we increased sunlight, and reduced contributions to leaf litter. The Pond Holler plot is ready for planting, the Runway Plot needs some tractor time to push all the brush back off the edge. I undercut a 20' swath along the eastern side, but it was so tangled in honeysuckle and grapevine, we need more Hp to finish the job.
We had several big trees down that were choking off trails all over the place, especially the one below. Opening it back up will heavily influence travel in a positive way, especially for future youth hunting spots.
Lots more to do, but those were definitely cold weather chores that would have been impossible in July!
We had several big trees down that were choking off trails all over the place, especially the one below. Opening it back up will heavily influence travel in a positive way, especially for future youth hunting spots.
Lots more to do, but those were definitely cold weather chores that would have been impossible in July!
Stressless
Active Member
Wow not a lick of snow or ice left there. The ground was still frozen N of Coshocton yesterday. Great time for those chores- and helps to have another body or two pitching in.
Flexed a little time today so I could get my plot screen in before the storm. The whole field was recently disced, harrowed, and cultipacked after it was left in corn stuble last year. Dad wanted a blend of orchard grass and clover in it to help reestablish something easy to maintain. I'll take the northern portion and plant @at1010's Vitalize Seed fall blend in it once I can procure some. The inside corner on the righthand side of the pic is where my 2019 buck entered the field and I killed him in the Corner Pocket, which is over the edge of the terrain in the opposite corner. I'll set a blind in the screen on the E side of the field and with any wind that's W-NW-N-NE, I can slip in from the S and hunt it with ease. I'm excited to see this little experiment come to life!
Also made it down in the bottom for the first time and other than getting my fat finger in the way for the "after" pic, things went well. The "Big Plot" got reclaimed and will get Eagle beans in it around the 4th of July.
Also made it down in the bottom for the first time and other than getting my fat finger in the way for the "after" pic, things went well. The "Big Plot" got reclaimed and will get Eagle beans in it around the 4th of July.
at1010
*Supporting Member*
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