Would you plant

[DaveHawk]

Biologic if given the land to hunt and the resources to plant them. Or just lease the fields out to a farmer ?

[GF.]

In your area, if it were my land, I'd try and grow some kind of marketable crop that's compatible with leaving a few rows standing for the wildlife - though not necessarily the deer ;)

I might even just put it into CRP if that were an option, because then you'll never take a loss on the farming effort, and it's a lot better on the environment than any conventional crop. Plus, it provides plenty of cover to hunt. Something like biologic is no more 'diverse' than corn....

Somehow, putting out food plots down there seems like it would make you about as popular as someone in NYC who put out food for the rats :eek:

[DaveHawk]

LOLOLOL

I might even just put it into CRP, I let the land owner know about this.

GF deer are from the family of rats , Right LOL

[venado]

Yep, rats with antlers..!:D

[pepaw]

Lots of variables here, but I would lean toward an agreement with the farmer to plant various crops.(not just one type) Or let him plant what he wants over 90% and plant other food plots for me on the 10%.

Not all wildlife seeds grow well in all areas. Especially hot, dry TX. Might need to experiment what grows well in your area/soil/climate.



pepaw

[GF.]

Yep, sad to say, but the only honest thing I know of that a farmer can do that guarantees that he won't lose money is to take the CRP subsidy.

Not that I have anything at all against the CRP program - I love it when it works as intended..... And I'm thinkin' that you guys could use a little habitat restoratio nwork down there.

It'd be one hell of a nice 'experiment' to plant a nice mix of native species of plants, trees, shrubs, etc, and fence the deer out so that the regeneration of a real forest could actually happen The pics from inside and outside of deer/Elk exclosures always get the viewers' attention!

[Bushman]

If you build it, they will come. I'm talking about the hunters. Sure a food plot will attract deer, but there are a lot of people out there that will be fine with you doing the work and having the expense of putting in a food plot so that they can hunt it when you are gone. We had a bunch of acres up north and the neighbors with the 60' lots were always getting "lost" on it.

[dave-t.]

Our conservation dept leases out farm fields on public land at the cost of 10%of the crop to be left standing. It works great for the farmer, he leaves the outside couple of rows, that get hit by deer the worst anyway, and harvests the middle of the field. No work or cost to the farmer, but the 10% of extra seed. Pretty good way of doing right by everyone.

Depending on how the field lays regarding viewing from the public, I'd plant soy beans for attracting deer, much better than corn. Corn only gets eaten after it ripens, beans get eaten as soon as they start popping up. Wheat or oats would be my second choice.

It wouldn't be a big deal for a farmer to get in tight to field edges and plant clover or other food plot seed. The crops don't grow the best right up next to the woods and shade anyway, and then you could have the best of both worlds. A strip of greens around the field tight to the woods, and a strip of grain left by the farmer. A buffet. See what gets hit the hardest.


I don't know that CRP is available to everyone, as I think that program has been cut back in this political administration. You should check it though. Deer bed in that tall grass like no other place I've found. There is some feed there of course, but nothing like grain fields and food plots. The cover is what keeps them in it. When they lay in CRP fields the wind blows over the top of them, the sun shines through to warm them, and they are invisible. Doesn't take them long to figure that out either.;)

[GF.]

That’s a program that needed a little trimming, hate to say… There were some scammers out in CO who bought up a bunch of native pasture for next to nothing; stuff that supported only a few cattle and that nobody had ever farmed because only a fool would try it.

Then they ‘farmed’ the land for a few years, probably scoring some kind of govt ‘relief’ to offset their unfortunate and unforeseeable losses on the enterprise. :rolleyes: And then they enrolled the same acreage in CRP and collected their subsidy in exchange for their environmentally-sensitive, high-minded actions – but only after destroying the native grassland and seeding it with stuff that never belonged there in the first pace.

That MO system sounds MO like it, if you ask me. I especially like the part where everybody gets to hunt the place… Some days I think that the CRP & ‘ranching for wildlife’ dollars ought to come with a public access string attached… At least for a percentage of the land enrolled, maybe. I dunno, though… That could get tough from a landowner’s point of view, and I guess you could argue that we’re all better off looking longingly over a fence at an off-limits patch o’ heaven than not having it at all….

But on the other hand, the CWD outbreak was born in an area that was pretty much all private land and which got supersaturated with deer, just like the whitetails in most of the country. You’d think we could learn from that, wouldntcha?

[dave-t.]

Farm subsidy programs are amazingly fraudulent. Not everyone is in it to rip off the gov't, but danged if you can't legally get paid more for a 100 yr flood than for a field full of crops. I've heard plenty of stories from crop farmers about how to legally make collections on failed crops, busted equipment, bad weather, high water, etc.

One of the ranch hands I hunt with told me, "You can't find a way to lose money farmin'."

Those farmers are much better at paper work than you'd ever guess. But, with the system there to take advantage of, who's not going to take it?

[GF.]

Funny thing...

The Old Joke in my family was about the farmer who won the big lottery, and the reporter asked him what he was gonna do with all that money.

"Well, I reckon I'll just keep on farmin' 'til the money's all gone...."

But if you think guys like Scotty Pippen are some of the biggest 'farmers' in the country because they just love those little piggies, you're probably due for a reality check... Worst thing is that the big, corporate outfits are getting fat on subsidies and the little family-owned & operated places appear to be getting killed off by the Big Competition.