BSK
Well-Known Member
pass-thru,
I'm not saying food plots are useless. They absolutely have value in a management plan. I'm just saying their benefits are overhyped, UNLESS a manager is willing to pour huge amounts of money into them, which automatically places them low on the cost-benefit ratio priority list.
In addition, a big difference exists in how MOST hunters/managers utilize food plots, and how a few maximize plots. In most cases, food plots are small little plots scattered around a property and usually only make up 1-2% of the landscape. In this typical situation, what is planted in those scattered small plots produces very little nutritional improvement for a substantial, seasonally-shifting deer population.
That is a very different situation than the few who have the tillable acreage, equipment, and money to produce production-agriculture quality plots that make up 10+% of a property, with some of those plots being 5 to 10 or more acres in size. THAT type of food plot operation absolutely CAN produce noticeable results. But very few properties have that type of food plot program. And again, for that size operation, when you add up the costs of equipment, man-hours, fertilizer, seed, and herbicide per year... Ouch.
I'm not saying food plots are useless. They absolutely have value in a management plan. I'm just saying their benefits are overhyped, UNLESS a manager is willing to pour huge amounts of money into them, which automatically places them low on the cost-benefit ratio priority list.
In addition, a big difference exists in how MOST hunters/managers utilize food plots, and how a few maximize plots. In most cases, food plots are small little plots scattered around a property and usually only make up 1-2% of the landscape. In this typical situation, what is planted in those scattered small plots produces very little nutritional improvement for a substantial, seasonally-shifting deer population.
That is a very different situation than the few who have the tillable acreage, equipment, and money to produce production-agriculture quality plots that make up 10+% of a property, with some of those plots being 5 to 10 or more acres in size. THAT type of food plot operation absolutely CAN produce noticeable results. But very few properties have that type of food plot program. And again, for that size operation, when you add up the costs of equipment, man-hours, fertilizer, seed, and herbicide per year... Ouch.