It was like drinking from a fire hose. :drool:
Dr. Craig Harper had a one hour presentation on Food Plots that really should have been 2 hours. We got to 1 1/2 hours and they had to cut it short due to having dinner and tours of the farm food plots still to go before dark. He covered Warm Season plots pretty good but then only had 5 minutes for Cool Season plots.
My notes from memory:
Know why you want food plots. "Feed the wildlife" better not be the answer. His point was to have clear objectives so you could measure whether or not you are successful. For example, increasing the Natural Carrying Capacity (NCC) requires us to know what NCC we have now in order to know whether we've improved or not.
"Cheap" food plot strategies are not nearly as successful as doing it right. Doing it right means soil tests, soil amendments, Pure Seed Analysis (measures actual seed dispersal rates) and not throwing mixtures that don't mix well (e.g. one plant shields another).
He spent some time on the no drill, no till method including Burn, Throw and Mow and burning prior to throwing. This works well for small seeds but not large ones like soybeans and corn, which need to be covered by an 1" or so of dirt.
He said there are studies showing the food preferences for deer and he shared them with us.
Soybeans were his #1 single favorite food and gave a bunch of reasons why. A mixture of 15# Crimson Clover, 10# Arrowleaf Clover and 40# Awnless Wheat was his favorite mix., and also gave his reasons why. He said of the five cereals (Oats, Rye Cereal, Trich-something, Wheat and Barley) the first four were very close in deer preference with Oats a clear winner while Barley was a distant (and useless 5th). His favorite cereal was Wheat. (and he gave his reasons why).
By that time, we had to break for dinner and the tour and he barely touched on cool Season food plots.
They had a TWRA/TFA/Quail Unlimited food plot brochure for $10 and a extremely detailed PhD-level 487 pages glossy pics and all for $50. I have asked Clint how more can be bought by people who were not able to attend.
Note that the above information is representative of both my memory and what I thought I heard. Any errors in the info are mine alone, not Dr. Harper's.
