Food Plots I may have a problem

[megalomaniac]

Here's a pic of my large 8ac food plot on my new farm from this morning.... the past 3 years, it's been 6 to 8in tall at this point, more food than my herd can consume. Very low deer density when I bought it, population has exploded since I planted 14 acres total on this 78ac track. I think I am feeding 30 to 35 deer this winter. Looks like we are going to have to remove some does next fall!

Radishes killed by the hard freeze a couple weeks ago, but deer are devouring the tubers still.

 

[BSK]

Yup, that's too many deer for the food resources available.

 

[JCDEERMAN]

Looks about like ours. But ours was due to lack of nutrients

 

[Deer 1]

I'm in middle TN and mine looks the same. Late December I had winter peas well over a foot tall. Clover, turnips, radishes, oats, wheat all picture perfect. Just waiting for acorn crop to wind down. Then January came knocking!!! We've had the coldest Temps and most snow in a long time!!! All my winter crops have suffered horribly, looking like yours and worse. Not much I can do about the weather.

 

[tbadon]

The weather has the most to do with it. All of my winter rye on the athletic fields I maintain are yellow. That hasn't happened in years. They are usually a deep, lush green right now.

 

[RxHunter]

Here's a pic of my large 8ac food plot on my new farm from this morning.... the past 3 years, it's been 6 to 8in tall at this point, more food than my herd can consume. Very low deer density when I bought it, population has exploded since I planted 14 acres total on this 78ac track. I think I am feeding 30 to 35 deer this winter. Looks like we are going to have to remove some does next fall!

Radishes killed by the hard freeze a couple weeks ago, but deer are devouring the tubers still.

I have had my 50 acres of cut at soybeans in the NRCS cover crop program. It looks amazing in November but looks like that in February. You could easily see 40 deer in an January evening and bet I was feeding tons more at night. It was the only ag field for several miles so in my opinion I was just feeding deer from several miles off. It wasn't like I was making it better for my resident herd. It was a shed magnet but rarely did I see those bucks during season.

I also had tons of summer buck pictures in the summer beans but not during season.

I decided to put 40 acres in CRP. Figured I would try something different.

 

[megalomaniac]

I have had my 50 acres of cut at soybeans in the NRCS cover crop program. It looks amazing in November but looks like that in February. You could easily see 40 deer in an January evening and bet I was feeding tons more at night. It was the only ag field for several miles so in my opinion I was just feeding deer from several miles off. It wasn't like I was making it better for my resident herd. It was a shed magnet but rarely did I see those bucks during season.

I also had tons of summer buck pictures in the summer beans but not during season.

I decided to put 40 acres in CRP. Figured I would try something different.

Although on this 78ac I have 14 ac food (only 10ac this winter due to failure from flooding during fall planting), the remaining 64ac is heavily select cut and thick as stink with privet... so I have plenty of bedding cover and browse. We took two 4.5yos off this property this year, one was home grown, the other shifted on for the rut.

 

[Fatboy99]

Nothing unusual about plot this time of winter