Woods South Carolina Project

[Jarred525]

http://www.growingdeer.tv/archive/#/gro ... whitetails

Skip to about 4:30 on the video if you don't want to watch the whole thing.

BSK, you may know more about this and would love to hear your thoughts. I watched this episode the other night and would love to hear a presentation from Dr. Woods on his South Carolina research project. I was going to dig around and see if he had written anything about it. It appears that going the process of ensuring the soil in the plots were fertilized properly, they were able to add about 10 inches to mature bucks. As big as he is on beans, I assume that was one of the staple crops.

I thought this would be good discussion to go along with the recent posts on Antler Dirt.

 

[BSK]

Yes, I have much of the data from that project. But you also have to realize that property had very little in the way of nutrition prior to the big increase in food plot work. Yet even then, even though they killed bucks up to 10 years of age, no buck ever broke the 125 gross mark. So improvements? You bet. But turn a very poor area into a great area? No.

 

[Jarred525]

I keep kicking myself for not doing a better job of keeping data over the last 15 years to see progression from changes we have made on our place. One of the biggest impacts was to convert a 30 acre pasture into row crops. We have seen body weights increase by about 10% since this change. I wish I had kept better antler measurement records. I know we have not had a 10% jump in antler size, but would be itneresting to know what exactly that jump has been.

 

[BSK]

Jarred525,

30 acres in row crops is a lot! I wouldn't be shocked if that produced a 10 gross inch increase per age-class.

 

[Jarred525]

I know we have had some growth. Not sure if it has been 10 inches, but probably not too far behind that.

I know we have been seeing some bodyweights that we have never seen before. I killed a 192 lb field dressed 8 point last year. That thing was a cow!

 

[BSK]

I know we have had some growth. Not sure if it has been 10 inches, but probably not too far behind that.

I know we have been seeing some bodyweights that we have never seen before. I killed a 192 lb field dressed 8 point last year. That thing was a cow!

Amazingly, better herd dynamics can play a huge role in buck body weights, primarily because of the reduction in rut stress on younger bucks. We don't have much of a food plot program, yet we've gone from 2 1/2 year-old bucks live weighing in the 135-140 pound range to now 2 1/2+ year-olds going over 200 pounds live weight.

 

[Jarred525]

It's amazing to me that natural browse can make such a big difference.

 

[BSK]

It's amazing to me that natural browse can make such a big difference.

Not browse, but a balanced adult sex ratio and an advanced buck age structure (i.e. "herd dynamics").

When herd dynamics are closer to what Nature intended, benefits are derived from a wide variety of changes in deer behavior and actions.