REAPING
FOOD PLOT DIVIDENDS:
Biological
Diversity The Bonus Of Well-Managed Land
By
Tom Fegely
From
the computer in my second story office I can gaze out onto a busy bird feeding
station, a corn-filled deer feeder and nearby mineral lick tended through all
but the hunting seasons, a sizeable brushpile housing a variety of small
creatures, a grove of beeches, hemlocks, red oaks and tulip-poplars and a 30 by
20 yard patch of Imperial WhitetailŇ
Clover and Alfa-RackÔ.
My
wife often questions whether I’m working or daydreaming when she catches me
with binocular in hand, focusing on a blue jay or red fox instead of tapping out
an article on the keyboard. Deer are also seen on regular occasion as one of six
small food plots dotting my 34-acre hillside woods is within 60 yards of my
computer desk.
The
money and time I’ve invested in upgrading my woodlot has yielded dividends big
and small over the past few years, and it’s included more than just deer,
although they’re the main reason for the planting projects. Unlike some
planted tracts of five to 50 acres or more over which I’ve been privileged to
be a guest during the deer and turkey seasons, my plantings at first may seem a
bit feeble. “Functional” is more descriptive and accurate as the half dozen
plots – none bigger than 1,000 square feet and most much smaller – are
regularly visited by deer throughout the four seasons. The golf course bordering
my property lures them to graze in the rough. On their way to and from they stop
by my plots for a nibble or bed down and mark time until they can slip onto the
back nine under the cover of darkness.
Each
of the half dozen food plots – to increase to eight this summer – is
overlooked by a treestand, either homemade or prefabricated. The stands are
utilized in the bow and gun seasons, of course, but on spring and summer
evenings my wife or I might be found in one, watching for deer, turkeys, the
resident red foxes or any of the other wildlife that’s drawn to the islands of
tasty greenery.
Trickle down development
There’s
a bonus in the establishment of these small, easy-to-install food plots, which I
refer to as the “trickle down effect.” Deer remain the preferred visitors to
the plots, of course, but a closer observation reveals a surprising number of
other species also directly or indirectly benefiting from them. The ecological
diversity stimulated by the plantings benefits the entire woodland ecosystem.
Forget that the plots are small and scattered. You don’t need much land to
make a food plot program productive for deer and other wildlife.
My
original intent for sewing the mini-plots in which Imperial Clover and other
seeds now sprout was to bolster the woodland’s healing process following the
devastation wrought by Hurricane Floyd in September 1999. More than 100 trees
were toppled in its wake. Rather than allow nature to take its course, the
unsightly and unsafe trees were salvaged and sold as firewood and the small,
sunny clearings from which the fallen and some standing trees were removed,
cleared of underbrush, roto-tilled and planted in small, scattered food plots,
such as the one I now watch just 60 yards from my office window. Some of the
plots were already in place when Floyd’s 70-plus-mile-per-hour tailwinds did
their damage.
Making
lemonade from the bitter lemons tossed my way, the woodlot today is far more
diverse than it was before the hurricane’s passage.
For
instance, I’ve always been a rabbit hunter. Some of my fondest boyhood
memories are of our beagles Penny, Betsy and Rocky wailing at the top of their
collective lungs as they chased rabbits in big circles and back to Dad and me
waiting along the wood’s edge. When I moved onto my property and carved out a
spot for my home site, however, not a rabbit could be found except, perhaps, in
a neighbor’s field thick with raspberry tangles. Only rarely did any venture
onto my wooded tract. But as food plots sprouted here and there in the following
years, I started to see evidence of rabbits utilizing them. First I spotted a
couple of the nocturnal cottontails in my headlights as they crossed my driveway
at night. Later I noted more of them during the day, either in brushy habitat or
nibbling clover and alfalfa in the food plots.
Rabbits
and ‘chucks
Rabbits
don’t solely eat what grows in the plots but they’re convincingly drawn to
it. They favor anything leafy, green and tender through the warm months and
shift to woody browse when the greenery disappears. But I’m convinced it was
the Imperial Clover, which they hadn’t previously tasted, that accounted for
two or three families of cottontails now on my land.
In
his book “Planting Food Plots for Deer and Other Wildlife,” (Woods N’
Water, Inc.; 2002) author John Weiss suggests that plots meant to bolster rabbit
populations be planted “in perennial clover mixed with cereal grain (such as)
oats, wheat and rye.” My plots, targeted to attracting deer, are planted in
Imperial Clover and Alfa-Rack and sections of two ATV trails are in high-protein
No-Plow, all of which cottontails will eat.
Although
not as desirable as rabbits, perhaps, yet another herbivore with a sweet tooth
for tender clover has also taken to the patches of green dotting the woodlot.
True to its name, the woodchuck – known equally well as the groundhog – was
once a resident of eastern woodlots and forests until more suitable habitat was
created when the great eastern forests were logged off. That gradually opened
new terrain and as settlers created cattle pastures and crop fields, groundhogs
excavated their somewhat complex burrows in treelines and open meadows rather
than deep in the forest. Many of them continue to set up homesites inside
woodlands, however.
Woodchucks
are regular visitors to my scattered plots but any serious negative effect on
the Alfa-Rack and Imperial Clover has been minimal – so far, at least. I’ve
enjoyed watching them from my office window and from tree stands in summer and
during the early weeks of the fall archery season. But I suspect that this
summer I’ll need to sight in my .22 and perform some population control.
I’ve
also provided brushpiles within sight of each of the plots. The limbs and twigs
offer escape and shelter for more than just rabbits and groundhogs.
In the last two years alone I’ve seen meadow voles, deer mice, weasels,
shrews, red squirrels and Carolina wrens utilizing the brushpiles, either as
temporary shelters or possibly as sites in which they raised their young.
Biodiversity
on your land
Of
course, where you find available prey you’ll sooner or later find predators.
My wife and I have seen coyotes, red foxes and gray foxes crossing our holding
in search of food or detected their tracks cutting through a snow-covered food
plot. Sharp-shinned and red-tailed hawks, great-horned and screech owls and
other birds of prey are also well aware of the food plots, from which they
indirectly benefit. They don’t eat the clover, of course, but they do keep the
mice, rabbits and young groundhogs in check.
Hence,
a “trickle down effect” is aided by a successful food plot. Sooner or later,
everything benefits in one way or another. This is just another way where
planting food plots are giving back to nature rather than taking away from
nature like almost all other products in the hunting industry are designed to
do. The Whitetail Institute’s products give back to nature in a way very few,
if any, other products do.
Other
property enhancements also aid in the diversity of wildlife on a particular
wooded tract. Like any woodland, which hasn’t been subject to harvests for a
time, dead and dying trees are common. When chain sawing trees to open food
plots to sunlight, I always spare several snags and a “wolf tree” or two for
use by squirrels, chipmunks, woodpeckers, chickadees, screech owls and other
cavity nesting birds and mammals at night and during nesting times. Hawks and
owls also like bare branches on which they stand sentry over food plots, similar
to the ways hawks today are drawn to the edges and medial strips of highways
where they can more readily spot their prey and drop down for a kill.
Establishing
an ecotone
During
my 14 years in the classroom as an ecology teacher, I introduced the word
“ecotone” to seventh graders. It’s defined by Webster as “a transitional
zone between two adjacent communities, containing species characteristic of both
as well as other species only within the zone.”
The
private land manager should also add the words ecotone and diversity to his or
her vocabulary. For example, on food plots from, say 5 to 25 acres, an
often-overlooked benefit is the very edge – or ecotone – separating the
clover or alfalfa from the large trees inside the woodline. Here, shrubby
growth, encouraged by sufficient sunlight, serves as an effective buffer area
for low-nesting birds and as a quick escape from predators. Avoid spraying
herbicide or otherwise cutting the field edge. However, under some circumstances
cutting may be of benefit as grasses, briers and low shrubs may return even
thicker than before. Here ground-feeding birds such as towhees and thrushes
scare up, catch and eat insects. Allow as much as 10 to12 feet of ecotone;
particularly in places where the morning and mid-day sun strikes the rim of the
field. Shaded stretches may not be as productive.
Deer,
of course, remain the prime reason my wife, kids and I have invested time,
energy and cash into our mini-food plot program. But they’re not the only
reason. Food plots, properly established and maintained, will also benefit the
species making up the field and forest community – from coyotes to cottontails
and weasels to woodchucks. Even black bears visit food plots and partake of
forages such as clover
If
you build it, they will come.