I just watched a video (infomercial) from the Whitetail Institute. I have a ?

Not really.
Yes.
No idea.

It doesn't work worth a shite if you pH isn't right and you don't fertilize properly.

We planted a lot this spring and fall, including some of the WI Clover.

Some spots we didn't have enough lime for, so the pH wasn't right. The clover did not do well there.

Our Spring plots took a lot more work. We learned from our mistakes last year. Last year we busted the ground with the disk really good then planted and fertilized. The weeds came up way faster and took over the plots.

This year we sprayed round-up, disked, waited about 2 weeks and sprayed round-up again, lightly disked the ground again, then planted. (this was on ground that had never been planted before though. If you already have some established plots, you probably won't have to worry about the
weeds as much.)

This Spring we're planting Round-up Ready, Forage Soybeans exclusively. In the Fall I believe we're going with wheat and oats. We supplement this with several mineral licks, corn feeders, and troughs with a mixture of protein pellets, corn, soybeans, and rice bran.

Next season will be season three up there. In one year we saw a big difference. Hopefully it'll continue to improve.

Slickback, Sounds like you guys have your sh**t together..

A lot of people don't understand what it takes to create a food plot right.
Implementing a sound feeding program year around not just during deer season. Feeders take time to become productive. Throwing feed out of your feeder 3 months out of the year only creates confusion to the herd. You want to create a resource for feed that the deer will be comfortable with and use in their daily pattern.

People need to think of it like feeding cows, if you continuously feed them at a specific place over time they will learn that at this place is where their food is going to be. What’s going to happen after 3 months when you don’t feed them anymore? They will have to find their food somewhere else their pattern has changed to a hunt for food mode. Eight months later you start feeding in the first spot again it will take time to get them out of that hunt for food pattern.

Decreasing pressure is the only way to get deer to move and feed during day light hours. Also placing feeders in a area that the deer don't feel exsposed.

I have leased 640 acres in Mississippi for going on 13 years. For the first 7 years I allowed 4 other people to hunt there with me and each year our harvest of mature bucks decreased and seeing deer also decreased. Then I decided to only allow 2 of the 4 back the following year because their actions during the past seasons wasn't what I was wanting.

I decided to come up with a plan to decrease the human movement on the property.

1.I then choose to increase the size of feeders to decrease the times having to access the property also made sure all feeders had solar chargers.

2. Increase the size of food plots and moved stands to allow access without disturbing animals in food plot.

3. Removal of all gas operated RV's only tractors during planting season. Ok to use battery operated RV's and implamented a foot traffic only pass this point plan for each stand. (Unless picking up dead deer)

4. No joy riding on property.

5. No scouting for portable stand placement after Oct 1.

6. No cameras (Cameras only will increase human movement on property)We do a camera survey in Aug for 2 weeks. that's the only time cameras are present.

And others but you get the point.

Also decrease the number of times a area can be accessed in a given time frame. Deer will change their patterns from daylight movement to night movement as human movement and oder increase in the area.

We always logged deer numbers since the begining.

After all this was inplace we recorded the number of deer we seen each day and compared them with the past five years and there was a huge increase in number of deer seen and mature bucks killed.