As we get into the growing season many of us will likely need to use herbicides to help us reach some of our wildlife habitat goals. Using herbicides efficiently means less chemical usage which is good for a number of reasons; better for the environment, less money out of our pockets and more time to work on other projects. As with all chemical applications it as has been stated by numerous folks over the years... "The label is the law!" If you are applying a herbicide in a m

Is it really necessary? I mean you planted the seed, you have gotten timely rains, the plants seem to be growing well enough. So is it worth the extra time and money to fertilize your food plots? First off have you done a soil test recently? Did the results of that soil test indicate that you had sufficient fertility levels to produce a crop at a high level? Is the pH of your food plot soil in a range that will allow for easy uptake of those nutrients by your crop? Scientific

Are you a golfer? Well I am not really much of one, but I play occasionally for something social to do. If you are a golfer, do you ever try to hit your golf ball out of the deep rough? (dense grass and weeds for all the non-golfers) Where are you going with this you might be asking? A newly hatched quail chick is smaller than a golf ball and turkey chicks are slightly larger. A great test to see if you have suitable habitat for both species of chicks is whether or not you ca

With insane land prices many of us cannot buy large tracts of land for merely recreational purposes. Even if we can, isn't it still a positive to make some income off of that land? While timbered areas can provide logging opportunities, grasslands provide income most often from grazing or haying. Depending on the topography and our available resources to either put up our own hay or finding someone in our immediate area to hire to put up hay, grazing may provide a less costly

What wildlife management tool causes the most fear and yet creates the most wildlife habitat for the least amount of monetary input? Fire. Controlled burning is an incredibly powerful tool in the wildlife habitat manager's tool box. An entire blog series could be written on controlled burning. There is no doubt that ecological succession happens naturally, unfortunately interference by humans has led to drastic changes in vegetation types on the the landscape. Dormant Season

Sometimes we get a little envious of those folks who say their farm/land encompasses alot of acres. We all dream of maybe owning a bigger farm or more land when managing for wildlife. Bigger is better, right? Have you ever heard folks say their 40 acres hunts like 100 acres? Or that even though they own 100 acres they only have a couple of favorite locations within the 100 acres that they usually hunt. What that really boils down to is how useable your property is to wildlife

In the last blog I touched on the value of shrubs as a food source for White-tailed deer, I will continue on with the shrub theme this week. Dormant shrubs provide most of a deer's browse in the Winter months, especially in non-Ag areas. Shrubs also benefit other wildlife besides deer. Shrubs go well beyond being beneficial for just deer. Shrubs when strategically planted can be a big boost to turkey populations. Obviously, turkeys will eat some of the berries produced by shr

This is about the time of year we start noticing bucks dropping their antlers. Some may have dropped their antlers quite some time ago. If a buck dropped his antlers a good while back, especially a large mature buck, that could be sign of poor body condition, high stress levels or injury. Antlers are secondary to a buck's overall body condition. In the previous blog I talked about "Maternal Effect", in a sense antlers are an indication of a bucks overall quality of health. Do

Maternal effect has a big role in just how big those antlers will be on that mature buck

Before we know it, Spring planting season will be here, some folks may very well even be thinking of frost seeding very soon. Often times we see planting recommendations for seeding rates as pounds of PLS/acre. Some of you may know what that means and others may not, but you thought what the heck I am just going to plant it! PLS (pure-live-seed) is the seed in your bag that is actually viable and is able to germinate upon being planted. Seed is available in a wide range of qu

Dense stands of trees hold little wildlife value.

Just like the old commercial for milk .... Got Milk? Protein is a big part of healthier deer; faster body development (increased weights)...

As many of us enter into the growing season many folks require glyphosate to control unwanted vegetation. A number of times I have seen...

Well for most of us it is going to be a very early Spring. Never in the span of growing fruit trees would I have ever envisioned digging...

Pruning your trees is not as difficult as you might think, and yet the benefits of doing so can pay off big. Our main focus here at...

Depending on your wildlife habitat focus you may be looking to enhance existing native habitat, or you may be thinking of adding other...

Does trapping pay? I am not talking about in terms of dollars and cents. There are two camps when it comes to trapping predators. Those...

If you are interested in creating habitat for Northern Bob-white quail and turkeys, "grassland" habitat is a very important component of...

The natural world looked far different 100 years ago. Fire whether it was started by lightening or intentionally by man kept many areas...

In the last blog I talked about timbered areas and some general thoughts about how and why we need to take an active role in managing...