SPEAKER_00

I'm Jeff Fox Furley and welcome to Gamekeeper Podcast. If you want to learn more about farming for wildlife and habitat management, then buddy, you are in the right place. Join the Gamekeeper crew direct from Mossy Oak Land Enhancement Studio as they discuss the latest wildlife and habitat management practices, news, and of course honey. There's no telling what you'll learn, but I'm gonna tell you, I bet it's interesting. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_03

We're alive in three, two, one. Alright, everybody, here we are. West Point, Mississippi, home of Mossy Oak brand Camo, the Game Keeper Studio. And Landy, I'm seeing lightning bugs and I'm smelling honey sauce.

SPEAKER_05

It is winding down. But I think you know it was pretty strong for the uh last week in the Alabama season. Had a little cold snap, and uh a couple people ended up finding some goblin birds. But I definitely, from my perspective, what do you think, Dud? It's winding down, it's over with. Obviously, we can't hunt anymore. Right. Move on to something else. Move on to something else. So, what's on your agenda? What are you moving on to, Dud?

SPEAKER_01

Um, you know, I I kind of ended the season doing a bunch of public, so I hadn't been to my farm uh in at least a couple weeks.

SPEAKER_05

You thinking about food plotting a little bit?

SPEAKER_01

Food plotting, salt, which I should have already done, that kind of thing. I got that free burn this year from my neighbor setting his yard on fire. So I don't have to sweet. I don't know ticks. I don't have to do any growing season burns.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you, neighbor.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

That worked out. Yeah, things just always work out. I know.

SPEAKER_05

They just always line up for them. I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_03

Somebody probably put some salt lakes out for you, too.

SPEAKER_01

No, they hadn't done that. Just a bunch of empty holes in the ground.

SPEAKER_03

But your neighbors have probably put some salt lakes out for you, though.

SPEAKER_01

Maybe so. So yeah. Maybe so. I found some neighbor tracks cutting through the middle of my place last time I went. So that's kind of wild. I hope it was a neighbor.

SPEAKER_03

Well, speaking of seeing that, um, you know, a little bit later on, we're gonna uh mackle to when we bring up the commercial, but it'll be about Spartan cameras, and that's what you need to have.

SPEAKER_01

That's probably I need to move my Spartan camera to that spot so I can see see who's who the perpetrator is.

SPEAKER_03

I love my Spartan camera. They're good stuff, that's for sure. So today we've got Dr. Bronson Strickland, who I I would venture to say he's been on more than anybody else.

SPEAKER_05

I think he likes our podcast better than his. Easy landing. Easy.

SPEAKER_03

Bronson Strickland. We just uh we we're we always love having you here. Absolutely, it's always a pleasure having you.

SPEAKER_04

I appreciate it. I always love being here. So thank you.

SPEAKER_03

I was uh eating supper in Startwell a few nights ago, and I heard some kids uh I say kids, these they're college students at a table. Young adults. They were complaining about Bronson, about how tough he was and just bust that crowd up. I did I said, Are we talking about the same guy? And they said, Yeah, he's just he's hard.

SPEAKER_04

You you misunderstood. It was Steve Demaris that they were talking about.

SPEAKER_03

Well, so look, at the here at the beginning, what we're gonna talk about summer food plots. Yeah, and then Bronson did a lot of research.

SPEAKER_05

Or wouldn't it be warm season food plots? How you refer to him? Warm season food plots. I'm listening to you, Bronson. I've been listening. Yeah. Warm season food plots.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you, Lanny. I appreciate you explaining that. I'm glad I gotta add something this week. So uh and then and then Bronson did a lot of re or Mr. State did a lot of research on cool season food plots. Hey, look at you. Uh and we'll get him to kind of share his what what the what they learned from.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I'm excited to hear about that. It's always good to so I'm sure you're doing the cafeteria test and all that good stuff. Some of that, right?

SPEAKER_03

Some of that, uh-huh. Always before we go too deep down that that rabbit hole there, Bronson uh at lunch a few weeks ago, InterDut introduced, maybe it's been a month ago, Interduct introduced us to this app called Merlin. Oh man. We've all used it. I love it. And we've it's just the most amazing thing to learn about birds in your area. You just turn it on and all of a sudden it starts telling you what birds you're getting.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, you do hit the little voice ID button, it'll pick up all the sounds around you. I guess it compares them to some kind of database they have. Database they have, right. And it cranks out, you know, what the bird is. And then you can go back and touch the bird and it'll play its call again. And it tells you about the bird. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And if it's rare or if it's a common bird. I mean, it's just really, I would encourage people to get this. It's fun.

SPEAKER_01

But what I wanted to do is we're not sponsored by them either. No, they don't have anything to do with these guys.

SPEAKER_05

So so but we're accepting offers.

SPEAKER_03

If they want to be associated with us, that does something. But what I thought would be fun, and guys, just go with me here for a second. I thought Bronson could turn on his app since he knows how to work it better than anybody else. And each one of us, Mac included, would yelp one time and see if it's if uh make a turkey noise and see if it picks us up. If Merlin picks us up. It recognizes us as a turkey. And obviously, Mac forgot his turkey calls. Because he just left to get I forgot mine too.

SPEAKER_05

I'm barred bandies.

SPEAKER_03

So why don't we let Dudley go first? You're first in line, Dudley.

SPEAKER_01

I'm actually a little nervous. I've never played a turkey call in front of an audience, but uh here we go.

SPEAKER_05

Are you waiting? Are you gonna use a mouth call or a pot call?

SPEAKER_01

This is my pot call. It is a Cody Turkey Call's Game Keeper. Our buddy Bill Zeren. Slate. Uh it looks like it's over uh some kind of oak, maybe ash. Glass soundboard.

SPEAKER_03

I mean glass over oak. Yeah, it's a good any of those Bill Zierin made calls, these are really good.

SPEAKER_01

And some kind of diamond wood striker. I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_05

But uh anyway, we're gonna do the Kiki Kackle Fly Down or the cluster.

SPEAKER_01

What is it? The Kiki Kackle Cluster. All right, so wait a minute now. Wait a minute.

SPEAKER_03

Bronson, are you rolling? I'm rolling. Okay. All right, here we go. Everybody be quiet.

SPEAKER_05

That's pretty good, Doug.

SPEAKER_04

No! Where'd you get there, Bronson? Says unrecognizable. And then it said, oh, then it just popped up and said uh American Crow.

SPEAKER_01

All right, Landy, you want to go?

SPEAKER_05

You're going next. Am I going next?

SPEAKER_01

I'm gonna try my scuffed mason jar at some point.

SPEAKER_05

Bobby has, I've expected, I can't believe you.

SPEAKER_01

He's got a pre-moistened uh mouth yelper. Are your reads separated? Well, wouldn't you prepare for this if you knew you were doing this?

SPEAKER_03

All right, so here we go. Mac, you'll be next, so get ready. This is a this is the Bobby color.

SPEAKER_01

Pressure's on, don't don't make any squeezing.

SPEAKER_05

Oh, here we go. This is completely rigged.

SPEAKER_06

How can I rig this?

SPEAKER_04

Tell me, Brunson. How can I rig this? Bobby did not have no, he would have tried. If there was a way to do it, he would have tried. It's legitimate.

SPEAKER_03

Who are you? My call is the only one that registered on there. Got yeah, proof right there. I'm I'm looking at it. Oh well. That hurts. Okay, well, let's let's move. Thank you, uh, Brunchon for Merlin that being the fair judge that you are. So uh Mac, have you got a commercial for us real quick?

SPEAKER_02

I do. Uh with the turkeys trying to secure breeding opportunities passing by us. Uh now's a good time to go ahead and get your Spartan cameras rolling uh in preparation. Uh it you can go to go.spartancamera.com. Uh really getting your deer on the the salt licks and berocks and your full potential minerals. Uh now's just a really good time to go ahead and prepare.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so I let me tell you what I would be thinking about, guys. And I did this this weekend. I put my cameras a little lower and I put them in some areas where I thought mama might drag some polts. Ah. And in hope, you know, I got a couple of hens nesting in a spot. In hope that I might get a mama and some polts. That that's what I that's what I did.

SPEAKER_01

I'll add that uh the mulberries are approaching ripeness. Right when they are. So I would suggest, I believe one of our listeners, I think it was Will Stevens, sent in a video last year of turkeys all over the city. Oh, flopping up in that multiple. If you've got a couple of mulberries, that might be a good spot to put them as well.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it sure would. Well, they're good cameras, so y'all check out Spartan cameras. So, all right, let's move on. Bronson, we are so happy to have you here. We want to start going down the road of warm season plots. What do guys need to be thinking about now? And let's talk about in terms of the northern latitudes and uh transitional zones through Kentucky and that part of the and then the south.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. Well, let's start with uh bread and butter. Let's start with with the south. Um, I think the very first thing you need to be concerned about. Oh, he's he's gloating. Yeah, I'm sorry. So good. It is uh get getting your field or your plot ready in terms of you know conventional agriculture, tillage, stuff like that. Are you gonna burn it down with glyphosate or things like that? So I guess the issue number one is your soil ready and prepared for planting. And then it just really gets into, as we've discussed before, there's a lot of different warm season or summer plants. It's just figuring out what is gonna work best for you. And so soybean is always a favorite, it's probably one of the best in terms of uh deer being attracted to it and in terms of quality of the plant. But a lot of people can't get soybean out of the ground. And that's all relative to the number of deer you have, the size of the plot, and the available plant community or forage habitat around you. So then typically you you kind of step it down relative to that. And so it may be cowpeas, it may be something like alice clover. And so those are all, again, really good warm season deer forages. It's just that with soybean, they come out of the ground so palatable and so sought after, deer will love them to death inside of a month. And some of the other plants aren't as palatable right when they're growing, and that's what gives them the opportunity to get established more so than others. What size plot at a minimum for soybeans are you thinking? It it's really tough to generalize. And so it's kind of if you're using average deer density and average habitat quality, I mean, over 10 acres. I mean, you can see some of these, and and and a lot of people look at a five-acre food plot and think it's really, really big, and for most people it is, but it it's not for soybeans.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it doesn't seem like you know, you can go five acres in an average scenario, but they typically are not gonna make a crop of beans. They they eat on them all summer, and then you you show up in late September and it just looks like dirt and stalks. That's the thing.

SPEAKER_05

But they've eaten on it all summer. But you're not necessarily after the bean, are you? Well, you you you can be.

SPEAKER_04

So in in a perfect scenario, you're gonna have during the growing season, deer are gonna be seeking that uh the the foliage, the protein from that. And then if it produces seed, produces grain, you can leave it standing, and you see this in the Midwest all the time, and then you have a very high carbohydrate standing there. And then what a lot of people are doing very successfully is interseeding or top sowing something like a clover on top of that. Yeah, same same thing with corn as well, and so you can have the best of both worlds, have a grain and then also have a cool season, clover or something like that underneath.

SPEAKER_03

You know, there's uh there you see a lot of farmers that have know how to time it when they don't they spray something to defoliate their beans in these big fields, and so uh a lot of them what we're hearing about guys or they're they're using our product called Maximum, and they'll throw those seeds right before those plants defoliate, and then those plants defoliate on top of them and give them a little cover, yeah, and then they end up having that maximum growing in the bean pod still hanging there, and it boy that makes a fantastic food plot.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. Is there a proper ratio if you've got a finite amount of food plots to plant? How much of that would you plant in spring in cool season forages versus warm season forages?

SPEAKER_04

All right, so perfect world, which rarely exists, is you you want to maximize your your warm season plantings and your cool season plantings. What we would recommend is that you have either different ground for warm season or cool season, or have a system where you can blend both of those. And a lot of people do that. We've been tinkering with it a little bit. But the main reason is think of it this way, is especially with conventional ag where you're gonna be disking it up and starting over, is that you don't want at the end of summer bare ground, and you don't want the month of May to have bare ground. You want those overlapping in your production. So they've got 12 months out of the year you're providing food. So if you have enough acreage and you can have dedicated warm season area, dedicated cool season area, that would be the best thing to do. But but here's the deal: even in your dedicated warm season area, you may not be getting any more production out of that until frost. So, say if you have have a forage like uh a deer vet or something like that that really grows well, even at the end of summer, at the very first frost, it's gonna fold up and die. There's no reason you can't go in and overseed in those areas a cereal grain and a clover, and then also have a cool season plot there as well.

SPEAKER_03

So there's an easy train, it just transitions from one to the next. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Without having to till up the soil. Dudley, you should love that. Oh, yeah. Farmers, farmers have been doing it forever with cover crops, they just uh fly something over. Right. Uh right, and it works really well.

SPEAKER_04

And that's another reason it's not about the the land uh Lanny, but it's about the the timing issue, is and that's why we're always emphasizing too is adding a clover. And it's either going to be add a perennial clover into your mix so that during May and into June you still have food, or an annual late maturing clover. And that's where you get into your uh arrow leaves or a berseam or a red. And so, in that, even though it's a cool season plot, literally in June you can still have clover growing over there. And then if you're gonna try to plant soybean over here, you have some other forage on the landscape to buffer a little bit. But if you have nothing at all you're producing, and then go try to plant four acres or three acres of soybean, good luck.

SPEAKER_03

Hey, this Bobby Cole. One of my favorite things to do as a gamekeeper is planting food plots for my deer. My Onyx app helps me to determine the exact plot size to make sure I'm applying the right rate of biologic seed and fertilizer. Try it out for yourself and see. Use coupon code MOSYOA to save 20% on your subscription to Onyx. So we've got a little clover, so white ladino we call non-typical that we think fits the bill as well, if not better, than any of those that you just mentioned. But what it what it does, I was looking at some this weekend, Lane. It's not even starting to bloom yet. Not even starting to bloom. But you look the red clover on the side of the road, it's it's all everywhere. Yeah. So I love that fact about our about our clover.

SPEAKER_05

So well it seems the more you know we've been in this food plot game a long time, and and I have just looked at it as cool and seen uh well, it was summer and fall, now it's cool season and warm season. But you know, obviously to your point, Bronson, we gotta throw clovers in there, and it's like a a category into itself. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03

You know, and as time goes by and we learn more by doing more. I I I value clover more today than I did probably. It works 10 years ago. I mean it really does. Just a fantastic product. And it deserves to be on your farm in some capacity.

SPEAKER_04

If you gotta pick one, I mean whether it's a dedicated white clover perennial plot or whether you're using it in a mix, I think people neglect the the utility and usefulness of it. And it really depends on the severity of summer and temperature and rainfall. But you're talking that you can easily get nine or ten months production out of the year once you get it established. And there's not a lot of forages, of course, you can save that with.

SPEAKER_06

No doubt about it.

SPEAKER_04

You know, and in the deep south, it may be, you know, depending on how soon it gets really hot, it may stop producing in July or August or something like that. But there's there's also some other summers where it's wet and cool where you you can get production pretty much year-round. So that's unique.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So let me ask a quick question, Dolly, for before we I'd like to know your thoughts on the glyphosate resistant beans. Or are do you have any hesitancy planting that for any reasons and or or would you just go with the traditional bean?

SPEAKER_04

Um, well, I I I guess I'm I'm not an herbicide expert, so I I will just give you my opinion on based on what I know. Uh, in terms of food plots, what we're we're messing with, I guess we haven't done it enough, or we're not at a place in terms of relative to agriculture where we are seeing any weed resistance relative to that. However, move to the Delta or someplace like that, there are genuine, of course, concerns about weed resistance and and so forth. So for me personally, at this point in time, it it's not a concern. But but I certainly agree with people.

SPEAKER_03

So you can so you plan it. Yeah, I mean you use it. And you then and is there any concern that you're spraying this on the plants and that then the deer eat eating the plants and then you're eating the deer? Not with me, no. Okay. Yeah, I'm I'm just asking. Okay, good question. Yeah. Because there are some people that that that think that there's a problem, and I just I'm not sure that it's uh I don't think it's uh any I don't just don't see it being harmful to the deer herd.

SPEAKER_04

I I I don't either. Now that's not to say there there could be some other herbicide or pesticide that may be, but I haven't seen any evidence to really suggest that this is an issue, you know, uh hurting the deer and then hurting us consuming the deer.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

I haven't seen anything.

SPEAKER_03

And then to circle back to your that weed resistance, you're probably referring to pigweed, and that's uh very common in some of the larger agricultural regions, and it's res it seems to be resistant to the glyphosate guy. Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_04

And so in those cases, yeah, you have to switch it up and you have to rotate your your herbicides.

SPEAKER_03

So wouldn't you say that these glyphosate resistance um these game changer beans, if you will, um soybeans. Yeah, once they're they're planted, though, but it makes kind of a average food plotter, a guy that if he sprays a couple of times, he can really make his plots look fantastic and weed free. Weed and weed free. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, clean it up very easily. You know, if you you go and plant soybeans without any type of uh weed control, uh, it's gonna be a bunch of foxtail or something else. Uh, and it's never, never really gonna make.

SPEAKER_05

Landon, you got a question? Yeah, I was just, you know, we're on the soybean topic right now. I just bronson, can you help people understand the difference between an agricultural soybean and a forage soybean? And and your opinion on what's better for whitetails.

SPEAKER_04

Well, I I I guess they're both going to produce a bean or or a seed. It's really just how quickly they're gonna do it. And again, I I'm getting out of my lane here because we're getting into agricultural stuff, but uh as I understand it, it's relative to what is the length of your growing season, how quickly you need to produce a bean, say if you're gonna double crop or something like that. But what we typically are talking about with a forage bean is indeterminate growth. And so it's going to continue to grow and produce foliage, and for us, forage biomass, it is still going to produce a seed at the end, but it's almost like, and I'm not using the proper botanical terms here, but it's almost like There's a point in its growth cycle where it stops allocating as much energy to foliage and it and it redirects it all into seed. Whereas indeterminate growth, you keep producing that that forage production and simultaneously at the right time produce seed.

SPEAKER_05

So is a forage bean a better uh protein source for whitetails than an agricultural bean?

SPEAKER_04

I wouldn't say protein source. I would say the amount of forage biomass produced over the growing season would favor an indeterminate growth or a forage soybean. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

That's what I meant to ask. Yeah. That's what I said.

SPEAKER_03

So hey Bronson, Mike Mike Chamberlain just texted me and he said to tell you or to remind you that your lane is the slow lane. I don't know how we knew that, but these are ruthless.

SPEAKER_01

But yeah, like typically the forage varieties are going to get taller, uh larger leaves, and then the ag type varieties, they go by group, um, and that can even be a little bit confusing to me, but a lot of it has to do with when it matures.

SPEAKER_05

But in my mind. But as wildlife managers, we're not necessarily looking for that.

SPEAKER_01

No, but you know, deer sure do love eating a bunch of uh beans in the wintertime. So But that's the carbohydrate source you were talking about.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. But you'd have to have a bunch to make a whole bunch. Yeah, to make a big deal.

SPEAKER_05

And that that's uh I was just trying to get you know to the core root of why it seems like we favor a forage bean over a traditional agricultural bean for uh for warm season uh food glides.

SPEAKER_04

I think that's the the plant breeders, you know. If you're working for agriculture, like Dudley was referring to, the the commodity is bushels per acre of seed. They're trying to maximize that. For a deer manager, it's forage. It's tonnage of forage produced.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So when we when we got with Stratton and started working on the beans that we offer, uh, we were trying to get the best of both worlds. We want that longer growing season, the larger leaf, higher volume of uh of browse forage, uh, but also make a crop of beans if if it can.

SPEAKER_03

So yeah. So, Bronson, let me ask on on this, thank you, Dudley, that uh uh protein peas, we iron and clay peas, really, really popular. We have a blend, we call them protein peas, and we really like them, but sometimes you'll see uh deer just annihilate them as soon as they come up. And then other times you'll see where they the deer herd allows them to bloom and actually make pods, and then it seems like overnight they go in and eat all that tonnage down at one time. What's going on there that causes that uh that that event to happen like that?

SPEAKER_04

Um, in in my experience and other people, it's uh typically the very first time, and we're gonna throw out it, it depends. This maybe one of the 20 times I'll say.

SPEAKER_06

This reminds me a lot of at least one every time.

SPEAKER_04

Um but when you're first planting something like cowpeas and the deer aren't used to it, um it appears not to be as palatable to a deer while it is growing. And there appears to be a switch in the palatability, whether it be the quality or some type of secondary compound, whatever's going on, when it flowers, it becomes a lot more attractive to the deer. So the way we think of it is if a deer has a choice, so we're not talking about starving deer, they have a choice of something else to eat. They may not choose to eat the cow pea while it is growing or while it's young, but when it flowers and becomes more palatable, Bobby, that's like you say, you see that all the time. In one weekend, they they hammer it. But what you'll also see is in year two or year three, when you're planting the same cowpea on the same plot, deer become used to it. And I have literally had cow pea plots look just like a soybean. No doubt. Like one month down the road where they hammered it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and sunflowers are the same way. You can the first year you usually can make a pretty good crop, and then the next year you it's over with. Yeah, it's hard. So those when those deer decide they're gonna eat something. That's why the word forage is so important because they produce that much forage to try to I've got to that's why we source forage varieties.

SPEAKER_05

It's a lot different than garden varieties.

SPEAKER_03

That's right. And I I've just personally for me, the way I've always under oh always made it work in my mind is I wanted to try to overwhelm the deer herd with groceries. And that then really the only way to do that in my mind is out of these forage varieties.

SPEAKER_05

So we're talking about forage. Let's I want to hear about this study.

SPEAKER_03

Well, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05

Let's move right there. How did that go this fast? No. Was that your question, Dudley?

SPEAKER_01

No, I was I was just gonna ask if if there's anything uh up and coming or anything you guys have been experimenting with that that seems to work better, like in smaller plots. Um in you know, like in a slightly higher population.

SPEAKER_04

And I'm talking about food plot stuff, not it not necessarily the wild type stuff, but yeah, I I think the the two things we've been looking at and researching most recently, and and this has not culminated in a big published study yet, but but we're working in that direction. Uh, we've been looking at planting techniques and and planting rates. And let me start with the planting rate first. And uh, so this was our third year of doing this, and we still have some number crunching to do, but you have heard people like me, I know I have said it, I have written it down many, many times, is always use the prescribed planting rate. That has been researched, and that is what you're supposed to do. So 120 pounds per acre for wheat, for example. You don't need to go above that. Well, you start digging into it and thinking about it, is a lot of these seeding rates were based on bushels per acre of production when it's time to harvest. And we're not thinking about in December. So your typical deer hunter doesn't give a rip about how many bushels per acre of seed is produced. It's forage during during deer season. And so we tinkered with that for a couple years, doing the prescribed rate, double the rate, and triple the rate. And what we did, of course, see is during hunting season, when you double the rate, that gave you, of course, a lot more biomass. It wasn't you didn't overseed to the extent that there was competition at that point in time where they were limiting each other. You were providing more forage biomass. But once you got to the end of winter and into spring, they did begin competing. And so when you got to like say March and April, there's really no difference at all in the seed production or even the forage biomass production of 1x, 2x, 3x because of competition. But there was when the plants are only this tall, they weren't competing with with each other. Does does that make sense? Gotcha at all?

SPEAKER_01

So when they're when they're short, it's okay to overseed because they're they're not out out competing each other. But at the end of that Especially because the deer are going to be eating on it all the time. That's right.

SPEAKER_04

But as that plot matures, what occurs? That's when plant competition occurred. And so the later in the later, and mainly we're talking about late winter, early spring, by that point in time, there was very little difference in the biomass produced because now we're getting bigger plants, bigger roots, and they're competing against each other. So this is cereal grains.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_06

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. I you ought to mention something about how we're feeling that uh brassicas, you know, you need to plant fewer of them. Yeah, well, just the opposite.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that's what we're that's what we're learning. And you know, early on when we started um with uh with biologic, we were we were thinking about a guy that's out there that doesn't have a lot of agricultural skills and a rust. More equipment.

SPEAKER_05

Equipment sites, you know, log index.

SPEAKER_03

That's right. And the plot, the the seed bed may not be so we had uh we had uh upped our rate a little bit. And we're learning now that less is more.

SPEAKER_06

Right.

SPEAKER_03

And and we we've seen it, but now we're just trying to we're we we now we we've got some ideas about how we could adjust some of those rations. When I'm talking about brassica, uh like the biologic, the maximum, uh the winter bulbs, though those type blends. So and they're so good at sucking the nutrients out of the soil. I mean, they're kind of their own worst enemy in that scenario. If you plant too many of them, they've spent deplete the soil. That's right. And so by the time December would get here, you could see that they're really stressed. And boy, that's when we want our food plot looking the best.

SPEAKER_04

So Yeah, and and if you see some of those forage-type brassicas growing and you see how big and leafy that they get, it it does make perfect sense. And not even limiting the adjacent brassicas, but limiting the other forages that you you have with them, shading and out and out, competing your clovers, for example.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Yeah. So the the the going back to Lane's point, this trial thing that you guys did this winter, could you kind of give us an overview of that?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, so we basically were looking at uh again different types of planting rates. We're just again trying to find what is the sweet spot, not for again an agricultural producer, but but for a deer hunter, how to make the optimal plot then. And and then we've been tinkering with um, and we are just at the very tip of the iceberg and really trying to, and Dudley, you'll like this. I've heard you talk about it many times, but uh trying to understand the non-tillage. What can you do with non-tillage? And we we don't have a drill, we don't have access to a drill for a lot of our plots, but hopefully we're gonna be getting one pretty soon. We've been tinkering a lot with just top sewing or just broadcasting on untilled ground. And so we've done some summer plots that way. We did some cool season plots this year, and we were really surprised at um at what we got, the response we got out of the untilled versus the tilled. And as you might imagine, it makes perfect sense that what responds the quickest is seed on a tilled soil with the ideal seed bed and so forth and cultivated. You know, it does. It responds it it'd be the same way, like we did this as well, is if you uh drop seed on top of the soil versus using a drill. Well, the drilled seed is gonna respond earlier. But essentially, when you get a month or two, and it all depends on rain and temperature, get a month or two down the road, it was hardly a discernible difference at all. And that to me and us on the ground we work at, it gave us a lot of uh hope because I don't know about y'all, but the soils we work with, uh very clay, very acid, hold a lot of water. And it was very difficult this past summer because it was so wet. We were like a month later getting onto the field and planting than we traditionally do. So we're thinking, man, this just really opens up a lot of opportunities for rather than having to have a tractor getting stuck, which it did, is that we can run an ATV over it and still get a pretty good stand.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I tried to plant trees out there one day a few years ago, and that stuff was tough.

SPEAKER_04

If it's wet, it's really, really soupy wet, and when it dries out, it is tough.

unknown

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

So y'all have some plots I'm just imagining my mind where you went in and probably burned down and sprayed, uh, and then just broadcast the seed over next to a plot where you've tilled and done the same scenario on. Right. And after two to three months' time, you couldn't tell a difference between the two.

SPEAKER_04

Hard to tell the difference. That's right. That's right. And so what's you know, some things we're gonna tinker with. There's a lot of different things you can do with that. You know, it's probably an infinite number of combinations you can do, but you got the traditional where, say, you would burn it down with herbicide or literally burn it down with a match. And with a match. I love that. And till and plant and cultivate, or you might have an adjacent plot where you just burn it down, match or herbicide or both, and then you just broadcast on on top of that. And so there's so many different and then there's some scenarios where uh you just spread the seed, right, you know, on top, and and you're gonna get some response with that too.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, especially with it knowing that a frost is coming, you know, you can time it properly, uh, you know, maybe hope that it's up for three weeks and then the frost gets all the warm season stuff.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But yeah, so that there's a lot of different treatments you can do or or ways to go about this uh what we often refer to as poor man's no-till. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Which is great for the wildlife. I mean, the places we've got to get, you know.

SPEAKER_03

Well, and it's you know, not everybody's got a tractor for access to, or even a four-wheeler. No doubt about it. And uh, so but being Bronson, being able to teach guys that that don't have a lot of equipment that they can still do some of this stuff.

SPEAKER_04

Absolutely. And and don't be afraid, you know. I I know you you read the the magazine articles and the TV shows, and it's best case scenario, and you'll see, you know, a 70, 80, 100 pound uh horsepower tractor with a cat. Well, most people aren't doing this. Don't be afraid to tinker a little bit. So maybe you'd like Bobby said, you don't even have an ATV. Well, you can get a backpack sprayer and you know, and you can seed by hand. There's a lot of stuff you can do, and don't be afraid to try it. Yeah, and that guy still needs to fertilize now.

SPEAKER_03

We need to point that out. Um and get the pH right. Yes, and and and you know, the that old pho is important. And we've learned, Braun, you're talking about that backpack sprayer. You're using that to kill wheat. Well, you can use that same backpack sprayer a little bit later to put down some fertilizers. Absolutely. Sure thing. So there's uh, you know, where there's a will, there's a way, guys. Right.

SPEAKER_05

I know we Dudley, you've done this. I don't know if y'all tested or not, but the throw and mow, hey, did y'all try any scenarios with throw and mow? We we did not.

SPEAKER_01

So mm-hmm. That's I mean, that's good. That y'all are trying different things.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01

Uh the throw and mow has worked really well for me, and uh I do have a tractor with a bush hog, uh, but we didn't fool with the disc and we just used a shoulder spreader. Um and then we did use the the tractor to put out the fertilizer, but um you know you don't have to have that. Um, I like using the over-shoulder thing. I feel like I'm in much better control. Yes, you know what's going on, especially with the smaller seeded stuff or the the thing that mounts on the front of the three-wheeler, four-wheeler.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I I like seeing how far out my seeds are going. And you lose some of that on some equipment.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, you do.

SPEAKER_04

And Bobby, like you mentioned a moment ago, I you know, I would rather have a food plot. I I would rather to limit my machinery, the equipment I had available, and have good soil amended properly and have to do it by hand than to have soil that has not been amended and the pH is is drastically wrong and still have access to a tractor and a drill. That's a great thing. So I mean it just shows you the power of the things you can do without that equipment.

SPEAKER_03

Well, I think if Toxie were here, I think he would jump in and say, guys, if you if you've got 10 food plots, you're better off to do one right and amend the soil and do everything right than you are to to halfway do ten of them. Yeah. And you know, and I've seen that myself.

SPEAKER_01

Especially if you're gonna till it. You know, if you're gonna flip the dirt over, you may as well, you obviously should do it right. Um, but if you're not gonna get in there and till it and you're slowly building your soil up and and making it better, then some of that throw and mow type stuff can be better than nothing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Lanny, you got a question? Yeah. Was there a particular uh forage that did better on the uh the the lesser prepared soils than others? Oh, I gotta think about that.

SPEAKER_04

Um I saw some really good photos. I mean that was We pretty much used the same mix, Lanny, this past year, but that's something to think about in the future. In other words, uh in all the different plots with varying levels of being prepared or really dry or really wet or something, we kind of evaluated the same mix. Gotcha. So we didn't alter a mix for this soil versus that. So I don't think we can answer that.

SPEAKER_05

I mean, I can say we were testing the method.

SPEAKER_04

We yeah, yeah. And so we standardized with with wheat and and a clover is what we were looking at, and it performed well on all situations, some better than others, but we got to stand.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we gotta stand. You know, what what y'all do in the research is very interesting, but it's so um can be affected by weather so much from year to year. And so being able to in your position to sit down and be able to study, well, we got ample rain this time around, and this is the results, and then be able to also say, well, we did not get enough rain. And being able to apply that, I'm sure that's a big part of your analysis.

SPEAKER_04

It is, and it's even evaluating like uh nutrient density or quality, you know, that that plays a big role in crude protein. So you gotta, when you're evaluating a plant, you gotta make sure you evaluate it on the good years and the bad years. So you can get up 5% or more swing in crude protein, uh, whether it had sufficient rain and moisture or not. And if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. The plant has to be growing. That that is when it's gonna be most palatable and have the greatest amount of crude protein when it's lush and growing. When it starts shutting down, we say the word senescence or senescence, then it becomes more uh lignified, fiber, et cetera. And it's not growing, it's less palatable, less nutrients, et cetera. So, yeah, Bobby, to answer your question, yeah, you got to consider that.

SPEAKER_03

And then utilization cages, I'm sure y'all have got those going up. I really we always tell people they need to put up utilization cages, but you can learn so much by putting a few of those up and watching what these plants look like as they mature.

SPEAKER_04

It's absolutely critical. And most people are shocked at what their food plot was capable of doing when it's protected from deer. You know, so many calls you will get with my food plot failed, this is terrible, it didn't get over ankle high. Well, the deer really liked your food plot and didn't allow it to get over ankle high.

SPEAKER_03

So, in a perfect world, how what size cages are y'all putting out of three or four uh feet in diameter?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, that that that's that's about right. I wouldn't want to get like less than two foot diameter, and and that's gonna be even really top heavy as well. So we typically shoot for a yard diameter, is is what we do.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I kind of want to take this opportunity to mention uh last time I went out there uh with the exclusion cages, everything and all of their research plots was nibbled on, and the ryegrass field, you could not tell a difference. It was just growing tall, the deer had not touched it. So I just wanted to say that.

SPEAKER_03

All the people that that are pro-ryrass. Well, there you can't find a biologist that'll be pro-rygrass. Uh Bronson, we're on the radio, you can't shake your head.

SPEAKER_04

You get to talk. I naturally nodded my head. Um yeah. That's a little off-subject, but there's a couple reasons for that. If I may, soapbox, may I stand up on it?

SPEAKER_05

But of course.

SPEAKER_04

And um thing you have to keep in mind, too, is a lot of people will plant ryegrass, and and why did it, you know, permeate the food plot world 20 years ago? Well, it grows anywhere. Back of your truck. Oh, yeah. It'll grow. You can have, quote, a beautiful green field with ryegrass. And deer will eat it. They will. Absolutely. But it's like anything with plant selection, it is relative to what is available. And so when you do these trials with what is available, relatively speaking, is that deer typically will choose the wheat or oat or cereal rye over ryegrass. But even if they didn't, here's not here's the the the biggest issue in my mind. Even if they selected all of those the same way, if you're interested as you should be in in nutrition come springtime into summer, that means clover. And if you have a plot of ryegrass and you do that two or three years in a row, ryegrass is a prolific receder to the extent it becomes invasive. It will completely dominate the site. And so that completely takes away the ability for you to add that clover to the plot uh come come spring and summer. And all you will see if you go uh to one of those fields or plots in May is brown rank ryegrass. And right adjacent to it, where you control that, you will see lush clover. What would you want?

SPEAKER_01

I don't know. But I've I've seen it enough to know that if if your great uncle planted ryegrass out there 20 years ago, it's still there. It gets food plotted every year. Like even we see it at making. Oh, we see it everywhere. You go and disc and prepare, you know, fertilize lime, put your proper seed out, cultivat, whatever you need to do, you come back two months later, 90% of the species you see is ryegrass. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Um and it's not being eaten by deer. Right.

SPEAKER_03

So that's frustrating.

SPEAKER_04

Anyway.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Well, thanks for bringing that out. I want to go to that. Yeah, I wanted to mention that.

SPEAKER_05

Uh, did y'all test for, I mean, I I it seems like this study was more about planting techniques, I guess. Is there anything else that y'all were testing for? Or was it primarily around planting techniques?

SPEAKER_04

Well, we we wrapped up a couple years ago. We had one where we were really looking at selection, you know. And uh and as like species selection or site selection. It was less about species and more about the the nutrients that that were available because every species has a little bit more of this and a little bit less of that. But but it was it was really about they they were chasing uh protein. And so it was where they could maximize protein and decrease fiber. That was that was what they went after. And that's what every food plot, if you have a good mix, you are providing. And so you've got different forages that are actively growing at different times of the year, and that is essentially what the deer were keying on, what is growing best.

SPEAKER_03

So does that play into the hands of a blend that's designed to produce uh early bed?

SPEAKER_04

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. And so a lot of people will say, and I completely agree, if you are really, really, you know, extremely limited on your funds, um can you have a highly successful food plot with only a cereal grain? Absolutely you can. But now you just start adding more attraction and more biomass when you start adding in different maturation times and different forages because they are peaking in their growth and maturation at different times. And so again, I mean, I I I just don't think you can beat a cereal grain, a clover or two, and a brassica. You just hit all of the different months of the hunting season and even into spring when you do something like that. Have you spent much time around the w the the winter peas? A uh a little. I've planted them s several times, yes. And have you had good success with them? I would call it the soybean of cool season food plots.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I was about to say you can hardly find one in a plot after uh six or eight weeks unless you've got a utilization cage. Okay. You'll see it in the cage. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I'm just super impressed with the winter peas.

SPEAKER_04

It does not have the uh the browse resistance. Uh-huh. And so I would say, you know, you probably need to plant more of it if if you're going to hope to keep deer using it week after week.

SPEAKER_03

So I planted uh quite a few this this fall based on some success I'd had previously. I was real impressed. But would you say it's fair to describe the plants as fragile? They just seem so delicate. The winter peas? Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01

In layman's terms, they like it a lot, and it's not a whole lot of plant, and they eat it all out before it really has a chance to mature.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, they're pretty it's pretty impr impressive looking when you see it. And it's a pretty plant. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

I know that sounds weird, but when it comes to winter, it's a pretty pretty plants, all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_03

So uh with the what else from your study? What are we not asking that we should be asking to learn from your study? Um let me ask this while you're thinking about that.

SPEAKER_04

How did our that non-typical clover do in your it looked really, really well and it's still performing? What are we May recording here? What are we the 10th? We are, and it still looks fantastic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

That's that's it's been a good clover, yeah. That's a good product. It is good. So wait, Max waving at me. Do you need to go to the restroom? No, I'm okay. I went before we got it.

SPEAKER_02

Bathroom break, boss. While we're on clover, what do you suggest to food plotters as the best time to clip their clover in the warm season growing period once they start flowering? What do you look for? Like a half of the field in flowers is brown, 75%, or kind of what do you look for?

SPEAKER_04

Well, my colleague Craig Harper and his students just finished up some research with that. And what they have determined is that you just don't need to mow clover at all. Really?

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, at all.

SPEAKER_04

That's interesting. Man, we got some groundbreaking info coming up. Dudley doesn't like to do anything, so this is perfect. Another reason to do it anyway. Um they they did an excellent study and and they checked every box and uh the the efficacy of doing that. So they looked at it from a perspective of are you improving the quality of the forage? Because it has a lot of intuitive appeal that if you're clipping it and getting the regrowth, and what they determined at the scale of the plot when you use the average, is that you're not increasing the quality over the over the scale of the plot. Let me explain that a little bit better. Is if you have a a really big plant, and I know Bobby, I'm using my hands and people, but if you have a really big plant and and the the the tips of that very big plant is is growing, you've got a lot of biomass that's growing. Now cut that plant half in two, and you do have a lot more growth on the smaller plant. But if you were to weigh it out of how much of the plant is growing, there is there is a lot of of uh high quality bio uh there's a lot of high quality foliage here, but it does not supersede the amount of biomass, the ton the relative tonnage. Very good if I said your weed control is through herbicides. Uh the weed control can be through herbicides, or depending on how well your clover is growing, uh, are you managing the weeds well already? And so where they were at, they really weren't having a lot of weed pressure that needed to be addressed, certainly not through mowing. And so they did not see an increase in weeds in the mowed versus uh unmowed. So they didn't see that mowing helped with that at all. And then lastly, they monitored deer use. And so you would think, well, we mowed it and we got all this new growth and the deer gonna be. No, that that that was not the case at all. So, as Craig would say, just leave the bushhog part, leave the mower part. Matt gets the question of the day.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that is good, Mike. That that was really good. That that's fascinating, you know. Uh, because we get asked that a lot. Oh, people are trying to figure out just what to do, how to do it. And the old school way was when that plot was a little over 50% blooming. Clip it. Yeah. And it's kind of hard to tell when it that that to put a percentage on it is very difficult. Unless you're Dudley, because he'll get out there at one, two, four. And we've invited uh Dr. Harper. We're we're working out some dates. Our people are talking to his people to get them all on the podcasters.

SPEAKER_04

Please ask him that question. He will answer it a heck of a lot better than I did. But uh in his mind, with the data that he's it's not his opinion, it's their data. And they have presented it at scientific comp conferences, and it's it's uh it's very complicated.

SPEAKER_05

We gotta start spreading the word about that one.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Well, we're we're talking about having them in uh early June. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I've got questions. Yeah. You know, like what if it's full of Johnson grass or something like that? Well, I mean, you just let the Johnson grass.

SPEAKER_04

Well, no, I I think in that case, yeah, you've got to address the the Johnson grass. So I think this would be a I guess maybe it's not typical for uh you, Dudley, or me, but maybe it's typical for a Craig Harper plot. Didn't have a lot of weed pressure, but there were certainly weeds in there at all. For sure. Oh, we understood that.

SPEAKER_05

It wasn't overrunning the plot. Right. Clipping for, you know, applying applying herbicide on the growth factor, but very interesting stuff. But just for the clover, it doesn't need clipping. Sweet.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I think, yeah, and and the the weed part of that, that's gonna take some special that's gonna be a it depends. I think dealing with that. But I think Bobby, where where it began years ago was you were increasing the quality of the clover by mowing it. Right.

SPEAKER_05

Think you it was almost kind of like pruning it, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, you you you were pruning it. Wow. And and yeah, so that is the case. The the new foliage that is growing is of very high quality, but it does not supersede what is already there. Nice. Interesting, the tonnage that's already there.

SPEAKER_03

More reason to plant clover. Yeah, I tell you this, the more I learn about clover, just the more excited I am. And you know, we're in the a really hot part of the south.

SPEAKER_05

Well, we've had difficulty growing clover, so I mean it's understandable, but this I mean, non-typical has provided us with some success.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and it's all about timing and for the for the planting. I mean, planting this in this part of the world where we are, it's kind of uh late October, mid mid-October, late September, mid-October when we can plant our clovers. And if you're in Wisconsin, Minnesota, those plants, those guys are planting them in the spring of the year. So timing is critical on clovers. Yeah. Wow. So uh what is the uh uh the the research that you guys have have going on? Is will this continue each year? Are we expecting that in next?

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Uh we're gonna do more of the same, and we we really want to get into the and it really hit us this past fall. And again, it may not have been on your properties you were managing, but we really had a hard time with with the timing. It was either too wet uh for the longest time we couldn't get in, and then once we got seed in the ground, we were dry. We were like mid-October or late October, and then we had like three weeks, you know, where it was just really dry, and we just started thinking about we got to start working on techniques so that you can work around this. And if you can't get your equipment in there, what are some alternative methods? And like that's really gonna help a lot of people. That is, I know that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I heard a lot of that around the office. Well, it's just too wet to get in there. Well, I just threw my seed on the surface and boom.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Well, we are farming for wildlife, so there are just so many variables that come into it. I mean, the the farmers, bless their hearts. If they have to put every year, yeah, yeah. Well, look, why don't we let's ask him uh let's let's change the time a bit here. Let's have time. Matt, what have we got a trivia play?

SPEAKER_05

Who's playing? What do we got?

SPEAKER_02

So our podcast procurement team gave me this review from Duche Leaps. Duche.

SPEAKER_05

So wait a minute, now let's do that. What's the podcast procurement team? Who's on that roll? So Bobby.

SPEAKER_03

Bronson, we have a trivia question. If you get it right, one of our listeners that has given us a review will have a chance to win a prize. If you get the question right, they win a nice prize. If you win the if you get the question wrong, they still win a lesser prize.

SPEAKER_04

So I don't feel as bad.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. So so, Mike, who are we playing for against the next one? What's this person's name?

SPEAKER_02

Uh Duche Leaps. Okay. All right. Well from Louisiana. What kind of review did they give us? It was a good review. It was it was a great podcast with tons of interesting conversation and research that will translate to increased success in the field. Keep on rolling, baby. Duche.

SPEAKER_03

This may be one of those French.

SPEAKER_02

Duche, huh?

SPEAKER_01

And we're good cover uh there.

SPEAKER_03

Mike, Matt. All right. So uh go ahead with the uh with the question, Mike.

SPEAKER_02

All right, Dr. Bronson. A group of quail are referred to as a covey. Turkeys a flock. What is a group of hummingbirds referred to?

SPEAKER_03

Can I phone a friend? Uh well, you certainly can. No doubt about it. Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_05

Bouquet.

SPEAKER_03

Oh. I'm gonna say a bouquet. Oh my goodness. It gets it right.

SPEAKER_02

So Duche Leaps an Avery Heritage Collection game strap.

SPEAKER_03

And that's for the hopefully Duche Lips is a uh is a duck hunter and he'll be able to enjoy uh that that Avery bird uh lanyard. That's a really nice bird lander. So how fast was that your friend here's on Google over there?

SPEAKER_04

I think he pulled that out. He's amazing. And shame on you, Bobby.

SPEAKER_03

What's that?

SPEAKER_04

Shame on you. I doctored up my Merlin ID call so it would pick up your squawking over there. And you throw a curveball like that.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my god. Is he really saying that?

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Wow. And I guess we're batting 100%.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we are. So that was that was a good question, though. Did anybody know what asked?

SPEAKER_01

In my mind, I was thinking like swarm or something.

SPEAKER_02

A flock of Herman birds can be be referred to as a bouquet, a glittering, a hover, a shimmer, or a tune.

SPEAKER_05

I tell you what, there's a lot around my house right now. They're a fascinating little bird. Very interesting to watch.

SPEAKER_03

They migrate by themselves up to 500 miles at a time by themselves. That little bitty brother isn't amazing. Okay, Richie. Wait, you've woke up. He's woke up next time. Okay, well now this is the part of the show, uh, Bronson. We hand it over to Dudley. He does the ass, Dudley, and uh hopefully we can educate somebody.

SPEAKER_02

All right.

SPEAKER_05

This duche lips.

SPEAKER_02

No, this is we're moving on from that. This is this is actually Dennis in Kentucky. Hey Dudley, I planted and caged 20 swamp white oaks I got from you. And when I went to check them yesterday, most of each leaf was browner in color, C pick. Do you think I over-fertilize them? I planted and mulched and fertilized them last Friday. And when I came back to check them on Tuesday, they look like this. Is there anything I can do to save them? Thanks, Dennis in Kentucky.

SPEAKER_01

All right. Dennis, I like that name. Dennis, um anyway, uh so this happened when we first started the nursery. We were growing stuff in three-gallon pots, and we were taking our air pruned seedlings and popping them into three gallons. And one day our boss told us to pot a, you know, several hundred of them up and and set up the irrigation, and we went out and did it. Didn't think twice about it, and the next day I came back and they were all brown. Um I remember well. And uh, you know, thankfully they survived because I was worried for my job, but uh I didn't I had no idea uh that I was supposed to acclimate them. Uh, you know, a lot of us are pretty self-taught over there and uh learn from my mistakes. But that's what it sounds like happened to Dennis, and I saw the photos. Um so think about it like your seedlings uh are grown pretty close together in a in a nursery scenario. So the lower leaves don't see uh direct sun very often. And to top that off, they're placed in a box and they're shipped and they're in that dark box for two to three days, maybe four, depending on where you are, and then you take them out of the box and stick them in direct sunlight. So um it's been a while since I've taken seventh grade biology where we talk about chlorophyll and all of that stuff. But my understanding is the chloroplasts, when they're not exposed to the sun coming up in the east, leaning to the south, and setting in the west, um, they sit there kind of wide open, like give me as much sunlight as you can. And so when you take them out of that dark box, they're just hungry for sunlight, and then you put them in sun, um, and it's it's kind of like the equivalent of going to the beach after being uh in your house all winter. Right, and and getting burned. Like Bobby. It's like they need to get a tan. But uh the word for that is acclimate. And so they have to get used to that sun going across the horizon every day and following it instead of just sitting there wide open uh for more sun. And so what you can do when you get your order or or grow, you know, just say you grew your own plants or something, you need to move them uh slowly out into the sun. Uh what worked for me, uh I used to have a trampoline in my backyard and I'd put them under the trampoline the first day. Or you can put them under a shade tree or or maybe on the north facing side of your house. And then the next day, uh when the when you get up in the morning, you can put them out in the direct sun for 20 or 30 minutes before you go to work. When you come home, put them back in the direct sun for 20 or 30 minutes and acclimate them. So they're getting used to seeing that sun go across the horizon. And then maybe the second day, uh put them outside for the last two hours of full sun. And then the third day you can plant them in the full sun. Or put them directly inside a tree tube instead of in a cage, so you don't have to acclimate them.

SPEAKER_05

Um and it and the same goes, you know, when you need the tree tube anyway.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you really do need the tree tube anyway. The other thing to do would be to plant them on a on a cloudy day when the when the sun isn't direct. Uh, folks in the Midwest, if you're uh, you know, a lot of people will start their plants like in a sunroom or even people are getting these fancy lights and trying to grow them in a closet or the basement or something, but they're not used to the wind, and they're not used to the direct sun either. So uh even the wind shaking around can mess them up. So you just you just need to acclimate them, transition them slowly, and then then put them out in the elements. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03

Duddy, that was really good. It uh, you know, it these trees are delicate, uh they're complex, is what they really are. Right. And there's a lot to it.

SPEAKER_01

And Dennis, if they don't make it, they probably will leaf back out again. Give me give me a holler. Maybe we can work something out.

SPEAKER_03

There you go. Bronson, is there anything else we need to ask? You did anything you want to promote? Uh uh anything coming up at Mississippi State?

SPEAKER_04

Uh, I guess the biggest thing is uh, of course, uh conversations like we're having here about food plots and deer biology and stuff. Check out our our podcast, Deer University. Uh, we're really trying to get our uh YouTube channel up and running. We're trying to grow that, so please tune in to that. The cameras are everywhere. They really are.

SPEAKER_03

Well, yeah. Well, uh yeah, I would highly recommend people uh tune in. You guys talk about some interesting topics. Great. Yeah, please do. Yeah, they sure do. Lanny, what about you?

SPEAKER_05

Have you got anything left? Uh pretty much it, man. Learn something every time Bronson comes in here. It's just uh hugely great to have him and to be able to pick his brain all the time. So thank you, Bronson.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, you're welcome. And Lanny, you you didn't say horn this time. I did not. I didn't have to correct you and say anything. So, you know, we're making progress.

SPEAKER_05

It's taken many years, but I'm making progress.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, well, look, guys, before we close up, I just wanted to say one word. There's uh Ray Scott passed away Sunday night, and he was just such a special.

SPEAKER_05

He was a visionary. He was he was a groundbreaker for the whole industry.

SPEAKER_03

He just changed our our whole industry. And uh, you know, I grew up in Montgomery, so very familiar with the Scott family and uh Wilson and Steve, and it's my heart's breaking for him because uh they had a special dad. And uh and and what had you I mean, he I can't think of anybody that influenced the fishing industry more. I mean, he's no doubt in the tournament trail. No doubt about it. So I just wanted to say that uh, you know, our company, but we we did a post a couple nights ago on Mossigo, but we just want the uh the family to know that we uh they're in our thoughts and prayers. So there we go. So uh Mac, you got anything else? Wake up over there and uh Dudley, why don't you say goodbye, Dudley?

SPEAKER_00

Goodbye, Dudley.

SPEAKER_03

Get us out of here, Mac Mac.

SPEAKER_00

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Game Keeper Podcast. And be sure to tune in again. Subscribe to Game Keeper Farming for Wildlife magazine, and don't miss the Macio Properties Fistful of Dirt podcast with my good buddy Ronnie Cus Strickland.