EP:435 | Deer Vetch Explained

On this episode we are joined by Dr. Bronson Strickland and Mitt Wardlaw of Wildlife Investments to discuss the highly intriguing and somewhat mysterious warm season annual American Joint Vetch. It’s commonly referred to as Deer Vetch, or its proper name is Aeschynomene. Whatever you call it, it’s a fantastic deer forage that tolerates heavy browsing like a champ.  

We learn that it fills a late summer gap, where to plant it, how to plant it and what to expect. Vetch sounds like the answer to a high deer density and smaller food plots. It’s a fascinating discussion and one that can help a Gamekeeper.

Listen, Learn and Enjoy. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm Jeff Foxworthy, and welcome to Gamekeeper Podcast. If you want to learn more about farming for wildlife and habitat management, everybody, you are in the right place. Join the Gamekeeper crew direct from Office Yoke 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 going to tell you, I bet it's interesting. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

We're live in three, two, one. All right, Lanny. We're finally going to talk about food plots.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

You know, deer season is upon us.

SPEAKER_09 0:34

We always think about deer season. We get sidetracked. Dear season is super important. It's worth all the time we spend on.

SPEAKER_11 0:42

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_09 0:43

And it's time to we're we're gonna have an interesting conversation. Let's I'm gonna go ahead and because I want to get them engaged. They're deer lifers. We have two of the smartest guys in deer management, turkey management, wildlife management, Dr. Bronson Strickland.

SPEAKER_10 0:59

Hello, good to see you.

SPEAKER_09 1:00

As always. And Mitt Wardlaw. Good afternoon.

SPEAKER_11 1:04

One of y'all has a place to turkey hunt with him bragging like that. It's gotta be something. He's got an agenda, so watch him. Oh, Bobby? Yeah. Of course. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:12

With a capital A.

SPEAKER_04 1:13

Yeah. Yeah. Agenda.

SPEAKER_09 1:15

Well, speaking of, speaking of, let me just Dudley's here. Glad you're here, Dudley. We're always loving. I'm here. Yeah, you look tired, but. I'm not tired. Yeah. Well, Turkey Sidney's wearing that tired.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

How many turkeys have you watched? Uh I'm not talking about stuff. Gentlemen, don't talk about that stuff, Bob. It's not a numbers game. Bobby, I wouldn't ask you something like that.

SPEAKER_09 1:35

Well, with that said, I was embarrassed. I was not going to ask Mitt how many he's killed. That's rude. But I was going to ask him about his son, Mitchell. That's not rude. How how has he been this year?

SPEAKER_07 1:44

Mitchell is having a stellar year this year.

SPEAKER_09 1:46

And not all you need to know. More than one state. I mean, he's a good thing. Ten years old.

SPEAKER_07 1:51

Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_09 1:53

Have you learned in the last few years some tip that somebody listening that's got a youngster coming along that could benefit from? Anything you've learned, taking Mitchell.

SPEAKER_07 2:02

Yeah, patience. I mean, you you've got to have patience and don't force it. And of course, Mitchell has taught me a lot too, turkey hunting with him, and he has got extreme patience. He's not going to force a shot. And I'm I'll be trying, please shoot, please shoot. And if it's not right, he's not going to do it. And so he's taught me a lot too. Yeah, it's good to hear.

SPEAKER_09 2:19

Yeah. Yeah, I think I mean there's been a lot of youngins that have killed turkeys from around this table. There's that everybody's had the crazy.

SPEAKER_03 2:28

We've got to bring up young Dud again. That was a great one.

SPEAKER_09 2:31

So it just gives us a lot of pride to see guys taking their kids and the kids have success. And they just it just goes from there.

SPEAKER_11 2:38

Well joy joyousness. So everyone at the table has watched their son kill a turkey or two this year. Yeah. Or daughter. Or daughter.

SPEAKER_04 2:47

Or daughter. Or daughter. Son, daughter. Yeah. Yeah. Same thing.

SPEAKER_07 2:52

That's right. The season of life that I'm in right now with Mitchell has absolutely been my favorite of all my turkey young career.

SPEAKER_11 2:59

When when you get to my stage, I've been this way for at least 10 years or so.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

I thought you were talking about this way.

SPEAKER_11 3:06

I'm getting old. Yes. But I'm still here. But uh, you know, I get tickled about the Grand Slam, and I'm going to get my slam, my world slam, and stuff like that. And I was like, my deal is just I call it the fam slam.

SPEAKER_04 3:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 3:19

So last year was a complete world fam slam. Daniel, Neil, Vandy, Sarah Francis, and Diane. And Diane. Yeah. The chairman of the board. That's right. 100%. We're three legs into it now. So I'm fucking she hasn't been yet, so I'm gonna try to get her to go next week when it cools off a little bit. Heck yeah. Good, good. But that's my thing. I think people should adopt that instead of the Grand Slam. Pick your family and or friends and make it the Fam Slam.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

The Fam Slam. Well, we all love this resource so much. It's just really cool to see the kids, you know, appreciate it. They're the next generation. They're the next generation and you want them to have the love for it that you do.

SPEAKER_09 3:57

So it's really cool. Yeah, I think you're on the right track there, Mitt. Yeah. Last year Mitt was here and I gave him a trumpet, a really nice trumpet call. I bet you did. I was hoping you had it in your pocket and we might give us some. I do not have it in my pocket, but I do have it. Okay. Well, based on that, we didn't want to leave Bronson out.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

If you would pass Dudley, would you pass this down to Bronson?

SPEAKER_03 4:20

We'll get it's it was important to mention. I think Bronson was our first podcast.

SPEAKER_09 4:25

He was. He set us off on a course. He's our bro for sure.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

He is definitely our Bronson, that's for that's for you, from all of us. I want you to know something. I had nothing to do with this.

SPEAKER_05 4:36

I don't think anybody a little concerned. It's a prank of some sort.

SPEAKER_11 4:41

You know the lab where they put their hands in the little things and you know it's quarantine because you might want to be careful about that. Go ahead and open it.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

That doesn't look like a trumpet call. Some pre-um, that wrapping pre-um, some pre-um.

SPEAKER_04 4:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 4:58

For a beginner.

SPEAKER_04 5:03

He's killing it all.

SPEAKER_06 5:07

You may have to help him a little bit. I'll teach him how to run it later. I need help. I need help. That's strictly free.

SPEAKER_05 5:14

Jokes aside, I have one of those and I absolutely love it. Oh, doing a good deal. Mr.

SPEAKER_11 5:19

Bill, he will kill you. He has them loaded down with them in the middle.

SPEAKER_09 5:22

Well, that particular one, Bronson, does not have an outside button that'll make noise in your vest. So the only way to run it.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

That's right.

SPEAKER_10 5:31

We got it just for you, Bronson. Thank you very much. I will put it to use. There you go.

SPEAKER_11 5:35

The best cluck I make all spring long every year is bumping my box collar, my push button, or something in there.

SPEAKER_05 5:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 5:42

Yep. So I'm good with that.

SPEAKER_05 5:44

I wonder if anybody's ever had a turkey gobble at that.

SPEAKER_11 5:47

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

I know they got with that because Logan uh this weekend was actually uh yelping at him and they were gobbling at them. That's a serious call, Bronson.

SPEAKER_10 5:57

You got to spend it. I believe it. I I've seen that advertised, and I literally thought that that would be good for me.

SPEAKER_11 6:04

That would be good for me. Easy, y'all. So I've said it forever and ever. I would rather be stuck with only one call just to push button, nothing else, and be able to go into a place that's a zoo than be the world's greatest caller with six kind of fancy calls and you know hunting on the colour. Hunting for someone that's already been everything's been shot up already.

SPEAKER_09 6:25

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. All right, look before we get started. So uh wildlife investments. You guys, we we we've kind of watched y'all gather this up, and I I get calls all the time from people that just how much they enjoyed someone coming to their property and just they were just you know, like, wow, I can't believe that happened. But I I think y'all's footprint is much, it could be much wider than maybe people realize that. We tease, but not really.

SPEAKER_07 6:51

But we'll we'll nationwide. Um if we there's a need, we're we're willing to go. Of course, our our main footprint's right here in the southeast, and that's where we spend most of our time and energy. Um, but what we've got expertise in a lot of areas and a lot of uh ability to go wherever the need is, so for sure.

SPEAKER_09 7:07

Yeah, it's a dream team of folks. So if a guy called from North Carolina, you guys could help him, or we're going. Arkansas. Absolutely. Yeah, Hawaii.

SPEAKER_10 7:15

Go ahead. I want to go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 7:17

That's when the business gets to go. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_10 7:20

We've got a client in East Texas, we've been to Louisiana many times, uh, Arkansas, even all the way up to Indiana, of course, Georgia, Florida, and everywhere in between. Would you be the guy that shows up if they requested you, Ronson? Would you? Uh I would. There's a couple of us that would, but you know, if they if it was a deer expertise, they were really wanting deer, that would be me or some others, including Steve Demaris. Steve and I did up.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

Oh, he's on the team, too. Steve is on the team. Oh my god. All right. What a team.

SPEAKER_09 7:50

Man, it'd be exciting to have. Can you imagine if you're you live in Tennessee and Bronson showed you? I know, right?

SPEAKER_06 7:56

It's like it's like riding around with a with Hollywood movie star, I'm telling you. You know what? It's the uh Hall of Fame, you know? He is.

SPEAKER_09 8:04

We're Bronson, we're proud of you. Well, I mean, we've known you a long time.

SPEAKER_10 8:08

Thank you so much. Yeah, I appreciate y'all and your friendship. And you can go to Turkey this year. So I mean, we're we're trending in the right direction. We're moving in the right direction. Every blind hog finds an acron every once in a while. And I found one.

unknown 8:21

Good.

SPEAKER_09 8:22

All right. So we and we didn't invite you guys over here just to laugh the whole time, but we want to learn about VETCH. And y'all have got a lot of experience with it. And there's it seems to be there's like a lot of questions surrounding how do you plan it when and what to expect. Yeah, depending on where you are in the country. Yeah, so can we just kind of open that discussion up and and let us let's just start with can you explain VETCH a little bit? One of you guys, yeah.

SPEAKER_10 8:46

I'll tell you what, I'll start general and you can do agronomics and stuff like that. Um, it's it's been around longer than a lot of people think, it's just grown in popularity probably over the last 10 years or so. Uh, little trivia, Dudley, about it. It is actually a native plant to North America. Like South Florida or South America. South Florida, that's right, and into Central America. So it's one of the food plot plants, maybe the only or very few that that's a native plant.

SPEAKER_05 9:16

Um reason, and it's not a true vetch, is it?

SPEAKER_10 9:22

No. No. Uh-uh. Um, one reason it became so popular is because soybeans are fantastic. Cowpeas, of course, are fantastic, but um, they are very sensitive to overbrowsing. So with the deer vetch, they can withstand browsing more than any of those other forages. You know, soybean, it'd be at one end of the continuum. If they get overbrows too quick, it's done. Deer vetch can stand it, withstand it all season long. So that's a good thing. Uh the tonnage is going to be very similar. It's right in there with the category of cowpeas or something like that. So it produces a lot of tonnage. Um, palatability is really, really good. Again, right in there with all the classic deer forages. Um but it being able to withstand browsing is what makes it uniquely different. So that's that's what makes it special. So people that never could get a soybean plot up or may even struggle with a cowpea plot, depending on your deer density, this can be one of their solutions. And you're not trading off anything. You think, well, it's not as good, or the preference will be low, or the crude protein will be low, or the the nutrients will be, you're not trading off anything with it. The only thing that is different, and there are ways to manage around this very easily, it is late uh producing, meaning it's gonna germinate a little bit slower. And so instead of having perfect conditions and three weeks later with a soybean or a cowpea, you've got a visible food plot, it's gonna take you maybe six weeks, a month to six weeks. So oftentimes you're gonna have the month of May without a lot of forage out there. But the way to work around that is having other plots on the property and various late maturing clovers. And so when you have those late maturing clovers, you have this tremendous buffer that while those are maturing or those may be petering out, your deer vetch is growing, and then it's gonna be really, really good late summer. Ah, in the hot months. I mean, and so even when you're late maturing red clover, when you get to be August, it's there, but it's its production is down, it's slowing down. That is the ascent for deer vetch.

SPEAKER_11 11:41

It likes hot weather.

SPEAKER_10 11:42

It it loves hot weather. Well, absolutely.

SPEAKER_11 11:44

So that is, we talked about it at lunch. That's the kind of the the dark spot. I mean, this this fills that void really good, but it's of all the forages, that's the hardest time. Right. Right there, especially if you get 100 degree days and no rain for an extended period. That's when you, and that's and I think you've Ryan, you've told the deer, they grow the most horn in the latter stages of horn growth, right?

SPEAKER_10 12:08

Well, the this is a little oversimplified, but think of it like this. When you get to mid-July, you're halfway done. Wow. Then when you get into mid-August, you're three quarters, and you get into mid-September, you're you're there. You're in that last 90%. So think about these other springtime forages and maybe some other warm season, they're gonna get you halfway there. But if it turns really hot and dry, which is what it does in the south, that is gonna be where deer vetch fills that gap and finishing off those antlers.

SPEAKER_09 12:37

Now, is this an annual or perennial? It's an annual.

SPEAKER_11 12:42

It won't reseed itself from the seed.

SPEAKER_10 12:43

You you will see that occasionally, it will. So, like the more the the true native varieties of it, obviously it had to reseed itself, but typically in an agronomic setting or a deer food plot, it will not.

SPEAKER_05 12:56

It's almost like it's used to a um a longer growing season, and so it may not have time to flower. Right. Well, I mean, it's getting grazed. Plant it farther north.

SPEAKER_11 13:07

I was gonna say it's getting grazed so hard it may affect the seed production on top of that from them eating so hard.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

But it doesn't terminate way down south, does it?

SPEAKER_10 13:17

You may have to get, I mean, truly into South Florida. That may be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_05 13:20

So a frost usually gets it before it can head out.

SPEAKER_10 13:23

Up here, yeah. But again, these may sound like little differences, but you think of some of these other warm seasons is that they may be alive, but they're not thriving in late summer. Deer vetch is going to be alive and thrive, uh depending on how much rainfall you have, until the first killing frost. So, I mean, you can literally have this warm season plot that you can be bow hunting over during bow season, even the opening day of gun season, depending on on when you get that first frost. So it it fits a real good part of your your food plot program.

SPEAKER_05 13:57

Well, it fills that gap we always talk about.

SPEAKER_10 13:59

Yeah, important gap.

SPEAKER_05 14:00

And it almost seems like you could just overseed it with something in the in the fall.

SPEAKER_10 14:05

And that's where you don't have to have his experience on the agronomic side, is that you can top dress it, top sew it, you know, you can disc it, uh, you can you can drill it, but all those techniques are gonna produce a viable stand.

SPEAKER_11 14:19

I do want to know, like sitting here today, because I'm listening to you with both ears, and a lot of people are gonna be interested in given that we're, you know, it's about close to the first of May when this airs, what would you do right now? Would people do to get the you know, to do the optimum thing for now, you know, including soil prep, pre-merge, post-merge, fertilization, all that? You know, what what is the best planning technique? Even though sounds like there's a lot of room for error, but I want to know what's like what are you doing?

SPEAKER_07 14:47

Yeah, because well, so for me, and you're talking to Lane, you're talking about that that gap that we're trying to fill. So to answer your question, Toxie, mine started back this past fall, starting to think about you know, how to incorporate the deer vetch. And so I'm thinking about now, I'm very sensitive to all right, I want good forage 365 days a year. And not all these forages will be able to do that. Each one of them has a unique spot. So if you look at the at the production curve, you know, when they first get started, then there's not a lot to offer. Then they have that that peak production, and then on tail end, they're losing palatability, they're not in the same production rate as they were before. And so when you look at all the different forages that we have access to, you're trying to place them in there to where each production curve is overlapping, and you have a nice, even you know, all the way across the whole year. And so the hardest gap, as you said, Landon, the hardest gap to fill is that July to September. That's the one that's the most difficult. From our native, from our native plants all the way up to our you know, our food plot, um, you know, our our annuals and and perennials that we plant in the fall, they're starting to tail off in May and June. I mean, that's just a very difficult um time of year to have something that's that's really at the peak of their production. Well, that that American Joint Vetch feels that need really, really good. And there's a few other ones that that fill the niche, but they have their own nuances and they're a lot more expensive or or you know, much more um you know management um intense. Soybeans, for example. I mean, soybeans are really, really good, but golly, there's there's so many different nuances that you got, if you don't have the right acres, we need to fence it. Um, you know, they can get overbrows really, really easy. I mean, there's a whole lot of uh nuance in there, but the joint vetch, especially when you start thinking about some of the more strategic clovers that we're putting in with the fall. And so I'm thinking about that. The red clovers, you know, they're taking you all the way into June and July. Mine are looking great right now. We'll have another couple of months, and as they start going down, the American joint vetch is starting to pick up and take you all the way into um, you know, overlapping with your some of your fall annuals that you're gonna be planting again. So that's the way that we're choosing to think about it. And American Joint Vetch absolutely fits that void really, really well.

SPEAKER_11 17:03

So, yeah, what about pH requirements? Because this seems to be uh I know there's no magic beam, but it seems like the first time I've heard of her almost true closer to that magic beam when you've got like the typical, even I think about a hunting club, you know, because so much timber company lands at least, and it's just wooded, you know, um foods, you know, have more ag fill type situations that some people benefit from. What's the what's the pH requirements? Because that's usually one of the drawbacks of those is acidic soils.

SPEAKER_07 17:35

So uh that's another really interesting thing about uh uh the American Joint Vetch is it's got some nuances that are a little bit different than a lot of the other games that we do. Number one, it's it's pretty shade tolerant.

SPEAKER_11 17:48

Um that's a big one for one.

SPEAKER_07 17:50

I've got it in a lot of roads and on some dim roads, and it does quite well. Of course, it'll like sunlight, and the more sunlight it gets, the more production, but it's not like it can't be productive, you know, if it gets if it gets you know 40, 50 percent shade.

SPEAKER_11 18:04

Dudley just set up.

SPEAKER_07 18:05

Yeah, yeah, for sure. We're all sitting up. Yeah, yeah. So and and another one, uh, it can take wet feet pretty well. Um set up again. We we all got those. Yeah, it's it's probably not gonna do as well on some some ridge tops, you know, droughty areas. It's probably not the place that it's gonna be the the most productive. Um, and then again, it's probably not as as characteristic of a lot of legumes that we plant. It is more tolerant to lower pH. Wow. And so it's it's got a it's got a real fit for the region that that that we're looking at.

SPEAKER_05 18:36

Yeah, so a lot of folks have places that are probably too wet to even food plot in the fall and winter. Yep. I mean, that's pretty common. And and a lot of those places can dry down by late spring and and not be too wet. Right.

SPEAKER_11 18:51

Especially, especially this year.

SPEAKER_05 18:52

So that's probably why this crop has been so popular for so long, like in the low country. Yep, yep. I know people from there, they've been talking about this stuff for 30 years.

SPEAKER_07 19:01

Yeah. So, you know, in a situation like that, and and I certainly have a lot of poorly drained areas in the places that I hunt. And so that combination is, you know, a bersim or a balanza-type clover that takes wet feet really, really well. And then getting back into a planting technique, I mean, a lot of times we'll just go in there at maturity when when those cloves are starting to go down, we'll just topseed the joint vetch, and it makes you a little bit nervous because the seed's really expensive. You're thinking, what in the world are we doing here? But we've gotten perfect stands doing that as the clover's going down, the vetch is coming up, and in those places like you're talking about, Dudley, where typically you it's too wet to do anything else, is a great, great solution.

SPEAKER_09 19:39

So you're overseeding vetch directly in your clover?

SPEAKER_07 19:42

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_09 19:42

And that seed's gonna make it down to the and touch the ground.

SPEAKER_07 19:45

Yep. And so there's some ways that you can help with that if you can. We've done it both ways, doing nothing, and then you know, overseed it, maybe bush hog over the top of it to put that thatch on it to hold that moisture down. Um, but if you catch it at the right time, and you know, when the when the plants are starting to senesse and and go down, they're gonna start breaking down anyway, and they're gonna cover those seeds, and it'll be a good, you know, moist area where that seed can germinate. And so um, it's pretty hardy. And we other than planting it too deep, I hadn't seen many places to where we've had a failed stand.

SPEAKER_11 20:14

I mean, it's it's it's pretty uh so you think it would be better to try to do some type of no-till with it, like you're talking about, or will too much soil prep.

SPEAKER_07 20:25

I really don't think I really don't think it matters. I mean it it's it's pretty hardy and and does good anywhere.

SPEAKER_11 20:29

I've seen it because it sounds like you would date take the old adage of like, you know, if you've plowed up something, cultivac it twice, really good, top seed, cultivated once. Yep, yeah. And that would be the ideal.

SPEAKER_05 20:41

Well, that may bring more weeds, too.

SPEAKER_11 20:42

That's right, that's what I'm saying. That's why if you could do it the other way, and I mean you could, I would think it'd be pretty easy playing with a no-till drill, too.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're gonna be converting one of Bobby's clover plots into uh uh a deer vetch or deer vetch plus possibly. So, but we were talking about terminating the clover, but we don't need to do that.

SPEAKER_07 24:06

Well, it on a perennial now, a perennial could potentially, if we got kind of shady and we got good, you know, wet soils or moist soils through the summer, those perennials can last way up into the summer. And it in some cases they make it out compete. So in that case, I may terminate, but an annual would be a great fit.

SPEAKER_09 24:24

What about uh we always hear about hauled and unhauled? What's the quick understanding of that?

SPEAKER_10 24:30

Uh uh so it was a couple years ago, we we saw that a lot. The the machine the that that hulls it removes the seed from the hull. It went down. And I think there's only a couple of them in the southeast that do that. And so it got to be that that time of year where they had to ship, and so they just went ahead and shipped it unholed. And so, because of that, the germination rate went down, especially people that really weren't that familiar with it kind of planted it at the normal rate and used the normal techniques, and it took a long time. Time for it to germinate and the germination rate was really low. And that's really unfortunate for that problem has since been corrected. Okay. You're not, you're not gonna see that now. But it's really unfortunate for the person that used deer vetch for the first time, and that was their experience, they were like, I'm never planting that again. Right. And we know some people that happened to them are like, trust me, we got to do it again. But that's what went down. A big machine went down. Okay. So that's not every year. That's not a universal problem whatsoever.

SPEAKER_07 25:35

So what happened on that year, and the reason why it was so very successful is because I mean, when you we put that the the unholed plant in the ground or the seed, I mean, that that seed's got to imbibe that the soil moisture, and that's a barrier. The hull is a barrier for that. And so we were getting germination from two weeks to two months, you know, in the same from the same planting window. And so the the planting seemed sparse, they just never would come to a stand. Um, and so that that was the reason.

SPEAKER_09 26:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 26:04

Um, so again, I'm thankful that we've we've got our our de hauler up and running.

SPEAKER_09 26:10

But um yeah, that was a like Shelly P is probably yeah, it's exactly what it's like. So, Lanny, yeah, what what strikes you, what impresses you the most about Vetch?

SPEAKER_03 26:19

Well, I I I mean Vetch is new for us, you know. I know Bronson, y'all have been talking about it for a long time. MDWFP has been talking about it for a long time. I I think what I'm learning today has impressed me more than anything about it is that hard gap, you know, with the what we're just talking about, it is that it it fills it uh and seems fairly easy to grow. Uh I I would like to know like what it makes really interesting that you're overseeding this over annual clovers, too. If you were to say like a percentage of your plots that you would want to, you know, you would want to plant in vetch, is that you know one for every three, or or how do you kind of look at that?

SPEAKER_07 26:54

That's a really good question, I think. And I'm and I'm oftentimes think about that too, because a little bit of vetch will feed a lot of deer. So you don't have to have a ton of acres, unlike soybeans, you better have the acres to support the number of deer. Vetch is not like that, it can handle the browse, uh, so you can get away with smaller acres. Um, the the really the only awkward thing about vetch is all right, how do I manage it in the fall? Right. Do I terminate it to plant my fall plantings or do I let it go all go all the way to frost and just be late with my fall food plots? Well, if we cut back down on the acreage and just don't do all my acres like that, I can have a little bit of both. So it doesn't interfere with my fall planting when I want to on uh on my other fall planting food plots, and then I can let some some of the plots go with my vetch all the way up into frost.

SPEAKER_03 27:39

And would you ever overseed with cereal grains or anything in those those plots that you're in stand?

SPEAKER_07 27:44

The larger seed, uh the cereal grains are probably a little bit more difficult just to oversee and let it go. Will it work? Yes, but it's a lot of times it'll be an uneven stand. Um, you really want to you know get that into the soil profile and you know have it in there to get to make sure that you're getting a good stand. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 28:01

Um it depends on that though.

SPEAKER_07 28:03

Yeah, yeah, let's throw in the it depends on there's my man coming in there. That's right.

SPEAKER_10 28:08

So um deer, it's all deer density, soil quality, the amendments, etc. Uh, but this this stuff can literally get six foot tall. So if you're in there on the river, on the big black, some of those places, and the deer density may be lower, or you've got other agriculture around you, it can literally get six foot tall. If you were probably around here, smaller plots, a lot of deer, it may never get above knee high. And so still producing a lot of biomass, you know, and so forth, but it never gets that high. In a case like that, I have literally several times we have driven over that. So no disc, we didn't even bush hog and just broadcast wheat and crimson clover or white clover, whatever. And then we saw a good response to that. Yeah, but it was not overwhelmingly thick, like I think Mitt's referring to. You couldn't do it that way.

SPEAKER_11 29:00

Is it a soil builder? That's a lot of clovers are.

SPEAKER_07 29:04

Uh well, sure, yeah. It's it's definitely gonna add nitrogen in into the soil that your your you know next next you know, plantings can definitely benefit from, like any other lagoon.

SPEAKER_05 29:12

Yeah, I was reading like up to 100 units an acre.

SPEAKER_07 29:16

Right. Woo! Yep.

SPEAKER_05 29:17

So this what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_09 29:20

That's series right there. We're calling it deer vetch, but it's it's American joint vetch. What is the what is hairy vetch? And do you like your vetch to be hairy? I knew he knew he was hairy or purple.

SPEAKER_10 31:33

Completely uh completely different plant.

SPEAKER_05 31:36

Okay, yeah, hairy vetch is from the genus Vissia. So we call it vetch.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

But it's really so we're calling this stuff vetch, but it's really not a vetch. It's really not a vetch. It's not a true vetch. It's kind of like a two by four, it's not really a two by four. Correct. There you go. That's a good analogy.

SPEAKER_09 31:51

How did this get started like that? Why did they call it a vetch?

SPEAKER_06 31:55

That's a deadly question.

SPEAKER_05 31:56

Inquiring might as well know. I think the leaves kind of resemble vetchy stuff.

SPEAKER_04 32:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:02

And it's not a vetch, it's a joint vetch.

SPEAKER_03 32:05

Oh, okay. Well, that clears it up, Bobby. It's jointed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:09

So it kind of looks jointed like cane or bamboo or something.

SPEAKER_11 32:12

Well, Bobby, next time you can ask what genius it's from, and it'll help you.

SPEAKER_06 32:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:19

Uh I mentioned this earlier. I always heard of it as being a uh a low spot type plant. Um are y'all planting it on like big openings on ridgetops and things or not?

SPEAKER_07 32:30

I hadn't had good experience with that. Of course, it's all about the rainfall, but it it yeah, it doesn't it likes soil moisture, and so it's not gonna be real good in a droughty situation. So if you you plant it, no going into a to an area that you know is historically droughty, you're probably not gonna see the best results.

SPEAKER_10 32:46

Okay. One thing I think is important, Mitt, that uh people need to know because like we talked about earlier, you're gonna have this longer establishment time. Pre-emergent herbicide is gonna be really important.

SPEAKER_07 32:59

So, in a situation where we do some conventional tillage, um, and that's one thing that's disguised by the overseasing of the clover, because that thick thatch of the of the previous year's annual clover or you know, perennial on that in whatever case, that thatch is a really good barrier for weed control. Um, but if you don't have that situation, because the the time from emergence to to full canopy when you're generally out of the weed control business is so long, uh, it generally requires, especially if you have a lot of weed pressure, um, it's generally going to require some herbicide applications. Preferably a pre-emerge um and which Treflan. Trefflan, dual, prowl. Um, those do a really good job depending on the weeds that you're um, you know, mainly it's grass, that time of year is what we're trying to um, you know, eliminate the competition from. Um is there a good her pre-emerge for horse nettle? No, uh uh a dis cold steel.

SPEAKER_11 33:55

That's what I thought. That's a bush of manual removable. It gets high enough over the clover I can clip it. That stuff's terrible. And it's just uh nothing dings it up. I mean, I've never seen many broadleaves that are 24D done, but you you gotta spike it to get it.

SPEAKER_07 34:10

It's really deep-rooted. So that when the horse nettle gets so bad that you can't stand it, we'll just hit it, spend one summer hitting it a couple times, um, get rid of it, and then reestablish your clover the next year.

SPEAKER_11 34:21

So it laughs at round up like it's just drinks. Yeah, just like it's a cocktail. Give me another one. Put a olive in the next one.

SPEAKER_05 34:31

All right. All right. Let's go to the flip side of this scenario. Say you've got about a 10-acre field and you don't have like a really crazy deer population. Um, it's a site that you could grow beans or vetch in. Are you gonna fill up 10, 15 acres with vetch, or are you gonna plant soybeans?

SPEAKER_10 34:53

I've got an opinion. Go ahead. Can I ask a qualifying question?

SPEAKER_05 34:57

Ask a qualifying question because it does depend.

SPEAKER_10 34:59

It does depend. Always do I just have 10 acres of food plots, or is this a dedicated warm season only, and I have cool season plots elsewhere? Oh, good question.

SPEAKER_05 35:11

Yeah, this is just one big field. Yeah, one dedicated, and you've got other like this is your big field, you know, but and you've got other little plots.

SPEAKER_10 35:20

I am gonna have that staggered with cool season and warm season, and depending on the deer density, if I could grow some soybean, I may grow some soybean, but probably not. Okay, so it's probably gonna be various clover, cereal grain, late maturing clovers, and then deer vet for the dedicated warm season.

SPEAKER_05 35:38

So you're saying you're gonna like partition that field and absolutely okay.

SPEAKER_11 35:42

That makes a lot of sense. Absolutely. He's going to build a super salad bar. Yeah, the buffet. Bobby buffet.

SPEAKER_07 35:49

Well, that may have been different from yeah, I'm well, I'm I love soybeans, not for the summertime forage, but for the grain that it produces. And so if I can ever get that done, and if I had any you know prior history and knowing that I could, you know, raise a soybean crop in that situation, I'll would put all 10 acres into the soybeans. But 10 acres is generally the bare, bare minimum with low pressure that you could have any success with it. So if if if I had too much pressure where I couldn't take uh soybeans all the way to grain, um, then I'm gonna partition it off like Bronson because 10 acres of vetch is not necessary. I mean, you can feed a world of deer on, you know, two, three, four acres of vetch.

SPEAKER_11 36:32

I will say that's awesome. Plug for one of our friends out there in the corporate world, Gallagher fencing, man. First time I really went all in with some fencing last year to protect stuff, and it worked. Now, I'm not saying it'll keep them completely out of the beans because at some point you don't want them completely out of the beans, but if you could get a good month of five, six weeks head start, then you probably can plant a lot smaller acreage and a lot higher dense or deer dense areas. And it worked. We were trying to protect, and it was already midsummer, and I'd given up from planting corn to flood for ducks, you know, and it's an ag field, you know, it's uh it's not just a plot somewhere. And I'd given up. And so we we did the fencing last year, and buddy, once it especially hogs, you would think you couldn't do anything. So many hogs around it, it worked. It really did work. That's good. They did not like it in it. Once it's popped them, I think the key I found out from before I tried some stuff that failed. Get it up really early and let it pop them before they find out there's gonna be anything there to eat, and they won't try it. They don't like it. They'd absolutely jumped over weren't enough to do much damage. So it worked. I'll say that, and we didn't even plant till mid-summer.

SPEAKER_05 37:45

Um we hadn't gone over like planting time, like is there a minimum soil temp, or are you are you in a hurry to get it in right when it hits that minimum because it does establish slowly?

SPEAKER_07 37:56

So, yeah, I'm in the situations that I we typically find ourselves in, we're managing the planting date around whatever forage we're planting into from the previous year. So, really that probably dictates the planting date more than anything. But if you were starting from scratch, um, you know, about like you would think a soybean, you know, when you start getting soil temps, you know, approaching 60 degrees um, you know, for two or three days in a row uh with a good forecast, I mean, you can go. And so that could be, you know, early to mid-April, depending on where you are.

SPEAKER_03 38:27

So I'm we've all mentioned slow establishment several times, but there's other companion crops that you can mix with this.

SPEAKER_05 38:33

Well, well if you just Yeah, I mean, and that time of year, there's there's good weeds growing everywhere, right?

SPEAKER_03 38:40

Right. So if you were gonna mix it with something, you know, what would you would would be a good choice?

SPEAKER_10 38:46

The the two most common would be buckwheat or alice clover, mixing those together. Cowpeas will be another option, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:53

Which ironically, Alice clover is not a clover either, is it? That's correct. Oh, look at that.

SPEAKER_11 38:59

It has been recommended for many years as a good high deer density planting, also.

SPEAKER_03 39:04

And it's quick establishing, so that's one of the reasons you would choose that.

SPEAKER_10 39:07

Yeah, but here's your trade-off, and it's like what Toxie was saying a moment ago, it's like you got to use the fence to make it work, but then you're you're giving up part of part of the year to where you want deer eating it. The thing about with something like a more moderate forage is it's not as good. So you're slowing down consumption of the good stuff, you're buffering it that way. So you you got to think about the trade-off. I would rather have a poor a pure stand of deer vetch and buffer it with other species on the periphery. Right. And then back to what Dudley said a moment ago with your 10-acre example. If I were going to make it the best, in my opinion, let's go with 20 acres and let's have about half or a third of that an old field where we know we are producing the native plants, and then the cool season and then the warm season, and you truly have the buffet right there.

SPEAKER_03 40:03

Yeah. You got to do that. So 20% 20% fallow. Is that right? What's that? I mean 20% just leaving it in the field and letting it grow up.

SPEAKER_10 40:12

It into a native plant community. So they're gonna be perennial native plant communities.

SPEAKER_11 40:16

Are you gonna burn that? Yes. And you're gonna burn it in the fall, not the spring, probably, right?

SPEAKER_10 40:21

It it would probably depend somewhat, but usually, yes. Yeah. Okay. And then figuring out when when it's gonna burn based on the species and the grass composition and stuff.

SPEAKER_05 40:31

Just with all that stuff in that one field, you may hear some quail and stuff out there. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_09 40:35

So turkeys nesting? Yeah. I wish I had a 20-acre plot. That's what I'd do.

SPEAKER_05 40:40

With a cabin and a porch overlooking it.

SPEAKER_10 40:43

Consider your whole place a plot, and you've got way more than that. We we were literally, literally at a place earlier this week, and based on the topography and the distribution of other warm season plots around there and cool season, and so we had this nice slope, and it was on the bottom is gonna be your warm season, and that's gonna be deer vetch, and then and then upslope a little bit or top of the slope, that's gonna be more of your cool season stuff, you know, because it needs to be drier, won't be wet, and then all within the marges and different strips and areas, having that into old field. And so literally, you know, right there you're providing food-wise, and depending on the height and composition of your old field, cover as well.

SPEAKER_11 41:29

Here's a question like right now, right now, if you had uh stuff, you know, this year being so warm, crops and plants are ahead of schedule. I mean, I'm we're gonna have fully mature dried wheat in the food plots before turkey season's even over. I've never seen that before, but it's happening now. Yeah, mine's a few stage right now, yeah, of cereal grains out there and it didn't have any contamination in no wild Italian rye or none of that stuff. It's just like you can see a bunch of exposed dirt in your your rows of or whatever of some wheat and cereal grain, whatever, oats. Couldn't you just topseed that as this stuff starts to go away right now, wouldn't it come on? Sure. Sure. That's a thought. If you look out there and you see bare dirt right now, that's all you need, right? Yep. Just a thought if you've planted nothing but a cereal grain somewhere, you go look at it.

SPEAKER_09 42:20

What if somebody's like Lanny and they're kind of cheap and they're not gonna fertilize it like they sh like they should. He knows me well. Is it gonna I mean, is it like other plants that they they've got a necessary need with fertilizer?

SPEAKER_10 42:37

Yeah, um, uh I'll give my two cents, I'll let Mitt give his. Yes. So let's say you got a phosphorus limitation, yeah, that's gonna limit the growth of that plant. And uh we did a great experiment. Uh, I think this was a Jacob Dykes, now with the deer lab. This is years ago when he was a student. Uh, but we we were in a phosphorus uh limited soil, and we added that, just you know, P fertilizer, and the biomass of the deer vetch responded, and proportionately the deer browsing or their selection for that plant also responded. So, yeah, it's all depends on what what's in the soil. And uh, you know, the deer vetch will grow, you'll get a stand, but you're not gonna get near the production out of it until you address the mineral limitations.

SPEAKER_11 43:27

What about what about, yeah, what about potash? Is either one more critical? Because we typically I did a whole new series of soil tests last year, and I had really good uh phosphorus levels just about everywhere, yeah. But still needed some help on decay.

SPEAKER_07 43:41

Yeah, I I think a lot of I think there's a lot of misnomer out there that you know this particular plant does good under low soil fertility environment. This one needs a you know really high nutrient levels. And that may be the case somewhat, but all plants are good, the production that they have is gonna be completely correlated, everything else being equal, to the nutrient levels in the soil. And so if you have, you know, one of your particular nutrients is really, really low and that's a limiting factor, that's gonna limit the production that that's halved. So that's why a soil test is so important because then I can see each nutrient individually, and I can really go to the heart of what my most limiting factor is and fix that, whether it be pH, whether it be PK or micronutrient, whatever that is, and I can go straight to the heart of what I what I need to be addressing.

SPEAKER_09 44:30

And that's you taking your background in and helping farmers, turning around and helping the wildlife guy.

SPEAKER_07 44:38

For sure. I mean, so and that you know, you can stack potash knee deep out there. And if my phosphorus levels are low, it's not gonna help my production any. And so that's that's the way we gotta think about that. Um you know, when we're we're thinking about maximizing the production of really any forage.

SPEAKER_05 46:53

Dudley, you had something? No, I was yeah, I was just thinking about that. That's interesting. What about um pigs? Do they like vetch as much as they like some of the other things?

SPEAKER_07 47:04

Yeah, I don't know if pigs would be attracted to joint veg.

SPEAKER_10 47:07

Yeah, I don't I have never seen a situation, but I I hate to say that because I bet it exists somewhere, but I've never seen a deer vetch plot decimated by pigs.

SPEAKER_11 47:18

I would just never say never. Pigs are the most opportunistic eaters on the planet. So we never had that's why I loved clover. One of the original reasons I started more and more clover because we're just out of control pig situation. And, you know, they're not really grazers. But lo and behold, I put cameras out, they're wearing it out. Yep. And even in the last two or three years, I've never seen it before. It goes on, I guess. They started rooting up my clover fields. And usually they don't do it, it's hard clay a lot of it. And if there's not something for them to get there, they don't just root for the sake of rooting, you know. They're well, there's nothing to eat on a clover root, is it? Now they're starting to destroy them.

SPEAKER_05 47:55

It's just maybe there's some kind of larvae or something in there there after the sedge.

SPEAKER_09 48:00

So let's what about like in July and August? Is Mama Hen, when she's got five or six polts, is she gonna have is she gonna have a reason to be out in that vetch plot? Is it structurally situated where they can get out there and chase insects? You want a deer guy? No, I'm I'm looking at you and I just realized, what in the world am I doing? Well, I mean, I'm looking at Brahmart. I'm looking at Mitt.

SPEAKER_07 48:23

Right, yeah. Structurally, it's probably not gonna be very conducive to some baby poles. But, you know, by that time, um, maybe the polts are up or a little bit bigger by that time of the year, and so they're chicken sized, so they may be out there, you know, bug in there.

SPEAKER_11 48:37

Well, I would think the edges would be really good for them because they could duck in there if they had to. And avian predators are getting such a big deal, too. That would protect them from that, at least for a little bit.

SPEAKER_07 48:47

They they probably couldn't run wide open under it, but I don't think you'd necessarily see them in the center of Dudley's 10-acre American joint veg field. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 48:56

I bet if there's got if it attracts bugs, they'll be around it somewhere.

SPEAKER_07 48:59

They're all about the bugs. Army worms get on this? Army worms get on anything. Generally, army worms will start in the grass. So if you have adjacent grass, uh once they get established, they'll they'll eat an oak tree.

SPEAKER_09 49:09

I mean, they just seem to be getting worse, Mitt.

SPEAKER_07 49:12

No, well, no. I I think um, always they always have the ability to be really bad at any given year, depending on the flight patterns and the time of the year of our crops and the stage of growth. And so it we have the potential to be decimated at any time, so we need to be be watching.

SPEAKER_05 49:29

What about inoculant? Do y'all use it every time or just on a new field?

SPEAKER_07 49:34

Or yeah, well, in general, inoculant is very important. So if you're putting it on new ground that's never seen, you know, American joint veg before, we definitely I think it's I think it's the same inoculant as maybe cow pea. Don't quote me on that, right? I think it is. Yeah, right. And so it's it's definitely important. Um a lot of the depending on the the seed supplier, a lot of times they'll pre-inoculate it. And even inoculating on top of that can be, you know, cheap insurance because if if they don't produce their own nodules, you're having to supplement it with nitrogen, and that can get very expensive. So um, you know, depending on the way they store the seed.

SPEAKER_05 50:11

Sounds like cheap insurance.

SPEAKER_07 50:13

Cheap insurance.

SPEAKER_09 50:14

So what what about rates? Are we have we talked about that? Uh planting rates. So if you're gonna broadcast it, what do what do you typically recommend folks do?

SPEAKER_07 50:23

I'm generally 15 to 20 pounds per acre is where where I am on on my stuff and generally got good stands. And I'd I would love to experiment with it, and I haven't yet, uh, on how lower rates we could actually go, you know, getting good seed soil contact. Um, but I bet you could because it's really expensive and and it it spreads so good, and and I really think you could get away with with lower rates. I just again we're talking about food plots and and cheap insurance.

SPEAKER_03 50:49

It's always it's a small seed.

SPEAKER_07 50:51

That's a very small seed, and so I'm I'm always airing on the a little heavier seed.

SPEAKER_10 50:55

I think if you had a relatively low deer density and you had timely range. Rainfall, then I I bet you could get away with 10. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 51:02

Well no, if you if you also if you had a warmer year where it got started a little earlier, you know, then it would have time to spread. And usually the earlier you get something in, there's plenty of natty forage that takes pressure off of it for a little while.

SPEAKER_03 51:13

So super browse tolerant. Super browse tolerant. Super browse tolerant.

SPEAKER_10 51:18

It's almost like it's gonna be very different than what you would think about a soybean or a cowpea. It is almost woody, the the the base of it. And and you may look at it and go, well, that can't be palatable to a deer. But but the growing foliage is really, really palatable. But that's just part of it that makes it such a strong pr production plant.

SPEAKER_03 51:39

And that it kind of looks like a I might be, I know this is a non-native, but it kind of looks like a mimosa leaf. Mm-hmm. A little bit. It does look like that. Okay. Is there any circumstances that where y'all aren't recommended deer veg to serious deer managers?

SPEAKER_07 51:56

Other than, you know, the the hilltop drought the area, but I can't think of anybody that doesn't need to be looking at it.

SPEAKER_10 52:03

Y'all have been talking about it for a long time. So our typical in a place where you could get away with uh all the varieties of warm season, we we would typically do the the larger areas, we would recommend soybean. And when you get to that next tier of those medium or smaller, dear bitch.

SPEAKER_03 52:23

And what about latitude? Go all the way up to Canada with it or that that I do not know.

SPEAKER_10 52:31

I I I want to say I got feedback a couple years ago, someone from Kentucky. Yeah, but I do not know about northern Illinois or New York. I don't know about that. IO too.

SPEAKER_05 52:44

Well, I mean, they have longer days. Oh, right.

SPEAKER_10 52:48

Right. You know, just the time of year might be different.

SPEAKER_05 52:51

Yeah, you it you'd probably have to try to get it in as early as you can. So it's as early as it's warm enough so they can get bigger before.

SPEAKER_11 53:00

So what happens if you planted some in the soil temperature wasn't quite where it needed to be, and then you had a kind of a little cold snap right after you planted it. But does that hurt anything or just delay the emergency?

SPEAKER_07 53:12

Well, if it if you planted early enough to where uh the soil temps aren't conducive to germination, it'll just stay there.

SPEAKER_11 53:19

Right.

SPEAKER_07 53:20

But the trouble is, especially in the in the deep south, we'll be 80 degrees today and we'll have freezing weather tomorrow. And so you fool around and plant it too early, and we get that warm snap and we get some early growth, and then we get a freeze kill.

SPEAKER_11 53:33

But it takes a 32 degree, 33 degree.

SPEAKER_07 53:35

Yeah, if you if you freeze that leaf tissue, yeah.

SPEAKER_11 53:37

Right. So uh so a 38-degree frost will get it too. Could could. Yeah. That's it.

SPEAKER_09 53:43

You know, Lanny, I'm listening to them. Yeah. In that plot that we were talking about doing is on top of a ridge. You don't have that thing irrigated? I don't have it irrigated. But that makes me want to ask Mitt a question.

SPEAKER_11 53:53

Well, I mean, y'all keep forgetting about poor little me. I have a couple I've got in the bottom. I have a few in the bottom. Whatever. We I have a spot if you've run out of places, Bobby. I've I'll I'll donate it to you. No, we're right. I'll let you hunt over. You can have the hunting too. Wait a minute.

SPEAKER_05 54:10

Punch it, punch it, barely punch it into the moisture and see what happens.

SPEAKER_09 54:15

See what happened, Captain. So, Mitt, you're managing a lot of properties around, you're seeing a lot of different stuff. Have you seen anybody come up with a real inexpensive, efficient way to irrigate some plots? I haven't. Rain dance. Killing me, man.

SPEAKER_03 54:28

Killing me. The key thing you said was inexpensive. Right. If you'd have said is there expensive ways to do it, he'd have been like, sure.

SPEAKER_07 54:38

Yeah. Yeah, there's no inexpensive way to irrigate.

SPEAKER_09 54:41

Wow. Well, Bronson, this is you guys have been talking about I mean, years ago when we first started talking, bitch was on y'all's radar screen then. So you might have listened, yeah. This is not something new, really.

SPEAKER_10 54:57

No, absolutely not. Yeah. Dudley actually mentioned it uh 30 plus years. Uh I first heard about it when I was an undergraduate. So that was the early 90s from Joe Hamilton. Ah was planting it on the those the low country of South Carolina. So it's been around since since the 90s and from a deer management perspective. So it's nothing new. It's tried and true.

SPEAKER_11 55:20

We first started planting food plots ourselves in the 90s. And um looking at the seed chart, you know, just like the generic seed chart, it was on there with you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_07 55:30

All the other for whatever reason, the last five or six years, it's gotten a lot more traction.

SPEAKER_03 55:36

Well, it fits warm season food plots. It fits a hole that's needed.

SPEAKER_05 55:41

It was a common name over around Charleston and Savannah and all of that for years. And they I they I everybody I knew referred to it as Ashinomony. Yeah, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:51

The Florida guys I knew called it ashinomine.

SPEAKER_10 55:54

And I think podcasts and social media, it facilitates people communicating and learning about it versus only having to read a magazine article about it. So I think we can spread the word a lot more efficiently now about it. But yeah, it's a good one.

SPEAKER_09 56:07

And we're probably not gonna see it go to seed, is what I'm also kind of getting out of that. It will develop seed.

SPEAKER_10 56:14

You you will see the the pod, but uh the germination rate the the next year will be none or poor in my experience. But I've also heard some people in the Delta in some really wet areas will also experience it germinating again. Yeah, from very reliable people have seen it and told me that. Yeah, I bet like South Louisiana and stuff, it'll go to seed. Bobby, one thing um, and you you can cut this out if you don't if you don't like this, but something I wanted Mitt to talk about. I mean, every once in a while. He says some revolutionary things.

SPEAKER_05 56:51

Every time he got something new, you mean like a new tidbit.

SPEAKER_10 56:54

Revolutionary war type stuff. Um, it it it changed the way I think, not just about warm season food plots, but about food plots from his expertise on the the agronomic side is uh the potential. It's like when they're working with producers, you got this bag of whatever crop, and it starts at this level, this potential. And every little, all these little factors chip away from that potential.

SPEAKER_07 57:22

Can you yeah, I don't know why that stuck with you, Rosie. But what we were what we were talking about is uh the the the corn and soybean high yield contest. And so I don't know if y'all are aware of what uh uh the the high yielding corn can produce, but I think um it's over 600 bushels an acre right now. My goodness. Uh soybeans are the the the record in the U.S. now is I think it's it's over 200, 200 bushel soybeans. And so the the what I was telling Bronson is that when we when that seed is in the sack, we've proven that it's got 600 bushel potential that seed does on corn. And that's 200 plus potential of soybeans. When it's in the sack, it has that potential. And when we put it in the ground, the difference between 200 bushel soybeans and whatever we get are all the ways we've screwed up all throughout the season. So when we plant the seed, it has the maximum production level built into those genetics, and then whatever levels we screw that up or conditions that we grow that in, just chip off that every single year. And so I think oftentimes you think about, you know, putting seed in the ground, and then the things that I do are additive to the increase in yield. Actually, it's the reverse. We put that seed in the ground, it's got the most uh potential it's ever gonna have, and then it comes off that from the top. So that's why the the timely range, the proper nutrition, all those things are very, very important to make sure that we we maximize that that yield potential or for whatever forage, whatever seed that we're planting, whether it be watermelons or pumpkins or or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 58:59

That's a it's a paradigm shift, isn't it? It's an interesting way to look at that.

SPEAKER_02 59:04

Yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_09 59:06

Philosophizing.

SPEAKER_02 59:07

It makes a ton of sense. I'm with you, Brons.

SPEAKER_09 59:10

Well, bringing the bringing some of the techniques and thought processes of the agricultural world over into the wildlife world. Precision stuff. I love that. Yeah, precision. That's a great way.

SPEAKER_03 59:20

We're getting into there. Yeah, is that precisely it's precisely precisely?

SPEAKER_05 59:24

You know, there's a difference between precision and accuracy. Oh, here we go. I knew you were gonna bring this up.

SPEAKER_04 59:29

Yes, this is true.

SPEAKER_05 59:30

We had a uh forestry professor there. That was honestly a great conversation. Yeah, ow to Dr. Parker. Throw it out there. It would be the first day of class, and every class would walk in and there would be what looked like a bullseye on the board. And uh so precise is like if you're aiming at a target, um, you may not hit the bullseye, but all of those bullets are hitting really close together somewhere. That's precision. Accuracy is when you line it up, it's precise, and it's hitting the bullseye. Hitting where you want to.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:05

Yeah, yeah. So, Bobby, you're not real precise. But I am pretty happy. You're pretty happy.

SPEAKER_10 1:00:14

So let's take what I said, and now let's think about uh a deer herd and antler growth. So I've started thinking about that the same way with what is the genetic potential of either that individual or that herd, and then what are we doing? Well, we've got too many deer. Well, they don't they don't have enough food. We don't have proper food at late summer when it's really, really hot. And because of that, we're limiting bucks this year, and now we're affecting fawns in utero that are about to be dropped, and nursing, and we're affecting milk quality, and all this things, all those things are going into affecting the the genetic potential of that herd. So I really like that. Yeah, while you're thinking about it. Yeah, all those little things just take it down, take it down, take it down, and make it less and less.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:04

You know, with the acorn crop that we had this past year, uh are you are you guys excited to see that like maybe we're gonna give birth to some superstars that are here comes in bigger three, four, five years from now?

SPEAKER_10 1:01:16

Yeah, yeah. I think that's gonna be uh well, I I just hope, I think I think our deer went into spring and summer in really good condition. Yes. So absolutely above average. But I don't want that to be undone by us having a severe summer, or or we're gonna go back to where we we started. So let's just keep our fingers crossed that we have a mild summer and a productive summer. Plant more veg. I'll tell you something else.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:45

Bobby, that I'm excited about is I really feel like this massive acron crop that we have gave some of these deer some birthdays that they wouldn't have normally had. And so I'm excited about that too. Increasing the age class. No doubt about it. Ha!

SPEAKER_11 1:01:58

Because I didn't think of that either. We talked about it at lunch. He's talking about simply for the fact that they didn't travel much and didn't get seen in the world.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:06

They weren't walking to that corn pile, they weren't coming to the food plots like they normally do. And so I'm excited about maybe seeing some bucks that maybe getting another birthday that wouldn't have had.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:16

Deer harvests were definitely down across the south from everyone. Yeah, that's not how bad, but it was down some.

SPEAKER_11 1:02:21

Well, he's excited not for just his own places, too, because that that happened across the whole south, right? Maybe further, maybe in the Midwest too.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:27

Who knows for sure? That is exciting. Yeah, older deer. Bigger deer. I'd like a big deer now. You love a big deer now. Who doesn't? Landy likes a big doe, Bronson. I like it. I'm with Landy. I like a big doe too.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:41

But I do love a doe.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:42

Well, this whole see her over there on the wall. So, Landy, we've got we're we've got vetch offered a couple of different ways.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:48

You get vetch and deer vetch plus, yeah. One is mixed with Alice Clover, and one is a pure vetch. So uh actually, because of these guys in Flint's just to actually go ahead and step out and try it. We honestly, unlike most things, we hadn't trialed this at all. So uh we appreciate y'all being here and helping us understand because it's gonna start real quick.

SPEAKER_11 1:03:06

And a shout out to the public because not everybody's a myth. And what are their we want to hear back from the people, yeah. Well, we want to hear back from everybody's experiences, yeah. So everybody out there that buys some and tries some, y'all be that's our best trial ever. Is through those people. Encourage everybody to get back in touch with us and let us know your experience. And if did great what you did, didn't do great what you did. Yeah, email us, tag us, whatever. Absolutely. Landy, what kind of supply have you got?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:32

Oh, we get we're pretty good. And we'll go back there and look at it. We've got uh tens and forties, yeah, uh, both in Pure Deer Vetch and uh Deer Vetch Plus, which is a 50-50 mix of Alice clover and and joint vetch. Yeah. I think you spell that Alice. A-L-Y-C-E.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:47

Yeah, so that can get confused. I mean you can do copies.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:49

That's the only reason I know that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:51

There is a cultivar of Ladino White clover called Alice. I think A-L-I-C-E.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:59

And I think you're supposed to pronounce this Alice clover. And the other one, it's A-L-Y-C-E.

SPEAKER_10 1:04:06

I've always heard Alice. Yeah, I've always I have too.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:09

Dallas Alice.

SPEAKER_10 1:04:10

Of course, I say Lerse Hills too when you get out of the very neck of the woods, you don't hear that.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:15

I say I say Lers. Lersh. Well, German is like Lersh. Lersh hills. So we're probably closer to the colour. We're probably correct.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:24

Why don't we look over at Richie? We got a tribute question that we came up with just for you two guys over there.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:29

So we're already through talking about deer. Not yet, no.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:32

Okay, okay. Come back and take a mental break for two. Okay, okay. I'm having to I'm having to recover from that comment. All right. I'm back.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:41

All right. So we had a listener who left a review on Apple Podcasts, Sweet and Vicey 11. 10 out of 10, 10 out of 10 would recommend. What about a podcast with Bobby as the guest? Oh like to know some of his spring secrets. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:58

Try to get on as many people's places as possible.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:02

There we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:03

There we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:04

All right. So what what where do they win? Well, we've got a do we have anything for them?

SPEAKER_09 1:05:09

Yes, we've got a bag of deer fetch. Nice. And maybe let us know ship this out.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:15

Did Matt Mitt might be that expensive? We might be in that nuke emblem. We might get edited out. Check that time code. Oh, what the? We have to talk to Matt.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:25

Use your employee discount for half of that.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:28

Don't let this guy down, Bronson. Yeah. I'm looking at you.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:32

All right. So a question for you, real quick, uh Mitt and Bronson. What about Bowl Peanuts? Y'all big Bowl Peanuts fans? Love them. All right. There we go. Our trivia is brought to us by our buddies at the Peanut Patch. At the Peanut Patch. Good folks. Peanuts are legume, too. Well, look at you. Mr. Know It All. All right, so let's think about weeds. Specifically, Johnson Grass. The invasive weed that is battled across the South was originally. Okay, here's the question. Specifically Johnson grass. The invasive weed that's been battled across the South was originally named Johnson because it grew fast like a Johnson outboard motor. True or false.

SPEAKER_10 1:06:17

I'm gonna double down on the false. You and the Johnson. I was gonna be like I just I just read it.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 1:06:27

So you didn't come up with that, I did not come up with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:30

No, that sounds I thought I was holding my breath on that one. Yeah, so Johnson Grass is a highly invasive perennial uh introduced in the United States in the 1800s. It was uh made popular in the 1840s by an Alabama plantation owner owner, Colonel William Johnson, who cultivated it for his cattle feed, leaving it to widespread across the United States.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:53

Is that true, man?

SPEAKER_07 1:06:54

Yeah, it is, actually. Wow, wow. So may have got me on that question if it'd have been mercury grass, but Johnson's not a not a fair fast outboard.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:05

Johnson won't even cry.

SPEAKER_11 1:07:08

So I was told it can the the root fragments can lay in the soil for like 10 years and you just can come back to life still.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:15

So it it it actually propagates from rhizome or um seed. And so what you're talking about is the the rhizome. That's what makes it so difficult to control because the rhizome Johnson grass is is very difficult.

SPEAKER_11 1:07:27

You want to see hog damage? Let them find a patch of Johnson grass in late summer.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:31

I love that stuff.

SPEAKER_11 1:07:32

It's got all that moisture in it too. Right. Oh my gosh. They'll they've that literally the worst, you almost lose the track top of the tractor going through some of the holes they do.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:41

Yeah, what are y'all hearing on pigs? I mean, we feel like locally, I mean they've come back.

SPEAKER_11 1:07:45

That they disappeared for a while, even the trappers couldn't find them. And then I'm blaming it on the acronyms too. Uh well that was last summer, actually before the acorn crops, they were they were disappearing. And then you're right, they went to they were all in the woods and stuff with them. But they still there was a big reduction in the numbers seen for a big area.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:04

They were all at my place. They moved into Dutton.

SPEAKER_11 1:08:07

And then but they're back with the vengeance that's just destroying.

SPEAKER_10 1:08:11

Jack Robertson's still selling traps. Yes, so we still have a problem.

SPEAKER_11 1:08:14

Yeah, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:16

What else do we need to ask about, match? Covered it pretty thoroughly.

SPEAKER_11 1:08:20

Time to get it in the ground right now. Where can I pick it up? Yeah, right here. There you go, man. Let us know. What about here right now?

SPEAKER_09 1:08:28

Anything else about deer season that y'all are like right now's time to be that y'all are thinking about getting something done? Are you you guys mess with mineral licks or any of that?

SPEAKER_07 1:08:38

So I'm I'm busy about um trying to get all my summer food plots planted and um you know sprayed and laid by and all that. So I that's where I'm gonna think. I'm not, I'm probably not a big mineral lick guy.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:49

Yeah, I like my I like my camera on it.

SPEAKER_10 1:08:52

I'm not a big mineral lick guy.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:54

So, Met a typical day for you right now is you start you're breaking day somewhere trying to kill a turkey, then you're then you're moving off to spray and get ready for that's right.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:03

I've got a tank load of uh Roundup and Liberty loaded right now. Soon as I get off his curvy couch, I'm going right on the get on the tractor. Get on the tractor.

SPEAKER_09 1:09:13

Y'all got another event coming up. The the turkey event you guys had looked like that was a big success.

SPEAKER_10 1:09:18

We do. We're gonna have a uh a deer management event coming up. We don't have the uh the date just yet, other than it will be in August.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:27

All right.

SPEAKER_10 1:09:32

And it'll be a tour to forest type of deal. But we're probably gonna do half of the day on deer biology and population management, anchor development, etc. And then the other half of the day is gonna be all about habitat management, food plot management, and things like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:48

Alright. Yeah, get us some details and spread the word and get signed up.

SPEAKER_09 1:09:52

Yeah, Roger, are you enjoying all this? Helping all these people on a larger scale, I suppose. I love it. I'm having a wonderful time.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:00

That's good to hear.

SPEAKER_10 1:10:02

Meeting with people, seeing the success that they're having. It's uh a lot of fun, very gratifying.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:09

All right. Good for you. But admit, uh, it it sounds like y'all've got it's just a dream team of guys. No guys, a dream team. Yeah, y'all got the crew, that's for sure. Yeah, wow. All right, I'm looking around. Is there anything else? Richie, anything else?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:24

Yes, uh uh don't forget uh GKTV Sportsman's channel, Sunday nights to 10 Eastern.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:30

Yeah, if you want to see Mitt and Bronson, tune in to us on YouTube. Got a new contest coming up. We're gonna be giving away some uh some grilling and some um game processing stuff from our partners at Meat and Grilla. So get ready for that too. That's gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:46

Mitt, I bet you like to grill out.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:48

I do like to those pellet grills are pretty cool. I don't have one yet, but I've used Vandy's. So very nice.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:54

All right, guys. Well, this has been a lot of fun. Richie, thank you for being over there. Richie, I was actually got to spend some Richie yesterday. His when his little yelp, it just made the chill bumps. He got it going on. He had a little yelp, it was so sweet. Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:09

Yeah, we try, we try. You know, Bobby had a bird, you know, but it got hung up there, and then I then I hit the call though, and then it's a skedaddle. This is a skedaddle.

SPEAKER_11 1:11:18

So you're saying Bobby couldn't Bobby couldn't call him in.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:20

No, Bobby couldn't call him in, and then I tried to, and then the story story got closed.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:24

And this is after y'all dropped me off on your buddy's ridge. Much after we dropped me off. Gar hold me, yeah. I forgot. No, I was gonna point out the logging area. Yeah. Here, here, Lady, they're not cutting in here. What are these trucks doing here? No one has no turkey trucks because there's tire tracks everywhere.

SPEAKER_09 1:11:41

Anyways, let me tell you something funny I heard the other day. Y'all, we all know Hunter Krim. I just think the world of him. What a great, great young guy. So he was telling me when we were riding down the road that he had been a guide at a place and and just how rough that was to be in a turkey guide. And he said he had this one customer, and all day long, this guy, whatever he suggested the guy do, he wouldn't do it. He would do something different. And he said they finally got up on a turkey gobbled really close. And he looked at him, he said, See that pine tree right there? Go sit right there at that pine tree. And he turned around and backed up a little bit. And he said, before he got to where he was gonna sit down, he turned around and that guy was right there. He said, What are you doing? He said, There's a rattlesnake eating a squirrel over there at that tree. It's very specific, you know. And he's like, What? And he went over there, sure enough, there was a rattlesnake eating a squirrel right there. And he said, I don't think I'd sit down right there either. Pick a better tree. But what a specific sighting than to come back and say it that way. I thought it was funny, Lenny.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:43

I really do think it's a good one. I don't know.

SPEAKER_11 1:12:45

I just something about sitting on a rattlesnake just doesn't resonate with me.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:48

I mean, I'd I'd rather run into a rattlesnake that had his mouth full of squirreling thanks.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:53

I would have scooted him over and let him finish his name and kill the turkey. Yeah. All right. Why don't you say goodbye, Doug? Goodbye, Dudley. Get us out of here, Richie.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:01

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