Welcome to Wild Turkey Science, a podcast made possible by Turkeys for Tomorrow. I'm Dr. Marcus Lashley, Professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Florida. And I'm Dr. Will Goolsby, Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Management at Auburn University. We're both lifelong hunters and devoted scientists who are passionate about hunting, managing, and researching wild turkeys.
In this podcast, we'll explore turkey research, speak to the experts in the field, and address the difficult questions related to wild turkey ecology and management. Our goal is to serve as your connection to wild turkey science. Oiling up the machine, I'm ready, you know. Marathon time. Marathon time. Yeah, so we've got a big block set aside today to record and we're going to try to knock some out.
So, you know, after that episode last week, I guess we both had a little bit of guilt, you know, recording like every Thursday for an episode that Charlotte has to produce for Monday. Yeah. Well, we're just keeping her on her toes, you know. I'm sure she'll appreciate that. Yeah. Is that something you learn in a professional development seminar? What? To keep your… Keep your voice on her toes. Yeah. All right. I've never been to one, so I don't know. So, I never would have guessed. Come on now.
So what are we talking about today? Well, I thought you came with the information. Oh, I was supposed to? I was supposed to prepare? No, you know, we're getting a lot of questions and thanks everybody that commented. Yeah, we got a… We got quite a few messages. Yeah, we got a bunch in a variety of different platforms and ways. Yeah, through emails and DMs and comments and everything, you know, in various places.
And it seems like a lot of folks are kind of switching focus, like we talked about, to food plots, and there is some strong interest from our listenership to hear, you know, more about how they might change their food plotting to benefit turkeys. Yeah. So, and we challenged you, I think, on the air. Well, to be fair, we went after Craig first. Yeah. So, we were trying to get Craig to come on to do a couple, and we can't work that out just yet. So, you did a deep dive on the food plot topic.
Yes, I did a deep dive. And what resource do you think I used on that? Well, I'm sure that Harper's book was one of the major ones. I've got to give credit where it's due because, I mean, what better resource, right? It's a phenomenal book. It really is. Yeah. I mean, I just don't know where else to turn for a deep dive on food plots.
You know, I read some online articles too, like NDA in particular has done a really good job of producing articles on food plot species profiles for a long time, so they've got some really good information from knowledgeable individuals too. And I pulled some information from there, but this is also, I feel like, one of those topics that if you try to cover every species and every planting, it just becomes too cumbersome, you know? Yeah. It'd be overwhelming.
So, I really just kind of tried to kind of stick to the basics on it. It's not going to be comprehensive, but I think, you know, we can give you ideas for plantings that will accomplish nearly all of your turkey-related objectives. Yeah. That's good. I think, so are you thinking that we should go into food plot preparation and then even seed blends and planting rates?
Well, I didn't specifically, you know, make notes on like seedbed prep and all that kind of stuff, but I figured it was something that you and I would probably, you know, just cover at least the high points on before we started out. Yeah. I'm happy to do that. So, test your soil. Let's start there. Test your dirt. Yeah. Yeah. That one, in my experience, that is rarely done by the average food plotter.
Yeah. I think it's becoming more common because, I mean, everywhere you turn where people are doing some sort of content about food plots, which is pretty common. I mean, we've got a lot of industry players and... Yeah. There's way more focus on that than native habitat management. Yeah. So, like, there's a ton of resources out there and a lot of them are really good information. So, more people are testing now, you think?
Yeah. I've kind of gotten that perception, or maybe it's because when I'm going and working with landowners, especially more recently, a lot of them have already been pretty advanced. Yeah. And I'm getting the perception that people are starting to take that more seriously. Yeah. I mean, it is really a low-cost, low-investment thing, and there's potentially a huge reward by making sure that you amend the soils appropriately to suit the plants that you're interested in.
Yeah. You want them to grow well if you're going to plant them. Yeah. And also, you know, how many people are just throwing out 300 pounds of triple 10 or, you know, whatever? Right. You know, it varies some, but it's usually 300 or 400 pounds of triple 10 or triple 10 or something like that. I'll raise my hand and say that I've done it. Oh, yeah. Like, I've put down both lime and fertilizer without soil test results before. Yeah. And I have too.
There's opportunity there to save some money potentially, especially when fertilizer costs are real high, and nitrogen, you know, can be quite expensive sometimes. Absolutely. The most convincing thing for me, and I think a lot of other people will find it helpful as well, is just Google an image search, right, and say, like, fertilized versus unfertilized food plot. And, you know, there should be plenty of images online.
You can't find one, I can send you one, but a picture is worth a thousand words in this case. Like, when you see, and you think about it, like, if you don't lime and fertilize, you've still spent a significant amount of time and money to plant that. So, if you're going to do it, you might as well do it right, because it sucks to spend that much time and money planting and then just have a poor crop. Yeah. I mean, then it's just wasted, right?
So, you know, if you have a budget that you're trying to hold to, it'd probably be better to reduce acreage and do the acres correctly than, you know, than to overstretch. Another thing, one of my former students worked with me and Bronson Strickland on a project related to food plots, and we did some cool diet selection stuff. Jacob Dykes, during his master's, he's now an extension specialist at Texas A&M, so he's gotten a Ph.D. and is in a similar role as I am.
He did some really cool stuff with food plots where we looked at a variety of species and diet selection, and that's what people probably heard about. We have some videos on YouTube, and we've talked about it on Deere University before. But we did another experiment, I don't know if we've done any outreach content on it, but it's directly relevant to what we're saying here, because he took the same plant species and then manipulated the soil amendments.
And what we were trying to accomplish is basically manipulating the quality of the plants and the biomass, and then trying to measure deer diet selection in response to it. Yeah, see if Brow's preference changed. Right. But we were able to, and we were doing that very specifically for the purpose of testing a hypothesis related to phosphorus. And that's exactly what we found in that research paper that we published.
That study, we showed pretty convincingly that diet selection for that species was really well predicted by the phosphorus content of the plant, which was being affected by the soil amendments. Wow. That's really cool. Yeah. But, you know, the take-home message of all that science, if we break it down to how it matters for somebody that wants to plant a food plot, Deere preferred the amended plots. Sid, did y'all look, I know you looked at preference.
Did you look to see if any of the other nutritional components of the forages changed? Yeah. Like any of the macro or micronutrients? We did look at a few, and actually, no, I say a few, I think that he did a panel of 13 macro and micronutrients in that study. Phosphorus was the main one that responded? That was driving the response, yeah.
Yeah. Okay. And that's also the, you know, it was really, not comparable, complementary, this is the word I was looking for, it was really complementary to his other study because we were trying to figure out what was driving diet selection, and we found this really clear relationship, which we called the nutrient balance hypothesis, I think is what we framed it as.
But basically, it's this idea that Deere could exceed nutrient levels, like intake of some nutrients where they become toxic, trying to maximize the intake of other nutrients that might be in limitation. And because of that, they sort of had this upper and lower threshold that they're trying to stay between. So they're selecting, that's one reason why you need a diversity of plants, because they have to have the opportunity to select plants with different levels of nutrients.
So what are the eating that can reach toxic levels, is it like secondary plant compounds? No, they actually are pretty good at neutralizing those, and apparently, they also have really important functions, like they have a really, some of them are playing a key role, at least based on some work with other herbivores, in the feedback mechanism, like the nutritional feedback that is telling them what to eat.
Some of those compounds are playing an important role in that, and various other roles as well, and we just don't know that much about it, I think. Yeah, I mean, I know that there's maybe some hypotheses related to it being like, some of those secondary compounds being anti-parasitic and things like that. Yeah, there's various things like that that probably are real. Well, that's a fascinating conversation for another day.
Yeah, we could go on and on about it, but based on the literature with cattle and some other, there may be a few other agricultural ungulates that are of importance, that there's work like this going on, but we started the project with the hypothesis that sulfur would be the nutrient that could reach toxicity, and that is what the data showed, that deer clearly were avoiding that nutrient, and that was the most important thing in selection
was to avoid that first, and then they were secondarily maximizing phosphorus, and my work in North Carolina showed that. I've seen a lot of your phosphorus data, and I mean, I even use some of those slides in my presentations and those figures, especially the one that shows where you're burning during summer increases that leaf phosphorus concentration to support lactating does.
Yeah, and it's actually, at least on average in that plant community, it was limiting, so the average plant doesn't contain enough, which forces them to be really selective. I talked about that various times as well in multiple venues, but that's kind of what his data showed as well, that they're trying to maximize phosphorus, but they can't just go eat phosphorus because they'll exceed toxicity in something else. Yeah, because they're getting all these other things along with it.
Yeah, so you can kind of imagine how complex that gets, and that's been really fascinating to me, but the whole point is the manipulation of the fertilizer, or amendments, we've manipulated lime as well, the manipulation of the amendments, we were trying to take the same plant species and manipulate how much of various nutrients it had to show that that is the mechanism causing selection, and I think he showed that pretty convincingly. We can link the paper if people want to go look at it.
It's a really simple experimental design, and it was specifically to address that hypothesis, but the take-home message is the amendments mattered.
Yeah. Now, that's interesting to me because, and I know we're kind of on an aside here, and we've been talking about deer probably for longer than we ever have on this podcast, but I have to know, and I think probably a lot of our listeners will be interested in this too, but I've been under the impression for the past several years that if you took, let's just say, two ragweed leaves that are the same age, but they're grown in soils with
different fertility, that they would have the same general macronutrient profile. Is that not true? Well, let's just specify and say crude protein, would they have the same, like similar crude protein levels? So we actually have a study, I'm an author on it, Craig Harper is the lead author on it, and it's in review currently. This is the one I'm thinking of. Yes, and that is true.
We did not find a relationship, and I don't want to say much more than that because it's in review literally right now. So we will do a bunch of outreach around this topic through various venues because I think it'll be really relevant. But in general, yeah, there wasn't a strong relationship. But what you're saying though with the leaf phosphorus is that preference may change due to the effects that it has on the other aspects of the chemistry of the plant.
Yeah, well, to be honest with you, they're a little bit conflicting. So I think some of the things that are happening is what you're saying. The nutrient content is affecting how much the plant invests in lignin to support itself, how quickly it's growing, and how much biomass.
I think if you took the twig tip or the plant growing, the youngest tissue on the plant and compared them between the two food plots, one that's fertilized and one that isn't, I suspect they will be nearly identical in terms of the quality of that growing tip. But you might have half of the plant that's growing tip in the one that you fertilize. I think that's more likely. We did see that the biomass was substantially different.
But in the plant species we used, we were not able to separate the plant into new growing tips and older plant tissue. Like in the study that you were referencing, that's how we determined that. We separated all of the sampling into new growing tissue and older tissue because we know that plays a really important role in the quality of the plant. And then we had the same species across basically the entire spectrum of soil productivity. And if you look at just the twig tips, they're the same.
But in the more mature leaves, I mean, first of all, the greatest benefit of fertilizer is that it's going to increase your leaf biomass, the consumable forage. That's the production as well.
That's where they align, that study that you were referencing that's in review, like a ragweed plant might be the same quality if you took a twig or, I keep saying twig tip, but the tip of the growing plant, right, the young tissue, that quality doesn't change across soil productivity, across the entire gradient.
But when I actually collected the samples from the sand dunes at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, yes, literally they're growing in sand, well, the plant can't achieve more than about six inches in height. And then you go measure it over in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley or, you know, especially up in the northern part of that, and, you know, the plants will get six or seven foot tall. Like the biomass production of the same species is substantially different, and that's what's driving it.
Right. So soil fertility matters, folks. I think we talked about that a little bit longer than we maybe had anticipated, but it definitely does. We'll just go ahead and stop this episode here. Well, and part of that was my fault because I started, you know, leading you down these different rabbit trails. The only thing I was trying to do was just point out that the amendment does matter to your deer.
Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things that, you know, we're following, I think Bronson and some of his crew are following up on some of this work to look at insect production, and there's probably work on that, but I didn't know I needed to do a deep dive on that and bring it here. So, you know, maybe we can come back to that. Something you just said prompted a question in my mind. Was it Bronson?
I'm going to put you on the spot with this question, and it's very unfair, but I'm going to do it anyway. Well, depending on how unfair it is, we could just cut it out. We could always cut it out. I think our audience knows that we don't do that. We just let it ride. While we're talking about all the dietary preference and selection by deer, it makes me wonder, like, you know, so much of what goes into that is the palatability of the plant.
So, like how it physically feels in the mouth, of course, like deer aren't one to eat a bunch of thorns, right? Yep. And then it also depends on the chemical composition of the plant. That's going to affect the taste too, like things like tannin make it very bitter, right? That's a secondary plant compound. Can turkeys taste? Yes. Not nearly to the same extent. They can taste? As far as I understand it, yeah. Because they don't have a well-developed sense of smell?
I wouldn't be real sure about that either. Well, I'm not sure about it either, wasn't it, was it Lovett that was, or was it somebody else that was, that questioned that? There've been a few people. There may have been, actually I think Tom Kelly has a chapter in one, I don't remember which book it is, but one of his books where he talks about reasons that he has some suspicions that they can smell. I don't know if you remember, but we talked about this in the prenual episode too. We did.
That's right. Yeah. So, and I have a new post-doc and she's like, you know, well, very talented, but she has gotten super interested in this prenual idea and started reviewing the literature and trying to, we're developing some ideas about it to work on with turkeys because we have the funding in place to do this. And I think it's completely unexplored and really fascinating, but based on things that she's digging, birds are using their sense of smell more than I would have ever thought. Really?
Yeah. Interesting. So, I can't say much more about that, but all I can say is we're going to have some things coming that will probably blow people's mind because right now, I can't, it's hard for me to believe. Well, that'll be exciting. All right. So, food plots. Yeah. Back to food plots. I don't know if they'll smell the bugs in there. We know they're visual. But I can't rule it out. We know turkeys can see good, right? Don't we know that? Yes. Okay. All right. So, now we can go from there.
All right. So- They probably will see the bugs in there. I think one of the first things that we need to talk about is what are you trying to accomplish by planning a food plot? No, that is a great place to start. And for some reason, we talked about soil amendments first. We did. We did. So, just thinking through, this is the list I came up with. Feel free to add or comment on any of it. But when I think about- What about heckle? Yeah. You can heckle me too. That's fine.
But I think about grain, right? So, high energy grain, high in carbohydrates, high in fats. And with that, I think about the objective of planting a grain would be to maintain, well, it'll hold turkeys on the property, so it'll accomplish that objective, right?
And then in addition to that, it could potentially improve body condition through wintertime, leading to better body condition in spring, which as we've talked about many times before, could translate into a hen being better at incubating, better at maternal care, all those sorts of things. So, perhaps it translates into improved vital rates. Maybe. Maybe. I would think that would be a really interesting line of inquiry.
Right. But I would think that if you were planting a grain for turkeys to consume during the wintertime, that would be what you were trying to accomplish. Yeah. Hold turkeys on the property and try to keep them in good body condition through winter. Yeah. Let's back up for a minute and just talk about what are the general things that people are trying to accomplish. Sometimes people plant a fall food plot to concentrate deer for viewing and, hey, I'm with you. I love doing the same thing.
I love growing food and watching animals respond to it and have sat on a mini food plot. More recently, I think, well, not more recently, people also plant stuff to attract and concentrate turkeys during hunting season as well. Sure. I would say more recently, and this is still decades in the making, people have started planting them more with the objectives of supplementing the species, and that's super common with deer. In my experience, less common for turkeys.
Yeah. For example, people plant chufa a lot for attracting turkeys, but probably not getting a lot out of it other than attracting them. Yeah. I mean, chufa also could help protect against a bad acorn year from a nutrition perspective, but how many people do you think are planting, when they plant their chufa, they think, oh, the turkeys will be ... Their objective is not that. It is attraction usually.
Well, and then we have to think about scale, like how much would you need to plant before you'd actually be providing a reasonable buffer. Right. So there are various considerations, but I was just thinking, let's walk through different objectives. Mm-hmm. So we have the attraction principally is driving the majority of food plot planting, and then a lot of folks have started using them to supplement nutrition for their given species.
I'd still say that is dominated by folks interested in deer, at least in our part of the world. But that's picking up steam with turkeys. And when I'm thinking about supplementing, I'm not thinking about it in the same way for turkeys. I'm thinking about supplementing structurally that ultimately leads to more food, but we're not necessarily planting a plant that they're trying to eat for supplementation.
Yeah. I mean, I think that's kind of one of the reasons that I started with grain and I was going to move on from there to seeds, because those are the two crops that I do feel like people plant with the intention of not just holding turkeys, but actually trying to feed turkeys. Yeah. Through the wintertime. I'm with you on that.
But going back to that, I mean, in talking about the objectives that you brought up, I would not plant a grain, like a cool or a warm season grain that grows throughout the summer and then the grain is consumed in fall and winter, to try to increase turkey abundance on my property, unless I had already addressed the reproductive cover types. Right? Absolutely. And that's one thing that- Who cares if more of them nest and hatch their nests if all the poles die? That's right.
So I just wanted to stop and make the point here that there's absolutely nothing wrong with planting for nutrition or attraction, but keep in mind that the limiting factor in most places is still going to be brooding habitat. So I would focus on that first in your food plots and if that's not been addressed elsewhere on your property. I agree with that. You know, I think it would be relevant also for us to kind of get on a little bit of a sidebar for a minute.
But one of the things that I love about food plots is really similar to one thing we talked about in the last episode. Yeah. People like growing stuff and it's fun and it gets you out there and engaged on your property, invested, and you get to see the wildlife respond to it.
And even if you're not maximizing all of these outcomes, there's a lot of value intrinsically to the practice for people and that gets them involved in their management on their property and is also often a gateway to expanding to other practices. So I think, you know, that's something to think about here. You know, part of this is just like, you know, that people enjoy it. So that usually isn't brought up as part of the objective.
But I think it's an important part of it because it gets people to spend a lot of time on their land and gain from that. Yeah, it is valuable from that perspective. And I think I'm oftentimes guilty of not thinking it as much as I should in that way. And instead thinking, you know, why are you planting that, stupid? You should be planting it. But something is better than nothing if it's getting them out there, you know?
Right. So, you know, I hear this from biologists and various part, you know, wildlife biologists and various parts of our discipline. People often have a negative view of food plots and I see it all the time that food plots are not habitat management, which is true. Yeah. But we also should think about some of the benefits that are coming from it. It's increasing viewing opportunities and getting people to engage and, you know, develop more, you know, a closer relationship with the land.
Yeah. So there's a lot of value in that. The other thing that I think is valuable about food plots is there's some sometimes in many landscapes are the only early succession that's available. Yeah. Which I think that's where we should come bring in some objectives and what do you want and need to accomplish? Yeah. And how can you adjust?
As a case in point to that, there was a paper that I helped publish and several years ago, the data were originally collected by a fellow graduate student at the University of Georgia at that time. It was Will Ricks and he did a project up in New York and Pennsylvania.
And basically what he found, long story short, is that food plots were providing some of the only habitat for early successional avian species in that landscape because it was so limited otherwise, because the whole landscape is like mature closed canopy hardwood forest. Yeah. Where he was working. And in some places it is very difficult to change that.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, they do serve a value in that regard and I think you're right that we need to remind ourselves as biologists not to be, you know, too high and mighty about it because I think that they do serve a lot of benefits in getting people connected to the land and connected to wildlife.
Yeah. I mean, I have some pretty cool memories even with my own daughter going out and her being so fascinated with mixing seeds and fertilizers and getting on the tractor and getting out there. And then not long after that, she got to see wildlife respond to that and she was excited about it. You know, she's like three or four years old. I'm the same way. Like I have pictures of me with both of my kids at different points in time, you know, on the tractor with me planting a food plot.
So there's definitely been plenty of, you know, good family, quality family time centered around that too. Yeah. I mean, I think you nailed it. You nailed it. It's like a gateway drug though. And I think my hope would be that as like a new landowner, maybe they start out with food plots, but then they realize, oh, well, I really only get to plant spring and fall. What am I going to do the rest of the year?
I mean, they have some, maybe they're spraying the plot and tending it and whatever, but hopefully as they start looking for other things, we'll get into, you know, forest management. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, even early on, and this was something that the first person that really made an impact on me thinking about it was Craig Harper during my master's program. But, you know, the first question usually from anybody to any of us is what do I need to plant?
Yeah. You know, that if you're maybe not as much in the turkey space, but it's definitely in it too. Yeah. It's definitely the first thing in the deer space. And, uh, I remember one time I was some, like I had given a presentation or something, I was with Craig and, uh, like that was all, only thing I got asked about. And, uh, you know, it was sort of like, did they not hear all the good other information that I was sharing?
Cause I was talking about my master's project, which was about thinning and burning treatments in hardwoods. And it, you know, I don't want to say it was lamenting, but I was just like, man, I didn't hear anything else. And then he was like, he made a point to tell me, he's like, listen, this is going to be where most people start. And if you dismiss that or blow it off, you're going to miss the opportunity to get them that other information. They're not going to hear you otherwise.
Yeah. And it, you know, just sort of resonated with me. And then now I've been saying that to, to students for, for years and years, like having a really strong knowledge of food plots, it is your way in to gain that rapport with landowners. And I think being knowledgeable about it and be able to address those questions, I have seen it firsthand.
I don't even know how many times where that's where we started and then it turned into, you know, some more what we would as biologists call more holistic practices, you know, management practices. Yeah. I mean, all the other stuff that we do, if you think about it, it's a lot more nuanced and difficult to, to understand and know about. I mean, you know, with, with food plots, you go out and you buy a seed that you know is a, that will grow a plant that a deer or a turkey will eat, right.
Versus going out and trying to learn plants that are already out there occurring. You don't, you don't know what seed was planted there. I mean, you know, those native species, it's much difficult, more difficult to learn those. Yeah. You have to be able to assess outcomes and then, you know, tweak the way you do things in response to that, to maximize it. That's right. It's definitely more difficult, but people start going there. They often start with food plots and they end up there.
Yep. So, anyway, we've gotten far enough on the sidebar there. Well, you were the one that wanted to circle back, so we can blame that on you. Well, I'll, I'll take that blame. No, I think that was a, I'll blame the, you know, the fact that we were going to run over our time here on you for talking about deer for 20 minutes. Okay. That's fair. No, I think that was good to provide that context. So I mentioned grain and the benefits of that.
You know, I'm primarily thinking, you know, like corn when it comes to grain, like corn and milo. Yeah. Some kind of sorghum. Yeah. And then like seeds, you know, like soybeans, for example, soybeans are going to provide seeds if they're, if they make seeds, right, if they don't get over browsed by deer and you leave them standing, they'll have those high energy seeds well into the winter time. And then. You might get it out of cowpeas. Yeah, you could get it out of cowpeas, sunflowers, millets.
You know, if you leave any of those standing, they'll provide seeds throughout the fall and winter too. The other thing, so kind of shifting gears now, we can think about, you know, planting crops that attract insects and other invertebrates. You know. We could also talk about plants that they're eating the leaves off of. Well, I was trying to get there, Marcus. Okay. Well, I'm sorry. You just, you just let this be your show. Next time you give me the order, you want me to cover things.
I'm going to ride your train. All right. Let's go. Well, and the reason, the reason I went there is I was thinking, you know, we have crops that attract insects and other invertebrates. Obviously that's going to be beneficial for brooding cover, but oftentimes those are also crops that provide a green leafy forage too. You know, like, so like a clover, right? A turkey can eat the clover leaves and then they can also eat the insects and other invertebrates that the clover attracts.
Sure. You know, you missed a really good opportunity to slam the gavel. It's like, all right, order right here. You were getting out of line. If you're watching on YouTube, you got to get on and see the hammer. Come see the hammer. Can we all sign it? Come see the hammer. You need to start having people sign your hammer. Like all the graduate students that come to your lab or something. Maybe. It's kind of rough. It would be hard to leave a good signature on. I don't know.
It's got like all this. Just make it work. It's got like all that stuff. I don't even know what it is. Look at those cracks, man. That looks like Geppetto's hammer. It's been through some stuff. I'm going to start calling you Thor. Charlotte's been wanting to gobble, so I guess I should have said it's been through some shit. So I've got fall and winter grain, fall and winter seeds, insect and invertebrate attraction, green forage in the leaves, as you mentioned.
And then the last one I have is tubers, you know, primarily thinking about chufa. So two primary objectives of food plots benefit spring and summer nutrition, growing season nutrition in other words, benefit dormant season nutrition. Attraction is another one that I think about. And then the other one that I, the last one probably that comes to mind for me right now is using a food plot to provide brooding cover and insects.
And that's one I've been focusing on a lot because I think it's a really great way to accomplish competing objectives often, but multiple objectives, you know, when people want to deer hunt on it and especially in situations where they don't have much control over what's going on in the woods. Yeah, absolutely. So with that being said, we're going to talk about, get into some specifics on cool season food plots.
Yeah. Are we just, we're 45 minutes in, we're just now getting to what we're going to talk about? Well, I mean, this is the technical stuff, right? So we'll be able to run through it pretty quick if we're not waxing philosophical about it. Okay. So for me and for Craig and his book too, apparently, because that's what's informing a lot of this conversation, you know, clovers and alfalfa are two of probably the biggest go-to like cool season food plot crops for turkeys.
So they're both readily eaten, you know, turkeys will eat the leaves of clovers and alfalfa and they're both excellent insect detractors.
The biggest difference in managing clover alfalfa food plots for deer versus turkeys is what we talk about a lot of times on this podcast is with turkeys, we have to pay a lot more attention to the structure and the food plot too, because we don't want the plant density to get so high that turkeys are crowded and it's difficult for them to move through that area. That's right. Especially when they're little. Yep. Especially when they're little.
So if we go with, we can go with in general, lower seeding rates is one way that we can do that. We can also, another way to increase turkey use of it as well is to allow some of the more beneficial weeds to grow up in those crops while they're growing, especially like during early summer. Well, it may be preferable even to have the lower seeding rate to facilitate the invasion of some of those desirable weeds. Yeah. And you can manage those weeds too.
Don't think that just because you're allowing your food plots during the summertime to grow up in some weeds that you have to let any weed that shows up grow, right? So you could just take like a solution of glyphosate, mix up a spot spray rate of glyphosate and just go out there. And if you find things like horse nettle or pigweed, hopefully it's not glyphosate resistant pigweed, or you see sweet gums or something like that popping up, you can hit those.
Ryegrass, Sericea lespedeza, you know, we could go on and on down the list. Jemson weed for those in the Mid-South. Oh yeah, that's a fun one. Yeah. That is, I mean, I'd say I'm usually visiting properties kind of May, June, you know, I do it at other times of the year, but that's a really common thing that I'm doing at that time of the year.
Yep. And a lot of folks that are letting their food plots grow up, you know, just, just kind of planting them in the fall and then doing their, their thing with them during the hunting season and then ignore them the rest of the year. Those things are, are just a mess of mostly non-native in most cases, but different kinds of weeds that are undesirable usually. Ryegrass, almost always dominating it if you haven't done something to try to change that.
But yeah, but the point I wanted to make is don't just think that you're going to be able to just let it grow up and it's just going to be good. You may, you know, you're kind of getting in a maintenance stage when you get to where you're talking about where you could spot spray things. You may have to take a more aggressive approach initially, and the idea, I think we've talked about it before, the idea is not so that you have to be really intensive with herbicide forever.
The idea is that you might need to be intensive once or twice so that you don't have to into the future. Yeah. That's a really good point. And there, I'll add to that, that there are some steps that you can take to make that process easier early on. Like when you have a bunch of weed problems, like in particular one that comes to mind is if you predominantly have grass weeds, just plant clover, and then you can use a grass selective herbicide to kill that grass.
If you predominantly have broadleaf, forb type weeds that are problematic species, then just plant wheat for one year, and then you can use 2,4-D to kill the broadleaf weeds out of there. And you might have to do that for a year or two until you get it so that most of the weeds that you have are beneficial to wildlife, like turkeys. And then that's when you can start introducing that little spot spray step, like you said. Yeah. You're then in maintenance mode.
Right. And I think that's important. I love that. I tell people the same thing. When you're planting a single species, it gives you a lot more option to deal with problems. That's right. And the other thing that, in my experience, is less commonly thought of, when you plant a clover, anything that comes up in that plot that isn't clover is not supposed to be there.
You know, when you're in the winter, and you know, if you have, like if you have a bunch of grass weeds, which is very common, it's incredibly difficult to know that you have a grass problem until they all go to seed. And then it's too late, you know, if they're already viable, which apparently for ryegrass is right after they pop out of the ground. But you know, that gives you a lot more, a lot longer window to deal with the problem. Yeah. Right.
Then you're not like, oh, you know, all this has gone to seed and it's clearly ryegrass and I got to deal with it sometime in the next three days. Yeah. Right. Whereas if you knew that in November, then you'd have a larger window to deal with it. That's right. That's a good point. So, you know, that's another good way to, for assessment, is to go that route. Absolutely. So we are 50 minutes in, so I guess I'll recommend my first planting. So we've been talking about clovers.
So probably what I have planted more than anything else, probably if I had to guess what you've planted more than anything else, is a crimson clover wheat mixture. You can go with crimson clover and oats, or you can go with crimson clover and wheat. If you have them side by side, the oats are probably going to be a little bit more attractive to deer, but the oats aren't as cold tolerant. So that's something that you'll need to consider depending on where you live.
So I just typically go with wheat, a little bit cheaper too. Yeah. The crimson also, you know, that's a consideration and however, I've worked with the... Yes. I should have said that too. The crimson tends to perform better like south of zone five. Yeah. So, but I have worked with a landowner that just absolutely loves crimson in Michigan. Really? And he's had success with it there. Yeah. And he's kind of growing it. It's sort of like a non-traditional time of year even.
But you know, I've seen a couple of times where they had snow on it and they were digging all around in it, eating. Really? Yeah. Interesting. So once he tried crimson, he stuck to it. But it is, you know, there's some other options for you that are more cold hardy if you're in places. Yeah. Yeah. But the great thing that I like about this planting is almost everybody that plants a food plot, you know, they have deer and turkey objectives.
And so a crimson clover wheat food plot is going to be plenty attractive to deer in the fall. And then it's also going to be really attractive to turkeys in the spring. And the way that these things kind of play out and the way that it works so well together is the wheat or oats are going to come up really quickly, you know, shortly after planting. And then the crimson clover will be a little bit after that.
But then the wheat and the oats continue to grow, you know, all the way up until, you know, you get really, it gets really cold and you get in winter, you're going to slow the growth down. But then in spring, you're really going to see the clover start to come on strong. The wheat seed heads are going to start to form. Those seed heads, if you plant an onless variety of wheat, then can be consumed by deer and turkeys. Directly off the plant. Directly off the plant.
And then you've still got the clover there that is both serving as a green forage for deer and turkeys. And then in addition to that, it's an excellent insect attractor. And so, you know, in a lot of areas you'll see crimson clover do pretty well, as long as you're getting decent rainfall during spring, all the way up to May. And I have seen some plots that are managed really well, where they have dealt with the weed problems.
And they plant, you know, a little different rate, usually a more, I'm recommending a little heavier on the crimson and a little lighter on the wheat, if this is your objective. What are your pounds per acre recommendations usually on those? Well, they vary somewhat, but you know, like a 25 pound rate of crimson is basically a full rate, and then, you know, two bushels of wheat, you know, would be your full rate. So if you're going to do 50-50, it'd be half of that, basically, right?
Yeah. So you typically go with like 40 pounds per acre of wheat, and then somewhere around 15 a clover? Yeah, I'm even more skewed than that sometimes, more like 20 pounds and 30 pounds. But I've seen it done along a gradient and it works fine. I just like the clover better, and also with the crimson clover, in some places when they're managed this way, they re-seed really well, and you can keep that clover pot going.
In fact, I worked on one that I think the first person that planted it was John Grucci. And then, you know, when I was at the end of graduate school, or maybe even been a couple years after I was done with graduate school with Craig, the pot was still going, and it was more than 10 years old and never been planted again, it was just crimson, and that was just beautiful. Yeah, if your crimson clover makes seed heads, it re-seeds itself really well. I have one that's been going about 10.
And so, basically, you just have to go back and put the wheat in. Yeah, you can just, if you have a drill, you can drill it right into it. One of the ones on our place, it just re-seeds every year and we don't plant anything, just crimson pot. Yep. Just do a little weed control now and then?
Yeah. But I really like that, and from my perspective, when I have seen these, the crimson, when it starts senescing, it tends to encourage a lot of forbs if you've dealt with the weed problems, you know, the undesirable weeds, you tend to encourage more forbs and the structure that you get in it is really high quality. Of the farther you get on the wheat side, I feel like it starts to affect the structure.
Yeah. And I have seen some places where even like at that 40 to 50 pound rate, if you have fairly fertile soils, that wheat can get really high and dense. And I have seen, you know, I've seen places where that rate does really well, and I feel like it does well most places, but then I have run into a few scenarios where they were really fertile and it was denser than I would like, taller than I would like.
And that's something I see with cereal rye often as well, which is one reason I tend to shy away from that one if you're intense to provide some brooding cover. Yep. There's nothing wrong with the plant, but you know, for that purpose, it's not the best option. Yeah. So that plot, you know, it'll feed deer and turkeys all through the wintertime and then, you know, gobblers are going to want to come in there and strut in the spring.
And then, you know, once those poults hatch off, if the structure is right, it'll be used as a brooding area too. So that's why we recommend it as often as we do. I mean, it really accomplishes a lot.
Yeah. And to me, especially if you have an interest or need in providing brooding cover and you have the dual purposes of attracting turkeys during the breeding season for strutting or, you know, just hunting in general, and you also have an interest in deer hunting, which I would say is probably a majority of our audience. That one is kind of the best balance in my opinion. Yeah. I've seen other things that can do well, but that one really balances it well.
Yep. So the other cool season plot that Craig recommends for turkeys in his book is what he refers to as the perennial bugging plot. And I've never planted this mixture specifically, but the base of it, well, I shouldn't say the base of it, but it contains alfalfa and I have seen how good of a job alfalfa does at attracting insects during the summertime. More often than not, where I see alfalfa planted is on properties that are primarily managed for deer and they're trying to grow trophy bucks.
They probably have a history of planting soybeans in the past and many of those properties, their deer densities are so high that it's difficult for them to grow soybeans. So I see many of them starting to switch over to alfalfa now. Yeah. I haven't seen it in that context, but it makes sense. But I also wanted to add that, you know, we were talking about the folks in more northern reaches might have some problems with some of the earlier plants.
Well, this one, you know, in the south, you know, that is normally not as prevalent. There's a lot more care, I guess, in taking care of it. And my understanding is it's only relatively recently that they've developed varieties that do well in the south. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. We do have some local cultivars that do fairly well in the south. So check your university extension that they usually have good information on what cultivars have been, you know, done in your area. Right.
So the full recommendation on a per acre basis is 10 pounds of alfalfa, 5 pounds of red clover, 3 pounds of chicory, and 30 to 40 pounds of wheat or oats per acre. So solid mix. Yeah, so the idea is the alfalfa, as we've already talked about, attracts the insects. Turkeys eat the leaves of alfalfa same way they eat clover that we've already talked about. Red clover is also a green forage. It adds some structure to the mix.
And then the wheat, of course, is a forage and that it also serves as a nurse crop for the alfalfa and the red clover. The biggest, I guess, drawback you could say about this plot is that alfalfa management can be difficult. Yeah. Typically, you know, you're having to do, you know, a spring and a fall herbicide and fertilizer application each year. Yeah, it's definitely intensive, but for me, it's a hassle. It is a hassle. It is a hassle. But I've seen some people that have done well with it.
I don't think it's for everybody, but there are some people that certainly can do well with it. What else? Oh, I didn't mention, you know, alfalfa also is very vulnerable to pests. So sometimes you have to get into insecticides with alfalfa too.
And people may be used to dealing with that with like army worms, you know, as another common food plot pest, but it, you know, I've never, I don't think, I can't think of a time that I've ever sprayed a pesticide on a food plot or an insecticide on a food plot. I haven't. I mean, herbicides plenty of times, but never an insecticide. So I have less familiarity with that.
Craig also threw into this section, he mentioned if you don't want to deal with the alfalfa because of the headaches that we just brought up, substitute in five pounds of Lodino white clover to the mix instead. Kind of serves that same purpose. Yeah. And while we're on Lodino, some of my research in Craig's lab actually has probably incorporated into this book.
I know some of the research is, and I don't know if this particular thing, but I was looking at some diet preference stuff between different cultivars or whatever of Lodino. And I remember Osceola Lodino. That one was. I dig that name. Yeah. That, that one was the one that, that was highest selection for deer. Oh really? Interesting. Yeah. I mean, they were, they were always the white clovers and just clovers in general, but the white clovers, you know, we're near the top of selection generally.
Yeah. But that one, like they came into the plot and ate all of that one and then ate the other stuff. Yeah. That's cool. I mean, I don't think the, the value of Lodino clover to turkeys, it's kind of hard to overstate, you know, it's a. Yeah. It's a really great plant. The only real problem with it, the drawback from a turkey's perspective is that it's poor structure generally for. That's right. Culls.
So what, because of that and the recognition of it, but also in recognition of its nutritional value and how attractive it is to turkeys, the way that I find myself using Lodino clover oftentimes is I will put a strip of it, like a little strip food plot in the middle of like some early succession, like an old field that I have cultivated, you know, I've, I've sprayed a lot of the exotic pasture grass out of it and gotten, gotten it to where it's a nice stand of Forbes.
And then, you know, if it's a large enough field, I'll take out a little strip in the center and maybe allocate that to a white clover food plot. And I mean, that's a dynamite combination right there. Yeah. It's good to hunt. Yeah. That's exactly what I'm thinking. So well, the other thing that, you know, the fun fact about Osceola, don't think regal Lodino or, or Durana or, you know, some of these other white clovers aren't good. That wasn't my point. It was just an interesting observation.
The first time I noticed it, we, we went out to the plots and I think we had Durana and regal and Osceola and what else? I know we have those three. I feel like we had two or three other. Is Patriot. Is that another? Yeah. Patriot. I don't know if we have that one. Lodino variety. I feel like we had two or three other ones, but I can't remember the names and we went out there and we're talking about 10th acre plots.
So the deer, you know, deer can, you know, a few deer can feed in it for a night and really make them look different. Right. I remember getting out there and it was the, the white clover should have all been flowering and we could see five of them flowering like out of the six, but then one of the plots, there weren't any flowers in it. And I was like, what? And like, why is it not flat?
So we went over and looked and then I, that's where I first got that Osceola figured out the plot that had not flowered, had flowered in the deer had eaten every flower in the plot. Wow. There were, there was not one single flower to be found. You've got, you're going to, somebody, somebody's going to go online and find out that all that clover is out of stock now after you gave it that kind of endorsement. You're welcome. Donate to the podcast.
Yeah. Yeah. Whatever seed company makes that, makes that, that variety throw us a bone. I mean, they're, they're all good. I mean, you know, but that was just remarkable. And then we came back the next day and then like, you know, a week later, none of them had flowers, but it was just, that was the, when it really struck me and then doing, doing a little more dig in that, that seemed to hold true.
So the one other thing that I did want to touch on real quickly before we, we close this one up is I'm thinking about where to put them, you know, like I already mentioned a food plot that is within like early successional cover that's likely to use by turkeys for brooding or nesting. That's optimal, right? That's a, that's a really good location for it.
Especially if it's, if you're planning to manage it such that it's good structure for brooding, that can be a really great way to enhance productivity. Absolutely. And a lot of times the one that you're trying to develop into brooding cover, like that crimson mix we were talking about earlier during the hunting season, that is a magnet for a big strutter. Absolutely.
Yeah. The other place that I think about putting them, especially, you know, cause we've been talking so much about white clover is close to roosting areas, obviously, like, especially if your intention is for turkeys to use the plot during fall and winter. It makes sense, you know, cause turkeys oftentimes are going to be roosting in hardwoods, they're going to be feeding on acorns that are available in those hardwoods and then they're going to concentrate their movements there.
So why not situate a food plot close to those areas or even sometimes within those areas because Ladino clover does tend to do pretty well in areas that, you know, may not be like full sunlight conditions, they can withstand a little bit of shade and they like some soil moisture too. So I also think about when I'm citing that, you know, that crop and thinking about where I want to plant it, those are things that I consider.
The other thing that for folks to consider, if you would like to have some perennial plots, it's not really worth it if you don't have them for a while, right? The cost is often, you know, higher up front and it doesn't really make sense financially until you're getting a few years out of it at least. That's right. That's right. And I think with white clovers, you know, that summer droughty period is pretty hard on them. Yeah, it is.
So, you know, a little more shade probably helps with this, but higher moisture areas, they tend to persist through that droughty period better. Yeah, I mean, upland clover plots, you know, you get dry during summertime, they're gone. I mean, you're going to be replanting those. Yeah, no question. Another thing, I see it fairly commonly, people plant perennials and annuals together. Yeah. And you really need to think about that, you know, the perennials, adding cost to that.
And if you're not planning to have it perennially, you know, that you may want to rethink that. The other way to look at that is if you are planning to have it perennially, you can always overseed or drill in, you know, an annual, like if you want some wheat in your Ladino plot. Yeah, that's right. Good points. What else are we missing?
Oh, the other thing I was going to mention is another way that I think about citing food plots and other plant communities is I will tend to manage areas with lower soil fertility for early succession, and then open areas that have higher soil fertility.
Like if I'm trying to find out, well, where do I plant versus where do I manage my native early succession, I'm going to plant the more fertile areas and I'm going to manage native early succession in the lower fertility areas or the higher drier areas. Yep. That definitely makes things easier on you. It really does.
Well, on both sides, the food plots perform, it's easier to make them perform well in the high productivity site, and it's easier to arrest succession and maintain open cover at the ground level and all that in that poor site, generally. 100%. So that wasn't as good as Craig would have done, but I think it was pretty good. We'll let the audience decide. Fair. You got anything else?
There's definitely, you know, we should still try to get him on to do it, and he will obviously add a lot to the conversation, but I think that was a pretty good run through of what people can think about, you know, when they're trying to make decisions. Hopefully people are going to start including turkeys in their decision making. Right.
And, you know, the other thing that we talked about, I think before we started recording or maybe we mentioned it on the air, is probably the number one thing people are thinking right now is why didn't they go into more species of plantings that could be used? And we certainly... Or more herbicide options.
Yeah. Or we certainly could have done all of that, but I mean, at the end of the day, like you get to a point where you're going into such specifics for, you know, individual circumstances that it's not as broadly applicable. And the plantings that we mentioned can be used, I mean, you know, we only talked about cool season today. We'll talk about warm season another time, but those cool season plantings can be used to accomplish almost every turkey related objective.
Yeah. In a wide variety of contexts. Exactly. Yeah. I think that's true. One thing I guess we didn't talk about is, you know, some, in some cases, particularly if you're really want some control over the species that colonize, you know, considering a soil residual activity herbicide in some of these plantings could be really helpful. Yeah. I agree with that. So there's a variety of them depending on what, what you were trying to accomplish.
But yeah, we can, we can cover some of that stuff in detail. If people really want us to get into specifics, I think, you know, they're going to tell us and we'll come back to it. You know, we've never even done an herbicide episode. I just thought of that, have we? Like where I've just gone through, like where we've just gone through a list of different herbicides we use for different purposes. I don't think so. I remember mentioning that one time. I think that'd be a good episode.
Yeah. Well, I mean, we both have a lot of experience with it, you in different contexts, many different contexts than I, but we both have a lot of experience with herbicides and, you know, in land management. More so for me, I'll speak for me because every time I speak for you, I feel like I get it wrong, but my experience is more related to using herbicides for native vegetation management versus food plots. I have not used it as much in the agronomic setting.
Yeah. I have probably not used it as much in that, the forestry setting as you, although I've done some work like that, you've probably had more research focused on it though. Yeah. And then I, I'd say I've gotten much more experience in food plotting and trying to encourage, trying to use it to discourage unwanted plants and allow, you know, native things to colonize. So I definitely have a fair amount of experience in that area. Yeah. I think that'll be a good one to do at some point.
Yeah. We got to do that. Maybe next, maybe like early next summer or something like that would be a good, good time for it. Well, if we get, you know, 500 questions about herbicides and people want us to do that because, you know, they are about to plant their food plots for the fall. So if folks want it, we'll, we'll, we'll deliver. All right. Got anything else? Are we giving something away today? We do have an item to give away. Excellent.
Yeah, we have a hat from Florida brand camo and, uh, he, uh, has been real supportive of us and the show and everything. And I'm really thankful for that, you know, uh, and he's got some really cool products, but, uh, he sent, you know, a variety of things for us to give away. We also have a shirt that we'll give away next time.
And I will mention that we were going through some YouTube comments yesterday and we saw where some people were asking if YouTube commenters could be eligible for drawings and that's something we're considering too. So yeah, we know, we know, we know you're there, we, I mean, to be perfectly transparent. Most of the time I'm looking at ratings and reviews on Apple podcasts because I feel like that's where we get the most.
Um, but I need to start looking elsewhere too, or I'm going to miss things, but you and Charlotte have done a good job of cluing me into that stuff when it happens. Yeah. Well, I, you know, I fell victim to the same thing where, you know, I would say the majority of our ratings are on Apple podcasts, but, uh, we have a fair amount and it's growing listenership on YouTube, you know, starting to become a significant part of the listenership.
And certainly people are leaving plenty of comments and, and things which we value. And I certainly don't want to send the message that we, we don't value that. You know what I wonder? What do you wonder? How do people listen to us on YouTube? Like are they just sitting, I'm picturing somebody just sitting there in front of a computer and watching the podcast for an hour. Is that how they do it? I don't know. Just comment on the episode and let us know.
Because the other thing is when people comment on it, it tells the algorithm that people really are enjoying the content and then it puts it in front of more people. So it's helping us, uh, well, it means, it means they're either enjoying or it's pissing them off. Right? Oh yeah. And there's plenty of both. If you want to get more, if your goal is to get as many comments as possible, just piss somebody off. Cause that'll do it.
I got a feeling one of our upcoming topics is probably going to, uh, it's probably going to ruffle some feathers. Oh, what are you talking about, man? Predator control never ruffles feathers. Oh yeah. All right. Yep. Predators. All right. So we realized that, uh, we are not doing a very good job with our, our listener selection. So we asked Charlotte to do that because she's much more competent than we are. So we have the randomly selected reviewer, which it actually is random.
Now we asked Charlotte to, to actually randomize it, which it was funny. Several of the comments that we got recently were, were telling us ways that we could randomize it. Did you see that? Oh yeah, I did. I was, I saw, I saw that and I was like, Oh my God, we really, we really must come across as idiots on this show because people don't think we even know how to choose a random number. The problem is we don't think about it until we're about 45 minutes into the show.
Yeah. And then, you know, then we're trying to come up with something on the spot. Yeah. I mean this guys, we haven't quit our day jobs and there's a reason that we have not quit our day job. Yeah. And so this isn't bringing any money in. So, um, okay. So we've got the, the hat that I mentioned earlier. We're going to give away, I do have it, so we will send it to, to you if you reach out. And this is going to Tom B333. I love this review. I'm looking at it right now. Why don't you read it?
You want me to? Yeah. Okay. Tom B333. Thanks for an outstanding podcast. I live in Boston, Massachusetts, but grew up in Mobile, Alabama, and I'm now hunting turkeys in Massachusetts and trying to learn more about them. I have a biology degree and I love being outside. This podcast has helped me learn about turkeys and how we can save them. Dr. Marcus and Will are brilliant. Well, I don't know about that. Yes. That was, I tripped on that.
Right after we were talking about the reviews, talking about how incompetent we are. Entertaining. I might take exception to that one as well. Insightful and provide a wonderful educational resource. We appreciate that. I will buy land in both Alabama and in the Northeast and the knowledge I get from these guys will help me manage my land for turkeys. Guests like Dr. Craig Harper and all the TFT superheroes are my teachers. Thank you.
And then he provided two updates, one in April and one in August. So here's the April update. He bought some land in New Hampshire and is doing habitat work. Learning a lot from you guys. Forbes for brooding and nesting, cover prescribed fire, forest stand improvement, sunlight through the canopy, hack and squirt, kill the grass, unleash the native seed bank. That's pretty fair. I think that's a fair take home. That's an A student right there.
And the August update reads, and this one is shorter, favorite podcast, best ever, latest episode on getting more bugs is fantastic. It's a lot cheaper to grow the plants that attract crickets rather than buying them. Love it. I love that. That was fun. That was good. So Tom B, we appreciate it. Yeah. Really appreciate it. So just reach out, Tom, I'm assuming your name is Tom, Tom B, and reach out to us and we'll get that sent to you. And he can rep some Florida camo in Massachusetts. Hey now.
There, now we're talking. There's your exposure right there. You know, I think the Florida brand camo, I mean, it's a really good looking pattern. You know, it's definitely relevant to Florida, like you're trying to match the background here. But I can see it getting out, you know, it's definitely some good looking stuff. That's right. See you guys next week.
Appreciate it. Wild Turkey Science is part of the Natural Resources University Podcast Network and is made possible by Turkeys for Tomorrow, a grassroots organization dedicated to the wild turkey. To learn more about TFT, check out turkeysfortomorrow.org. Thanks for watching. you