Ep. 629: Small Property Whitetail Habitat Improvements with Jared Van Hees

All Right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light, and this week on the show we are continuing Habitat Monk and joining me today is Jared Van. He's he's the host of the Habitat podcast. He's the co owner of Vitalized Seed. He's a land consultant, and he is a real life practitioner of small property

land management strategies. He owns a fifteen acre property and a seventy acre property, both in Michigan that he's been building into these little white tail and wildlife mecca's while you know, also having some really darn good hunting considering the size of that, and I mean fifteen acres fifteen acres. That's it, and he's loving it, and he's having success

and having fun. And you know, that's about as affordable as a start as you could imagine when it comes to, you know, getting a white tail property and doing stuff with it, and it's working for him. So that's what I'm really geeked about today is talking through you know, these land management ideas that are applicable. I'd say for anyone, you know, you don't need hundreds or thousands of acres, you don't need big tractors, you don't need fancy equipment

to do any of the stuff you're gonna hear about today. UM. And I find that empowering. I find that exciting for a lot of us, you know, like me, maybe like you, who don't have a bunch of land or fancy equipment. So that said, Jared brings this this really helpful kind of everyman's perspective, UM, and a lot of it insight, you know, glean not just from his years of personal experience, but also from the fact that you know, on his podcast he's interviewing dozens and dozens of the best white

tail habitat gurus around. So with that in mind, today I chat with Jared about the importance of creating dynamite cover on a small property and how he's done that. We talked about building better access routes and so you know how key that is in these kinds of situations. UM. We talked about a bunch of different screening ideas, how to create food plot screens, how to screen access routes, all that kind of stuff, how to make dear feel more secure on a small property and keep them there.

We discuss soil friendly food plotting, what the benefits of that are, how to plant no till without a tractor or drill, uh, and a bunch of stuff like that. So I enjoyed this chat. I really think you will to UM. If you do, be sure to check out the rest of Jared's work. He's a good guy and a great resource. So without further ado, I say we get into week two of Habitat month. Let's go all right with me. On the line now is a fellow Mr Gander, Mr Jared Van. He's Jared. Thank you for

joining me, Mark. Good to talk to you again, sir. I appreciate you having me on. UM. I want to thank you. You know you've you've built quite the platform here and I've been a long time listener. So well done, and thank you, thanks man, I appreciate that. It's uh, it's been cool to you know, get to spend a little more time with you here in the more recent past. You you're someone who I have like known of for

a long long time. I think you know, either through wired hunt, you've reached out to me at some point through social media or something. And then I think we start bumping to each other at at like QT m A events or um uh gosh, I'm trying to remember what the first thing was where I bumped into It was either b h A or n d A or q D m A. And you did some stuff in

my buddy. Further, I think at some point with with Hugh d m A and then we're at the oh the back forty feel the fork stuff bumped into you there, I think one of those times. And then and then you were my night in Shining Armor last year helping me out with some food plot challenges I had on my own, and uh so you came in a big way help me find someone with some equipment that I you know, that would help me get some food plots

into a tough spot with weed issues. UM so it's been nice getting spend some time getting to talk more. And I figured, you know, I was thinking about what I wanted to do this month, which is Habitat Month here on the podcast. Um, you were a guy that I knew like this, we have to have you on. It's time to talk to Jared. You know, you You've got a really interesting set of personal experiences, and then you layer on top of that the fact that you run your own podcast talking to all sorts of different

people about Habitat improvement. I think that gives you this very interesting, um foundation to talk about these things you're you're personal plus then like what you've consumed from all these people, and and that's why I'm that's why I'm glad to do this. So so pressure is on Jared

because I'm I'm thinking this is gonna be a good chat. Um. So that said, you just told me before we start recording that you broke your collar bone, right, and uh so broke your collar bone trying to impress your kid, uh skiing or was it skiing or snowboard? Okay, skiing, and you've got like a two to three month recovery period now during the winter, Ah, right out the gate. I gotta know, are your habitat projects screwed? Like is

your whole plan for this year? Like capoot? Did you have these big plans and dreams of what you're gonna do in this kind of late winter early springtime period and now you're picking up the pieces and trying to struggle with what you're gonna do, or you not worried about it at all, and you're you know, you've got a plan to get past this. Where's your head at? Oh man, No, I'm I'm crying over here. I'm sitting

here in tears. Um. You know, we we talked about this stuff all year long, and we talked a lot of deer hunting too, But you know, January one, it's time to fire up that saw for me usually and get out there. And oh man, I am bummed. Um. Yeah, So I was trying to be a hot shot in front of my son, he's four, and I screwed that up, broke the collar bone up north skiing. Um, my wife is not very happy about that. And it's just now

it's just inconvenience to do about anything. But what's what's cool is I can still go visit some of our client properties and helped them all by walking around and making our plans. But to your point, yes, I had I had projects down here, I had projects up north, um, a lot of it with a saw, opening up, food plots, edge feathering, the whole gambit. And now I'm supposed to do nothing for like three months, um. And I'm not a guy who sits around very often, you know, for

more than like an hour. So I'm kind of I don't know, I'm still learning how to cope. Yeah. Well, hopefully hopefully talking about habitat stuff scratches the edge a little bit because you still get to do that quite a bit. And today we'll we'll do some of that too. So one of the big things, Jared, I like about your story and I like about what you bring to the table is that you have this personal experience working

small properties like so many of the habitat gurus out there. Um, they've got tons of property, they've got big properties, they've got medium properties, they've got bunches of them, um. And and there's a lot of insight we can glean from those folks who have worked on on lots of different places and have a large scale of of property they can work with. Like, certainly I love talking to people, and I know you talk to people like that too. Um, but a lot of us listening me included, we don't

have that big property. We've got forty acres or eighty acres or twenty acres, and we're sitting here thinking, man, is any of this relevant to me? You know? Can I do anything on my little piece? Um? So that's a question, Like I'm I'm asking myself that all the time. And you with a fifteen acre piece that you're working on in a seventy acre piece, like you're living the realistic dream for most of us. You're living the thing that does seem possible for me, that does seem possible

for a lot of folks. So I guess that is all to say out the gate, Jared you, maybe maybe I should ask you what was that process? Like in a cliff notes, he kind of version to finally take the leap to start out with a small property, and now a handful of years into it, um, hasn't been worthwhile taking finally taking that leap into buying a piece. Starting small has the the return on your investment from a satisfaction and joy and even hunting perspective been what

you thought would be, Oh my gosh, overwhelmingly yes. Um. You know, like you, I'm super obsessed with with white tails and and bow hunting and got hunting all the above Michigan. We have a long lasting tradition on deer camps and just been enamored by my entire life. And you know, that first step in buying your property is

definitely scary financially for your family. But once you once you make that first step and you realize that you know you can make some sacrifices elsewhere to make things affordable, it's it's totally worth doing. Um. My first property was is fifteen acres. I still own it. I've owned it for this month, will be six years. Um botot when I was twenty nine, and you know, it was the first one. You don't really know what you're getting into.

You really don't, but there's only one way to learn, and that you know, sink or swim type whatever show you want to use. So I jumped in and right off the bat. Um started started with what knowledge I had in my head or what I had read on the internet or washed on YouTube, and and started going after it um. I screwed up many times between now and then and and made some backwards moves, but that first fifteen acres I will remember that property for the rest of my life because it was so many first

for me, so many feelings. My kids are a little planning apple trees with them. But also it's like a testing ground for everything that I do. That I talk about that we recommend, you know, everything I've I've put in a small scale. I've tried it for the most part, and really it's it's the juice is worth a squeeze

overwhelmingly for that that investment. And and I'm not positive on on equity at this time with it too, So you know, I don't see how you could you could really lose learning, the family experiences, the hunting, which has been great, and then an asset that's has equity. So yeah, I mean, so do you imagine or was the plan with that small piece. Was the plan to that this is going to be like a forever fifteen or was the plan to buy it, build it, flip it for

something bigger in the future. What's the game plan now on that front? Yeah, So initially it was just get my own piece of land. I grew up hunting state land in West Michigan, um Mannessee National Forest, my entire life, shot my first buck out there. Everything so nobody in my family owned property. UM. And it was just tough hunting. I mean, you've been over there, and so I've always

wanted something better. And my body. He had eighty acres his uncle and eighty acres growing up, and he was shooting eight points and ten points and I'm like, oh my gosh, I gotta buy a piece. So my whole life has just been sitting like that. UM. And my thought, as you know, I talked to Damn per As a long time ago and he you hear his story, and he, you know, goes smaller, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. And That's

what I'm trying to do. But at the same time, if a piece is producing and it's affordable, I don't see the reason in and selling it. At least that was my thought at the time. So the fifteen is done, has done well for hunting. Um. But now I'm kind of I've kind of come to the part where, man, I wish I would have a little more income out to help justify some things. UM. And I kind of want to get that bigger piece, that next step. Finally, it took me a while to get to that step.

My goal was every five years, address the situation, to make a decision. So I'm one year six. I didn't hit my goal on I'm making a decision. Maybe I did internally because it hasn't sold. I haven't sold it, so um kind of all up in the air there. But I would love something bigger, there's no question about that. Interesting, but the fifteen was still it seemed in you just said definitely worth it as a starting point, and it's

like you said, it's producing. So you're you are having success and you're having fun on a fifteen acre property. It's possible to do it on fifteen acres? Is that? Is it? An unequivocal yes to that. Ye. So I want to get to how you got there. But at first you said something that I have to dig into more first, which is you made a lot of mistakes. What were these mistakes that you made along the way over these six years with this first property, your first

fifteen One of the things you did that took steps backwards. Well, the first mistake I did was that one out there, and first day we were there, I runted a skid steer from a friend of mine and we bulldozed or or bushog, I should say, a lot of cover, a lot of um area to make food plots. You know, food plots, food food plat, food plot are the big

things that everybody talks about, and they're important. But in Michigan, you cover to me as king, and I've spent you know, I spent in the next three years building that cover back to try to reverse what I had done. And the reason that that's important is because our deer, as you know, are wired a little bit differently. So to me, that was one big mistake. What percentage of that fifteen

would you say, um did well? I guess what was the breakdown of the fifteen acres when you started and then after you went and knocked down all that cover as far as like what was cover? What was open space? Now, I'm sorry, before you crushed everything or brushed everything, brush hoogged everything, and then afterwards, great question. So to give you a little bit of a layout, it's kind of split in two pieces. It's it's a big L shape.

The back part of the parcel is lower wetland um A lot of burr oak back there, and then after and then after me behind me, it's a big swamp. Very uh hopeful to have one of those nearby. So so the first I guess the back half of the of the property is wet lowland, kind of mature canopy forest with trees that like you know, wet feet or roots in the water, which are in the borough I have. Then up from there there was about five acres of some higher ground with a dish running through the middle.

And that's where I did a lot of brush hawking. I bet I brush hawg probably two and a half to three acres worth of area right off the bat, you know, the wide expansive food plot. I was satisfied. We were all high five, and you know, it looked great and m and I still I still killed the nice buck that year. But I I realized that in Michigan, or certain states like Michigan, we have to address this a little bit differently. So now fast forward to follow.

I bet I'm down to an acre total acre and a half total, so cut in half about of opening of opening that's up. That's for food, yep, exactly everything else I've let grown in or grow in thicken up. UM between you know, my access location and the food plot is all now cover. Interesting, So can you walk me through since that initial opening up of stuff? What are some of those other best projects that you've done? What have been the most positively impactful things? Sure? Sure? UM,

Access proper access is always number one. You've talked about that a hundred times. So if we I just I can't push that enough. I don't step off of my access shraw with my boots uh two yards to go into the property unless time, you know, tracking and or whatever. I hold very true to that access. UM. I planned some some mass trees, some chestnuts, and some apples, but those just started producing last year, so I really don't have a good beat on on what that's done, if

anything for me yet. UM screening it kind of goes with the access, but screening your plots so there so they're not as big and wide open or having cover around your plots so they're not that deer can't walk out, which happened to me two years ago. They walked out nice buck looks across and see any deer turn around

and walked back in the woods. UM I killed him about an hour later, but it was, but he did what and it was my smaller food plot, but he still did that check that they do on large fields. They stay in the brush. You look out during these large plats, I don't see anything, you don't smell anything. They bugger out before you even know they're there most of the time. UM, So cover around the food plats

or screening. I always have a screen, whether it's strass or um an annual screen, you know, sort of Egyptian wheat, that sort of thing. And then high quality food. Food. Food is very very important. I feel like it's one of the most important things. But it has to be surrounded by the right type of cover, in my opinion, in Michigan to get a nice buck to use it in legal hours. Right. So I've always had food plots

since they one, They've always done pretty well. Um. I take like a no till approach, or I leave clover just in case something goes goes drought. I have a clover backup established. So between those three, I would say the access, the seclusion of the plasta with screening products, you know, given the deer there they're low pressure, and then some high quality of food. UM that's pretty much

what I've done since then. Okay, so let's take into the access side a little bit, because, like you talk about, you know, especially in a heavily pressured state like Michigan, and even more on a small property in the state like Michigan, the pressure is king. Like that's the thing that's going to influence deer movement almost more than anything. Um, you can really really easily booker that area, I would imagine.

So how did you go about creating or designing an access plan or actual paths you know, around this place so that you could hunt it sometimes but not educate everything? Like, like was it? I guess I'm curious to hear, Like what how did access work? Where did you put these trails? How did you know? Did you have a timing to win? Like, hey, I'm never going to hunt the back of the farm until X time period. I'm curious about kind of that

whole swath of of things. Yeah, no, you nailed it. Um. The first access that we made with that rush hog Day one was on the very southern line of the property. I'm I'm figuring, after listening to all your stuff and hunting cold fronts, that's what I wanted to do. So i'd go down My main data hunt would be expectedly a north wind, something with the north to it, So access would be on the south side of the property,

right on the fence line. UM. That way, I can keep an eye on the neighbors too, and et cetera and vice versa. But so I have one main access on the south line. Now, we recommend you, a lot of our folks that we help out, um to have access around your whole property if you can, If you can take a skid steer and make a a road or a lane around your entire square, that's gonna beho view in one way or another on certain winds. You know, as long as you can get around, you can hunt

most days, most winds. I'm not saying you should, but you can't. And so that's what the goal is. My place. The north border of the property butts up to my neighbor's field, which is overgrown kind of autumnile of thicket. Um. The deer really like that. And so after some you know, a year of of hunting from the south side, I could see that I'm not gonna bulldoze a path right through the middle of that. There's no way, So I don't hunt on a lot of south winds on that property.

So you get you got this this investment that I put all this money into in time, and I have to hunt on a certain wind, which to most guys sounds pretty crazy, but to some guys sounds kind of normal. Um. I just I could never get myself to cut through that north side for to hunt any south winds, and that burned me this year in we had a lot of south, a lot of east and and I I got burned on it. Now I did get access from that one neighbor over there um to the north his dogs.

I've called in trail cam running my deer around during November as coles have been over um. But he lets me walk in from that side, so I you know, it's one of those give and take things that it's like, man, how hard do you do? You push this kind of fix his fence and when he's letting you do that, so I do have a way to walk in. Unfortunately that's been kind of grown up too. So now it's more like you mentioned, I keep those north side spots

for November three, November five. Remember one, whatever, if I have a south wind that I need to get in there, I will burn burn some area by walking on it. It's all it takes, right walking through an area for that hunt, expecting to kill on that hunt. And if I don't, that sucks. I burned it for probably a few days and and and maybe longer than that. So my main, so to wrap it up, my main access is always in the south n hunt the north and

the west winds. But if there is something on the south and I have to get in there, I'll try to get access from a neighbor, or I will slide in there trying to make sure I'm sent free, boots, are are are treated, was the allite everything, and just hope that I get him killed before he knows I'm there. H So I guess tagging onto that whole general idea, how often can you get away hunting this fifteen acre piece in a given season without you know, negatively impacting

it so much that you're hurting yourself? What I mean, I'm sure you've been trying to test that out for yourself. You've been trying to figure that out over the years. I imagine what have you learned. Is this like a you get three four hunts a year, or do you get us what's what's it been in your experience? Yeah, you know, I bet you could do between ton and fifteen uh and and and I have and be successful. I have three kids under nine years old and and

everything else, so I don't. I don't get out and hunt as much as I wish I could. But I ont it with my four year old a few times this year and we're successful. I bet that hunted it seven eight times, um list an hour and fifteen minutes way too, so that weighs in. But it's uh, if you do it right and your access is bulletproof, you can hunt it times. You know, you just really have to pay attention and and it depends how your property sets up. You have the cover where they feel safe,

you have the food is your win not blowing in there? Ever, if you're if you're diligent and detailed about it, the more you can hunt, in my opinion, Yeah, So what else is important to do? Like? What other projects have you done on the property that are particularly important because of this small scale to allow you to keep hunting, Like you talked about some of the stuff you did to try to add cover back. I imagine that was

part of it. What kind of things like that. Are you doing to to make sure that this place can can handle some hunting and still hold year and still make dear feel safe even though it's a small size of ground we're talking. Yeah. Number one would be do not let your wind blow into that parcel zero. I know sometimes you have to give the wind to a big buck, and I've done that and I get that, but if you want to hunt it more then less. Don't let your wind blow into the parcel really, ever,

if you can help it. I know nothing's perfect. I don't walk into the parcel. I use a lot of cellular cameras. I know there's there's um some morality conversations going on with those lately, and I get it. At my point is I don't want to walk fifty seventy five yards out into my property and leave my sn That's that's a no no, no matter what um. And then I guess some some tools of the trade that I love to use would be max scrapes. Those have been cut popular the last five years or so. I've

been using those religiously forever. And I don't go make like fifty of them, but I'll make a dozen or so, and and really put a dripper on it and a camera on it, and let them tell me the story in those scrapes. Is that is the the benefit of them is just to get the photos? Or are you adding those scrapes because you think that's making more bucks want to hang out in season checking those and they're spending more time in daylight hitting those and that kind

of thing. I think the ladder or both, really, buddy, I think, um, the max scrapes will tell you a picture or tell you or paint the picture for you when daylight is there, you know, daylight movement. So I use them for that and when I should hunt. But more importantly, the social aspect get these bucks feeling like, all right, well here's my night tonight. I'm gonna travel here and hit these four and the scent and checked this betting area and and repeat the next day or

the day after. Right. So I'm more intrigued and relying on the social aspect of it. And I think a lot of small property owners need to be doing that at every tree stand location. I have wanted every stand location. What's your mocks grape kind of process? What all I mean? There's a lot of a lot of different approaches to it. Some people just use us out there. Some people will bring in a rope or a different stick from somewhere else or anything like that. What's your style. Sure, yeah,

you can use a vine or whatever else. Right, there's a lot of different stuff out there. I like to take a white oak branch and cut it while it's green and hang that dangling dial with some zip tized or pair of cord um that is licking branch, and it hangs down, you know, pretty far, a lot of leaves on it. My thought is the more matter up there to catch scent and hold scent um, the better off it will be. And maybe it's overkilled, but that's

what I do. And they love, you know, walk down the field edge and don't you know and look for the oaks that have overhanging branches. They're all hit. So why why go crazy and add something foreign? You know, Let's use what what mother nature is already using. So that that's what I do for my looking branch. I will hit the ground with the rake. I've used herbicide to clear that ground. I make that ground extremely obvious, like I'll do a five or six ft circle. And

again it could be overkill. But to me, you're opening up that much more ground scent, the smell of dirt, et cetera. It's visual now at this point. And then I like to use um in combination with all that. You can just do that and let the dear takeover. But I like to start out with something some synthetics two to start, and I don't go back and touch it ever, I don't go back and refill. I don't do anything I do. I said it, and forget it really and then monitor from afar the cameras or from

tree stands, etcetera. All right, so I feel like I'm accruing a set of small property rules here or guidelines on when you're hunting it. Make sure you have that, or make sure from the get go you established a bomb access like make sure you've got very smart access plans, and then create the routes you know, cut them brush hog and whatever, so you have a quiet, easy access route in from a safe wind perspective. Never blow your wind into the quarry of property hunted carefully and sparingly.

Only when those things are right established mock scrapes throughout to you know, have those social hot spots. UM. Let's talk about cover, because you mentioned that one of your big mistakes is removing too much cover. So you start with fifteen acres, you took out three acres of it, so you're left with twelve acres of some kind of cover, three acres open. Now you've added an acre and a half or more back to that. And I think i've heard you talk about other things you've done to improve

the cover that you did have. Can you talk about how you've created cover from nothing and how also you've improved the cover that you already had. You know, are you one of those guys who you know follows the I don't know, like the Jake Elinger approach or Jim Browker with like hinge cutting like crazy and just like tons and tons of these hell holes? Or are you taking a more broad strokes t s I approach to everything? Like what's you know? You've been able to talk to

all these different people. What have you chosen to do on your own? You know, twelve thirteen acres a cover working there? Yeah? Great, great question with multiple answers. I'd say that the back eight acre Woods I called it um I had that it was logged probably two years but before I bought it and I had it logged again like three years later, and so in the laggers were all like, Okay, your trees aren't quite big enough to cut yet. If you just wait, you'll have more

value in these trees later on. That wasn't really my goal. My goal was to create a better deer habitat now not and how much money you're really going to make off of eight acres of of you know, sparing sparing oaks a lot more than I than I did, probably, But so I had that cut as soon as I could get back in there and and learned and realized what I was missing. I had that cut. And that probably happened in twenty nineteen or that's grown up to

be nice and things. So that was my t S I approach that that was letting the sunlight come in so full, full eight acres kind of select logging. It sounds like across the board making an eight acre slad timber with better understory. Is that accurate? Yes? If you've ever seen a picture of an oak savannah, or if somebody googles oaks savannah, it's like sparing oaks excuse me randomly,

you know, or space out if you will. Planted pretty far apart, so they can they can do well, and then the rest of the ground gets hit with sunlight everywhere else and nothing above five foot is really beneficial to a deer unless it's dropping acorns. Um. So I really was trying to put the percent of what's left back into that five ft or under range. So that's that's what we did there. We cut it hard. Um. I didn't make very much money, but I also didn't have to do it and put my safety at risk

um time. So so everybody kind of one and the deer one to now that being a little bit of a lower land back there, a little bit of wetlanded, it's taking longer to regenerate than I'd like, but it's regenerating, and the deer are responding to it, um, and then moving up to the the front half of the property, if you will. I've I've done it at all. I've hinge cut a bunch. I believe in hinge cutting. I've seen it. I've been on Jake's farm, I've been on

my friend Allan's farm. I've been on these farms where these guys cut hard, and I'm talking hard, they cut hard like tornado. It looks like a tornado came through. Yeah, there's nothing left standing, really like there's nothing left. Unless you see that firsthand, you're not You don't understand how hard how hard you need to cut, Including me, I didn't know, but where I think hinge cutting is extremely beneficial, especially in the Midwest and the North. Um, it's a

tool in your tool belt. People think because I'm pro hinge cutting that and I made a bumper sticker one time, like a pro hinge cut bumper sticker is pretty funny kind of as a joke. But it's just a tool in our tool belt. We don't recommend you go in a hinge cut your forty acre woods. I don't do that. Um, it's more of it's very situational. What I after six years of doing this on the property, my recommendation is to get a forrester in their first explain your goals.

What are your goals? You want to grow timber, you want to go dear, a little bit of both out of our class with a a little bit of both, and how do you how do you address that. The more you go for timber, the less it's going to be beneficial for deer or wildlife in general. So now I t s I first with a Forrester select cut. I tend to go heavy if I can, and then come in with the hinge cutting architecture or just felling more more junk trees. Either way, get them on the ground,

get the sunlight to the forest floor. That's rule number one. Um, I hinge cut for along my access where I parked my truck. You can't walk from the woods to my truck in a certain area because of like the tornadoes created. But that hides me, you know, it allows me to park and and get in there. Um. I think's got some betting areas in the fifteen and the deer betting in them. So it's it's I'm kind of a all around guy at this point when it comes to which

type of timber tool you want to use. And you also think I've heard you talk about doing some some grass stuff, right. Have you done some switch grass out there somewhere too? Oh? Yes, you mentioned that, it's part of the question. Yes, I've planted some cave and rock switch grass and three different spots. One of them was to hide my access walking in. I frost seeded that that was pretty good. I don't I don't want a

no tell drill or or UM. I have an h TV and some tools and i'll have a tractor here finally soon. But I don't own the no chill, so I broadcast and frost seed, and that was for access. That's working great. Now I'm hiding one of my deer my tower blinds with some nice switch that's coming in. And but the main thing that I did was out in the middle of the food plots where I talked about replacing that cover that I that I brush hugged down.

Now that I've practiced with an annual screen for two or three years and knowing I can divert the deer enough to come by my tree stand location at twenty three yards, now I've replaced that annual screen with a perennial screen being switch grass. So now what I'm doing is I'm taking that that task of having to get out there and plant every late night early June and hoping my screen comes into something that's established. Um. That's kind of a cool project where I'm using it more

for diverting than betting. On this fifteen they kind of already bet where they bed. It's hard to force them to bed in new spots um with with switch grass if you're not dealing with a big open field or something like that. Yeah, so what's the note till approach that you took with that switch How did you apply herbicide the fall before or something and then frost seed or or how did you handle that competition? Yeah, you

nailed it. Um, I sacrificed the fall before by having this big dead brown spot out in front of me. It was that like a I'm sorry sorry to interrupt, but like when when exactly did you spray? Was that like a round up spray in in August preseason or did you actually have to apply it like in hunting season? And did that freak you out? I did both. I did. I did to sprays to make sure it was good and dead, and um yeah, it always it always freaks me out. I'm pretty anal about it. And it didn't.

It didn't hurt anything. I don't think if you say in your equipment and you're quick about it, but you know, I just I don't want to be in there if I don't have to be during those times. So yeah,

I sprayed with herb side twice. Got it very nice and death and I'll seated at and then the next year I hit it with simazine early on, which is a pre emergent helps keep anything else from coming up and establishing before your switch German eates and and and comes up and then um, I mode once it hits that second So switch grass will split when it's growing. Once it hit that second splitter, that second or third leaf if you want to call it that are blade,

then I'll mowe it. And that tends to take out a lot of the weedy growth broad leaf competition in there. Now and now, I mean it's it's looking good. I'm impressed. You just have switch grass. You just have to give it time. And I know everybody's impatient, at least I am. And you want things to be done now and and yesterday, and switch grass, don't give up on it. Keep at it and you know it'll you'll you'll reap the rewards there. Yeah, So year one, what kind of growth was there? Probably

three ft? Okay? And then by year two was it five six something like that or yeah it was five? Last year was year two was five. So I'm pretty excited to see what it will be this year. Um yeah, I'm I'm hoping that what it'll do. I'm just still going to travel through it. But if I can give them a path of least resistance that goes around it and a nice big mark scrape there right at the tip of this funnel. And oh, by the way, my tree stands, you know, like I said, just within bow

range of their I'm hoping that'll pull them up. And it's worked in the past. So that's kind of my thought process there. Yeah, that sounds pretty nice. Uh So, speaking of screening cover then and that kind of thing. Um, what are the other screening techniques or you know, blocking techniques that you've you've used outside you switch because you mentioned switches like the long term excuse me, but you've you've used some annuals to get you by in the past. Otherwise,

is that Egyptian wheat or sorghum? What are you doing? Yeah? Great questions. So a lot of companies, you know, everybody can find their their favorite food plot company and and find a screening next. Usually that's what I was using with a local one here in Michigan. Um, and that was a mix of sorghum, Egyptian wet some other stuff in there. Ah, I should probably know more what was really in there, but I didn't really look I planned

it and it worked great. But the main stuff with sorgum in Egyptian wheat, and so what that would do, that would be twelve ft high um each year, I'd planned about six to eight foot wide, and and that would be more of a screen for the deer to kind of funnel them. Now, if I'm screening myself, at least i'm this property, you can use those same types of screens. My friend in Illinois he plants the same stuff and we walked behind it to hunt on his

wide open terrain. But what I did on the fifteen, since I didn't really have a bunch of wide open fields, had more more trees. I would end up hinge cutting along there and felling trees along. They're letting that sunlight come in and just thicken it right the heck up with with briars and you know, early successional growth and that works as a great screen too. So just kind of I've kind of done both of those. I've also planted Muscantus. That's a touchy subject depending on who you're

talking about. We're talking to um gigantism. Scantus is a rhizome based plant that you can plant in the ground one time and that grows after, you know, to three years, six to twelve fifteen ft tall and kind of um, so we're I'm looking for here. It kind of propagates itself underground and it starts to bread and fill in a little bit. But that's a that's a great screen. It's a little more of an initial investment. And some folks are are claiming that there's a invasive risk to it. Um,

and that's that's above my pay grade. But I've used it and it's effective. It's just another way to do it. Hybrid willows would be a fourth way. Hybrid or stream co willows. You get those and cuttings or propagate yourself in the basement over the wintertime when you're bored, and you can plant those in some wet feet areas. Those can become a nice wall of cover. Um. Do you like to rub on them and and bust them off? And so it's there are multiple ways you can do it,

and I've done I've done all those. Okay, So let me paint a picture of a scenario I'm faced with. I've used Egyptian wheat in the past and it works awesome, and it has screen some plots that I have one in particular that's within view of the road and asent to a big open field, and so screening was was really important. Um. The thing with that is that, as I understood it, it's important to plant it when it's

warm enough. So I don't always been told you gotta wait till late May early June ish somewhere in that ballparked to planet, otherwise you know you can't do it. And so I did that. But then starting I don't know, some number of years ago, I started living and I've got a weird situation. But I go out west for the summer, and so I'm not home in late May

early June anymore to to plant this stuff. So now I'm trying to fare is there any other screen I can get out there that I could be planting at the end of April or or otherwise, to somehow get some kind of screening cover out there in these places, you know, without having to wait till the middle of

the summer when I'm gone. And I thought about mscanthus um, but I don't know if I don't I haven't looked further than far enough into it to know if that's something you can plant earlier in the year or not. If I could plan it late in the summer, you know, and plan on coming in the next spring and actually growing, um is mscant That would mscantus work given that limitation

I have with time? Or is switch you know, planning switch really the only way I could get away with something that's always going to be there and doesn't require me planning in June? Um? Or Am I an idiot? And I could be planning Egyptian week April and and get away with it? Do you know? That's a great question. I know you wanna wait till the soil temperatures um up in that you know, high fifties sixty to remark for for that annual Egyptian we type stuff, or in

that that general general time frame um mscantus. I normally plan around that same time. I have to double check what the exact date is. I don't know why you couldn't plan it earlier or even you know, in the fall or another time possibly, But how long are you going to be at this certain area? Four? Is this a long term gig? You mean? Like when I gone for the summer or like the property that I'm hunting, Like, how long do I plan on continuing to hunt there?

The ladder? Uh? I hope for a long time. Well, then I'd probably go with UM, a combination of like Swiss grass in Norway spruce. So the spruce over time, we'll grow up, you know, over more more time than we want to wait again, I know, but that will be a great screen along roads. UM that that you plant once? Now hybrid willow. UM. There's a guy that I know in southern Michigan. He has a really nice hybrid willow screen along his road. And I planted four or five of them behind my house to block my

neighbor's house four or five years ago. They're thirty ft tall, and you can and you can copass them and cut them off at you know, the three footmark, and they'll just bush out and be a very nice screen. The loser leaves in the fall. So there's that. UM. So if you do a combination of something that's more permanent, more perennial, UM, that's gonna solve your issue of hey, I'm not around at this certain time a year plus.

Those annual screens suck up so much nitrogen out of the soil every year that eventually, if you're not replacing that nitrogen, you're gonna be you know, you're gonna have lower and lower returns on your on your planting. If that makes sense. Yeah, it does. What's the process with those hybrid willows and how quickly did those establish? Um? I've never messed with willows at all. Is that literally a steak that you're just sticking in the ground and

then it just starts going? Is that what I'm thinking of or something different? No, that's right. Um. I've learned though that if you're in a wetter area, which I'm not sure which spot you're talking about, but I know you have a certain wet area that this is the this is the Yeah, okay, well then they're they're gonna do great there. Um. I've tubed them so that deer don't at them off as you're trying to get established.

And yeah, there are the steaks or the cuttings. You can come into my house or I'll bring it some cut them. You cut them in a make sure the directions right, you know, over the top and the bottom are But you take a big branch and cut it into five steaks, and you can put them in a jar of water with some rooting hormone first, or you stick them in the wet ground. Um, I've done both, and yeah, they if you can get them potted first.

Anything that you can get potted from my experience, whether it's a a bear root tree, pine tree versus a potted pine tree or a willow that I can get going in a pot first, you're gonna have a better success rate. But it's more time up front. So there's really a bunch of different ways you can do it. But those things and the wet shouldn't be pretty prolific

in a short amount of time. So how you know to to visually provide some kind of visual barrier, you know, up to let's say five ft tall, give or take. Is that a two year thing maybe, or what's that's the timeline to get that kind of growth out of something like that? Yeah, those those will get five foot and one to two years. Yes, interesting, we should definitely talk about that because that might be you know, I don't even need I don't need a very long row

of that kind of thing. I just kind of need one like I don't know, even like forty yards of it would would give me the main area block that I want. Um, something like that might be the trick. Um. So yeah, interesting, especially if we can go add some add some depth to it, right like one, if you think about one line of pine trees, that's a pretty good screen. You can kind of see through it here and there. If you have four rows, it's a totally

different conversation. So the same thing with this area. If we have some more freedom to go more in depth, more deeper versus length, that's gonna be who of you even more. Yeah, that's a cool idea. I like that. Um. Okay, So screening, I think is another key thing that could really help you on a small property like we're talking about, because it's going to provide that visual cover from neighbors or roads, but also of your access. So that's that's a big thing on our our set of small property

foundational ideas here. Um, we talked about your cover ideas, you know, doing the hinging, doing some serious cutting, bringing in a forest, or figuring all that kind of stuff out. Um, we haven't really talked about food, but people love talking about food and it's hard not to get excited about it on in your experience on a small property this fifteen or or maybe on the projects you've worked with, you know, consulting for people, or on your seventy acre piece.

You know, how much food? And I know that this is situation and location dependent, but if you had to give me a ballpark idea, how much food do you need to make a difference, you know, to actually to get started and be like, okay, this is this is enough to actually change your property in a positive way. You know, do we need to do we need an acre to or is an eighth of an acre or half an acre still enough in your mind to you know,

start moving things in the right direction. I guess I'm thinking here from a starting point, what's our minimum viable product? So how about how about the infamous answer it depends. Yeah, that doesn't get anybody anywhere, but as it really does. Um, but if I had to generalize, do what you can do? Get started? I mean, if you can do an eighth of an ancre a quarter acre um and it's in

the right location. You know you mentioned with the screening quick before we switch gears, keep people from driving down the road looking into your farm. Make sure they cannot do that. That's very important. Your deal will not come out on the daylight, at least the ones that we're targeting. So for food, again, it has to be in the right location. Can people see it from the road? Um that's a huge no no. So where do you have the room to do it? How much space you know

is your property allowing you to get started? Make sure you can access it if you can't get to or you have to walk through your food plot to hunt the tree, stand behind it, start over, or don't plan a food plot there? Um, all all things that that we see and that and that folks do because it's easier to do it where there might be a preferred opening.

But in general, if you can get again and deer population comes into this too, dear density, but if you can get a quarter raker started or an eighth of the akre started, do it start there? Um. You know the cliche thing is what time per cent of a property and food plots? I've I've heard a lot of people say that's great. I haven't reached that level yet.

Um too much. Maybe I'm close, but you know I don't have wide open fields to that allowed me to to do it in large numbers, So I would just urge you to try it and get started and make sure you're growing good quality stuff because then you're gonna see the biggest bang for your buck and your time spent. Yeah. So what's what's your take then these days on what that high quality stuff is? I mean, how do you there's all right, You've heard a thousand different takes from

people on what you should plant your food plots. You've experienced experimented with a bunch of different things. We've we've all heard the you gotta buy this thing, or you gotta buy this thing, or you need to plant this, you need to plant that. There's there's more opinions on food plots than there are stars in the sky. Um. But but where have you landed as far as your philosophy on how you choose what you want to plant? Um? Can you? Can you give me some background into your thinking?

They're like, how you got to this point and then what you personally choose to to to put out there in the world, both for people to to use themselves and to plant yourself. Yeah, and I yeah, thank you for allowing me to go into the back story, because I kind of explained how I got here. I was just gonna ask you that. Um, it first started with getting a disk and working up the dirt and spreading out. Um, you know buck on the bag style food plot mixed from company A, B or C. We all have them.

Every local store has something. Um, that's where I started, and we're good. Um. Initially the soil had not been planted before. It was a cattle pass yere many years before that. There was some nutrients in the ground. Well, mission we have pretty sandy soil that drains out nutrients quickly, gets depleted quickly. And uh, it's not that Iowa rich black dirt. It was some parts we have it, but not for the majority. No, So I started that way. And again time has always time and efficiency is always

important to me. I always, uh try to try to be most efficient, spending most time my family as I can while they're young and everything else. So I'm always trying to get stuff done with one fell swooper or you know, one one afternoon instead of four. So you know, back with the disking, I have to go out there and have to spray two weeks ahead of time, go out there and spray again. Then you come back and disk it planted, and then you hope for rain. Your

soil is exposed. Um, I've had I think two or three drought years, at least two drought years in the past five seasons that I've been through. Well, I interviewed some people way back when on the podcast that you could plant food plots without working the ground up at all. Spray and pray, throw and whatever you want to call it.

You spray with her beside. You'd plant small seeds, you know, Brasica's clovers, etcetera, prior to a rain, and you let that rain drive the seeds down into the soil and that dead dachelaar acts as you know, you planting the seed or baring the seed. Once I saw that starting to work, I stopped using a disk um, you know, for I could do all of it. One day. I could spray and broadcast my seed and drive home. I

started doing that about four years ago. And you know that's it's it's not quote unquote like perfect no till, but it's it's kind of my hillbilly not till, and it works great. Um, you have to up your seed right a little bit and etcetera. But the principles are there, right, the soil health principles are there of minimal ground disturbance.

I haven't just my food plots in four years. Um, so you're helping build some of that organic matter and nutrients back into this that very sandy soil I mentioned. And my time was cut in half, my trips were cut in half, gas money cut in half, if not into thirds. Um. So let's let's making sense to me, right, and the deer still there. And so I did that for up until last sheer with the same sort of mixes that you can buy at the big box stores, local sporting and stores. And then I mean, and Mark,

what helped me? What helps solidify me in this no till disturbance? Your podcast you did with Dr Grant Woods, Um, I think it was to seventy nine. You did a few of them with him, But when I heard that one, he made it so simple stupid to me that I was like, what am I doing? And ever since then I've listened to podcast two or three times, um, and I follow all his stuff anyways, but ever since then, he just made it seem so just easy to do

and the right thing to do. So that was kind of the first toe in the water towards diversity and no till planting for me. And then I did kind of like I said that, he'll building no tell for a while. Um. And then a good friend of mine, a long time listener of our podcast. He's been on a bunch of times. We call him a soil guy because he's he's like Mark Drewy is mad scientists when it comes to your hunting. He's like that about soil health. Um and and I'm not I I know enough to

be dangerous, but I'm not. I'm not near as as uh well versed in it as as als. So he's been playing some mixes, some very diverse mixes, you know, ten seed mixed, ten seeds in a mix, twelve seeds, sixteen way mixes the past five six years, just like Grant talks about and etcetera, to to try to get that diversity back into the food plot program. Still no till, and and just kind of kind of simplified. He was making his own mixes. Um, having a lot of luck

in southern Ohio. And he's been a friend of mine for for years now. Well, we we went to the table and um, my good buddy who I was working with food plasts in our podcasts for a long time passed away from covid Um, so we were kind of at a loss and they didn't want to keep moving with that company in terms of partnership of our podcast, etcetera. So it kind of came down to what are we

gonna do here? We love to plant blasts. We decided to two come together and come up with some simple mixes for folks like me who just want to be quick, be effective, be efficient at a good cost, and get it done. So that's where Vitalized Seed was born, and that's where I'm at now. These mixes are extremely diverse. Uh you know, let's see, I think the spring mixes thirteen different plant types and the fall mixes sixteen different

plant types. So that just kind of took my no till story, um, the spray and prey into even the next level. Well, now you're doing this with clover, cero, cero grains Ambraska's all mixed together. Um, And that's all been kind of my story for the past six years of where I started and where I'm at now now being fully diverse plant mixes one in the spring, one in the fall, highly attractive in diverse to white tails,

and all promoting soil health, nutrient cycling, less fertilizer, less serbicide. Yeah, that's awesome. So you you stop the tiling. So now you're not disturbing the soil. You're not you know, losing moisture from your soil. You're not encouraging further erosion of the soil. You're not destroying the biological life that's within that soil. Um, and instead you're building organic material on top that is then you know, becoming part of that soil.

You've better fiel water filtration. Now, Um, you have new and and encouraged additional growth of bio apology and all those little microbes within the soil to give that soil the power and the punch it needs to grow stuff. Um. So that all makes a lot of sense. You you know, then move to this diverse planting. Now, can you describe for me a little bit more wide diversity is a good thing for our food plots and for for getting stuff there on the ground, because there's you know, a

lot of talk about this. There's some people who say, man, you shouldn't plant blends because you know, you're never gonna do it at the right time for any one of those things, or you're not gonna get any one of these plantings quite right. Um, But then there's this whole other suite of reasons why the blends are a good idea. What's your take on that? What? What what makes diversity a good thing when it comes to food plots? And how does it help both from a hunting standpoint and

from a you know, soil health or food quality standpoint? Yeah, I mean you really know your stuff? Um, are you available for higher? I mean you you said all the nails on the head, and I'm just gonna agree with with what you're saying honestly. I mean for those who say you can't plant mixes together, a diverse mix together, I would I would disagree because I've done it and seen it. I get there point where maybe, okay, you're not hitting the one time percent most optimal optimal time

for this seed or this seed or this seed. But like like my goals, I'm trying to be efficient and simple and and as effective as I can. So we've we've planned these highly diverse mixes and they work and all the scenes grow and it's it's not quite a bit of a red alarms as some people say. Um, the reason for doing that though why we like it. So in the spring we call it the nitro boost next to plant nitrogen. Right, so the atmosphere is like

almost nitrogen in the air that we breathe. Our lungs are able to filter the O two the oxygen out of that and and et cetera. But air is the majority percent in nitrogen. Well all the a lot of the plants in our spring mix legumes can take that nitrogen from the air, push it through their there's their

system into the roots and have root expedition. We have a picture of sun hemp plant that literally pulled it out of the ground and you look and there's little white balls on the roots that look just like the double zero nitrogen palace you buy attract or supply um So, I mean, we're seeing it happen. And the other reason for the diversities because well, now you have sun ham fRoots that might go down six inches, you have sunflower

roots that go down further. You have certain clovers that are shallow where what we're doing is we're taking nutrients from the top two three four ft of the soil a column and that plant is pulling them all together into one plant. When you terminate that spring mix, all those nutrients are right there on top of the soil, not four ft down, not in the air above you, but right they're ready to be used. That's why we do diversity in this in our mixes, in the spring mix.

So what the spring mix does is its cycles all the nutrients, heavy on putting nitrogen into the ground, which is free fertilizer um from all these different levels, and when you terminate it for the fall planting, it's all readily available right there. Over time, I mean like it doesn't break down overnight and you can't use it exactly the next day. But our system is more of a year after year it gets better and better. Um. Now,

in the fall the carbon load plant carbon. That's what plants feed on, right, the sugars, the carbohydrates UM so the natro boost the nitrogen is feeding the fall plant that you planted and helping that grow for free. And then in turn that big diversity of Clover's Brassica's cereal grains in the fall sixteen way mix is doing the same thing. You're grabbing nutrients from three or four ft down, You're you're keeping all of this at the right level

in the soil the top six inches. And when spring comes along again and your fall plant has been terminated, Um, it's all dead carbon laying there. It's like the corn. They disks the cornback into the ground. It's hiding carbon. They dis get back in it feeds the soil. UM. That's what we're doing. We're doing no till. All those cars that fall carbon mix place right into what the spring nitro mix wants to wants to feet off of again. So it's a cycle, and it's how Mother nature does it.

And it's diverse in the way that it grabs nutrients and cycles them throughout the year. And what that means for animals. They understand nutrient density. They'll walk through a soybean field I've heard, I've heard and seeing some of where they'll pick certain leaves off certain plants. Um. Maybe they'll walk by your food plot to eat the golden rod that's on the side of your food plot. They can tell, you know, the selective browsers. They can tell

what has the best nutrients and what tastes the best. UM. A metaphor we always hear about is the fruit plantings. You know, oranges and apples and whatnot. Don't have the nutrients they used to know that. You might still have a bigger, larger orange, but it doesn't contain the same amount of nutrients it did twenty years ago. Um, that's nutrient density of the plant itself, and it tastes different. So do you know that. And they're getting more nutrients

out of each plant. They're getting their minerals out of the out of these plants. You can't I can't put minerals out in Michigan anymore. So this is another way where we can help everything really um and just find what works for you. Now, if some of those seeds and those diverse mixes don't come up right away attempt you know, maybe get a cold front or something happens or a drought, you know, some will pop up right away and then some of the other ones might fill

in later. Like some clovers don't establish as fast as say a sorghum or um our buckwheat right, buckwhet is an easy one to talk about. So, but what you have now in the column, you have food, Like in our fall, I think we have three different types of

beans of eagle beans in there, um regular soybeans. We had an American joint vetch and lab lab for the boys down south and like what but what you have now is you have food from four ft in the air all the way down to the clovers and the vetch that's right in the bottom floor where a braska or like a soybean field. You know, once those leaves fall off, you have some beans in there, or corn, for instance, you have a copper corn. But we're filling

in that that gap with all food. The sunlight is penetrating through all of that, and now we have a more mass of plant matter with every square foot. Yeah, yeah, it's it's interesting you mentioned, you know, how it'll different things will start growing at different speeds in different times. It made me think just how diversity, in addition to what you said, also provides a really nice insurance policy for bad conditions or for you know, any number of

things that can go wrong with the food plot. If you plant all one thing, if you plant a monoculture, it's either boom or bust. Right, you either did it perfect with the perfect soil conditions for that plant type and the perfect you know rain, you know timing, and the perfect nitrogen content or whatever it is pH level, YadA, YadA, YadA, Um, so you might nail it or it might just be

a complete failure on the side of diversity. You know, you can get away with things maybe not being just right for one of those because you've got fifteen other things that you know have a chance of succeeding. So you're gonna have something work. Maybe maybe twelve out of the fifteen work great, and you get three that aren't don't turn out as well in your conditions, but you've got something altogether there that's gonna going to work and

going to provide some level of benefit and attraction. And I love the idea of having something that is attractive throughout the entire season. Um. I've had I've done food plots in the past where I was doing mono cultures and it was like, all right, man, this food plot is gonna be banging from opening day till the beginning of November. But then it's kind of slowing down and by late season ats toast like it's just not going to be attractive because of what I chose to place there.

And then I'd have another food plot that would be like my late season spot. Um, but you know that there's you know, I guess there's reasons to do that maybe, but I have found better success now with these diverse blends that I've used the last I don't know, three four years, be because I get attraction from the very first day of the season to the very end of the season and beyond, because you know something within that

blend is attractive. So I've got you know, three or four things that are attractive early, three four things in there that attractive mid season, three or four different things that are attractive at the end. And so dear now form this pattern and this behavior where they just know, hey, year round, I know there's something good there. So I'm gonna have this back and forth, back and forth, back and forth thing that doesn't ever have to change. And

that's very beneficial obviously. Then from a hunting standpoint, so you've got you know, the nutritional component and then the hunting pattern and component. Um, not to mention the soil health stuff, which, like you said, great podcast we did

with grant Um. I've read a lot on I've tested some of those things first in the back forty and now I've been doing it more and more on my other local pieces, and it's um, it makes a lot of sense to basically work with Mother nature to enjoy the benefits of natural fertilizer and you know, natural water conservation, all this kind of stuff, rather than pumping in chemical

synthesized substitutes that cost a lot of money, especially these days. Man, I bought a little bit of fertile as the last year and that stuff is expensive now, I mean, like crazy how much it roseen costs. So you know, going this route, you know, regardless of what blend do you use. UM, I think diverse and trying to apply these different notel ideas just as U. It's a it's better for the earth, it's better for the soil, it's better for the deer, it's better for your wallet. I it's hard to argue

with it from everything I've been seeing and learning. UM that I do have a question for you, rather than me ranting about why I like it. Oh you just you just wrap that up very nicely and hit the spots that I missed. Um. If there's one thing I can add quick mark there, you know, get going back to the six soil health principles. You know, you want to keep a living root in the ground at all times for for the microbes in the soil if your if your beans are done, there's nothing going on in

that soil till you're planting next year. Um And like do you know that your soil knows that? So you know that the fact that it's not amount of culture um drought resistant. You get a warm day in December, that rise is going to start popping again, or even January in certain southern Ohio that that rye and that we in the mix and whatever it makes you use is gonna start popping again. It's made to do that.

Um So Yeah, and I mean pretty much whatever it makes you use or mix your own diversity is extremely helpful. We've just we've gone through it with the seed mills where you walk in there and they look at you like you're crazy. You want to do what you want to buy and mix all this No, we don't have this. Then you gotta buy fifty pounds awry and then you're starting to have all this extra seed line around. We just pretty much try to button all that up and

simplify it. Yeah. Um so the spring and fall plantings, so the spring late summer plantings, how would you recommend someone go about doing that? As far as like the best food or best. You know, there's a number of different ways to do this kind of thing, right, you could use a drill, you can do the hill billy

approach you took, and there's different ways to terminate. Um and and I guess I'm basically what I'm looking for here is could you walk me through your recommended process for how you go about planting your spring planting and then if you should terminate, how you terminate, and then how you go about it in the fall planting. How you recommend doing that? Um and uh and yeah, I guess I'll let you run with that. Yeah, great question. There's there's a multitude of ways you can do this,

depending on what equipment you have. UM, I would I would urge people to start with a clean slate. You know, don't don't go out in your your pasture and just start broadcasting onto a thatched layer of grass. You're not gonna win. Um. You know, so I I would recommend or I start with an herbicide treatment and or even tillage for for day one. Now, this is just to get a clean slate. I have no problem with that.

We're just trying to minimize soil discerbants over time. And herbside use over time, not saying we never use them, but if we can decrease that, the more the merrier. So a clean slate in the spring or the fall is how I like to start. Um, So what then I would do? There's multiple ways you can plant. If you have a no til drill, God bless you. I'm jealous. That's awesome. I hope to have one some day. Um, that's gonna be your probably number one way to get

the best seed to soil contact. And we have like an average depth that we use for the mixes, so you're getting a little bit of everything. That's one way to do it. A friend of mine uses a two real corn planter, you know the kind that you run through disc to ground, and you know John Deere Alice Chambers. You can use those. Um. It might not be the most effective way, but I've seen it done and it does work. How I normally do it would be just

a broadcast method. So I would spray the ground and or till it, or just get get myself a fresh clean start at the very beginning of my system. I'm about to commit for the next five years. UM, and I broadcast and I went right Sorry, what time of year is this, Jared, that you would start this spring planning? Great question mark. We like to wait till the soil attempts between fifty five and sixty. I'm a little bit more on the fifty seven fifty eight to sixty degree range.

So depending on what that is, could be may up here in our neck of the woods late May, early June. But that's where we wanted to be. I mean there's there's you know, soybeans, sunflowers, ego beans, that sort of thing in these mixes. We want to make sure that you're not you're not putting it in the ground at the wrong time. So better about that sixty degree tent mark. And then I broadcast I add about extra seed per

acre than if I were to drill it um. You can even go fIF um if if you have a good price seed and you're not playing out the wazoo for it, you can afford to do a little more. It's not gonna hurt you. I'd like tend to do usually more on So what I do is I'll broadcast that and I will call to pack it in. Now, if you're on your two or three of this system, you're gonna have rye et cetera. Popping up from your fall plot from the season before. You're going to have that.

You know, shoots of growth may from the fall plot. You're not gonna have a clean slate. So what you do then as you broadcast or drill into that live standing vegetation and you terminate that vegetation over top of the seeds you just spread. Now, they're multiple ways of terminate. You can use a brush hog, you can use herbicide, you can use a roller crimper, you can use a lot more um one that's not talked about enough as

a flail more. It's an attachment for a tractor that that's meant for more heavier duty brush than a brush hog. But if you notice beud a brush hoog, sometimes you get like a wind row or the thatched kind of all piles up in the middle or off to one side. The flail mower will cut it a lot more even, giving you more even coverage over the seas you just threw down. So that's that's a tip there, that and a lot of people don't really really talk about. So

plant terminate over top. Now, any any more questions on the spring Next before we shift gears, I do one last question, um, just in case somebody is is well, two things I guess One the big benefit to doing the spring planting correct me if I'm wrong, But by doing the spring planting, you are essentially this is a way to fertilize and prepare for your fall hunting plots. But you're doing it in a way that you know

isn't pumping synthetic fertilizes into the ground. It's not costing you as much from that perspective, and you're building the soil content. And as a bonus, you are now adding high quality food for all sorts of wildlife for an additional three months of the year. Um, to then build into your fall hunting plot. Is am I right on? Like a cliff notes version of the benefits of doing

the spring planting, It is that right yep. And I would go as too far say as you would are you're also suppressing weeds at that time as well for all summer long, which again relates to lower side use. Okay, cool. So then the second question would be, um, if if we're trying to build a spring mix ourselves, if we're just trying to d I, y, what are the like just foundational like types of you know, do give me a high level broad strokes idea of what kind of stuff I should try to include if I'm d I

Y in this myself. Yeah, So, what's what can be unique is trying to get the carbon to nitrogen ratios perfect between the spring and fall planning. That's what that's what we tend to do this kind of our niche. Um. But if you're going in there, you know a lot of guys will plant rye and buckwheed um, sunflowers, some clover's lagoons right. Any legum will put nitrogen into the ground. Beans um will help prepare for the fall planting. There's a bunch of different soil soil building mixes you could

call them out there. Um, So, just just to understand that spring food plots can be harder and more challenging the fall food plots based on what you're dealing with the summer, you may or may not get rained. Um. You might have some more weeds in there, warm season type plants because you're not planting in the fall, and they do look a little messier sometimes. But just think of it this way. All that is going to go back into the soil to feed your next round. So

I think the upside outweighs downside. Yeah, okay, I follow you there. So now we have this messy summer food plot, but it's great. It's providing all sorts of cool stuff. There's some weeds in there, but that's fine because weeds in many ways are good for all sorts of other critters and pollinators and fun stuff like that. Now we edge into late summer and we're getting ready to plant our fall planting, which is the you know, our hunting plots.

And can you walk me through how you are terminating your spring plot when you're doing that, and what you're thinking about when we play this next version for this next round? Right, definitely. So if you have a drill, you can you can drill right through the spring mix. They call it planting green. You can fire that thing up with your tractor and drive right over it and plant in between it, and you're gonna kill some of the some of the spring makes by running it over.

Some of this is gonna mature and die out with frost, etcetera. And you don't use any sort of herbicide. Um, you're just literally keeping living roots in the soil all the time. It's pretty cool. Again, it looks a little messier, but you know, it depends what your goals are. What I do with the equipment I have, which is pretty average, um for every you know a lot of people that I run or talk to. We you know, I'll go in there normally in August. Normally I'm in August. I'm

playing the weather. I'm looking for that rain. I want to make sure that that I have a good rain coming, so sometime in August, because I want to give my basket some time to grow that are in the mix. And if you're only cereal grains, you can wait a little bit longer, even even September. So but since it's we're talking diverse mix here, I try to hit the middle of all of it. I'll go in there. I will. So now I'll have a four or five ft standing

spring food plot. You know, tall is me? I guess I'm taller than four or five ft, But you're right in that area. And I'm gonna be with my age, yeah, four ft two, driving through with my a t V. And I'm gonna be I have a a like a salt spreader for for ice on the front. I just filled that thing up and I'm broadcast through the standing mix and now all that seed is getting you know, falling down in between all these plants down to the ground and or close. Then I come through and I

terminate it. I have an a TV cult to packer works pretty good. Um it has a roller crimp for attachment that works pretty good. Herbis side, I've used herb beside because that works great. And really, if I'm using herbicide and I'm doing this system, I'm using it twice a year max. And really that's a lot better than then what I've done in the past. And I'm trying to go to once a year. Soon maybe no, you know,

no use of that a year. But long story long, better your seed terminate with either cramper can roll that down and terminate those plants on top of your seeds. You can spray the combination of both, or again back to the mower. You can grab a mower. And that's where that throw and mo came from. Years ago. You're mowing and all this dead plant matter what we call thatch or duff, that's covering up your seeds, acting as if you planted them under the dirt. So then you

need that rain. So that's pretty much how I would do that, as I mean pretty standard. You're just instead of covering your seeds with dirt, you're covering it with dead plant matter, if that makes sense. Yeah. So it's it's really key to make sure you broadcast first before knocking down any of that stuff, right, because if you knock down your your spring planting first and then your seed never makes it beneath it, right, So that timing

is is pretty key. Your order of operations can really mess things up, right, It can with a diverse mix like that where we're we have peas and and oh it's some big, big seeds in there. That's why I do it that way. I've done it the other way though, too, with if you're just planting like braskas and clovers. Um, I've sprayed first, let it die for two weeks, and then just wait for that rain and then run out there. And the smaller seed with a good rain can get

down there as well. But now you're starting to depend on how much thatche layer do I have, how much soil is exposed. It can get a little bit tricky. Yeah, so yeah, I do it like you said, I do it prior and then I terminate over top. Okay, um, and all right, so we've got we've got the process. It's such a cool, simple, cheap way to do it, Like you don't need any big equipment to do it like this. You really could do it with You almost don't even need a You could do this with a

backpack sprayer or you know, over your shoulder broadcaster. And that's basically it. I mean, you don't need to have a tractor. You don't need to have a TV. And a TV helps a lot with certain parts of this, but you don't need it. Um. I mean that's a that's pretty darn cool. What if again, I know, I I used your um, your carbon load, I think you call it, or whatever the heck is called your fall blend. Last year I had some issues with water flooding, but

the stuff that did come up came up really good. UM. And I end up having a mature buck in their bunch, which, uh, it's a story I actually haven't told in the podcast yet, but I almost killed a mature buck with my four year old this year twice. UM. And it was revolving around this spot that you and I, you know, work I'm planning. Last year which is a story for another day. I'm not gonna tell the story of this particular hunt

until I kill this deer, which hopefully will happen someday. Um, but but what if if someone's trying to, you know, do something like this themselves, or if they are you know, if they already have some stuff and they're wondering, hey, will this work for a summer planting? Noe till like this? If I want to do this year round cycle? What are the key elements of this kind of fall blend in your in your mind, key elements being like seed types or what's it bringing to the table in general?

I guess both. So, so what what general categories of seed would you want in a fall mix? And you can speak to what you guys use yourselves or otherwise, and then you know and why Oh, first of all, if you kill them mature buck with a four year old, then a vitalized food plot, I would be high five. And yet all the way down to that'd be I can't wait to hear that story. Um, hopefully hopefully it happens this fall. Now I'll tell you what. I brought a four year old out like six times and we

killed a dough and we killed three doughs together. But it wasn't for lack of a challenge. So if to get a mature buck and ball range or holy cop um, well done. An this was like, oh okay, well still, yeah, you understand the four year old in the dear blind still was a miracle to be close to playing off still exact exactly. Um. So for the for the fall load, you know, we we like to the main goal of this was to just cycle nutrients, like Grant talks about with whatever seed bud you go to and get off

of the fertilizer in the herbis side. It's actually what I've learned from the process. This is super attractive to white tail, more so than I would have ever thought in the first a minute. Um. But now that I know no more about it, I know what's in it. I understand. So in the fall mix we do a sixteen way we have I hope I get this right here. We have like four or five clovers, we have four or five grains like cereal grains, and we have four or five brassicas um and we have as as. In

general is pretty much what it is. There's different turn ups and braska's there's you know, buckwheat, oats, wheat rye, try to kale. And then you know, you have your different types of Dixie, crimson clover, medium red clover, frosty brow seem you know, some good name brands stuff. Um, but in general it's a mix of clover, Braska's and grains for the most part. And what that does you

mentioned earlier with kind of insurance policy. We had a drought year this past year, and finally when we started getting that rain in October, boom, here it comes and the deer notice that. And I was just blown away by how they can again selective browsers tell what is diverse, where to go, which food plot to walk across to get to which other one. It's really very cool. So those are kind of the principles there is, just you

have something for each part of the season. You have braskas for late, you have grains for early, and and clover for browse tolerance. Um. I'm not sure if that answered your question ful you or not? Yeah, I know you covered it. And then do any of those clovers. I gotta believe some of those clovers will be greening up again in the spring before my spring planting of the next round. So I'm getting year round coverage of some kind of food out there, is that right? Yeah?

Living roots in the soil all your long is what we're trying to do here, you know, upp here, you know it's tough in February, right, But like down south, it's a different story. Those guys have it going on, um with the longer planting seasons all the time. So that's the idea. And in the spring, that rise going to bowl that we's gonna bolt up. Your clover is gonna start popping up again, and you're gonna have the

first green food source out of anybody around. That's kind of what we try to do with everything with our properties is be the outlier, be the exception, um, you know, in terms of your terminology, be the icing on the cake. You don't need to be the fourty acre corn field that holds all the deer, but you can get them to swing in and spend some time there while you're in the tree sand. That's a goal. Yeah, that's awesome, man.

Well we are running out of time. So there's like a whole bunch of other things I was thinking I want to talk about, like a whole other property you have that you've been working on that we didn't get there. But but I guess that means we have to do this again. Um Man. I appreciate talking through all this stuff.

It's really fun to get to talk through these ideas, um and and talk to someone who's proving them on you know, not a big, huge giant farm, but doing on fifteen, doing on seventy, you know, doing it like anybody else, with doing it without tractors and no tills. I mean, you're doing it very simple, very basic budget kind of stuff. So it just I think gives myself hope and I think a lot of people that this is something that's available to just about anyone. And uh

and I appreciate that. So before we wrap it up the really quick Jerry, can you give us the quick scoop on where we can you know, learn more about your content, consume your content, learn more about the seeds, all that stuff. Where can we get it if you want to hear more about this habitat stuff. We talk about it all year long. Habitat podcast Again, I'm very simple habitat podcasts. Find that on all of the iTunes

and spotifyes of the world. Happy podcast dot com and uh, you know, we've had you on there a couple of times and it's just it's just it's it's what we nerd out on all the time. We love it and we talk about making your deer hunting property better with the use of habitat improvement. Um As far as the food plot stuff that it's called vitalized seed on the idea behind vitalizes to put strength and energy back into something. That's what we're doing with our our soil and our wildlife,

so vitalized seed dot com. If you have any questions. We we pride ourselves on service, so call us up, email us, we'll take your call, we'll take your email, take your soil tests, will help you out. Feel free to reach out. You will hear back from us at vitalize seed dot com. And Mark, just thank you again, man, had a great time chatting with you. Yeah, I appreciate. It's good to catch up again and hopefully we can talk more again soon. While while standing over some dirt

or hopefully not dirt. Hopefully it's living roots and something growing and we're talking about the next round and continuing continuing this food plot process. So thanks buddy. You bet I'll see you this spring, all right, And that's a wrap. Thank you for tuning in, Appreciate you. Hope you found this one interesting and inspiring. I hope maybe you're gonna go grab a chainsaw or shovel or your ut V or something and head outside and get to some of

these projects. You know, spring and summer is gonna be here before we know it, so let's get out there and get started. And with that said, thank you for tuning in, and until next time, stay wired. Done