One of the easiest things to do is fertilize some of the natural food available on your property. Try finding a good sized white oak or two and spreading fertilizer around the drip line of it's crown. This will help it produce more acorns each year. In my area, honeysuckle is rather plentiful.In cold weather, especiallywhen there's a lot of ice or snow around, they can't find acorns, or even corn that you may have put out on the ground, so they browse heavily on the honeysuckle.We fertilize patches of honeysuckle in strategic places. Salt/ minerallicks will be used many times throughout the year. They're fairly inexpensive.

Last, I would recommend speaking with your local game department about what planting would work best in your area. In my experience, plants that the deer aren't used to don't work very well for the first few years. We usually plant one plot with medium red clover...pretty much a staple in this area. We plant another plot in some kind of row crop. We alternate between soy beans, milo, and corn. The last plot we usually try something different. The last couple years we've been planting winter peas....they're not really something that's planted much around here. Accordingly, the deer haven't used it much. If we don't get a good amount of use later this year, we're kicking around trying buck forage oats.

Last, I'd recommend taking a look at the edge cover on your property. Letting a strategic fencerow grow up, possibly opening the canopy in a stand of trees near a field, or back in the woods could greatly improve the chance of keeping deer on your property, by providing good travel corridors and bedding areas.


GH