Hello my name is Brandon Herzog. Lately my hunting partners and i have been throwing around the idea of starting some food plots through out our woods. we do not have a whole lot of woods to work with, but i think a few smaller plots might work for us. I thought i might explain a bit of the layout of our woods and maybe someone could give me some pointers i can take back to my partners so we can go from there. haveing said that, what i have to work with for woods is old shoreline in Michigans western " thumb" . if you were to look at a michigan map and look to the " thumb" area...the property is 4 mile north of Bay Port and, 5 miles south of caseville on the south corner of M-25 and filion rd. it is 120 acres with the front 50 acres of it are field that we lease out too a local farmer. the farmer always put corn on it for silage purpose. the property is a perfect rectangle. (fyi) the woods is surrounded by many acres of other woods privatly owned by the other neighbors. the woods are a mixture of cedar swamp and hardwood ridges. like i said ths is old shoreline so, the layout is ridge swamp, ridge swamp, and so on all the way across the woods. the ridges are about 20 to 40 yards wide and the swamps are about 40 to 60 yards wide. the ridges are slightly higher (10 to 15 feet) than the high water mark of the swamps. the swamps have been mostly dry now for the last few years now, but i am sure that they will not be that dry for ever! we thought we would put some plots on the ridges as large as the ridge would allow for. ( the ridges and swamps do run the length way of the property) we are not opposed to removing some trees to clear some room for this, bottom line what ever it takes to make this succesful. we also have in the front of the woods behind the feild about 1-2 acres of open land that we thought we would also turn into a main plot. i also need to know what i need to do to perpare the land for this...i.e. if i made 30 by 50 plots how big of and area do i need to open for proper sun inlet. also do i need to apply any lyme or fertilizer before he snow flies. i am going to open the plots up after the firearm season and till the ground then as well. Or would it just be bent to get a local agronamist to come out and take a soil sample. ( i am tring to do this as cost efective as possible) i need to know fertilization amounts if any and type for use after it is planted. Bottom line i have never done this before and and i am just looking for a little help to make this a success. we have a alot of deer already in and around us, just not the quality bucks and all other deer that we would like too see. we already practice selective shooting by letting the smaller ones go......but, even the nice ones we shoot are still pretty small. if anyone can help my hunting party would greatly appriecate it.if you have any questions or coments please do not hesitate to mail me back...time is obviously of the essence. i would say the best way to contact me is via [email protected] i will continue to check this site out for posts here as well. either way any info will be greatly appriecated. thanks again and we are all eagerly awaiting a response. Sincerely, Brandon S. Herzog