I was talking to a co-worker of mine and he brought up this idea as we were talking about the lack of mast for the wildlife. We are surrounded by National and State Forest. There are hundreds upon hundreds of acres of clearing and fields in the forest with a good amount of these way off of the roads, accessable only by forest service right of way. Why cant the DNR and/or forest service plant grain, corn, hay etc... during the spring and then harvest it. When we have a bad mast crop, a bad winter, put this feed out for the wildlife to get them through the winter?

in 2001 in n.y. they outlawed any feeding of deer , even in your backyard . i believe they did this to keep any diseases from spreading among the deer at common feeding areas.

here in missouri they plant crops on all the stae land then harvest it they money goes to the DNR to help pay for programs and such it works out very well

makes sense to me except it would cost some money to get started and keep going. you would need equipment, expensive equipment, and dirt to build up the fields, and roads big enough to drive the machines down. i dunno add that sh*t up.

as Kobear said it would cost more than the tax payers would want to pay.

then you have the anti world that would have a hay day about the state planting food for the deer for us "Blood Thirsty" hunters to kill Bambi.

you would have a very large Pandora's box opened.[:-]

I went hunting on public land in illinois a couple of years ago they let the farmers plant the fields they leave a third of what they plant for the wildlife pa. also lets farmers plant on public land