Hello brothers. I live in Northern NY, about 1 1/2 hours South of Montreal. I have been planting spring, summer, and fall plots for years. I have found that the deer really appreciate early green forage (clover, chicory, etc), as well as summer (beans, peas, corn), and I do plant fall winter wheat and rye. However, I have not successfully provided winter forage through planting thus far. The frosts come early, snow gets high, and Jaunary this year had many feet of ice, snow, and very cold. Granted, the deer have survived many generations without my help, but here's what I have found helps them most...A few years ago, during a harsh winter, we had a very devastating ice storm. roads were cut off from fallen branches and trees, powerlines. My young boy and I sat listening all night to mature trees crashing to the ground that night. However, the next day was sunny and beautiful. We looked out the window, and counted 20 different deer coming from all over to browse the fallen branches. I mean they came from all over, and simply browsed from blow down to blow down. from that day on, since my food plots arent helping in the dead of winter, I have simply selectively felled some trees on the property. The deer demolish it, it doesn interfere with their winter digestive enzymes (like feeding corn can), and I have firewood for next year, as well as brush piles to heap up for wildlife cover. For me, it is an economical, benfecial way of helping the herd through winter, and sure is a lot less work and expense than planting plots that dont produce forage in the dead of winter. I wonder what you fellas think about this. I am no game biologist, but am a student of the hunting/management game, and it makes sense to me, and seems to work well.
KAYR1
