Modern Ag practices
Filed under: Ask Grant, Food Plots
I own some property in Mississippi and I was wondering how today’s agriculture practices affect deer herds using them. The farmers who have been farming our place have been planting corn year after year. They begin in March which means the corn is out by the end of August. They don’t rotate corn and soybeans anymore because the deer ate the farmers’ soybeans.
Geoghegan
Geoghegan,
A corn/soybean rotation, especially if corn and soybeans are both available within close proximity, provides great deer forage and grain. Corn has the added benefit of providing great cover from when it is two feet tall until it is harvested and soybeans have the added benefit of providing high quality forage throughout much of the growing season. Advances in combine efficiency results in less spilled grain now than during previous years.
No doubt areas of intensive corn and soybean production can produce great whitetails! However, the productivity of such areas is determined by the local farming practices. For example, if the fields are tilled shortly after being harvested there won’t be much grain available.
Growing Deer together,
Grant
