Related Posts

• Food Plots & Game Management

  There are several facets of Game Management. The first one we're going to investigate is the notion of food plots. Food plots are great resources for managing game on your land and are commonly found as a staple in any game management strategy. The core definition of a food plot is "A planted area set aside to act as a food source for wildlife" (Wikipedia). Given that definition a farmer's large field of crops such as soybeans, corn, and peas sometimes serves the same purpose that a food plot does even though that is not the intention of the farmer!  Though, farmers will eventually harvest their crops whereas when hunters install food plots they are usually not as big, are of more variety, are located in different areas, and wildlife are the intended consumers of these crops. It's important to begin by saying that food plots are not a solution to a problem, but rather a supplement that can be beneficial for the game on your land. If you do not have deer on your land, planting a ...

• Tecomate Seed Food Plot Journey Wrap-Up

  It was around this time last year when we got the green-light and started the Tecomate Seed Food Plot Journey.  The first blog entry aired last January and I didn't know what to expect, but I knew I had a lot to learn.  Around 25 blog entries and a year later, we've had some successes, some failures, some lessons learned, some memorable hunts, and some really good looking food plots. I?ve posted some pictures below of the spring/summer and fall/winter food plots. Spring Fall I'm no guru by far, but even from my little bit of experience over the last year I can tell you that the soil was one of the most important factors in our Food Plot Journey mix. We planted food plots in several different areas and the areas where the soil was best fit for the food plot ...

• Update: Game Camera Pics from 2 of the Tecomate Seed Food Plots

       Here is a pic of the Lab Lab Plus growing up a sweet gum limb on the edge of the plot Remember when I said that I was taking some new batteries back out to the game-cam on the GroundHog MAX, remote food plot?  Well, turns out that if you actually have working batteries in the game camera that it does take pics!  Also, lithium batteries work better than the regular.  Looks like I?m learning about all kind of stuff this summer. Since putting new batteries in the game camera, I?ve been able ...

• Spraying Round-up in Preparation for Food Plots

  As part of the Intro to Game Management blog series we discussed how food plots are one tenant of game management. This blog entry shows us preparing the soil for our food plots by spraying weed killer. If you were around last year then you probably joined us in the Tecomate Seed "Food Plot Journey" where we detailed food plot creation from a novice?s perspective.  Part of that journey was to start getting our food plots ready to be planted. We talked in depth about soil preparation and one thing we did to get the areas ready for food plots was to spray round-up to kill the weeds. You can see the blog entry "More Food Plot Soil Samples + Spraying" for a more in depth look at where we started. This season we're planting food plots again and are not going into as much detail about our steps I this blog series, but we are posting videos to show the progress.   The below video shows the starting point for this year?s food plots where we sprayed round-up.  

• Fertilizing the Food Plots

  As part of the Intro to Game Management blog series we discussed how food plots are one tenant of game management. This blog entry shows us fertilizing our fall food plots.   Last year we detailed food plot creation in our "Food Plot Journey" and I learned a lot about food plots over the course of that blog series. One thing that I learned was that fertilizer can actually damage the seed if you take a couple of wrong steps. We typically try to fertilize when we know rain is coming in the next few days and we also wait until the seeds have germinated before applying the fertilizer. Giving the seed time to take root and grow lowers the possibility of the fertilizer overpowering the seed and "burning it up" as you will hear people often say. Some may use different planting techniques for applying fertilizer, but this is the method we've found successful. When the plants are this young it doesn't hurt to drive the ATV on them. They keep right on growing and pop back up in no time. ...

• Food Plot Update

  Sorry it?s taken me a bit to get this one together, but I?ve been spread thin lately.   As you know, we?ve been working on several summer food plots on our Tecomate Seed Food Plot Journey.   I?ve been documenting one plot very thoroughly and we?ve been carrying out the same processes in other locations as well.   I?ve also documented much of the journey of our remote food plot.  We?ve been getting some good rain and the lab lab and lab lab plus is starting to grow pretty well. I?d like to update you on a few of the plots because we?ve got some mixed results that we can already learn some lessons from. Food Plot Location 1      ...