To Improve the Whitetail Habitat on Your Hunting Lands,You Don't Have to Be From Green Acres

By Robert Bennett

So, you and your hunting buddies have decided you would like to start a whitetail habitat management program on your hunting lands. The only problem is, the closest any of you have come to farm equipment was playing with your Tonka tractors when you were kids.

Not to worry. A vast amount of information and resources are out there for any group of hunters who want to make their hunting lands more attractive and beneficial to their deer herd. You can accomplish this even if you didn't grow up in Green Acres.

It is a commonly know fact that population trends the past several generations have experienced a shift from rural areas to suburbia. Because of this, a larger number of today's deer hunters grew up playing baseball at the city park as opposed to hauling hay and milking cows. The most experience a lot of these suburban hunters have improving wildlife habitat is planting a few tomato plants in the back yard that the urban coons, squirrels, and rabbits will inevitably enjoy. But even if you did not grow up "working the land" so to speak, here is how you and your hunting partners can get started on a whitetail habitat management program made specifically for your goals and checkbooks.

Map Resources

To start your whitetail habitat management program, the first thing you should do is get a topographic map produced by the US Geological Survey (USGS) and a recent aerial photograph of your hunting property. A topographic map not only shows the topography, but also roads, trails, streams, etc. This will serve a good base map for plotting your habitat improvements. By also having a recent aerial photograph of your land, you can plot the vegetation types on your topo map and also plot any openings and more recent trails and clearings that are not shown on the generally older topo maps. To get a topo map of your area, contact a local blueprint or engineering supply company or your State Geological Survey or Commission. If you need a topo map from another state, you can call the USGS at 303-202-4700 or write to the US Geological Survey, USGS Map Sales, Map Distribution, Box 25286, Federal Center, Building 810, Denver, CO 80225.

The USGS also offers aerial photographs for the whole country, including your neck of the woods. You can get them in black and white or color infra-red. They have photos or coverages of the whole country dating back to the 1940's and have been updated every five years. This means you can get aerial photographs of your area taken within the last five years or less. To obtain an aerial photograph of you hunting lands just call 605-594-6151 or write to the US Geological Survey, Customer Services, Eros Data Center, Sioux Falls, SD 57198. You can also get map info from the USGS web site www.usgs.gov.

Your next step should be to get a county soils book for the area you hunt. Almost all of the counties in your state have been mapped by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and the results of their survey are offered in a book you can get usually free of charge. To get a copy of your county soils book, just contact your local or state NRCS office and they will send one out to you. The county soils book will generally have a map of your hunting lands, and show suitability for agricultural practices and wildlife management. Find out the best soils for the type of habitat enhancement you are interested in and plot them on your base map. It has been my experience that having a map showing the topography, where the openings and clearing are, and also knowing the location of the best soils on your property is an ideal way to organize your whitetail habitat improvements. To keep your map from getting too busy, you can put each of these information layers onto clear Mylar sheets and then just overlay them on your topo map.

Constructing Food Plots

One of the most popular ways for hunters to enhance the habitat for whitetails is to plant food plots. Just because you don?t know the first thing about planting one, much less owning a tractor or farm equipment, you should not be discouraged. All the information you need to get started can be obtained from either your State Wildlife Department or your County Extension Office. If your County Extension Office is involved in the "Acres for Wildlife" program as most are, you can sometimes get plant bundles and food plot seeds for free. I have also found that some industrial timber companies are offering food plot manuals to their hunting customers free of charge. Even if you do not hunt on timber company land, the wildlife biologists who distribute these manuals are generally happy to give this information to other hunters interested in improving wildlife habitat.

The information you can get from these people and resources will include how to clear, plant, lime, and fertilize your food plot. They can also give you information about how many food plots to plant, how far apart to put them, when to plant them, how big to make them, how to take soil tests, and what types of plant materials would be best suited for your particular hunting area during different times of the year. Just be sure you take your map resources in with you when you are asking for assistance. This way the people at these offices will be able to give you better advice than if you just walked in and said, "We hunt over at the old Smith place and want to put in some food plots."

Now back to the farm equipment issue. There are several options for you to choose from. First, see if you can rent the equipment you need from a farm equipment store or rental store. I have found you can rent a tractor for approximately $175 a day in some areas. If using a tractor and farm equipment is not your cup of tea, see if you can find a farmer in your hunting area and hire his or her services for a day or two. You can usually talk to the owner of a local feed store and get the names of several people who could help you. Negociate with the people you contact and see what strategy best suits your budget. At the hunting properties I manage, we pay $25 to $30 an hour for bushhogging and discing.

Whatever method you use to develop your food plots, it is absolutely necessary for you to get a soil test from each area you plan to develop a food plot on. As an example, lets say the soils in the area where you plan to develop a whitetail food plot are deficient in phosphorus, an element necessary for proper bone and antler development. If there is no phosphorus in the soil at that location, the plant materials you plant in your food plot will not provide an adequate amount of phosphorus to the deer. By obtaining the soil information, you can find out exactly what elements are present or absent from that area as well as the pH of the soil, so you can fertilize and lime accordingly.

To obtain the soil information you need, go to or call your County Extension Office and ask for some soil sample bags or boxes. Instructions for taking a soil test are on the packaging It is simply a matter of collecting 7-12 soil samples from your food plot area, mix them in a bucket, and send a sample of the mixed soil to your County Extension Office or NRCS office. The cost for this service is generally free or less than $10, and it will provide you with the fertilizer mixture information and pH information you need for the type of plants you want to grow.

Once you have fertilized and planted your food plots, wouldn't it be nice to find out just how much the deer are using them? To do this, just go to a local hardware store and get about 4' x 8' of pig or chicken wire and a fence post. Make a circular structure with the wire fencing and anchor it with the fence post. If the deer are not able to get into the enclosed area, you will soon see the difference in the amount of growth inside and outside of the fencing. This "deer exclosure" is an excellent way to determine the utilization of your food plots.

Tree Plots

Tree plots are becoming very popular with hunters interested in planting food for deer, mainly because you do not need farming equipment and the trees are generally low maintenance. Trees such as apple, crab apple, and persimmon are highly prized by hunters because they often ripen when most deer seasons are open, and they provide a high energy food source for the deer. I have been able to purchase some varieties of apple and crab apple trees for as low as $5 apiece during clearance sales at some department stores and nurseries. If you are also planting food plots on your hunting lands, fruit trees make them even more attractive to deer because of the added nutrition and cover they provide.

Most of the fruit bearing trees you purchase at your local nursery or department store are a year or so old, and it will take a handful of years before they can produce an adequate amount of deer food. If there is more money and less time on your schedule, you can opt for older trees, but these always come with a bigger price tag. By adding tree guards, weed mats, and time release fertilizer, you can help speed up production.

Improving Native Vegetation

Another way of making your hunting lands more attractive to the white-tailed deer in your area is to improve the native vegetation they eat. To find out what types of vegetation are utilized by deer in your area, contact your local state wildlife biologist. Vegetation such as green briar, blackberry brambles, honeysuckle, woody browse, and other deer browse are generally found in areas with openings in the canopy. Clear cuts, young pine plantations, logging roads, field edges, woods that have been recently thinned, and natural openings are all good places to look. The types of deer browse available depends on where in the whitetail's range you hunt, and the soil and climate types in your area.

Once you have identified the places where you want to improve the deer browse, take a soil sample from each of these areas and lime and fertilize accordingly. To further enhance this vegetation, you can mow or cut it back to produce even more tender nutritious deer browse. If you have an abundance of deer browse in your area, you will see more activity at the places you limed, fertilized, and cut back as opposed to the areas that were not improved. If deer browse is extremely limited on your hunting lands, the deer may wipe out the forage that is available if you make it too attractive. This is just another good reason to consult with a wildlife biologist and county extension agent before you start with your native vegetation improvements.

Other useful tools used by wildlife managers to improve the native forage for deer is forest thinning and prescribed fires. By thinning the forest canopy, you allow more sunlight to hit the ground. This enables new deer browse to grow low to the ground in a semi-park environment. By conducting a prescribed fire, you burn off the dead leaves, grasses, and limbs in an area. This allows tender young seedlings and saplings to emerge, thus providing even more deer browse in your area. If you are interested in conducting a prescribed fire, make sure you have permission from the landowner and have the proper permits needed. Without question, a prescribed fire should only be conducted by someone with the proper experience and qualifications!

Mineral Supplements

Although there has been much debate about the effectiveness of mineral supplements, it is still an extremely popular way for hunters to provide essential nutritional elements to the deer on their hunting lands. If you hunt in an area with agricultural crops or have food plots that are properly limed and fertilized, you may already be providing the deer with all the nutrition they need. Even if you don't need to provide mineral supplements for your deer, it is always a pleasure to look at a well-used mineral lick and see all of the deer tracks. If the deer are using your mineral licks, that can only make you think they are getting something out of them.

If you decide you want to create a mineral lick for your deer, take a soil test or look at your county soils book and see what minerals are lacking in your area. Minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, and sodium are ones to consider. Then just go to your local sporting goods store or feed store and buy the mineral mixture that best suites your needs. Once you have the mineral mixture you need, just integrate it into the soil in an area the deer are using. If you put your mineral lick away from food sources, you lessen the risk of your deer contracting diseases and worms passed on by their droppings. Also keep in mind that your mineral lick will leach into the ground faster in a sandy soil as opposed to a silty or clay-based soil.

With this information and list of resources, you and your hunting buddies are well on your way to creating habitat more attractive to the deer herd in your area. By following one or all of these habitat improvement methods, you and your friends can custom tailor a whitetail habitat management program suited for your needs as well as your billfolds. The best part of it is, by starting a deer habitat management program on your hunting land, you are also making it more attractive to turkey, quail, and other wildlife. There is nothing like icing on the cake!