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the archery deer season arrived in mid-September, the cobs were gone, consumed by hungry raccoons and squirrels. Well, plans A, B and C didn’t work, so it was time to devise plan D. I knew from my past failures that plan D would have to be dramatically more involved than my previous attempts. It was obvious I would either need to hire someone with the proper equipment to clear land, prepare the soil and plant my food plots, or I would need to purchase the equipment myself. After some thought and research, I elected to buy the equipment and do the work myself, even though I had no previous farming or gardening experience. From a purely economic standpoint, I probably would have been better off to hire someone to do the work. But I looked forward to working my land and applying all the new techniques I had read about. Also, the work is good exercise. As it turned out, managing my land for wildlife has evolved into far more than a hobby; it has become an obsession. Even though I enjoy working on my food plots, I realized during my unsuccessful attempts at planting that cutting corners only wasted money, and each task took additional time – time that could have been spent working on additional projects, or even fishing. So when it came time to purchase my equipment, I bought the best and most versatile I could afford. Since most of my property is lowland, I knew buying a farm tractor was not the answer because getting stuck on the way to and from my remote food plots was going to be a problem. So I bought an ATV and equipped it with a three-point hitch and farming implements. A few other helpful accessories included a winch, a cultipacker, a utility trailer, a fertilizer and seed spreader and an herbicide sprayer. I’m amazed at the work I can accomplish using my ATV equipped with the proper attachments. In most cases, an ATV outfitted with the necessary accessories can do nearly all the work of a farm tractor; it just takes a bit longer.
The author discovered cutting corners in soil preparation resulted in failed food plots.
Vol. 16, No. 3 /
WHITETAIL NEWS
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