Are you looking for ways to better your hunting area? Who isn’t? Here’s a sound and relatively easy chore to undertake before summer really sets in. Do an inventory of the mast trees on your property and if they don’t seem to be producing as much as you’d like, fertilize them.
You can fertilize trees just like your lawn or a deer hunting plot.
Fertilizer improves the health of a tree in the right dose and a healthier tree bears more mast, whether soft of hard. I have several good friends who fertilize the oak trees on their hunting properties and swear by the results. Whether it’s acorns or apples, producing more carbohydrate-rich nutrition, it aids deer, plus other woodland critters such as turkeys and small game like squirrels.
Even though mast crops are cyclical and vary from year to year, fertilizer can make the production more reliable and create another ambush location for a surprise attack. Since mast crops often drop their bounty before the rut you can use these locations to target bucks that may not loiter at traditional food sources. Whereas a 2 ½-year-old buck may feed carefree on an alfalfa field, a mature buck may spend more time munching on acorns and only visit the hay field after dark.
If you do decide to fertilize your trees be sure to seek the advice of knowledgeable experts. Consult with foresters, nursery owners and park managers on the best fertilizer to use, and the correct dose. Too much fertilizer may harm a tree and too little may not be noticed. That’s my Johnny Appleseed tip for the day.
Maybe I should forget about deer hunting and market my acorn crop?