New Adaptive Hunting Property Concepts

In this episode, Jon Teater (Whitetail Landscapes) and Todd Shippee (Empire Land Management), new adaptive hunting property concepts. Jon explains some tactics for dealing with non-native plants. Todd discusses drought and fighting weeds. Todd details what happened to switchgrass this year on his client properties and two options that listeners may consider, as well as which option might work best in heat and drought. Todd discusses how late switchgrass can be planted through the summer. Todd details errors with clients that listeners should consider when emplacing box blinds.  

Todd explains an innovative tactic to getting into wet areas for hunting or vehicles that will change the way you hunt your property. Jon discusses foliar sprays and compost teas for food plots. Jon breaks down more about new ideas that will get your food plots to the next level.

Todd discusses a major mistake that occurred on an adjacent property that limited what he was able to do to help a client property. Todd details the types of herbicides that farmers use, and the restrictions that may occur if there is overspray. Also, it's important to recognize that restricted herbicides are far more impactful on crop competition than we sometimes realize. Todd and Jon discuss Miscanthus Grass and its use on the landscape. Todd provides examples of how it's used on the landscape. Jon compares willows and Miscanthus Grass and discusses the pros and cons. Todd and Jon discuss non-native plants and invasive qualities that can impact your landscape. Todd and Jon discuss exclusion cages to promote native plants.

Check out the Sportsmen's Empire Podcast Network for more relevant, outdoor content!

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Empire Land Management (@empirelandmgmt) • Instagram photos and videos

Whitetail Institute - Food Plots - Deer Food Plot Seeds - Soil Testing

Hi, I am John Teter White, the landscapes. This is Maximize Your Hunt. Welcome back everybody. Hopefully everyone's doing well. I am home and I'm happy to be home. I was on the road this, uh, this past week a few times. I worked Saturday and it was hot. It was only 82 degrees in the woods, and, uh, people are like, well, you're in the woods.

I said, well, not really. 'cause it was all dead ash. And so I was basically in a shrubland area. Uh, with dead trees, which is also [00:01:00] dangerous. And it was funny, you know, I'm looking across the landscape and I'm thinking about a few things. One, I'm thinking about the volume of grapevine in the area and the advantage it's gotten now from all the dead ash.

And you could see every single ash tree that's been dead over the past three to four years, they've got this vine twirling up the top and basically almost looks like a live tree because the volume of, uh, Grape that's in that tree, and they're obviously producing fruit at this time of year. In addition to that, I also noticed the trees that were alive.

Didn't have the same volume of grape on it. So it's interesting to think about plant life and part of thinking about plant life is how it survives. You know, there's adaptive behaviors in plants, whether it produces phenols or toxins, what have you. Or it takes advantage of the plant life that may be, you know, it could, it could take over.

And one of the strategies, and, and I use this on my own property, I try to get rid of invasive plants the best I can, but sometimes I just can't, either time or herbicide [00:02:00] or whatever the case may be. But one of the strategies is using native plants to fight non-native plants and grapevines a good example of that.

And it takes over and I use it to branch over, we'll say, uh, some of the species like Buckhorn, for example, creating a great canopy and, and really kind of like this. Short, you know, I would say understory tree that could be very, you know, beneficial to deer to provide that kind of, that cooling thermal effect.

So just an example there to consider and something that just was apparent to me. I was just kind of thinking about plant relationships, you know, over the past couple days and, you know, what plants compliment others, the, the, the friend foe kind of relationship and observe that take, you know, pay attention to that.

The other thing I wanna mention is there's a lot of native plants that kind of. Present themselves in the landscape. Bury being one of 'em, a highly browsed food source, probably three to four weeks ago. And the timing, the seasonality of this is, is really important. So thinking about some of those species and the benefit to, you know, your wildlife.

[00:03:00] Alright, enough of that, I've got my favorite guest back. Todd Shippy, empire Land Management. It's been a bit for Todd. I think the last time him and I were on, we were talking fire, but we might've had another podcast in between there. I just can't remember, but let me get him on here. Hey Todd, what's going on?

Todd Shippee: Uh, too much. What's going on John? How are you? Good to hear your

Jon Teater: voice again. Yeah, same. Uh, happy to have you back. It's been a bit and funny. I was on a podcast a couple nights ago, not, not my podcast. Uh, another guy and he said, I love your podcast is great. He's like, that Todd Shippy guy. You guys did this one on fire.

And, uh, it's my absolute foot, uh, favorite podcast, uh, that I've listened to. He, you know, I'm diehard and he's got a great podcast himself. I, I won't mention his name, but, uh, I'm, I'll be on a podcast of his here in the next, uh, week or so. But he absolutely loved, uh, the Fire podcast we did together. So I wanted to let you know that.

Well, thank you.

Todd Shippee: Awesome. Yeah, that's, that's good to hear. Positive feedback.

Jon Teater: Yeah, we've been getting a lot of feedback. I think this podcast [00:04:00] is kind of, I don't know, I feel like it's taken off to a point where we have so many listeners, way more listeners when we started, and uh, it's kind of built a little bit of a brand recognition, you know, not just with my business, but everyone else that's participating.

So I think people are looking forward. Kinda the weekly content. Yeah. When I was

Todd Shippee: in, uh, Iowa, in my booth in Iowa this year, uh, a couple guys came up and said, oh, I'm part lambers. You're on the, the podcast with whitetail landscapes and, and recognized just off the name. I thought that was kind of cool.

Jon Teater: Yeah.

Yeah, it is. Cool. Um, so, you know, We, we don't really have an agenda. We're just gonna shoot it today, which is good 'cause I want to catch up. What have you been working on past couple weeks? Anything particular? I know you've been busy, you got some personal things going on, but you, you still, you're an active guy, so what, what's, what's been up with you?

Oh,

Todd Shippee: it's been crazy trying to keep up with everything. So we're in a drought here and so as people know when you're dealing with a drought, any little rain that you. [00:05:00] It blows up the weeds, but the seed that you just put down takes longer to crack and to come open. So you're constantly fighting weeds. Um, mainly through mowing and especially over switchgrass.

It's so difficult to get switchgrass to grow. And I had an interesting thing happen to me with Switchgrass this year. I had some areas that were tilled that I saved from, uh, tilled them up last fall. So this spring I drilled in Switchgrass in bare dirt. Uh, treated with simine and then I also had the areas that I burned and then let green up sprayed and drilled switchgrass through the thatch.

Interestingly enough, with a lack of rain in the high, high temperatures that we experienced, I think the switchgrass in the dirt just cooked off. It was so hot that the seeds, I can find them, and they're just, they're they crumple. I think they just cooked. That it got so hot in the bare dirt where the sun shine's on it.

And then in the thatch [00:06:00] though it did okay when it finally did rain. But it grew in the, in the weirdest places it grew where it normally doesn't, in the shade of a fence line, where normally plants won't grow as well, that's where it's coming up. Bottom of the hill where the sun comes late in the day. And I think those were.

And, and those odd spots are where it's getting normal temperature and normal sunshine to make it grow in this extreme heat that we're experiencing this year. Now the rest of it's starting to fill in, but I actually, so many weeds came in and I found the little dead grass seed, uh, switchgrass seed in the, the marks from my grain drill that I just went a couple weeks ago and re-drill through that thatch.

I just sprayed it and drilled through that thatch. Uh, it'll come up a little bit, but. Next year, it's almost, for me, it's getting to be, switchgrass is a two year thing now, even using RC Big Rock, where normally it'll get up to two, three feet. It's first year, sometimes even four. Nowadays, you put it in one year, and the last two years we haven't had any [00:07:00] rain.

You have to capture the snow in the winter time and then hope that the spring and then even in spring April, it happened to me again this year, a couple of 90 degree days chained together. Well, that's normally where your window is, that you can spray roundup over the, the cold, the cool season grasses, smoke those off and give your warm season grass a chance.

But you can't because after three 90 degree days that those warm season grasses start to germ, they're starting to come up, they're starting to green, and if you spray 'em, you're gonna be in deep trouble. So it's an, it's interesting to try and adapt. So what do you do? Mow, mow, mow. Um, That's the, that's your only other fallback position is just have to keep mowing it, uh, and ultimately grow it into a nice patch with, with some broad leaves and stuff.

So I've been fighting with that. Um, but as you know, during a drought, you have to look at it. Is this the new normal? Are we always dry forever now? Or is this a [00:08:00] window? And I think that intelligently you always have to look at it as it's a window. It's an opportunity. So then, um, you get out in your marshes and that's where I make trails lay geogrid down for paths to get to places that you normally can't make buck beds out in the swamps.

You can get equipment out in there, uh, to make buck beds. There's, uh, two jobs that I have. Where it was like this maybe 10 years ago, and they put redneck blinds way back in the swamp and then it, it flooded. You couldn't get anywhere near 'em, and, and they had 'em in the wrong spot. So we gotta bring 'em back out to the periphery.

Now these are people that were of the mindset from come first time property owners coming off a long history of hunting. Public land. And as you know in public land, the deeper in you can get beyond where all the people are. You're gonna land on deer. Whoever goes the furthest. When you have your private land and you [00:09:00] set it upright, you don't need stands all the way into the middle.

You want to stay back on the periphery and make your edges and, and, uh, well you, I don't have to tell you how to set up land, but so they have to have, it's a real paradigm shift for those people. So we have to get those blinds back out there where they're actually pushing deer to the neighbor's property or going through the best part of their land and realize that you can haunt deer on normal patterns, not.

Uh, pressure deer and it takes a while to

Jon Teater: teach 'em that. Yeah, no, all good points and lots of good data there. I wanna back you up on a couple things. First thing, um, and you mentioned the switchgrass. You're using RC Big Rock. Um, I'm just gonna comment. I had a client apply a bunch of that this year. I think we did, um, I wanna say seven, eight acres, and I know the client do five acres of it.

Drilled it late. Uh, one of the clients actually just put it in within the past three or four weeks, and, [00:10:00] uh, I'm always worried about rooting time. Just, you know, we, it gets cold here quick, so they've gotta have the chance to, you know, root, they did the prep like we had talked about, and it'll be interested to see what results they get.

I tried RC Temsa on some of my higher kind of drier areas. I. And we had a drought period, and I went up there recently. I've not checked it, but I, I did see germination. I over applied 'cause I knew that I'd, you know, it'd be hard to root because it's a little stony up on top of a, a hillside. This is on my own personal property.

Uh, but it did, it did root. We've had good conditions. You know, the one thing recently in the north, I, you know, I, I was working up in the, the northern area is, you know, Vermont. New Hampshire, parts of New York. We've had a ton of flooding here. And so, you know, putting out later in the season you would assume, ah, we're not gonna really, you know, deal with, you know, many issues other than drought.

But having that texture on the ground, I. You know, assuming you know the plan itself has [00:11:00] not germinated or not is really important so that you know, stubble what, whatever you want to call it, I think it's really critical parti particularly on, you know, uh, any sloped areas, et cetera. So I just want to kind of throw that out.

So I got two questions for you. How late would you go planning, 'cause you, you did you just it in, how late would you go planting switch grass? Well, it

Todd Shippee: stay in July. You can do it in July. Um, As a matter of fact, a client a couple years ago I was on, he had, he had a guy drill some in on in July, and it was up pretty good already.

I think I was there in August or September and you could see it. I mean, it was there. Um, and that was sandy or soil. So it, and I have a bunch over in, um, the western part of state. I put in a bunch of our seat tecums, see, and it's just, we had zero rain and high temperatures and now there's manure on top of it.

Um, which isn't gonna hurt, but I got a feeling that's just not gonna come up until next, next spring is when I'll [00:12:00] see it if it didn't cook. Yeah, that's the problem. So because those seeds are so shallow, either broadcast or drilled, they're so shallow that they're susceptible to the, I mean, when you can't even walk barefoot across dirt or.

Or put your hand down and that's, that's not good for a seed that's, you know, basically baking it. So, um, we'll see how that does. It's, it's a lot of money to have on the ground just to have it cook off, but I don't know what else a guy can do.

Jon Teater: Um, I. Well, you mentioned something else that, that's kind of interesting to me and I got some ideas and I've been to, I've been, you know, for the past probably five co podcasts.

I've said the same thing over and over again. I said, you know, think about water retention on your property. You know, I've been doing all these research projects here over the past three, four months thinking about water retention and landscape, how to slow water down, right? Things that you and I have talked about in the past.

And, you know, I, I can think of specifically a property. I'd done some research. There's a, a woman that I follow, her name is Nicole Masters. Very, uh, smart in integrity soils. But I've taken some [00:13:00] training from her and just learning about, you know, water retention, particularly in Montana. And she just so you know, you've got a desert of land around, you know, these areas and.

Basically developing a system for water catchment, particularly in their areas. They get, you know, maybe eight to nine inches of water per year, but they have that water catchment off the basin of, uh, you know, from the mountain side. So they get, yeah, basically water runoff and they retain that water runoff in key areas and they've created, created catchment ponds.

And, uh, smart thing to do, you can't do in all areas, you know, that really don't have a good basin of water. Uh, on top of that, the snow load is, is something also to consider where they have, you know, a decent amount of snow load in, you know, some distant land. So it's just kind of thinking about all, all those things in the landscape and.

You, you guys don't necessarily get the snow. I mean, you get snow, but you don't get the snow that we get here. So, you know, it's, you know, we'll get a hundred inches a year. So, you know, it's, it's, it's a lot of snow. So I wanna, I, I had a question for you 'cause you brought up something [00:14:00] that, that I'm not familiar with, or at least I, I haven't thought this through, is I.

You brought up Geofabric and I know what Geofabric is. As anybody doesn't know, they use it for roadsides a lot of times. Actually, I'm working on mulching my yard and I, I, I put that down before I put my stone mulch down. But the geofabric, what are you using it for? You said trails or beds or? No. Okay.

Todd Shippee: So yeah, so Geofabric is different than Geogrid.

Okay. Um, you can Google, you can Google it. It's, uh, d o t approved. Um, it's the new thing that they're using on almost all the roads, on the big solar farms that they're building and stuff. Instead of digging down to virgin soil and then filling in with breaker rock, you can just lay this above the ground, put the gravel over the top of it, and it stops it from, from, uh, migrating into the soil below.

And it builds a stable thing. It comes in, the stuff I buy comes in 300 foot rolls by 13 feet wide. Okay. And I use that. So what I'll do is, so there's a wet area of Canary grass. That you can't get, you just can never get through on a year like this. [00:15:00] You mow it like 15 feet wide and then you lay the geogrid down.

I can send you some videos of how I do it. I did, I did have it on my Instagram. My Instagram is on pause right now because, uh, I just haven't had time to, I. To upload anything, nor I've had time to show the respect to other guys and like their stuff. So it's been on pause for quite a while. I haven't updated anything, but it is on there if you wanna look back at how to spread Geogrid.

So then what anchors it is you let the grass grow up through it. So when the grass comes up through it, then I go over it with a roller and that that just lays it down and it weaves it right into the ground. So now, and I have, I saw on on my Instagram where if I step off the geogrid, I literally will fall up to my hip.

And when you're on it, you're just on it. So then once the grass comes through and you roll it, you can, I mean, I've had clients where they drive dump trucks on it to dump, and now this is when they're doing gravel, when it's a higher thing. But, so then you can put wood chips on and when you put wood chips, you [00:16:00] don't put cover the whole trail wood chips, but parts of it to kind of, to anchor, like say you're in a marsh or a wet area that has the, uh, the ankle breakers, you know, the.

Humps that are in the sedge humps. Yeah. Um, then I'll, I'll use some wood chips to kind of level that out. But it literally, John, this, this buys people, I mean, I've, over the years, I mean hundreds of acres of access. I mean, one client I have in the west, he access for what it costs him putting a geogrid, he had access to 80 acres of his property that he literally couldn't get to because of ha would have to go through water.

And then during rut, it's the ice cracking and all that stuff. He couldn't get. Back there. So it gave him access to another 80 acres that he can hunt another client. I have 40 acres, um, a job that I'm still working on right now that we're, we're finishing up, um, access to 30 acres that, you know how your basic plan of having a trail all the way around the outside of your property Yeah.

And a lot of times, [00:17:00] You can't make that trail all the way around because of a wicked marsh or, or some wet areas. Well, this allows that to happen.

Jon Teater: This is great. I mean, this is, this is something that, you know, this application, so the height of the geogrid, how, how tall is it? It's, no,

Todd Shippee: it, it's just lays down like picture chicken

Jon Teater: wire.

Oh, so it's just chicken wire. There's no depth to it. Okay.

Todd Shippee: Huh? No, there, I mean, they do make it, they do make it where there's depth. They make like, Two and three inch deep for that. You would put gravel inside of it. Yeah, gravel hold it when they're building roads and stuff. But if you go the, uh, the stuff that I use, um, I'll give you the exact name of it.

You can

Jon Teater: look it up here. Is it 10 Ssar? Is it? Yeah.

Todd Shippee: Yep. Okay. It's uh, did you find it? I use the G B S X 41 Biaxial.

Jon Teater: Geogrid. Okay. All right. No, this is great advice. I mean, I, I, it's funny 'cause I've never even thought about the application in that's in that scenario. Um, just best price

Todd Shippee: is from, uh, geosynthetic Systems in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Okay. They do, [00:18:00] they do. They ship it and they do a really good price. No, I've got, uh, a phone call right now, uh, that I have to return that I just came in late today of a guy who wants to buy a roll of it for a job. And I've got two guys waiting that just need rolls. They're gonna do it themselves. And I thought I'd wait.

'cause last year I ordered a mile of it in a semi-load. Well, about a mile and a half of it. And it's all, it's all laid out. So I, I have to restock

Jon Teater: here. Well, I, I think it's really interesting. Um, Yeah, just a great, just another strategy for somebody trying to get access in areas, right. It kinda opens the, the floodgates a little bit to getting into particular areas.

Um, alright. Jim Ward

Todd Shippee: really liked, I told Jim about it. He was all excited and one of his customers, he had one of his customers actually call me for some, as a matter of fact, I.

Jon Teater: Hmm. Well that's cool. I was just talking to Jim the other day actually, just catching up with him. He's got, he, he just, he's so funny.

He just had two guys call me about these interesting new concepts that I'm, I'm playing [00:19:00] with. I was so cri, I was so critical of the guys calling me like, you gotta try this. This is the next greatest thing. And I'm, I'm totally open to new ideas and it's awesome, you know, this kind of network that we have, it's awesome to find people.

Yep, I got this idea. This is what I'm doing with soil. You know, whether it's new plants, whatever, it's, you're always learning something new. So I'm actually building, I'm finishing building my compost tea brewer and uh, I just got all my sea kelp and. All sorts of stuff that I'm, I'm applying, I'm, I'm building bio innoculants and I'm kind of, I got a new system 'cause I've been using foliar for a few years now.

Yeah. But I'm trying to add more endophytic like, uh, bacterium and fungal matter into my soil directly. So I'm screwing around with some new things and I'll talk about that more as I, I feel a little more intelligent to talk about. You know, some of the things I'm working on, but I'm really big on foliar.

I mean, there's, I think foliar is a way to go. I really do. You know, I, it's

Todd Shippee: well [00:20:00] in a drought, when you have a drought, you have no other options but to go with foliar. 'cause the rest of the stuff, well I use the stabilize urea, um, the blue row stuff that does buy, you buy you time and it feeds it well. So that's still a good product.

But foyers are so much more expensive on some of the bigger crop fields that I put in though, I mean, it's significantly more. Then the granular, that's the one drawback, but it doesn't have the salt. There's a lot of, there definitely a lot of pros to it. There's no denying that cost would be one of the cons.

Jon Teater: Yeah, cost is definitely one of the cons. And it's also application too. How are you gonna apply it, right, in a growing crop. So you gotta think through the process of that. I. Um, I think that's right. Some, sometimes, and people aren't gonna get out there with a backpack spray and play probably foliar, although, you know, apple and fruit trees, you know, tho whatever you're planting crap.

Apple pairs, that's a good option for you all. Yeah. Something high in copper, boron, those type of things. And small kill plots.

Todd Shippee: If you want small kill plots, if you wanna sweeten 'em up, I mean, a four gallon backpack sprayer, you can spray a quarter of an acre with salt.

Jon Teater: No. No. So have you, I mean, I, I've [00:21:00] done the backpack sprayer thing, but have you, um, you know, for my clients, you know, we're, we're, I'm giving 'em concoctions now and their food plot regimes, you know, based on their soil types and like, so I'll get their, I'll get their, uh, their soil back from Logan Labs and I'll look at it and I'll give 'em recommendations on what to Amen, how, you know, how I would go about it.

I got long, long term and short term options for him. And then, We plot, we get, I like to get on foliar routine and I'm starting to get people like recognizing, oh, this is good. 'cause once you fix, once you fix, like I work, so my property's long-term property, so I started with the geology. I went back and put, you know, long-term non soluble nutrients in there.

I. Added rock dust, all sorts of stuff, right? To build my base. And then I, I got my plant cycle going, so my sequencing and then kinda once that's set, you know, it just kind of takes over. You don't really need to do too much to it. And then the foliar is kind of the complimentary piece of it where you know where you're weak.

So you could take plant SAP analysis, tissue analysis, whatever you want to call it. I have a little simple thing called the [00:22:00] refractometer. It's a BrickX analysis. I look at it, I squeeze. My kids and I go out there, it's a science project for my kids, and I look at the sucrose levels and I can tell some deficiencies of the plants just looking at 'em.

So I've gotten a little smarter on plants over the years, but kind of the sprays, it's just knowing what you're deficient in your localized area. And a lot of it's the micros. I'm just, just applying micros. So, you know, it's, it's, it's pretty basic. Um, I think, I think the plan is with the compost tees that I'm, you know, applying.

It's, it's basically. For 250 gallons thereabouts. My expenses right around, I wanna say right around $70 a treatment. So three treatments a year is $210. I'm gonna cut back 'cause I'm gonna do some stuff a little more natural. I. So, uh, you could just really use, uh, you know, compost in those areas. Cow manure would be probably your best option.

And if you don't wanna disturb the soil, instead of just putting cow manure out there, this is a way to apply cow manure and you can apply it over and over again. [00:23:00] And that's cheap. Just go to your local. You needed something to aerate it. So you just gotta buy an aerator. They're about 80, 90 bucks, uh, depending on the size.

You know, I think, I think I paid, I built an aerating unit that cost me like, $30 and basically just pump air to it. I got tea bags. You can go buy, uh, bags. Um, I bought 'em from a, a company who builds 'em, but you can just buy it like strainer bags, throw some compost in a bin, and then let the air kind of run through it.

And then basically just have a, a let off valve and you just spill it out on the ground and you can just kind of run back and forth. Or you can put it in a sprayer, spray it on your crops. I mean, that's really, you wanna talk about cheap way to apply compost. That's the cheapest way to do it. Um, yeah,

Todd Shippee: that's a nice, nice system again, um, to, to bring it up to scale on some of the bigger things would be a be the issue to spray it on, on at scale, but for kill plots and for small and on your own property.

And my buddy's doing it right now in his garden. His garden looks phenomenal. He adds [00:24:00] chicken manure as well. He's got chickens. Oh yeah. And it's,

Jon Teater: so, it's, uh, yeah, my, I just add pretty nice stuff. I add, I can tell everyone I'm, when I'm adding, I'm adding humic acid. Hydro hydrolyzed fish and seek help and manure from the local farm.

That, that's basically my, my mixture. I got a couple other little things in there, but that's, that's pretty much my mixture. And like I said, I think I'm at 70 bucks. Oh molasses. I had, uh, some molasses and you can get molasses for cheap. Actually, you could just do molasses and compost. I'd probably recommend that that's a good option for people.

Yeah. Yeah. 'cause

Todd Shippee: the molasses will, uh,

Jon Teater: petrify. Yeah, petrify gives us, it gives an opportunity for the microbes to have kind of a, a source this kinda sugar. It does really well. I, I guess it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a food source. Look at it that way. I.

Todd Shippee: Um, please tell me you're not, you're not distilling, adding, getting your deer drunk.

Is that what you're doing, John? Let's just be honest. Well,

Jon Teater: well, there, there, there is an option for that, by the way. You can, you, you [00:25:00] can. So, you know,

Todd Shippee: no wonder you get those big bucks every year.

Jon Teater: They're tipsy. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, I don't know, we, we haven't talked about on this podcast, but, you know, getting your deer.

I, you know, what I saw the other day, it really just was just baffling to me. I saw a guy, and I don't, I, I just couldn't believe this. He's got, and I don't even want to comment on where I saw this, whatever, but he has a, a, a farm and he's taken out all his grapes on the farm and Yeah. And they've been in place for years and years, and I understand they wanna put a food plot in.

There's, you know, You know, there's o opportunity to have more, you know, biomass. I, I, I get that. But you have this great resource grapes and you're ripping 'em all out and you're ripping 'em out this time of year. And yeah, all you gotta do is retre some. Build a different trellis style. You know, shack 'em up higher.

It's great screening. All you gotta do is a little agro force, so you put some clover alfalfa down the lay alleyways and you can have the same system and you have a fruit integrated into it. I don't know what type of grapes were in [00:26:00] there, but I just saw that and it just made me literally sick. The time it takes to grow grapes like that is, yeah.

Oh. Especially like a late seasoned grape. And one of my buddy owns a winery and him and I were listening to a podcast and, uh, They're talking about integrating goats into vineyards and really interesting, uh, some of the studies they're, they're doing with that type of stuff and how they prune the, the, the grapes and, you know, it's pretty, pretty interesting.

So, I don't know off topic stuff, but some things just baffle me with people. Like it's just a simple opportunity that you're just literally, I, I would recommend if anybody wants a late season grape on their property. That's an awesome option. Uh, they'll stay on the vine like I've had 'em on the vine into December.

You know, that's a little extreme, but November. Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

Todd Shippee: Yeah. I like the wild grape vine a lot. That's why I like the dead snags that you were talking about earlier. The birds perch in 'em, droppings. The seeds are in their droppings, daylight. I mean, it's a. [00:27:00] Microcosm what you try to do by daylight in the woods, right?

Yeah. The dead ashes gets some daylight. It's a perch for birds. The droppings contain the grape seeds. Sunlight hits those that come off the trees really well, you know, and, and deer like eating grape leaves and, and the vines and stuff, and good mocks,

Jon Teater: grapes. Yeah, I mean, my, my, my, I think one of my most, uh, preferential food sources at some point in time is wild grape and, uh, Choke cherry.

I think they hammer those. Yeah. And so, you know, it's, it's, it's one of those most unconsidered plants on the landscape at this point, at least on a lot of properties. The wild turkeys really like

Todd Shippee: it too. The wild turkeys really go after grape, especially the wild grapes that when they'll hold, you know, they don't fall off like a normal grape and then they freeze and they're great.

Late season emergency food for turkeys, I've seen 'em go crazy over grapes. Um, When they find them late in the year, like in the winter time. So, hey, what do you say? We talk about, uh, the incident I had with the food plot.

Jon Teater: Yeah, yeah. Let's, let's get, [00:28:00] yeah, let's get into that. I think people find this

Todd Shippee: interesting.

Yep, absolutely. Go ahead. So a climb to mine has, uh, ag field buts up to a woods. We lease part of the ag field to a farmer. Um, I staked it off with, uh, I took the farm there, showed it to him. Nice guy. He completely understood, staked it off, flagged it off. He took the co-op, the agronomist from the co-op out showed him where it was.

We also had it on OnX, showed him the map. I go out there to, to, uh, look after they put, and they're putting beans, they're putting soybeans in their, um, portion of the field. So the part that's blocked off for me, I'm gonna put a variety of stuff in sorghum screen. Um, clover up close and I'm gonna have some strips of, of a variety of different stuff.

So I see all the weeds where I'm going to plant are dead and I knew right away we've got a problem. They sprayed the, the guy blew it. He sprayed his chemicals on, so get ahold of the co-op and this is what [00:29:00] they send me that was applied. Now when guys are putting in food plots and we plant beans or we put corn or sorghum, And you drive by the farmer's plots where there's not a wheated in the field.

The soybeans are tall and green and look beautiful. Corn is almost blue. It's so green from the nitrogen. We have to keep in mind that those guys are side dressing when they're planting or side dressing nitrogen right down. Um, or a starter fertilizer by the beans, no nitrogen for them, and then they're spraying.

And here's what the co-op sent me. So what happened is this, when I've got the in front of me, I've got the data sheet from it. It was sprayed at nine o'clock at night by a guy with a pickup sprayer, which tells you that was a temporary employee or employee that works full-time job. And just like everywhere else, it's hard to find people to work right now.

They got, they got, uh, this guy in a pickup sprayer at nine at night sprayed off where he shouldn't have. And this is what goes on with just one acre of beans. Roundup PowerMax. [00:30:00] Three herbicide, 30 ounces per acre boundary, which is a cocktail of chemicals boundary 65, EC 1.6 points per acre. Entra zone four liters shredder, which is a cocktail of other chemicals, uh, with two four D in it at 0.66 points per acre.

Class Act, flex Compadre. And then the water that's on one. So you wonder why their fields are so clean. And that's just, that's just the first application, you know, there's additional applications later on, so it put me in a pinch because there was no way I was gonna get anything to grow in there. But soybeans, additionally, it would be off label if I planted in there.

The, all those are are labeled for, for soybeans only. So long conversation with the co-op about it, and that place just isn't gonna be able to be planted this year. Um, I, what I'll do is I'll [00:31:00] put in late beans, uh, so that when those beans are turning brown, you know, my beans will be green and coming up, they'll get hammered hard right away, but it, it'll still be some shot opportunities

Jon Teater: for client.

Well, you, you won't be able to put your screen in obviously at that point. Right. 'cause that was one of the things you were talking about. I know. No,

Todd Shippee: no screen's not going to this year. Yeah. Well, and, uh, I'm switching my screens, uh, to, uh, I'm really, uh, getting into Miscanthus and I'm using it for other stuff.

And I'll tell

Jon Teater: you why I love missus. You know what? You, you do. I do. I do. And I, I have to. So, so many people that listen to this are like, I love that you're the mo, you're natural. You talked about this and that. And I, I have been, but I, I love it. I, I absolutely love it. Yeah, I do too.

Todd Shippee: And I'll tell you why.

So there's a couple things I notice about it. It gets us thick as pine trees is conifers. Um, but where a conifer gets to that perfect. 12, you know, eight to 12, 15 foot height, and then there's a window of time that they're [00:32:00] ideal. Then the lower branches start to go, plus they get too tall and they start to shade out on downside, where miscanthus gets to 12 to 15 feet and stops right there, you have a perfect block, a perfect screen, and you can use it in a group for bedding, like integrate it into your switchgrass to give more structure into your switchgrass.

You just, you can't beat this stuff. I'm, I'm really getting more excited the more I use it. The more I like it and the more places I find that you can put it into, um, it's really a, a decent product for wildlife management, for pheasant, for Turkey, and for whitetail. Now don't look at as justice screen. It worked really good for bedding.

Within bedding. Four

Jon Teater: years ago on a client, I saw him plant miscanthus and I. Was, you know, not considering it as a good option, but he had planted it for a screen and there was betting all around it, right? So that, like, I was like, okay, you know, the structure, the height, you know how it develops. It rings so it [00:33:00] creates, now if anybody plants it, one thing to consider is it, it, it, it grows, right?

Um, it, it basically creates a ring and it expands. And then over time you'll get this like large six, seven foot ring, basically the plant as it continues to kind of outgrow itself. So the spacing's critical in those scenarios. So think about spacing. The other thing I wanted to kind of mention with Miss Cantis is the fact that it handles snow load.

Unbelievable, Todd. And um,

Todd Shippee: yes, it's the only thing standing there when the deep snow's come that I'm glad you brought that point up. This is one of the points that I wanted to bring up. It stands there in the snow.

Jon Teater: Yeah, absolutely. And uh, the other thing I wanted to mention was I, it doesn't grow in zone four.

That, so you folks in Canada, you know, kind of the northern territories of the us you're gonna, you're gonna struggle to, to get it to grow. I think it goes down to zone five. Now, maybe with climate shift, you guys will be good in a couple years, but right now I think you're in trouble trying to apply it.

But you know, if, if, if you've done it and it [00:34:00] works great, they use it around my area for biomass production. Uh, they, uh, they, they've got farms all over the place where, where they do that, they do the same thing with willows around here. Uh, way better than willows. Uh, the structure, the density. I used Willows for years.

It's Willows is a, is a complimentary, a woody structure, complimentary. What I like about those two things is you think about the density of the plants, you're building a living fence. The reason I like Willows, it's a living fence that deer can't get through. If you, if you make it tight enough, Ms. Gthe grass, they will go through it.

I've seen 'em go through it time and time again. I've, I've tried to use it as a blockade. It. They will go through it. Yeah. So if you staggered it though, and I, I, I don't typically stagger it, but if you staggered enough and there were three rows of it, they might not go through it. I, I'm not a hundred percent sure of that.

I don't know if you've got an experience with using it as kind of a wall.

Todd Shippee: No, I haven't tried that. Um, uh, and if I was going to do that, I just run snow fence in between two rows or Yeah. Or three [00:35:00] Accomplish the same. Yeah. I, I agree. It's so, it's a good, it stands up, good cover. And here's the thing. In these drought conditions, the stuff that I put in this year, it's all up with a switchgrass cooked off because you put that RU a little bit deeper in the ground, the rhizome a little bit deeper in the ground.

So there's some coolness there and that stuff is up, you know, a couple feet. Its first year, week. Um, But by next year, I know it'll be, it'll be really nice where the switchgrass is going to, because of the drought is just gonna be coming in next year, um, that it would be of any significance. So next year I'm gonna go a lot more, a lot more of that.

'cause I just, I don't know if it's gonna be a drought or not. And I can't take the risk on, on, uh, the switch cooking off and, and giving me all the fits that it's given me and all the extra mowings and stuff that it's, that it's taking. So, um, I. I'm gonna, I need to build some screens and stuff and they're gonna be, [00:36:00] they're gonna be MEUs.

Jon Teater: Okay. And I'm not against that at this point. And sorry for all you haters out there that think that we're bad because, you know, we're suggesting that plant, that's the reality of it at this point. And, you know, there are many options for it across the, you know, a lot of these, and we talked about the RC Big Rock.

I mean, that's, That's modified. So we talked about modified plants. I mean, they're, they're across your landscape. Deal with it. It's the reality. You, you question the harm of it. It, you know, I. Plant a non-native plant and plant five native plants adjacent to it. Okay? There's benefits to all these. I mentioned this recently on another podcast is, um, the, there's been studies on, on bees and most of the bees that we have in our areas are not native to our areas, so let's keep that in mind.

But the importance of bees on the landscape are critical. And uh, one thing in this study, and this is generic, right? Some specific bees have specific demand. Same thing with was certain species of plants. They have preferences, but in [00:37:00] general, I. If they take the population of bees and there's 700 different species, I believe, I could be wrong in that number.

Large number of species of bees. Okay. And in, in general, uh, there is no preference. It's 50 50 from native to non-native plants. So just a statistic, something to throw out there. You can fact check me on that. 'cause I looked through my resources a couple times. Uh, I just wanna bring that up as a, as, as an additional fact to consider.

So, You know, not non-native plants aren't always a bad thing, and I wanna make sure that people understand that there's a balance of this native and non-native. Um, in one of the worlds that I, I kind of grow circles in is, uh, a lot of non-native plants are used and they use for good reason, um, especially for a mineral accumulation, and that that'll be for a podcast at a later date.

But I, I just wanna say in general, You know, I'm not necessarily promoting non-native plants. I just want to just let everyone know that there are some benefits and you have to investigate those. It's the question of does the plank get outta [00:38:00] sorts and outta control? And that's where, you know, people start to put their nose up in the air and say, well, then I.

You know, what are we doing here? And, uh, you know, I, I can, I can deal with that. Right? Um, and some of the grasses are, have been the killers over the years. I just pulled Johnson grass outta my, one of my food plots and I about crap myself. 'cause I didn't have Johnson grass in my property. Now I do. So, you know, things happen.

Yeah. That, that's a

Todd Shippee: big one. So I try to stay as native as possible, but I mean, there's Reed Canary and Johnson Grass everywhere and there's uh, a a, a lot of people that say it, their, their house, just their landscape around their houses. That's where a lot of the invasives come from. They escape outta landscaping.

So, um, but, uh, stay native and, and uh, and put where you can't and you have to adapt.

Jon Teater: That's okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, I agree with you. Alright man. Anything else that's on your mind? I just, it was, we had, it was, I mean we had one little agenda topic, but it was kind of nice to just talk. I love. About some of the stuff that you get into and things you think through a [00:39:00] couple new things here this week.

Todd Shippee: Yeah. There's always something going on. No, I'm just, uh, gearing up for uh, got a bit. I got, I've got more work than I can think of to do right now. Yeah. A lot of cutting. A lot of cutting, a lot of fall planting. Just keep giving her heck, you know, I, I really, it's enjoyable and I, I just absolutely love converting property over and seeing the looks on people's faces and seeing when the aha moment comes and they work.

So, uh, Um, yeah, just looking forward to wrapping up the rest of the season here. Yeah, we got August and September. Yeah. It'll be year

Jon Teater: before you know it. August, September. Yeah. And I think, I think August is probably one of the better months to cut. It's one of my favorite months to cut in. Yeah.

Todd Shippee: Yeah. You can't find a bad

Jon Teater: month really.

No. No. But I, I, I kind like August 'cause I'm putting food on the ground. I just, I just saved 15 trees. I counted 'em before I left. I said I have 15 more to drop here in the next three weeks and I, I go in and cut two down. I go back a couple days later, cut two more. This is my own property. [00:40:00] Just keep feed.

Yeah, just keep feeding the beast, you know, that's, that's my strategy. Yeah. I

Todd Shippee: all last week, significant amounts of a property, um, just I was feathering an edge and lighting of woods, so, oh, um, major improvement. Really cool woods that hasn't been logged in forever. Huge veneer grade, giant black cherry and giant oak, and, uh, just a really beautiful woods that's about to be, Too old if we don't do something here, so.

Jon Teater: Well, I'm telling you, I can't, I'm not cutting a single black cherry. I mean, the markets are down big time. No, I am not cutting, I'm not cutting any black cherry. That is one of my favorite. No, I don't, yeah, go ahead. What are you gonna say? I wanna hear. No,

Todd Shippee: I'm with you. I, I never cut a black cherry. Those are high value wildlife trees.

High value wildlife trees. High, high, high,

Jon Teater: high. There's like, everyone's like, well, what do you choose? I said, well, Oaks. Yeah, I love oaks. I said, but the cherry family of trees, that's where I'm at. And that's, I've been that way for, for eons. And everyone's like, what? Nobody's talking about that in [00:41:00] the wildlife world.

I'm like, well, then you don't pay attention to what the deer consume. Deer will consume a black cherry sapling dollars over donuts, over an oak sapling in my particular area. And I, I've seen it on multiple properties, and so it's, I don't know. You know, maybe, maybe I'm just, maybe I'm lying to myself. Maybe that isn't true, but it serve seems like it when I observe.

Todd Shippee: Well, the cherries are so highly attractive. They don't even around here, you rarely see one that makes it to maturity. A, a chair, the cherry

Jon Teater: itself, the fruit. Yeah, so let wait. Let me ask you another question real quick, Todd. Um, what about people? And this is something that, that I'm gonna work on here over the next couple weeks.

Um, I'm working on a couple new things, new concept for food plots and um, but this is an adjacent to food plots. So I. Uh, I create these brown matter areas, so I'm taking leaf litter and materials, and I'm building these kind of brown matter areas. I'm, I'm basically building compost adjacent to my food plots and I'm releasing them out in the winter months and it just adds a little more material.

But one thing, a part of that was, 'cause I got all this fencing, I'm doing [00:42:00] these exclusion areas, and I talked to this guy, uh, I'm trying to think of his name. I wanna have him on the podcast. I won't mention his name at this point. I, I know his name right now, but, um, he's building these kind of little native areas across his property.

He's an ex forester, super smart guy, and basically just taking native seeds and throwing 'em in these little banks and, uh, you know, just kind of, he's kind of concealing 'em off with these kind of, you know, big fenced in areas. When I say big, it's like 20. Uh, 20 yards by 20 yards. So they're pretty big.

And um, he's just creating these exclusion cages. And I just feel like if you're trying to promote plants and pockets and you can do four or five of those per acre, oh my gosh. I mean, you know, talk to me about opportunities to create kind of diverse environments in your landscape. What a great concept, you know?

Oh, totally agree. Yep.

Todd Shippee: Relatively simple. I bought, uh, an acre worth of tree seed shrub seeds this year, not tree, just shrub seeds. And the, you know, it's a drought, so they're still sitting on the shelf. I think I'm gonna fall plant them. [00:43:00] But the deer, you know, when they come up, the deer just go into the attack mode.

And then you've got squirrels, rabbits, everything you know, that are, are after the seeds. So I'm definitely, when I lay those out, they'll definitely be exclusion cages, very similar to that, just to get 'em up a little bit and then it, it'll take off.

Jon Teater: Yeah, I think it's a three year rotation cycle. It's the same way that I cut timber.

That's how I cut timber. That's the exact same principle as how I cut timber. One of the things I wanna mention is, and I'm, I'm just, we're just talking, but one of the things I wanna mention is some of the strategies that are mainstream, that are out there that you're watching on YouTube. And they're like, put a bedding there in an area here, and the guy is recommending it.

I don't know what he's, what his experience been with cutting, but the decision making and the cutting. We've talked about building walls of cover and segregation and compartmentalizing there, but within those areas it's thinking how you manage, you know, that kind of timber and you could have an economic kind of perspective.

You could have a wildlife perspective. We talked [00:44:00] about a couple species here. You could just have a diverse, you know, I like diversity, so I want a lot of variety. And those are kind of like the three major kind of, uh, I guess I'll, I'll say dogmas of thinking through kind of woodlot design and layout and wildlife benefit.

And it's, it's really kind of critical thinking about those concepts. And I, I guess I'll introduce some of those concepts maybe over the next couple years of, you know, how I do stuff and what works and what I, what I've seen fail, I guess. And, you know, I, I can't say a lot of consultants and, and Todd, I know you and I are pretty sharp guys at, at times we think through these things, but I.

I think it's really diagnosing down to the foot level. And I think that's the difference between guys that really know what they're doing. They're looking at their properties, you know, down and, and it's scalable, you know, maybe too big, but you're, I'm looking at my property down to increments of a foot rather than, you know, acres, you know, and, and I have a smaller property.

If I had 200 acres I'd, I'd probably be at the acre level. But, you know, uh, I think everybody's different. But if you [00:45:00] get to the foot level, I think you're doing something a little bit different, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I, I totally agree. Yeah. Totally agree. Alright man. Anything else? Sorry, I

Todd Shippee: just, I just wanted No, we're good.

I'll save some, save some stuff

Jon Teater: for next time. Yeah, yeah. We don't wanna give all your secrets away. Alright, man. I, uh, appreciate the time with you and I know you're doing well. That's important to me and I can't wait to get back on this. We'll have you on probably again in the next month or so, just before hunting season.

Sounds good. Alright. Talk to you great again for

Todd Shippee: me again. You too. Take care. See you. Thank you. Maximize

Jon Teater: Your

Todd Shippee: Hunt is a production of whitetail

Jon Teater: landscapes.

Todd Shippee: For more information on how John Teeter and his team of experts can help you maximize your hunt, check out whitetail landscapes.com.

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