Written by: Clint Patterson
5/23/2010 9:22 PM 

	Exclusion Fence #1 on our Tecomate Seed Remote Food Plot

Since we’ve planted the seed, thrown out some Milorganite, and had a little rain, we expect the plants to start growing a lot soon.  One of the steps to our journey is putting out some “exclusion fences”.  We went out on Sunday and put up 2 “exclusion fences” in our Tecomate Seed Remote Food Plot.  I had never heard of an exclusion fence or what it was for before we started this “Food Plot Journey”, but I have come to realize what this means and the purpose behind it.  Initially I asked myself why would we want to exclude any deer from our food plot, but it does make sense…even to a web designer posing like I know what I’m writing about!

An exclusion fence is essentially something used to guard a specific section of a food plot to keep the deer from eating it.  Ultimately this demonstrates what an untouched/uneaten plant would look like.  You use this as a compare and contrast measurement with the other plants (outside the exclusion fence) to see how much of the foliage is being consumed by the deer.  It appears that the conceptual idea is that you plant a food plot and, as deer come by, they eat the leaves and vegetation throughout the summer.  Though since a small section of the food plot has wire guarding it, then they don’t touch it.  At least that’s what we want to happen. 

For our exclusion fence we used some old tomato wire and that seemed to do the job.  I imagine you could use chicken wire, chain link fencing, or whatever you have available to create an exclusion fence.  We merely drove two stakes in the ground, placed the tomato wire on top of them.  We then wired the wire to the stakes to anchor it and that was it.  It only took us about 20 minutes to get two of these put down. 

Since it had been raining previously, we already have some of the Lab Lab Plus plants starting to show up on the surface.  There are also some weeds mixed in the middle of our remote food plot, but we’re going to go back and take care of them soon!  So it’s actually starting to grow.  I hope we continue to get some more rain to help the plants keep on growing.  If they keep growing (and the Milorganite wears off) maybe the deer will start eating them. In time and with cooperation of the weather, we should have some plants growing at 2 levels.  One level will be with deer eating the plants which would, as I envision it, be lower to the ground with another level being inside the exclusion fence which should be a little taller.  I guess only time will tell.  I hope to get some pics of the deer in there during the summer.  I’ve got to get a game camera up in there soon.

I would also like to note that the Milorganite was definitely activated by the recent rains.  We could smell it while we were working.  It wasn’t overpowering and unbearable, but you could certainly get a whiff of it every now and then.  I’m sure the deer are aware of the smell too because if not, the plants would have already been eaten down to the ground.

And the journey continues (with hopes of more rain)

Regards,

Clint

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Tags: Tecomate Seed Food Plot Journey , exclusion fences , Remote food plot

Categories: Food Plot Journey

Location: Blogs Clint Patterson

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