Improve Your Wildlife Habitat with Managed Strips

Landowners know that food plots work to lure deer and other wildlife to an area. However, the cost of equipment, fuel, fertilizer, seeds, and labor needed to plant a food plot can get expensive. Fortunately, there is a low budget answer to developing attractive areas for wildlife at an affordable cost. I have used managed strips on my 20 acres to successfully attract and hold deer on my land as well as provide food for other forms of wild animals. Here's how to create and maintain these strips on your land.

What is a managed strip?

Deer love to eat the young, tender new growth of natural browse which sprouts after the ground is cleared of vegetation. A managed strip is a segment of land where the original vegetation is removed and new growth is allowed to naturally regenerate. The strip is managed to create successive stages of new growth by mowing portions of the strip each year.

Where should you locate a managed strip? 

Managed strips work well along the edges of fields adjacent to wood lines. They also can be located along fence rows, ditches, or other areas not in use for other purposes. However, they should not be located near roads, as the deer attracted to these strips will be a hazard for motorists or a lure for poachers shooting from the roads.

How do you create a managed strip?

One way to prepare a managed strip involves disking or tilling the soil to plow under the existing vegetation. Another way often used is to perform prescribed burning of the strip to destroy existing growth. Once the existing vegetation is removed, you don't need to plant anything. The seeds of native vegetation already in the ground will sprout on their own.. Very beneficial browse is created by this process. The photos included show various stages of managed strips on my land

Maintenance of the strip requires periodic mowing or disking. Start with the outside edge and disk or mow down 1/3 of the total width of the strip. Disk or mow at then end of the first year's growing season. Do the middle 1/3 of the strip at the end of the second growing season and finish by doing the final 1/3 at the end of third year. Continue this same rotational pattern each year. By then end of the third year, you will have vegetation in all three stages of growth, all of which are attractive to wildlife.

What other factors should you consider?

Ideally a strip should be about 30 foot wide or slightly larger to allow for the annual successive growth stages in 10 foot or wider sections. The strips work best when they are irregular shaped, such as surrounding a pond.

The essential ingredient for creating a managed strip is sunlight. You will not get good results unless you have ample sunlight actually hitting the ground for a minimum of four hours per day but preferably longer. Be sure the locations you pick have ample sunlight during the entire growing season.

Fertilizing the wide variety of forbs, briers, herbs, vines, and saplings which naturally sprout will enhance their growth and provide greater nutritional value to wildlife. Use a complete fertilizer with all the essential elements, such as a 10-10-10 mixture.

Don't be surprised if deer actually browse your managed strips more than they do your planted food plots. Deer are accustomed to eating natural browse and when you provide it for them, they will eat it readily. Try some managed strips on your land this year to improve your wildlife habitat.