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Bruce Hutcheon: 4, 3, 2, 1. Welcome everybody to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. And I’m really excited to have our first seed growing, or seed distributor, food plot, seed merchant. Tony Andrews is the owner of Andrews Seed and it’s a food plot business. Tony, welcome to the show.
Tony Andrews: Thanks for having me.
Bruce Hutcheon: Hey, just tell us about the seed business. You know, I’m intrigued about, you know, how you get into that. We all know, everybody’s farming food plots and building good protein and nutrition for deer. But tell us about your story.
Tony Andrews: Well, I grew up on the farm. I was able to come on board with a couple of major seed companies and kind of seen a niche market in my area for some food plot business, so I started Andrews Seed here about two or three months ago. I hooked up with a couple of distributors. I can pretty much do any custom blend that anybody would ever think of, got access to thousands of different seeds through the different companies that I work with, and just kind of seen a niche market here in my area that nobody was really involved in, so I took the opportunity and hopefully can run with it.
Bruce Hutcheon: Let’s talk about food plots. I know you’re in the agriculture business and this is planting time and all that, so you’re busier than anything, and thank you so much for taking the time, but let’s talk about, spend a few minutes on the importance of food plots and why you think everybody is starting to become, become farmers and supporting deer because of what they’re growing.
Tony Andrews: Well, I, I see it being very beneficial in my area with. I know we’ve got a lot of wheat growing in our area, but this gives the whitetail another option as far as higher protein food. Something that is going to be summer hardy that is going to give them good feed quality throughout the warm season and also supplement, you know, the farmer’s wheat fields that the deer are grazing. And it helps to hold the deer on your property is what I’ve found to be most beneficial.
Bruce Hutcheon: Okay, I’m writing that down. So the biggest thing is they have a food source. Because I’ve heard food, water, and cover and the deer will come, you know, if they’re, you know, if they’re in the area and the better you protect that, then the more deer you’re going to grow. Do you agree on that?
Tony Andrews: Right. I agree wholeheartedly. But then a lot, I guess a lot of our area, the big deer hunting areas is a lot of creek ground, muddy, slumpy areas and then you get further away and then you kind of run into some sand hill areas, and I’ve got a lot of guys that are doing this out in the sand hill areas where the, the forage or the food quality out there is, is mostly just grasses. They’ve got to travel quite a ways to find a good wheat field and things like that, so this, this helps ensure that the deer won’t necessarily leave your property or if they do, they don’t have to go as far.
I mean, we’re, and we’re seeing great results just from some other guys that have tried other, other brands, other varieties that you buy as your big, big box store, big retail stores. And I, and I decided to start doing this to kind of help those guys. You know, me, especially. I don’t want to go out and spend a hundred and fifty bucks on a ten pound bag of seed when I can spend the same amount of money and get a 50 pound bag and do twice as many acres, so that’s kind of my thought.
Kind of my process of why I’m doing this is to make it a little more affordable for some of those guys. Some of the guys that maybe don’t necessarily have the money to buy a lease. Just have a few acres that, you know, a local farmer lets them hunt. They can go in there and scratch up the ground a little bit. I mean, a seed spreader and a rake is really all you need for some of the blends that I offer and I feel lkl that makes it more available to just the every day guy that maybe doesn’t necessarily have a lot of time and doesn’t spend 7 days a week deer hunting. So, you know, I’m just trying to get that market that, you know, anybody can come to me and can afford to buy my seed.