How robust are your wildlife food plots? Can they readily meet a deer’s daily nutritional requirements? For a lot of deer men on the market, it’s all about the fancy name and the fancy bag. Whereas with John O’Brion of Grandpa Ray Outdoors, he just wants to teach you how to get the best utilization on your mineral. Take for instance his cafeteria approach to whitetail food plots, which provides the best nutrition possible for your deer. Learn how to cultivate top-notch nutrition not just for whitetails but also for your horses, goats, and cattle. John has got the kitchen sink into his deer mineral, no carriers, no fillers – he can’t pack any more nutrition!
John O’Brion started Grandpa Ray Outdoors to raise money for youth hunters and wounded veterans groups. When you but their products through dealers or from John’s website, a dollar from many a nutrition product or seed next goes to war. John also used to teach as a guest speaker in the technical college field. Each of his endeavors is basically geared towards his passion in life: education.
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On this show, you’ll hear from John O’Brion from Grandpa Ray Outdoors about how to create awesome food plots where you can grow big bucks.
Listen to the podcast here:
Cafeteria Approach To Food Plots With John O’Brion Of Grandpa Ray Outdoors
We’re talking to John O’Brion and he’s the Founder of Grandpa Ray Outdoors. John’s been in nutrition business for deer and animals for over 25 years. John, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Bruce. I’m glad to be back.
It’s a pleasure having you. I love getting your newsletters. Audience, go to Grandpa Ray Outdoors and sign up for Jon’s monthly newsletter because he has some great information about food plots, about minerals, and everything you want to know or should know about nutrition for those wily bucks. John, let’s talk about what we should be doing in regard to soil preparation and pH in that soil.
Many people ask me, “What should we be doing now?” First thing I ask them is have they taken a soil test? I’m surprised many people haven’t. That’s part of my presentation when I do seminars where I walk them through. I’m their investment banker and I’ll say to them, “You take a soil test. If you have an acidic soil with a low pH, you’re only going to be getting about half the utilization of the fertilizer you put down.” I tell people that the first money you should always spend is on a soil test. Then the next money you should be spending is on line, which a high amount of people out there has low pH soils, then in line is the first thing you should be doing. For those of you that haven’t taken a soil test and haven’t put line down yet, it does take up to six months to work but the sooner you can get out there, the better.
For those people that do have low pH, I did come out with a product called Soil Builder where they will grow a little early in the spring. They will grow with less than ideal soil conditions and will help set up your food plots for the fall. That’s a good place to start. I do have a few other experimental I’m working with for situations like first time food plotters for people that have ground that does need a lot of improvement.
I’d do a pH test. Do I get a kit? Do I go to the AG Center or the county AG guy? How do I do that?
I have a little kit that people can get from me and send it to them. They’ll send samples to me and I’ll take it to a local lab, but most areas in the US have a local soil send for testing lab. Wherever they’re at, check and see who you got locally. For people in Wisconsin, I have a lot of people that get their soil samples for me. I get them to the lab and I’d go come back with my own recommendation. The thing is a lot of the soil lab tests that are done, the recommendations that they get are more related to corn, soy beans, or the clovers, but the brassicas are unique and a lot of people fertilize them backwards. With the stuff I’m using, the New Zealand-type genetics, there’re two things people overlook, which also will help on your liabilities. There’re a lot of labs around the US. There’re some that are certified check labs. I’ll work on phone calls and emails that I can refer you to some that I worked with in different areas and there’re some that are a little bit more reputable now.
People can reach out to you specifically. How do they reach you? Phone, email, website, social media?
My website is www.GrandpaRayOutdoors.com. I’m also at [email protected]. My phone number is 608-235-0628. People can call me between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM Central Standard Time. I’m pretty much on the emails and on the phone and pretty much throughout the day with filling questions from people all over the US. Any of those ways will work and I always try to get back to people within an hour or two if possible.
Do you have social media channels?
I also do a lot of Twittering, @obrionag. I do a lot of blog below, a lot of information pieces. Also, we’re using LinkedIn, Grandpa Ray Outdoors on LinkedIn. I do a lot of posting probably every couple of days on different topics that I find helpful and useful for people, whether you’re a first time food plotter or a seasoned veteran.
How do they get your newsletter? How do they subscribe?
People basically can call me or email me. I’ll fill on my $20 for PayPal and you get a monthly newsletter and then along with that you get 10% off of all the products you buy online or through dealers, whether you have a dealer in your area or I can ship anywhere in the US as well. You get a lot of topics in my newsletters that you won’t read on social media and my other posting, stuff that’s usually more technical, more in depth, maybe insights on the industry. There are a lot of my experimentals that you’re also given access to as a program member. Every year, we’ll have five unique experimental mixes plus some experimental forges that program members have access to. I’ve learned from experience in the past when I talked about some of these new and upcoming products that I need to have enough seed bought at hand and once I bring up stuff it that can start running the prices up in the seed supplies can get tight on some of these new and unique things. Program members get access to stuff that the average person out there will won’t see from me.
What should guys and gals be doing across the country on their food plots?
The soil builder mix is one that you can be planting early. I had a guy from Illinois come up and meet me to get some of that that. He can either breed down or clip it real short and then come back in with your fall brassicas. That’s going to be building up organic matter, fixating nitrogen. For me, for the food plotters, many people need ground bare in the spring, but my goals are always for people to fixate nitrogen, which will help reduce your fertilizer costs, build up soil organic matter, which helps keep it loose, and increasing their soil microbial populations. It also smothers weeds. There are a lot of different options you can plant in the spring. In the fall, the regular crop farmers will put in cover crops, but I would look at it as a spring planting cover crops for the food plot people, which can also give your deer some forage in that too, but it is also setting up your plots for the fall, which is when more people are focusing on planting your food plots.
My comment was for these guys that haven’t taken the soil test and you got some soil improvements needing to be done, planting some species that tolerate some of these less than ideal cases, there’s a definite benefit there to put those out in the spring, helping things along until you can get your fall plots out there. Spring planted cover crops are great and I hate seeing the ground bare ever. These areas with high deer densities, nutrition is a 365-day year venture. Why leave any ground bare?
Nutrition is a 365-day year venture. Share on XWe talked about thinking ahead. What does that mean and what should people be doing about that?
In the row crop and the crop world, you hear a term called crop rotation. I don’t see it enough in the wildlife industry. Many people are focused on what are they going to plant, but then I always ask people, “What are your goals? What do you have now? What are you thinking about for the future?” Because I want to capture some nutrients. For example, if you have a clover plot, according to studies, you’ll get about a 10%, 15% boost in production if you come back with corn after a clover or legume, Alfalfa crop and vice versa. With the corn and the beans, a lot of crop farmers will flop corn and beans out there. A lot of these same concepts you can be doing for your food plots, but captured in. Also brassica, the brassicas for a few years in a row, typically you’ll say rotating something else into the rotation, whether it be a soil builder, soybeans, corn. Think ahead of what role, look at what you’re doing now, but then think ahead to how might that affect you for the future. Another thing I’ll throw in there too, is chemical. If you are using chemicals beyond roundup, some of these do have residuals and that could also affect what you’re going to plant the following year.
I’m looking at developing a three-year plan on my farm. Should it be a three-year plan or five-year plan with the chemicals regarding what we’re going to put for ground cover? Then what are we going to put for coming up crops in the spring and the fall and the winter.
Typically, I like looking at three years because Mother Nature seems to come into play so much in the Midwest and different areas, whether it be drought or maybe a hail came in and then you had to come in with a different crop than what was originally planned. Some of these soil testing labs, like the Rock River Lab in Wisconsin, those you can put down four years in advance what you want to have in that rotation. For me, two years is better than one, three years is better than two, four years would be better obviously than three. Most people, if you can try to plan out about three years, it’d be ideal.
What we’re trying to do is build a balanced herd, increase the forage and the food so does have plenty of milk in the springtime. What have you seen throughout your 25, 26 years or more in the industry when people get serious about a nutrition for deer? What kind of herds are we looking at?
In the people that I’m talking to, different areas, you have a lot of seasoned veterans, whether trying to grow state record deer or have a healthier deer or whatever the goals are, my background is managing such. What I’m looking at doing, no matter if you have an acre to grow a food plot, five acres, 50 acres, there’s a guy that I’m going to go to. He’s got about 100 acres of total food plots and grasses on his property. A couple of nice deer shot on that are on my website on his property. My point is no matter how little or how much ground you have, we want to maximize the amount of available nutrients on that ground. In the grazing world we always call that spore density.
I’ll be doing some education classes at two locations where I’ll be measuring what’s the amount available for us in that spore as well as taking spore tests to show the level of protein, mineral, energy, fiber for these different species. My goal is no matter what you got, let’s maximize it. That might be if you got your growing corn and you’re at 150 bushel an acre, what things can you do to get 200 bushels of corn or another ten bushels of soybeans or another 10%, 15%, 20% more yield on this field? Mostly things cost very little money and it isn’t rocket science, but yet many of these little concepts are overlooked in the wildlife industry.
Let’s talk about your hunting. How did it go and what kind of bucks did you see pass? What did you harvest?
The conversations I’ve had with a couple of people have shot a lot of open young Boon and Crockett type bucks. One guy that has written a bunch of articles for magazines. I said to both of them, “I’m almost to the point now where I’d rather let bucks slip through my customer base where I passed up a lot of nice bucks, I see a lot of deer.” We almost have too many deer in the area where Grandpa Ray’s farm is. My thrill I get is being nice to animals, helping the earth, being healthy through the food plots. There was a couple of unique bucks. I look back and say to myself, “Why do we pass them up?” Yet for me hunting isn’t just about shooting an animal. It’s about seeing an animal, spending quality time with my dad, being able to strip there, being out in nature. The thing I have said to some people is with this mild winter, some of these nice bucks that we passed up last year should be nice bucks for this year and it should be a fun season in Wisconsin and lot of these areas because of the mild winter. I actually didn’t harvest the deer last year, passed up some nice deer that in the past I probably would have harvested. For me, the age here, it’s my goals and my thought patterns have changed and it, yet it was a great. I’ve fallen into it as a successful season even though I didn’t harvest anything.
I’m just going to give a shout out. I talked to a lot of people all over the United States in regards to whitetail hunting and to a man, to a lady, they felt that last season was just one of the hardest seasons they had just because of weather, just because of a lot of conditions. There are a lot of two and a half, three-and-a-half-year-old bucks that walk that are going to be four and a half years old. There’s a tremendous amount of bucks that last year were four and a half, now they’re five and a half years old. I know a couple of places in Wisconsin where I hunt along the Baraboo River plus Buffalo County along the Buffalo River. We knew there were some nice mature bucks, four and a half years or older. That’s what I like to target.
None of those bucks were killed last year. One place is Almaty House. I went with some guys over there and we didn’t harvest the big bucks and everybody’s scratching their head. All of those deer made it through the season. Now we won’t know unless some winter killed or to car killed, stuff like that. That can always make an impact on it. Audience, plan to hunt. Max out of your hunt. It’s going to be a banner year. People are going to be ecstatic. Social media, there are going to be large, mature bucks all over the pages. That’s the one caveat, if the weather cooperates, but plan your hunt now and do the things that John’s talking about because that will have a drastic impact on the production of bone and the healthier herd. Any comments on that, John?
Many people are focused on the now, but as far as deer nutrition, it started in last fall and how we were carrying those deer through the winter, that’s where winter, fall or something that a lot of people overlooked. Having a stockpile, which is the term we use in the graze they committed being extra forage, as they’re able to be carried through into the winter that these deer are able to graze that January and February and then having stuff that the deer are eating that’s going to explore up the ground in the spring. When the doe was healthy and she’s growing a healthy fawn and that fawn didn’t draw in a little sooner. That fawn is going into the winter. The following year, it will be a nicer year and a half old. The growth curve of deer is expected from once that fawn hits the ground and if he’s a nice buck, that didn’t lose as much weight through the winter. There’s a term in the nutritional world called compensatory gain.
If you get a buck that’s actually not having to rebuild its reserves, they’re going to be using more that nutrition in the spring here for putting on antler girth. Look to that. It could be ten, twelve, fifteen inches at the next year growth at that buck wasn’t as succeeded as normal. I knew it’s for a couple of terms out there that people probably haven’t heard about before but in the livestock world, whether you’re talking to baby pig or a baby calf or a young bull on the horse world, nutrition starts the dam, with the doe, with the female of whatever species we’re talking about. Growing big buck starts with the does.
Let’s recap quickly because those are good terms. People are 365-day a year deer hunters and we got to know and up our game if we want to grow the type of deer and have good, healthy, and balanced herd. Can you share some of those with us?
I talked about my background being in the management of grazing and humidity. I did a number of research type projects in the past with my customers. The term stockpiling, most people in the grazing world with cattle would like to try to carry 30% of extra forage into the winter. Some leave traces also in their graze in their animals throughout the winter, a lot of these deer eating during the winter months. A lot of people talk clover, but yet more of the people I’m working with, we’re also looking at putting out alfalfas.
For example, these clovers you don’t have as much matting, you don’t have as much residual dry matter leftover as what you could have with the alfalfas and some of these other legumes. I have been using this standard brassica blend. Look at things like your sugar beets, which is one option, turnips, rutabaga, fodder beet. Sweets, which are slower growing large bulbs, things like that. That will be out there that they’re going to be able to consume in January, February. Another benefit of those bulbs, a lot of people report in that that’s a great way to make it easier to find scraps. Those bucks love that area. They need that added energy and stockpiling winter bulb. That is the very concept stuff that I wish more people would look at doing.
John, let’s talk about the size of plots. Does everything work from a micro plot which could be a 100 square feet or a full acre or more?
Even these bigger plots, there’s a time and a place for everything. Screening will help you move into somebody’s highstand areas. No matter the size or the location of the plot, there are different forages you want to look at because some tolerate shade, some don’t tolerate shade as well. Some need more heat to grow, some tolerate stand, and others don’t like water. What I do with most blends, I subscribed to the cafeteria style approach, which is another term used in the community where I like to put on a variety of species. Some that can also grow fast, some that can tolerate some drought, others that can tolerate a little wetter cool. Things like my unique logger’s trail mix that is used for areas you’re going to drive over a bunch or inside some of these woody shady areas. You won’t find a mix like that in the US, but that’s brought to you from my grazing background.
Another product called Inner Sanctum is basically a mix like what Jay wrote about a couple of years ago in his Deer and Deer Hunting article. I got some unique things in that blend that can give you some really good nutrition and yet some shade tolerance. Just getting that deer, even if it’s a small micro plot, just getting that deer to just stop for just a little period of time, if it’s over a bow stand, it might help give you that opportunity to harvest that deer as it’s transitioning from a bedding area to your main food plot area where those does are at and where that buck is moving towards.
I want to give a shout out to Pete and Paul Martin of Buffalo County Bucks. Great guy, I have hunted with them for many years and they get some great land and like anything, it’s hunting. They’ll get you some great stands there. One of my favorite ones is, along the Buffalo River. Let’s talk about you had something about differences or genetic changes, new species of seeds. Can you talk about that a little bit?
One of my clients when I do seminars, and for those of you that are going to Wisconsin Deer and Turkey Expo, I have a picture that I have on a slide that basically emphasizes that concept. It has a common brassica fits in a lot of the people, the hunters, the industry’s net, side by side, in each side of that common brassica, I got some new and improved genetic species. You can see right away that the color is a lot lighter on the common brassica and then it steps in disease issues. My thing, I talk to people that say, “The deer don’t eat the brassica on their property as well as they should,” there are factors that come into play. One being good soil pH, two be in your soil salt level. An overlooked point is brassicas are not just brassicas. There are numerous different species. There are some that got better disease resistance. If anything that you grow is healthier, it’s going to be higher in nutrients, higher in sugar, and it should be more palatable. I use a lot of the New Zealand genetics, I use a lot of genetics, multigrain where if the deer eats it, it will regrow. People that subscribe to my newsletters, people that go on my website and look at my blogs, you can see I do post stuff like this that shows the difference in genetics and how evident it can be.
Let’s talk about minerals.
Deer mineral, numerous posts in the industry recently. That’s the one thing that just drives me wild in nutrition. It might not seem the most politically correct, but I’ve made this comment saying from the worst minerals I’ve formulated for clients and businesses in the past are better than 90%, 95% of deer minerals on the market, which is sad. My deer minerals course, I might sound biased of course, but there’s nothing like it on the market, but yet it’s the similar concepts is what we use for Amish with their working horses. High-end horses that are being showed or for people that are barrel racing, high-end free choice minerals for the dairy, the cappers, the sick cattle on the industry. There are many people in industry that are putting a fancy bag, a fancy label on deer mineral, but yet there’s only about 6%, 8%, 10% of the amounts of the trace minerals, whereas mine is designed to just meet their daily requirements.
Many of them have very high bio available levels of trace minerals. Even the attractants that aren’t natural to deer, others are very dusty, because they’re not clean and purified. No matter where people buy their deer mineral, I put out there where I show to some large named companies. I welcome people to call me, email me, and send me tapes and I can walk them through what they’re currently buying. I just want to educate people on what is quality, what should you be doing nutritionally to meet their requirements, to be close to what a deer needs for their daily requirements. A high percentage of dear mineral on the market, it’s all about the fancy name and the fancy bag.
Whereas with me, I want people to look at what is quality nutrition and know what you should buy to get the best utilization on your mineral to give the best nutrition as you can for your deer. I got the kitchen sink in my dear mineral, no carriers, no fillers. I can’t pack any more nutrition to the bag of mineral than what I got there. Why settle for anything less than the best on nutrition, whether you’re talking dear horses, goats, cattle? Why not have the best on nutrition for whatever you’re trying to provide a mineral to? That’s the nutritious me talking. My life is nutrition, why sacrifice quality? Why not have the best?
I want people to look at what is quality nutrition and know what you should buy to get the best utilization on your mineral. Share on XJohn, I’m always amazed when I sit down. I do talk to a lot of different people. I’ve got more notes from you. It’s like going back to school, Agriculture 101, because you get a PhD in it. I don’t know if you have a masters or PhD in Ag, but I’m saying perception-wise, you bring it in. Thank you on behalf of Whitetail Rendezvous. Why don’t you take 30 seconds to a minute and give some shout outs to people?
For those of you that don’t know, I started Grandpa Ray Outdoors to raise money for youth hunters’ education that they will be used on the Wisconsin Outdoor Heritage Foundation, and Freedom Outdoor Adventures which are a bunch of wounded veterans’ groups. For people that buy through my dealers or for my website, a dollar from any nutrition product or seed mix goes to those causes. For me, I’m just about education. I used to teach and guest speaking in the technical college field. I regret not becoming a teacher. Everything I do is basically to educate and that’s just my passion. I hope I give people some things to think about and Grandpa Ray Outdoors have started to educate people. That’s my passion and I hope to continue to educate people for many years.
On behalf of Whitetail Rendezvous Nation, thank you so much for being a guest. We’ll make sure people are doing what they should be doing to set up their ground for the winter.
I appreciate it, Bruce.
Whitetail Nation, make sure you listen to our next episode where you’ll hear about predator control from pro staffer, Jerry Lannan of Predator Quest TV.