Turkey Habitat Management Basics

If you're wondering how to tweak management on your property for better quality turkey habitat, look no further. Drs Marcus Lashley and Will Gulsby talk with Moriah about the most common issues they see on properties and how a few simple tweaks can greatly move the needle for turkey management. From prescribed fire to food plots, brooding plots, and more, the guys discuss some clear achievable improvements you can make on your property to create better turkey hunting.

Transcript

Moriah Boggess: 0:02

Welcome to Wildlife Investments, where we discuss research, habitat, hunting, and land management with panel of leading resource managers. Wildlife Investments. Resource management by scientists. Alright, everybody, welcome back to the Wildlife Podcast. I'm Mariah Boggus, and I have Dr. Marcus Lashley and Dr. Will Goldsby with me today, and we are going to talk turkeys. I know it's it's finally turkey season, so we're shift the focus towards sort of just the basics of turkey management. And I know if you know Marcus and Will, it's from the Turkey Science Podcast, and they cover everything you want to know about turkey management, the most research. And today we thought we would sort of take a step back and focus on sort of the basics of property management for turkeys and looking at kind of the typical property that's maybe being managed somewhat for but maybe not well. And I'm gonna let Marks and Will sort of work through they often see marks being missed for turkeys and what are those basics that any landowner can start without having to spend a whole bunch of time in what are all the basics, the low-hanging fruit that can adopt to really maximize the value of their property for turkeys. So, guys, what I would love to do is just start this in consideration of let's say somebody has a 100 to 200 acre property. So those turkeys are obviously the birds are moving in and off of that property. They don't it's not so large that it contains, I mean, even daily move necessarily, you guys can speak to of the turkeys, but they might do some burning every four, five years when they kind of think of it. They probably have some pretty dense ponds. There's some woody understory in those ponds. They probably have some clover food plots that has a of ryegrass in it. That's the condition you walk in on. So I guess you guys take it from there, and I just want to hear you know all the basics and everything that those someone like that could be adopting.

Dr Will Gulsby: 2:13

Well, Mariah, I was kind of wondering when y'all were turn to the light and start talking turkeys on here I've been listening to the other episodes, and they're all good, but they've been real deer focused. So I'm glad you've finally come around. So thanks for having us. No, absolutely. It's time. You're you're describing a property context that would say, the most common context that I walk into for sure. I mean, it's essentially what you just described, always.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 2:46

Yeah. I would say one of the few things that does tend to be changing over the years is you mentioned, you maybe they're burning a little bit. It seems like when I first started working with years ago, it was not uncommon at all to step onto a property that had never, you know, it was just totally dense forest, never been burned. I think folks are starting to understand the benefits of thinning and burning their woods now, but I think the the next major hurdles to get through are how should they be burning, when should they be and then also, and perhaps even more importantly, how they should be managing their fields.

Dr Will Gulsby: 3:31

Yeah, well, when you were saying that it made me reflect real real fast. And I'm wondering if that I'm wondering if that is a true trend, or if folks have been hearing us talk about it they start dabbling in it, and by the time they get to us, yeah, they've started dabbling and then they they need some help to actually plan this out into a that will work to maximize turkeys.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 4:02

Well, that does seem to be a common theme when we do site visits with landowners, is many of them have to m a lot of our podcasts, if not all of them, and they understand all the tools in the toolbox that should be applying, but they just don't know and how.

Dr Will Gulsby: 4:18

Yeah. And I but you you said another thing that I think is the case because even those people, when I go onto properties, their food pots look shitty.

Moriah Boggess: 4:31

Yeah.

Dr Will Gulsby: 4:31

I mean, they're like if we're talking about a low-hanging fruit, wouldn't I step onto a property, something that could immediately be changed, where you could realize a gain in the same year, is just to change how you how prepare your f warm your uh cool season food plots to into something, you know, in the spring, starting a warm season that will be beneficial for turkeys. Because what typically is the case is what Mariah earlier, where they are planting something in the food plot, and it's generally decent for deer, but dealing with the weed problems, and if they're in the that's going to include ryegrass. And by the time you get around to turkey season, a lot of the time it's too tall already to hunt turkeys there. And by the time you get around to May, when we're to get some pults on the ground, or you may may even have some late nests in, that field is is terrible for a Like it's as bad as you can make it, just about. So I I agree with you when when you said the fruit is fields, and changing that, that's one thing you can do right away. That you're almost always going to realize a real gain from it really fast, is let's change the way that we're implementing our food pot program for deer. Not really that much in some cases. You don't necessarily have to completely you're doing in the fall food pots, but taking a few steps to make sure that that field is going to be for turkeys in the spring turkey season, and more when there's a brood on the ground, that that is a really low-hanging fruit that could substantially affect the and productivity of your turkey population.

Moriah Boggess: 6:38

So at a high level, most commonly, what are those basic steps you're talking about, Marcus?

Dr Will Gulsby: 6:44

Yeah. You know, when when I'm thinking about turkeys as part of even if you're a deer first person, which I know there's plenty of folks that come to wildlife that are deer primary or or at least first, and a those people like turkeys and want that too. And then if they're coming to me or willed, usually it's reverse of that. One thing that I would change immediately is I would about which plants you're selecting in that plot. And are you trying to maximize deer forage? Which we might give you some recommendations throughout the year if you're trying to manage specifically for forage. A couple of the clovers in particular, like red and arrowleaf clover, was what's another one that really commonly, like balanza, some of those clovers are lasting a little bit longer, they're stemmier and I might drop those out and think about like a crimson with wheat or oats or or something something like that, where those plants are going to senesse relatively in the new year and give way to some of our forbs. So that's one thing to consider at planting. Another thing that needs to be considered is what is weed problem? And if you've got ryegrass, that needs to be dealt So if you're planting ryegrass, which is actually more common than I would have ever believed, but people are still planting ryegrass in their plots. But even if you aren't, you probably still have a with it. Right now in the year is a good time to see if you've that problem because there's a bunch of seed heads out, at least in North Florida, I'm seeing them So you can evaluate that problem, but it's too late to deal with it this year right now, unless you get up a higher in latitude than I am. But taking some steps by using a grass-selective early in the year, so the the ryegrass has already established but has not gone to seed yet, you can use an application of a product like clethodum to kill that selectively. And in my experience, the the ryegrass is kind It's relatively easy to control. Yeah. If you've got uh some other grasses or if you have a of some Forbes that are problems in your food pot, you might do that a little differently. So we might use a soil residual herbicide in our, you if you have established crimson clover, you for example, and that would allow you to control with residual activity some of the problematic plants. But the the main thing that you're doing is could you might change the consideration of which plants you're planting, but the most important factor is to identify those weed problems and get rid of them. And if you do that, you can quickly have a really high quality field that's it that's fun to hunt in and to turkeys, and then that transition can can be really valuable for brooding cover if you're playing right.

Moriah Boggess: 10:10

So what I'm hearing, Marcus, is you're not planting the 13-way mix. No.

Dr Will Gulsby: 10:16

Not not I mean you know, like that's what I'm saying. You need to figure out what is your objective and and and manage that field to meet that objective. That doesn't mean you can't have some fields that trying to maximize forage production year-round for If that's your objective, that's there's nothing with that. But don't expect that to also yield turkey And you know, a lot of people have 10, 15, 20 fields on their property. There's nothing to say you can't do something different in it in one than another.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 10:53

Yeah. To build off a couple of things that Marcus too, and I think that was a really good overview. Even if your objective is just to maximize deer and you're not really concerned about providing brooding cover, I think you should be treating the the grass the ryegrass in your food plots anyway. So I've got an undergraduate researcher right now finishing up a little project looking at using to control ryegrass in clover food plots, and the final numbers aren't in yet, but we've seen a increase in the biomass production of clover just that clethodom application. So you're accomplishing potentially two once. And in worst case scenario, you're accomplishing the objectives of maximizing deer forage. Best case, you get the deer forage and the brooding cover. So I think that's a no-brainer, especially as cheap as you can get generic clethedum and as little time as it takes to spray it, it's very effective. The other thing that I was going to mention kind of more broadly and at a higher level, even than Marcus got into, was that I feel like most folks that are first that also would like to have some turkeys just simply plant their fall food plots and they never anything with them again throughout the year. Yeah, they just walk away and don't. They walk away from them. So over the years, oftentimes they've pretty wide diversity and high abundance of warm weeds throughout that food plot, some of which may be beneficial, but many of which are probably with accomplishing that turkey habitat So just by going in and doing something like he like maybe a pursuit application to deal with those problems pre-emergence in late winter, early could go a long way towards bettering that area for turkeys throughout the hunting season and season, as well as controlling that ryegrass. So I think that's a first really good cut at it. And then I think as you move from that objective being more of a turkey first person, or even if not a turkey first, maybe the deer are doing your property, and you have certain food plots to creating tonnage of forage for those, but you to start specifically tailoring some food well, then you can start thinking about doing like Marcus suggested, where you're removing, some of the red clover, the arrowleaf clover, the and you're just going with a crimson, and not only but maybe you're even going with a crimson at a lower rate. We oftentimes recommend a lower seeding rate of so that you get a little bit more open structure up underneath it while you've still got that overhead and that shade that broods can use.

Dr Will Gulsby: 13:32

Yeah, I would uh you know, another thing that you can is you're not necessarily planting all of your and thinking about what you're doing in some of those openings. For example, discing those in the the late winter and an application of plateau can be a great way to start field down a path that it's going to grow into early plant community and structure that will be beneficial in those odd areas that you may not be using for anything otherwise. Yeah, that's a great point.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 14:10

I mean, to thinking about roadsides, little plots that you ask yourself every year why am I wasting my time planting this? The big one that I encounter a lot in site visits landowners is food plots that are unproductive or food plots that have unproductive portions. Maybe they have low soil fertility or they're highly erodible. Maybe they've got too much of a slope on them. They just really never do that well. I've worked with several landowners and said, hey, just quit trying to fight and making this into soil that'll grow, you know, a large tonnage of for deer or whatever other objective, and let's manage this as native early succession because lower fertility areas lend themselves to creating a better plant community for brooding anyway. So it's kind of a win-win situation where it's saving the landowner time, energy, and effort while also a relatively low productivity area that they may not even be planting to begin with towards accomplishing another turkey-related objective.

Dr Will Gulsby: 15:09

Yeah. That that's a great point and way to think about this. Another thing I wanted to ask you, Mariah, I know of the folks with the wildlife investment team had working on an analysis about buck use of food Has that been discussed already?

Moriah Boggess: 15:28

I don't think we've discussed it at length, but you the the the bottom line is that there is a there's a in time or there's a point in size around three or four acres where you start to hit diminishing returns a larger plot's not accomplishing much from a deer total number of deer using it, unique deer using it. I think that's probably what you're getting at yeah, larger opening.

Dr Will Gulsby: 15:52

Well, let's just think about that for a minute. But and we can incorporate what Will just said, but if you are trying to maximize your open space and you food plots that are bigger than that three or four acre space, why not take part of that and make it really high quality early succession that can be high quality You're not losing that from a deer standpoint, that's good stuff, but you're also taking advantage of that space for turkeys. And I think you know that that is a phenomenal way for people to use our research, the the stuff that we keep you know working on hard to try to maximize these That to me is a perfect example of where you can You've got openings that are larger than what is optimal for for maximizing buck use, or at least you know buck use. So why not take some of that extra space to make it focal on turkeys? And by the way, when I'm looking at brooding cover, I'm thinking about forb-dominated communities, which to all pretty much be over 25% crude protein and highly selected by deer. So it's not like you're losing that space, but you focusing your effort on creating something different in that case.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 17:18

The property that I did the majority of my deer on this fall and winter, the landowner had already a portion of it. The field, I think, is probably about three and a four acres in total area, and he took about an and a half or so out of production. It was kind of a long rectangle, and he took out one side of that rectangle out of production, has it for native early successional vegetation, and course, even if you're managing it for brooding which we typically think of as low cover, as Marcus just mentioned, with bare ground even if you manage for that, by the time you get late summer and early fall, that's going to grow up pretty tall and dense anyway, if you're in fairly soils. And that's this the site was pretty productive in a little floodplain of a creek. And it ended up being great structure for deer. And I sat in that stand overlooking that food plot times, some you know, several of them with my kids. My daughter harvested deer out of that plot this and you could see, you know, those la that last half hour of sunlight, deer would just pour out early successional area. And I think they were probably many of them were in it. Some of them were transitioning through it, but a lot of them were bedding in it, and they would just out of that vegetation into the food plot, and of them would even hug the edge of it. So I think you could probably increase your daytime use or your hunting hour use by deer by having like that adjacent to a productive food plot. And the food plot was planted in wheat and clover.

Dr Will Gulsby: 18:54

Isn't that fun to hunt in? Yeah. Watching them walk around in that just that's so fun. One thing I was gonna add to what you just said, I've worked with several landowners where we're we're about this very stuff and trying to design it to you know the situation. So another you don't have to just randomly pick areas One thing that a couple of landowners that I've with have now done this and it's been really effective, they have situated their that fallow space that they're going to manage for brooding cover and and nesting cover right at the edge of the field between wherever their is or their point of entry is and the field. So they've often got an elevated shooting house that's sitting off of the plot, in some cases it's right on of the plot, and it's particularly important there. But they they have the, you know, ideally you'd have that shooting house off of the plot, and you can access it with deer in the field or leave it with deer in the field without them ever knowing, and having that early succession in between can often provide you screening cover and help you do that. So I've seen that done really well a couple of times and you know, that's the same thing they report. Like it's so fun to hunt in that context, it's helping you reduce the the pressure that you're giving on deer when you're actually hunting it, because it's allowing you to access it safely and get a get down and leave deer are in the field. And on top of that, you're getting this high-quality cover in association with your food plot. So I yeah, I think they're those are great examples of how you can integrate these objectives into a place for deer and turkey together.

Moriah Boggess: 20:49

So, you know, one thing that I always notice too is even if fields are relatively small on a property and might need most of that room to plant, every property so many odd little areas, roadsides, little logging or something. And it seems like the default it always turns into is just a mode plot. Even if it was never seeded with something, you end up with Bahia grass, maybe Bermuda grass in there. And so I'm I'm guessing that's something else you are focused a lot on, too, is trying to pull in all of those weird little areas and make them usable.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 21:24

Yeah. The less open acreage there is across the the more emphasis I put on managing those areas well. Because they do add up, and you know, oftentimes we even recommend to landowners to expand those roadsides and daylight them so that we can create some brooding areas down through there, too.

Dr Will Gulsby: 21:45

on me. We we've spent the whole episode focused on these early successional communities in association with There's a reason why we're doing that. First of all, it's a low hand. Fruit, but also our data indicates that we have an Turkey populations are have been struggling in some and there is good evidence that we are not recruiting well. And there's also good evidence that that's not of nesting. We just did an episode on this. We'll went through the literature, and I'm talking all of the studies ever published on nesting. That hasn't changed over time, or it doesn't appear to have. But what we have seen is that the number of polts per has declined. So to me, that tells me it's not at the nesting stage, it's at the polt rearing stage. And it makes perfect sense when you go and look at at any property on the landscape. Generally, I would I would first be concerned about polt rearing cover. That's usually the limiting factor. Yeah, I mean it makes a lot of sense.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 23:03

The first conversation that you start having during a site visit is about increasing the and quality of that brooding cover. And as I'm describing it, oftentimes, Marcus, I have shared the story because the same thing happens to you all the time. The landowner will say, Okay, well, I want you to it out to me when we see some, like what looks good. And on most properties, I can't find a good And it doesn't matter. And that's even been the case on you know 800, acre plus properties. Yes. You have to be so intentional about it.

Dr Will Gulsby: 23:39

Yeah, and when it is available, it's because they've got something they just burned. Yes. It's normally not in the openings, but you know, the you described, Mariah, where they're not burning and frequently in the woods, and the woods aren't you know, at the canopy level to allow the response fire, we're we are more reliant on the fields being in good shape for that. The turkeys are more dependent on the fields to be good brooding cover when you're in that forest context. Yeah. You know, in other words, if you're managing your and you have areas that are relatively low tree density where you're getting plenty of sunlight into the forest floor and you're burning frequently, those can serve really high quality brooding cover, and you're less on producing all of that in fields. But uh, you know, a lot of properties they don't have one. And then, you know, they're asking me why their turkey population is suffering, and then to me that's There's nowhere that a POLT can be raised, you're not have any raised.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 24:53

Yeah, and continuing off of that, as I alluded oftentimes landowners aren't burning frequently to provide that brooding and nesting cover within open forest. So, you know, it varies by where you are and your productivity and you know, your climate, all those of things. But generally speaking, if you let an area go plus years, unless it has a lot of canopy or soils or has a very short growing season, like we at further north latitudes, if you're not disturbing it every two years, you're starting to form a significant hardwood component in the And, you know, that's fine if you're trying to for maximizing deer forage and cover. You know, I have some data that suggests that a burn rotation is associated with an abundance of biomass, maybe not the highest quality. You know, we get a highest quality often for deer a shorter return. But, you know, with turkeys, oftentimes, you know, get a year of brooding cover following the burn, then the next year it's nesting cover. And if you don't set it back again, it's gonna to be nesting cover, but it quickly becomes too to provide brooding opportunities. And also the hardwood encroachment starts, and we may be at a point, and this is the other common that we see, where it's gonna be very difficult that plant community back to a forb-dominated conducive to brooding without going in with an application as well. So oftentimes we're having to pair fire with as I often refer to it as a restoration step before we can get to the maintenance phase with just fire. We don't want to have to continue to you know spray herbicide for a variety of reasons. You know, the obvious one is expensive, right? And it sets us back a couple of years on our plant but we don't want to have to continue to do that over time. We want to get to the place where we can just manage that with fire. I'm kind of curious.

Moriah Boggess: 26:51

This is a question for both of you guys. With deer, and you said this will, you know, sometimes we do try to lengthen out that burn rotation a and that might be to help better develop cover, some cover, some holding cover, diversify plant communities for forages. But oftentimes, yeah, like we're somewhere around two-year rotation, it especially in the deep south. But I'm I'm curious for both of you if we were to apply that two-year rotation and think about some of the you've worked farther north, maybe this in the Tennessee, or even farther north, do you think that that's really focused on turkeys can go wrong with rotation like that? Can it ever be too short for turkeys, I guess, is my If you're getting good consumption, you're getting fuel to carry a fire. Good question.

Dr Will Gulsby: 27:40

The only place that I have seen it where I might be a concerned about it is when we're in really poor sites. Deep sands. Yeah, and in that case, with a relatively frequent you have a lot of brooding cover, but not very much cover. But then I say that, and one of the studies I in, there was still the sand hill was dominating the and the it was on a three-year rotation, and it still have that much nesting cover in the uplands, but that we were tracking were using the wetter areas the fringe of those wetter areas for nesting, and their nesting success was exceptional. So you know, when I'm thinking about this, uh I I have realized over time, and Will and I have had this multiple times, that my recommendations early on in my career were heavily influenced by the previous of scientists and what they were recommending. And as I have focused more and more on fire more and more on turkeys and what turkeys need, I gotten shorter and shorter on what I think is the fire return interval.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 29:05

I think that's a that's a really good point, Marcus. And I'll provide another example kind of on the extreme end of this of the spectrum. I've encountered a couple of properties where they annually and always in the winter, and over time, it was on fairly productive soils, and over time they developed a very dense, rank, tall stand of native season grasses throughout all their woodlands and to the point that turkeys were almost no longer those areas. So that can happen too. So you know, we're trying to find the balance those two extremes.

Dr Will Gulsby: 29:44

Yeah, and you might you might use some other another of fire, like we talked a lot about moving it around the the late growing season, that can be an effective way to deal with some of the grass issues or herbicide or in fifth rows, you know, things like that can be used help deal with with issues. But yeah, if you're burning every two years for the next ten years in in February, you're you're gonna shift to grass.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 30:16

Yeah, and I'll say one other thing that can lead to that problem as well is when you have really open So you start getting into like savannah type you know, grass is gonna be the most functional group of of any of those groups compared to you know, Forbes and Woody plants, etc. So it can when you get in that really high sunlight environment, so we're talking about like 20, 30, 40 basal area stands, you can end up fighting a little bit in those situations just because it so well in that high sunlight environment. So there are places where I know that I'm going to manage a woodland. Notice I use the term woodland, not savanna, so we're talking about a higher canopy cover, maybe 30 to 80 percent canopy cover throughout the stand. I'll intentionally carry a little bit that I don't have to fight quite as hard to keep that grass density low. But most landowners aren't even to that point they can start worrying about tweaks like that.

Dr Will Gulsby: 31:18

Well, I also I kind of want to reverse back to something that that Mariah said earlier that made me want want say this. I I see this pretty commonly where people are managing for deer and they're using a little bit longer rotation and they're it's sort of like they want everything to bedding cover because bedding cover holds deer. But even when I'm managing for deer, that's not what I want to do. And I I've heard people respond with man, I'm so well that now I can't even see the deer. I got them. They're all here. But I don't have anywhere, like I don't know where at, you know. I think one another thing that people could be thinking about, maybe you you want the longer rotation for deer for bedding cover, but you don't want that everywhere. They're still going to benefit from that more frequent fire return because it's producing tons of literally and tons of food that's high quality, and then be strategic about where you put the bedding cover. So when I'm working with landowners, I'm immediately I like to focus on fields or stands where they already they already know there's deer here, and this is where they're concentrating some of their hunting And then let's think about how we access that stand and food, you know, softening on a food plot, and where we put bedding cover so that they can access it and get out of there without ever disturbing deer in the bedding cover, and then we're gonna dedicate that space. And it might only be five to ten acres, but we're doing that really strategically to make sure they can where they want to hunt and get out of there without the deer in the bedding cover. And it's such a transformative thing for your because you're not wondering where the deer are now. They're all over there in that bedding cover. If you're in there at two o'clock in the afternoon, where the deer are gonna be. They're in that bedding cover and you've you've them to that. And you can distribute those strategically property so that you know those locations, and maybe you have stands between them to take advantage of advantage of rutting behavior, where they're gonna bounce between the the cover, or you're between the cover and the pot if you're you know hunting, bow hunting or or you're just situating it such that you can get stand that's sitting on the food pot to take advantage of them coming out in that in the evening. But I don't want the whole property to be bedding cover. You know, that that's the context where you're it up to be huntable for deer, and then it's otherwise really productive for deer, and in that case, that of landscape will also be much more productive and generally for turkeys.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 34:23

Yeah, I'm glad you made that last point, Marcus, what we typically think of as bedding cover, you know, a turkey cannot walk through it and stick its head above it and see, you know, any predators that may be around. And so you don't want too much of that on the Generally speaking, you want them to be able predators well in advance and take advantage of how fast they are and how well they can fly, you know, to get away from that. So they make their living from their eyesight.

Dr Will Gulsby: 34:50

That's right. And, you know, we we have some work coming out. Uh I just got the note that it's good that it's gonna accepted in the journal. So one thing that we're really concerned about is success has not declined generally over time based stuff Wheels worked on. But one thing has been illuminated from one of our projects is what we would typically associate with high quality bedding cover for deer, where it's a woody you know, mess where it has a lot of of uh hardwood stems in in it or pine stems. Hens might choose that for nesting, and they may have similar nesting success. But one thing that's very different is when she's by a predator, she's much more likely to die in that She cannot escape the predation. And that that, you know, the hen's survival is the most important thing, and that was a red flag for me that's coming straight from our research. When you have high visual obstruction that we typically think of for good nesting cover for turkeys, that's It increases nesting success. We're seeing uh a 5% increase in nesting success for one every 1% increase in visual obstruction. So you just if you're wondering what that is, kneel and see how far you can see. The less far you can see, the more visual obstruction is. Okay, so we're thinking about that from that point When that visual obstruction is being driven by by so you think about saplings of pines and hardwoods, is making her really vulnerable to predators. When she gets detected, she dies much more that context.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 36:42

And I think, too, the the really great thing about from looking at it from a hunting perspective when comes down to the stand level management, is that it makes for a better hunt when you have a more understory as well, based on our gobbling data we collected several years ago in Alabama, that that probability of gobbling within a stand decreases with woody coverage in the understory, and it with forb cover in the understory. So by managing for that forb-dominated understory, not only increasing the likelihood that that you know, potentially successfully nest and live to nest again next year, but you're also the hontability of that stand as well and the of it to gobblers in the spring.

Moriah Boggess: 37:28

So I I love all that talk about how many different conditions you can have in a quote unquote burn stand, right? Like a managed pine stand that's been burned. And obviously, we we know from a deer perspective, they they can live under a lot wider variety of conditions still do well. Like a property that isn't getting burned is still gonna have deer on it. They just that's why they're not as fun to manage for Hey now, I'm trying to set you up with a good question here.

Dr Will Gulsby: 38:03

If you do all the stuff we're talking about, you're have really good deer hunting. Okay. So focus on turkeys.

Moriah Boggess: 38:10

Here's my here's my my I guess my point is that even a deer perspective where we're like, okay, yeah, you mess up deer, but you can improve them a lot. I see a lot of burning happening where I and this making an out outside you know judgment or or of what I think is going on. It seems like a lot of managers, landowners burn because it's good, but maybe don't understand why. You know, they're not necessarily managing a plant they're just burning. They're not looking at it at that level. So if we now you know think about, I can recognize problems with deer, and usually, like to Marx's point, it's just that those plant communities aren't putting where we want them. We're not really making deer more predictable, and we not even be providing all the different we want to provide deer because it's just somewhat But now if we think about that from a turkey and you guys said earlier on how it seems like more more people are burning, which is awesome. But when you go out to a property that's being burned on some frequency, how often would you say that there's a lack of planning that's leading to a lot left on the In other words, they might be burning a stand, but it's still just not providing what turkeys need from a community standpoint.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 39:29

Almost every one of them.

Moriah Boggess: 39:31

So how can they fix that?

Dr Marcus Lashley: 39:32

Almost every one of them. And and I even see, you know, landowners that I with that have, you know, site management plans from other people or organizations, and it just a blanket, you know, return frequency, and that's You should burn every you know X to Y years to good understory diversity for wildlife. I read that all the time. And that is, you know, fire is a means to an end, like herbicide is a means to an end. If you don't know what you're after when you apply it, then how do you know how to apply it or when to it? And so what I always thought it was successful. Right. Or if it was, yeah, if it was even successful. So you need to start with understanding what it is you're actually trying to achieve from a from a community structure and species composition Once you understand that, the the line that I use is let the plants tell you when to burn. And use a burn frequency and a burn season, and it it's not always going to be the same, right? Like even on the same property, I may need to burn a certain stand at times on a two-year rotation, but every now and then I may need to burn it for a of consecutive years, or you know, change up in my periodically based on what I'm seeing from a So the important thing is to know what the plant should look like and to apply a fire prescription keeps you within those parameters for as long a as possible, so that we have that usable space on the landscape in the abundance and the for the that is optimal.

Dr Will Gulsby: 41:20

And let me let me uh add to this. One one thing that I see you kind of ignored, but I think it it absolutely should be considered heavily here is soil types you have and their productivity. That's not often considered. Some of your less productive stuff often can be as really high quality brooding cover, and you to focus that effort there, or you might be adjusting return, like if you've got an area that's super and wet, and you got green ash trying to invade it, you know, you might want to burn that more frequently if trying to keep it in that that same structure. So, you know, that should be considered. But another thing that I always consider I I'm a been a hunter my entire life, and I'm think like the whole reason all these people are doing this. There's nothing wrong with you having an exceptional site where you've got, you know, 30, 40, 50 years of memories of turkey hunting there, and it's just always been productive. Well, maybe that stand that's you know, that strip of right next to that you can keep burned every year so it's always exceptional for a strutting turkey it's right next to this historical roost. And you know, I I've had a few landowners, one in that you know, we talked about that one when I've been on his property every time, where he has a place just sentimental to him. Like he's his first turkey was there, and his kid's turkey was there, and his brother's first turkey was You know, like it's been this critical point in space. Why not keep that in an annual turn return? And that's the place where you're gonna keep it in that condition that you have all these great memories and you know facilitate that hunting success from that major route site. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with structuring the way that doing this and considering the huntability and the value in that plan. You don't just have to do a blanket, oh, two years best, I'm gonna do that everywhere. No, you c this is your land and you get to decide what you do with it, and you're doing it often because you hunting. So why not consider that in it and tweak it to maximize that? Yeah.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 43:53

I mean, I hunted a place this this past weekend for youth season with my daughter, and There's some food plots on that place that are just mowed right now. They're going to be transitioning into summer forage plots for deer, you know, being probably plants in the ground in the next few weeks. But right now they're just mowed and open for zones. And there's nothing wrong with that. And and then also on the opposite end of that extreme, there's nothing wrong. You know, turkeys need shady areas, they need roosts. So there's nothing wrong with having some deciduous forest on the property, too.

Dr Will Gulsby: 44:27

Yeah, that's needed.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 44:29

Yeah. I mean, who doesn't like to see a strutting through big beautiful hardwoods?

Dr Will Gulsby: 44:33

Yeah.

Moriah Boggess: 44:34

You don't have to do the same thing everywhere. I think that's a good point to bring up here, because we have a really zealous landowner listening, they say, hey, we need to go out and thin every square inch and start burning it on a you know real short interval.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 44:45

That but that is a concern. Yeah. You you need loafing areas, you need roost sites. We talk about this commonly, I've heard Will talk it a bunch. You you're you know, if you've got this this roost site, you need to be very careful to maintain it. Yeah. Yeah, I've seen landowners go in and cut those and lose the turkeys. That roost is gone. Turkeys don't roost in that part of the property

Dr Will Gulsby: 45:11

Yeah, or or cut it off because of some timber work. That's a possibility too. Yeah, so it you know that d that can't be understated, like the diversity in management practices and all the needs and having some closed canopy hardwood a nice little cool area that's really high visibility. That's good. It just doesn't need to all be that.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 45:35

Yeah, we talk a lot about you know, open canopy or savannah that's frequently burned for turkeys that's what we commonly see is most lacking across landscape. But I have a good friend who is a forester and a biologist that does a lot of work on really lands and does a lot of burning and things like that. And he often says, and I totally agree with him, the best way to screw up a good turkey property is turn it into a good bobwite property. You know, a quail plantation is not the look you want to manage for to maximize turkey abundance. If your goal is to maximize turkey abundance, we want it that open. You know, we want and we want it more diverse than you would typically manage a quail property to be.

Dr Will Gulsby: 46:26

So when you're saying that, I immediately think we want it that open everywhere. Exactly. Like with quail, when you're maximizing quail, you're for that open structure like over the the entire Right. Or nearly ubiquitous. Whereas with turkeys, you need some other habitat mixed into it that wouldn't be habitat for a quail.

Moriah Boggess: 46:50

Well, I think a real temptation with somebody for with smaller acreage, I'm gonna say anything know 200 acres or something, is that you want in in context, you want to maximize your property's value. And I think a a real temptation is to say, hey, maybe uplands are pines, you get those thin, you're burning and then you start to look at the riparians and you start wanting to apply like FSI, go through maybe tree release and and thinning those way down. And I'm not saying that that's bad, but from what you are saying here, I think that's obviously worth just the value of those natural riparians running through a great corridor, right? They're loafing cover in their transition and as such, especially if they're narrow, from a turkey it's a good thing, right?

Dr Marcus Lashley: 47:39

Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, if as you get down into that area, that that's a great place where you can apply variable retention or edge feathering, where of that, as you start to transition into the more forest type, you can have the edges of it more open, and that's probably where you're gonna have your oaks anyway. And then as you get down into the wetter, higher site, and maybe it transitions more into like beech and maple and things like that, leave it more canopy, and it's not gonna lend itself well to anyway, or or having a uh herbaceous dominated community. So it can kind of I mean you're working with the of the system, right?

Moriah Boggess: 48:18

Okay, so we've covered managing food plots, dialing food plot management, plantings, ryegrass weed control. We've talked about fire return, we've talked a little about thinning, now loafing cover, roosting areas. Is there anything else that we're missing? Do you guys want to touch on warm season food plots, Is there anything we really need to dive into there for the average landowner?

Dr Marcus Lashley: 48:46

We can. I am, I think Marcus and I both are kind of at a right now where we are experimenting with different food plot plantings and combinations to create brooding cover. We have a whole protocol that we often recommend and implement related to managing those areas for native early successional plants that provide cover, but we don't have as much experience with plantings, and we have some ideas of some things that we're trying to use, and I alluded earlier to going with like a lower clover planting rate, for example, so that you have more space between plants for pults to move through and still have a little bit of shade and overhead structure. But like for instance, I'm starting to trial this season a combination of buckwheat and vetch, guys talk about vetch for deer food plots on here, sure, all the time, and talk about you know how in protein it is, it can withstand heavy browsing easy to grow, all those all those advantages, but it also planted at the correct rate, which is kind of part of what we're tweaking right now, can pretty good pulp rearing cover too. And you add in buckwheat to that because the jumps out of the ground so quickly while that vetch is still establishing, and buckwheat a lot of insects that are beneficial to polts too. So I think that's a pairing that lends itself towards creating some of that breeding cover while still the deer objective that almost everyone has in their warm season plots as well. But it's still kind of early for me to kind of put full stamp of approval on that.

Dr Will Gulsby: 50:19

Yeah, I like the the bottom line. If you're doing some of this other stuff that we're about with field management, in terms of productivity turkeys, I don't think that you can go wrong. Like when I'm saying productivity, I wanted to be very clear what I mean. I mean that polts are able to forage efficiently and in it to maximize their success and growth rate. So we can accomplish that by tweaking the cool season but Will is right. We also realize that people like to plant stuff for warm season, and I'm looking for answers on how can we what you would be planting for deer in the warm season to also make it really high quality for polt And you know, we're we have active work going on right now where we're gonna be rearing polts in different that we you know, different combinations, and the data just isn't available yet, but it will be soon. So stay tuned because I'm really excited about that's principally because everywhere I go, we need brood rearing cover, and folks are they're often in a where they don't have enough open space where they to give up any, or at least they view it as giving it they don't want to give that space for to to focus on rearing, they want to plant it for warm season food for deer. So if we can come up with a similar strategy as what described from that cool season planting, where we can have our cake and eat it too, so to speak, where you get that high-quality food production for and and everything for pulps, you know, I I'm excited roll that out as soon as we can figure it out.

Moriah Boggess: 52:17

Yeah, for sure. Well, okay, I got one last thing, and I think it's the one that everyone's wondering about. If a landowner only has so much effort, so much money, so much time to put into managing their property, how of that effort should they put into trapping

Dr Marcus Lashley: 52:38

If it's preventing them from doing other to habitat, I would suggest that they don't do it all.

Dr Will Gulsby: 52:43

I I agree with that. And let me just say it really succinctly why. Marcus has to manage on it because he's been burned by the these comments too many times. When when you manage for high quality habitat, it is effective because it reduces predation. The vegetation management that we're talking about management. You are managing predation. Habitat quality works. It's high quality because it reduced predation, That's not the only thing it did, but that's one thing it did. So adding predator removal on top of that's fine. Absolutely. But doing it in place of it is not.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 53:44

I mean, that's the extreme example, but you know, are a gradient of that. They're along that same gradient. So habitat, I think, and I don't have research necessarily supports this, it's be a really hard to study, but I think it gets you three-fourths or know, maybe even four-fifths of the way there in of achieving the maximum abundance of turkeys that property can support, and you get that extra 20, 25% on top of that, if you are able to effectively predators as well. And that's that's an important term to throw in there, is effectively, because if you're talking about a landowner, they're probably not going to be effectively control predators out there, you going on a weekend here and there.

Dr Will Gulsby: 54:30

Yeah. You know, we we borrow the data that's been quail showing that this can be effective at some scale and intensity, it can make a difference in some But the quail community also call it an add-on. That is what it is. Even in the quail world, that is an add-on. If you take fire away from the system and all of the habitat effects that fire has, you don't have quail of the predators. Right? The the adding adding predator management on top of habitat management, it is an add-on practice when your objective is to maximize that species, even in the world, where we have really good data on the of trapping, and we borrow that all the time for Even in the quail world, it's considered an add-on.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 55:26

Yeah. And especially when you consider the primary nest of turkeys, you know, a lot of the things that we do to improve habitat quality for turkeys, and to a little bit more detail on that, expand foraging and cover opportunities for turkeys are and cover opportunities for their nest So you're making turkey habitat better while making nest predator habitat worse. That's a win-win.

Moriah Boggess: 55:55

Yeah. Well, I think it's a topic, and you know, the the reason I bring it up is man, the first thing you guys talked is the first number one priority that people are is managing their openings, whether that's improving food plot quality or managing old fields, stop mowing old odd areas, that sort of thing. That is so uncommon to walk onto a property and that be dialed. Yeah. But it is very common to walk on a property that is and trapping.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 56:25

Yeah. Well, because it's a lot easier than knowing your and knowing what's good and bad. Yeah. And then taking it a step further and knowing what actually do about that and what you do know.

Moriah Boggess: 56:36

And that's what I want like this podcast hopefully serve as sort of a priority list. Your guys' priority list. So where people can focus. Because so often that's, you know, on a site visit, I that most people understand what needs to be done. Like they understand disturbance is important. They understand the the broad goal, right, of habitat But there's so many options out there. They can spend their time and money in so many different ways to potentially affect a change in the population care about. But prioritizing, which I think is what this has really been all about, is the most important way to get the low-hanging fruit, right? And that was all those things you guys have

Dr Marcus Lashley: 57:18

Yeah. Well, what else they all want to hear is more right? That's why we're doing all this. And at the end of the day, that that gobbling study that we wrapped up a little while back showed two factors at the property level scale that were the important predictors of gobbling activity. One was bottom one hardwood forest, and that's just simply associated with because those are roof sites, right? So you expect more gobbling in your roof sites. And two was the percentage of the property in early successional vegetation. And we saw that for each one percent increase in early successional vegetation across a predicted probability of gobbling went up 10%, way to a percent cover of 30% of the property being comprised of native early successional So, you know, you increase it on most properties, you know, the data say that we have less than 10% on average southeastern property. So you think about going from 10% to 30%, you've your gobbling by over 200%.

Moriah Boggess: 58:19

Yeah. I think most people would like that. I think they would. I certainly would. And just for clarification, early successional in that context also included early successional plant communities underneath a pine forest. Right.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 58:34

Yes, it did. And and that's a good point. Like I look I look to have when I'm setting up a about 30% of it in early succession. That can be in woodland, savanna, or old field, but I think that you do need some of it to be in old because we see that regardless of how much burned woodland or savannah you have, turkeys will to brood in particular in old field. So I try to make at least five or so percent of that and have it have it ensure that that is in old field.

Dr Will Gulsby: 59:10

While we're while we're right here, if you really want to optimize, you need at least a little bit in both. And I the reason I'm saying that, a lot of folks have following our work here in Florida know that we've been raising broods, so I have first hand experience watching what what means good successful brooding versus not. And the fields are really important when uh at the of the day, when it's kind of cool outside, you know, get that radiant heat in there pretty quickly, and seems to be when that's pretty critical because of exposure part of it early in brooding. The the polts cannot deal with swings in temperature and exposure to that. You even see adult turkeys do that, flying down into a field in the morning and then moving more towards shade. Yeah. So and then in, you know, to reverse that in the when it's sweltering hot, it's just awful outside. Being in that other brooding context in the woodland there's some shade because there's some trees, you and they can kind of pop in and around that is just as important. So having both together, you know, I think is a good strategy to make sure that you're giving them opportunity to be successful.

Dr Marcus Lashley: 1:00:31

And that's another reason that I really like retention for turkeys, because you're gonna end up with some areas that are stocked more densely with trees where they're cooler, but then immediately surrounding that, they don't have to travel far to get again to an open place that's gonna have an abundance of seeds and insects.

Moriah Boggess: 1:00:48

Sweet. Anything else you guys want to add to that? We pretty well covered that topic, small property

Dr Will Gulsby: 1:00:56

If they implement what we just talked about, they're have more turkeys and better hunting.

Moriah Boggess: 1:01:02

I'm just gonna end it with that. So I think that's it, that's a good way to just put a a chapter end on it. So for everybody listening, if you haven't yet, we really appreciate any ratings or reviews you would the podcast. We're still early on in this, and so we also would any input you have on topics you want to hear more And we're just starting to scratch the surface on of the more turkey focused management as we get into So be patient, and after this episode, there will be with Marcus and Will getting into more advanced topics in turkey management. So this was more of kind of scratching the surface. Fun intended. Yeah, scratching. We'll see you all next time. Thanks for listening to the Wildlife Investments podcast. For more information on these topics or to see some of the projects our team is working on, follow us on and Facebook at Wildlife Investments, or visit