Food Plots & Maintaining Ag Taxes
Planting food plots for deer and other wildlife has long been used by landowners and hunters in Texas. The practice benefits wildlife, can can also benefit landowners. Landowners can plant food plots for wildlife exemption in Texas and maintain land appraisal benefits. A landowner that actively manages a tract of land for deer or other native wildlife can maintain an agricultural tax valuation through wildlife management rather than through traditional agricultural practices.
Food plots can serve as a means to supplement the diets of deer and/or other wildlife during periods of the year when nutritional natural forage may be deficient or lacking in the environment. They are also used to concentrate wildlife species such as white-tailed deer or turkeys for hunting or viewing. However, there are many misconceptions about food plots and their role in wildlife and habitat management
Food plots should never be planted as a substitute for natural forage or to artificially increase populations of wildlife above the carrying capacity of the land. Planting food plots will not make up for improper range management, overgrazing by livestock, excessive stocking rates, low reproduction, or poor native habitat for white-tailed deer. When it comes to deer management, good habitat comes first.
Why Plant Deer Food Plots?
Planting food plots for white-tailed deer in Texas is an increasing practice for many landowners land managers. Food plots should be considered only as a “hedge” against the climatic extremes and their effect on native plants. White-tailed deer are selective feeders, preferring highly digestible foods. Deer feed within their home range and select specific plants that are palatable and highly nutritious.
Deer will typically eat certain preferred native plants when they are available, even if food plots are present. Plant composition in their diet changes throughout the year depending on availability, stage of growth, palatability, and distribution. Deer in Texas will benefit most from food plots during the spring and fall when their nutritional requirements are greatest.
Food intake for deer increases during these times of the year as bucks are growing antlers and accumulating fat for the winter, does are nursing and weaning their young, and fawns are shifting their diet from milk to solid foods. If deer become totally dependent on food plots or supplemental feeding, serious problems are occurring in the habitat and deer or livestock numbers should be reduced.
Where deer are confined on high-fenced ranches, development of food plots should not be considered a replacement for habitat. Food plots that receive heavy use will not provide the nutritious forage expected by land managers. Deer numbers should be reduced through a program of proper harvest management or native habitat degradation will occur. Food plots are part of the system, not a replacement for it.
Food Plots for Wildlife Exemption
A wildlife exemption is an alternative type of agricultural exemption that allows Texas landowners to maintain low property taxes by performing activities aimed at helping native wildlife rather than, or alongside, traditional agriculture uses. The number of landowners converting ag land to wildlife exemption has increased substantially in recent years.
While traditional Texas “ag” and timber exemptions require the practices of farming, ranching or timber production, a state constitutional amendment (Proposition 11, 1995) allows Texas landowners to also qualify for an ag exemption through wildlife management practices – thus being able to maintain their lower property taxes without some of the costs and activities associated with traditional agriculture.
While ag and wildlife exemptions are not true “exemptions” from property taxes, qualifying landowners are able to maintain a much lower property valuation on their land vs its market value, saving considerable tax dollars for large parcel landowners or land in high value areas. These property tax savings are designed to protect open-space land and that is what makes maintaining Ag and Wildlife exemptions so beneficial across the state.
A landowner must implement at least three of seven management practices annually for native wildlife to maintain an ag tax valuation through wildlife management use. Providing supplemental food for wildlife is one of the practices landowners can carry out on a property, and food plots are included as one of the activities under supplemental food. Landowners that plant at least one percent of their acreage in both spring and winter food plots can use the activity as a qualifying practice each year.
Spring Food Plots for Deer
Warm season annuals such as millets, milo and other sorghum varieties, and legumes (beans, cow pea varieties, blackeyed peas, singletary peas, Catjung peas, soybeans, and lablab) may be planted after April 15th to warm season food plots for white-tailed deer in much of Texas. Varieties of dry land alfalfa, a warm season perennial legume (comes back from the roots each year) or other grazing type varieties of alfalfa may also be planted.
Legumes have 20-30% protein content and fix nitrogen into the soil. Planting a variety of these forages will increase the success of a food plot program. A combination planting of 2/3 legumes and 1/3 grain sorghum is recommended for most warm season deer food plots.
Winter Plots for Deer
Cool season varieties of clover and vetch (legumes) such as arrowleaf clover (Yuchi), rose clover, yellow blossom clover, sweetclover, hairy vetch, and Austrian winterpeas are readily consumed by white-tailed deer. Legumes must be inoculated for good nodulation of plant roots and proper nitrogen fixation. With proper cultivation and management, many of these varieties will reseed and can be managed for crops for several years without replanting.
Late summer mowing and light cultivation of winter plots that were planted in reseeding annuals will help increase soil contact by seeds and improve stands. Where possible, plant a variety of these forage plants in the same or separate food plots to extend use by deer and other wildlife species. Some landowners also use turnips and beets as winter forage for deer in Texas.