By Chris Cook, Wildlife Biologist

One of the habitat management practices most often used by today's wildlife managers, hunters and landowners is developing wildlife openings. These openings are often planted to provide supplemental food, "bugging" areas, escape cover and nesting cover.

Plantings can be an expensive and time-consuming undertaking and if done improperly, it can be very disappointing. Using the appropriate combination of plants will help maximize an opening's productivity and usefulness to wildlife.

For most hunters and landowners in Alabama, wildlife openings are planted during the fall to draw deer into the open to facilitate harvest during the hunting season. Many of these openings are planted using only one type of small grain (e.g. wheat, oats, rye) or ryegrass. These plots work fine for attracting deer to the gun or bow during most years, but extended periods of unusually cold, wet or dry weather can cause crop failures in some years.

Planting a combination of these seeds helps reduce the likelihood of a plot failure. For example, most varieties of oats are not very tolerant of cold temperatures. In years with below average fall and vvinter temperatures, their growth will be severely limited. Wheat and rye are both more cold tolerant than oats. Similarly, some plants are more tolerant of drought or wet conditions than others. By combining two or more types of seeds in a plot, the likelihood of having a crop failure due to unusual weather conditions is greatly reduced.

All plants do not mature at the same time or grow at the same rate even when they are planted at the same time. In general, plants are most nutritious and palatable when they are growing most rapidly. By planting a combination of plants with different rates of maturity, the length of time a wildlife opening is both utilized and productive can be extended.

Mixing some of the various species of clovers with one or more of the commonly planted small grains will extend the productivity of cool-season openings through the spring and well into the summer months. For example, a combination of wheat, oats, crimson clover and arrows leaf clover will produce a wildlife opening that is producing nutritious, palatable food from October through late June and early July.

Not only can the success and productivity of openings be improved by using combinations, their attractiveness to other wildlife species can also be enhanced. Using a combination of clovers and wheat makes a cool season plot much more attractive to wild turkeys later in the spring and early summer than one planted in wheat or clover alone.

An opening planted only in wheat, rye or oats does not receive much use by turkeys between the time the plants' growth slows and their seeds mature. The plants are very fibrous and unpalatable at this time. The addition of clovers not only provides additional greenery during this transition period, but the clover flowers also attract an abundance of insects, which are an extremely important, high protein source for turkeys during the spring and summer.

Planting crops in combination allows plants with low tolerance for browsing during the early stages of growth to become established. Companion plants can also help some crops actually produce more forage by giving them strata to climb on.

This is especially true for crops typically grown during spring and summer, such as cowpeas and soybeans. Planting these crops with companion plants such as grain sorghum or proso millet allows the peas or beans to become better established before deer begin heavy use of the plants. The thick stems of the sorghum and millet also gives the cowpeas and soybeans something to climb on, allowing them to grow taller and potentially produce longer stems and vines, which will produce more leaves and fruit.

Too often, wildlife openings are viewed as a "magic bean" for improving wildlife abundance and quality on a property. Adequate acreages of openings planted with the appropriate crops can definitely improve the quality of habitat on an area, but they are just one of the many habitat management tools available to wildlife managers, landowners and hunters.

Wildlife openings never take the place of sound management of the natural habitat, but with a little forethought and creativity, they can become much more than just a place to attract deer during the fall and winter.