Green-out is the time when the woody vines, shrubs and trees that have been dormant during the fall and winter are now budding out with new stems and leaves. In other words, spring has sprung!
Everybody and everything looks forward to the spring green-out. Us old folks can now take our coats off and enjoy the warm sunshine. The song birds are singing and some are beginning to nest. And the deer have tender new leaves and stems to munch on that will provide the nutrition needed to grow new antlers, increase in body size and give birth to a new fawn crop.
Green-out generally comes to the Bayou State in March, but sometimes it begins in mid-February. Generally the acorn crop has been eaten up, as have the deer hunter’s food plots. Deer in agricultural areas will still have access to fields of winter wheat as well as rye grass pastures. The oak trees begin to bud out and flower and begin the process of making a new crop of acorns for the fall and winter. The important deer browse plants are producing new stems and leaves and deer will shift their feeding from the green patches to the native species of browse.
When deer begin foraging on the new growth of native browse, it gives time for the deer food plots to recover and produce stands of clover as well as winter grass seed heads. The clover and the grass seed heads are important to turkeys and provide areas for turkey hunters to intercept toms. Hopefully, as a deer manager, you planted clover in your patches. While crimson clover will disappear as the temperature increases, the white clover and the red clover will produce high quality protein forage for deer during late spring, early summer and even into late summer if there is adequate rainfall.
Native deer browse
The important native deer browse includes the different species of oaks, seedlings and saplings; elm seedlings and saplings; red maple seedlings and saplings; ash seedlings and saplings and black cherry seedlings and saplings. A good timber management program insures that these hardwood species are growing on the landscape.
If the deer manager wants to focus on providing acorns in the fall for deer and reduce the corn bill, the white oak component is very important for deer. Also, chestnut trees are worth investing in. This mast crop will be heavily used by deer in the fall once they start producing. But keep in mind hardwood management is a long term proposition. Pears, persimmons, crabapples and mayhaws provide soft mast fruit for deer. Deer will heavily browse these species, so wire cages may be needed to protect them until they are big enough.
Important shrub species that deer eat include elderberry, red mulberry, arrow wood, privet, deciduous holly and strawberry bush. Important vine species that are browsed include blackberry, greenbriar (Smilax), honeysuckle, yellow jessamine, trumpet creeper, and grape vines.
A wildlife biologist can visit your property and show what browse species are available on your landscape and what deer are eating. The browse survey can also provide an estimate of the deer herd and reveal problems of over-browsing and timber management needs.
Food plots
Green-out is the time when the early spring flowering plants appear, some of which will be eaten by deer. The herbaceous component of browse plants can be an added bonus to the woody browse component.
As previously mentioned, green-out can provide an opportunity for the deer food plots to catch up with plant growth. However, if deer numbers are high and hunters failed to harvest the number of deer needed to keep the herd in balance with the habitat, it may not happen.
Food plots that are two inches or less in height can become dominated with native weed species and the desired plants the manager wanted will disappear. Deer will not benefit from them at all. I think it is best from a nutritional standpoint that food plots maintain a forage height of 3-5 inches. Plots that are less than two inches may attract deer, but are providing little from a nutritional standpoint. Excluder cages will clearly show the browsing pressure on a plot.
Deer management
If deer numbers are high, the native browse species may have been browsed so hard during the winter that they do not provide the nutrition that they should. This is especially true of greenbriar, a highly desired deer food and one that occurs on all habitats around the state.
When we bought our small property in East Feliciana Parish in 2007, there were big clumps of greenbriar loaded with nutritious leaves. But the deer limit in Area 4 was reduced to three, and in the past five years deer numbers have exploded. Today, those same clumps of greenbriar are void of leaves and simply do not provide the browse that they should. Because of this I am seeing heavy use of privet.
Deer management involves management of both the habitat and the herd. If you neglect one or the other, the habitat and the herd will suffer. There are a lot of nice adult bucks being killed around the state and in my parish. I’ve seen more photos this year than usual, but not many are talking about the doe harvest. With the chronic wasting disease issue in the state, it would behoove us to do whatever we can to keep it under control and parishes with high deer numbers are not good. But that is just this old man’s opinion. Enjoy the green-out, and be safe on the water!
