God lord have i been beamed to another planet?

Many years ......dad and my brother get crop damage permits
For Coon

We trap them mainly in and around corn feilds

They do a lot of damage to milk stage corn
Tear down a ear , eat a little
Tear down another

I didn't trap them last year , as I was still in rehab

But the last few years back I got 30 -50+ per year
Hate to do it
But Dad and my brother figure the coon would droped the yeild in just the feild along the creek 500 Bushel or more a year

So we trap them

John

I guess the most obvious question is, do the authors of such articles do any research at all? It sounds to me like the christmas tree farmer couldn't find his butt with both hands.
I was raised on a farm and without a doubt raccoons would do their fair share of damage but no ways near as much as deer. As far as the statement........
"Rac­coons and wood­chucks cause the major­ity of their dam­age on soy­beans when the crop is in a very young and in its veg­e­ta­tive stage."
Please! I find it very hard to believe a woodchuck is going to do near as much damage as even the smallest of fawns.
The truly disturbing fact about crop damage, and I am talking about deer not coons or woodchucks, was the fact that farmers were given nuisance permits to kill unbelievably high numbers of deer and had to leave them lay where they were shot.

I was speaking more from an outlook of what I had observed myself on our farms. I acknowledge that woodchuck and coon damage may be a problem. I guess I just find it hard to believe they do more damage. Not saying the study is false, just hard to believe.

An area farmer that I'm familiar with places out poision packets every 10 yards surrounding his corn fields. No coon problems there but I wonder about the stray cats and dogs. They probably go down too.

I was always told that deer will eat the corn right off the stalk. Coons will climb up the stalk until it falls over. Any damage you see where corn stalks are on the ground was coons. I'm no expert but that is what I was taught.

matt hougan said:

I was always told that deer will eat the corn right off the stalk. Coons will climb up the stalk until it falls over. Any damage you see where corn stalks are on the ground was coons. I'm no expert but that is what I was taught.

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For the most part that is true, occasionally they will knock a few over but normally they eat it standing.

Well wildlife damage in crops is a complicated issue. First you have to look at what animals eat. Coon don't eat much leafy vegetation, they prefer grain and fruit. So coon won't bother corn till there's kernels on the cob. Coon also don't eat hay or wheat and I've never seen any evidence of coon damaging soybeans. Their damage tends to be worse close to woods and streams.

Groundhogs eat leafy vegetation, so they are bad in hay and soybeans. They can be terrible on melons and pumpkins, the little bastards like to take ONE bite out of each. They don't seem to affect corn after it gets knee high. One thing about groundhogs is they tend to keep close to their holes so the damage is localized, not much worry of the groundhogs crossing 2 properties to get to my fields. Since I can kill unlimited numbers of groundhogs pretty much 24/7 it's my fault if they are a problem.

Now deer eat both vegetation and grain. Deer browse/graze on corn and beans from emergence. When a deer eats the top of a small corn plant it grows funny and usually doesn't produce a normal if any ear. Deer also seem to like silk and will bite off the ends of growing ears. The trend in corn to set the ears higher, walk through a field and take note of ear placement, shoulder high isn't unusual. At one time I would have agreed that deer didn't knock much corn down but that isn't a hard and fast rule. A deer will have a hard time eating ears 4-5 feet high without pulling down the stalk.

Deer are 6-8-10 times larger than coon and groundhogs so they need a larger volume of feed and they need to eat 365 days a year(groundhogs hibernate) so they can bother late standing crops, winter wheat, hay and fruit trees in the winter. Deer being herd animals when deer are in a field usually there's more then 1. Deer will travel to get to a preferred food source, at times miles.

Finally if there is a complaint to the ODNR about damage the WO is supposed to come out an inspect the damage. Even if the farmer doesn't know the difference I'd hope a WO would have a better idea what caused it.

My guess by reading the article is most of the inaccuracies are due to reporting error. Every single time I have been interviewed and quoted for a newsprint article something gets misquoted. Every time. So I would totally bet the tree farmer did not say the deer were rubbing velvet in the spring.

The Purdue study is quite interesting I think. They have put together quite an extensive web site that deals just with crop damage. I actually think in their farmer survey (been some time since I read it) that most of the time, the farmers accurately knew what animal was doing the most damage. Not all the time, but most of the time. Anyway the study found 87% of damage to corn was racoon. With soybeans, 61% of damage was deer and 38% was groundhogs. Here is the link to the web page with that info, but you can click on the tabs on the top of the page to navigate through the whole study:

http://www.agriculture.purdue.edu/fnr/cropdamage/crops/damage.htm

Some of you may not visit the groundhog section, but back in the fall I posted a couple pictures from my soybean fields. I will re-post them here. Deer may do more damage percentage wise, but groundhog damage can be quite impressive. I took both these pictures with the camera on a tripod set at the same height and I was approximately the same distance from the camera. First picture is in an undamaged section of the field and the next picture is about 30 yards over and right next to a groundhog den.

Good points by Bluedog and Sam. I have seen plenty of bean fields similar to the ones in Bluedog's pictures.

I think there are some variables to this too. The size of a feild, Available food. And populations of different animals.
We have 5 acres of food plots on this 100 acre farm we hunt. 2.5 acres of corn and 2.5 acres of soybeans. Other then hay, The farm had another 10 acres of corn witch was harvested in early november. Our plots were gone by the end of november. The deer ate the crap out of them. Not the coons. Coon hunters take care of them. Just to show. 2.5 acres of corn at 100 bushel to an acre = 250 bushel x 8 bucks a bushel = $2,000.00 And 2.5 acres of beans at 50 bushel to the acre = 125 bushels at 14.00 per bushel =$1,750.00 Can you see why a farmer might get pissed. if the feilds were larger you might not notice this much damage. But deer can eat a ton of crops. Luckely these plots were for the deer. Just wish they would last longer.
Here is a pic of one of our plots.

motorbreaker said:

I think there are some variables to this too. The size of a feild, Available food. And populations of different animals.
We have 5 acres of food plots on this 100 acre farm we hunt. 2.5 acres of corn and 2.5 acres of soybeans. Other then hay, The farm had another 10 acres of corn witch was harvested in early november. Our plots were gone by the end of november. The deer ate the crap out of them. Not the coons. Coon hunters take care of them. Just to show. 2.5 acres of corn at 100 bushel to an acre = 250 bushel x 8 bucks a bushel = $2,000.00 And 2.5 acres of beans at 50 bushel to the acre = 125 bushels at 14.00 per bushel =$1,750.00 Can you see why a farmer might get pissed. if the feilds were larger you might not notice this much damage. But deer can eat a ton of crops. Luckely these plots were for the deer. Just wish they would last longer.View attachment 12663
Here is a pic of one of our plots.

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Another thing that needs to be taken into account is the amount of nearby crops. In your plot case, how many other ag fields are within 2-3 square miles ? If you have little competition for ag fields then the deer see yours as a TREAT and just can't help themselves. It's like putting a chocolate river in front of a fat kid. They just go right for it and fall in lol. It will also draw deer from many miles if it's not a common food source for an area. Given a choice between dead dried up roughage or corn and beans the ag crops will win.

I agree with RC. In our area, a food plot of corn/beans probably wouldn't help unless we left the corn standing into the late season. We have to use more brassica/clover mixes to give them something different. They have plenty of corn/beans and wheat.

hickslawns said:

I agree with RC. In our area, a food plot of corn/beans probably wouldn't help unless we left the corn standing into the late season. We have to use more brassica/clover mixes to give them something different. They have plenty of corn/beans and wheat.

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Never one time seen a deer around here eating winter wheat. They will walk through the fields and bed in it during the spring but not once have I seen them eat it.

RedCloud said:

Never one time seen a deer around here eating winter wheat. They will walk through the fields and bed in it during the spring but not once have I seen them eat it.

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Neither have I. Turkeys like to catch bugs in it.

RedCloud said:

Never one time seen a deer around here eating winter wheat. They will walk through the fields and bed in it during the spring but not once have I seen them eat it.

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In late summer I see them standing in it as well. Guess I never paid attention to whether they eat it or not. We have put it in as a mix for food plots before with success though. Then again, we try to time it such that it is only a foot tall or so.