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Farmer attitude

brock ratcliff

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Joe, when you get to collecting information from the DOW, find out what you can about the "Farmer Attitude Survey". I'm curious who is surveyed, where they are from, amount of land they own etc. I've asked four farmers (that I hunt on) if they have ever completed a survey. None of them have, and have no idea what it is. These are not "farmers" with 15 acres and a sick cow. If anyone should be asked, these guys should.

It's a telephone survey btw. See what you can find about it.
 

Jackalope

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Will Do.. I need to find when that farmer survey is done. I plan to ask for the other survey data here in about a month..
 

brock ratcliff

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Supposedly 1400 surveyed. Comes out to like 16 per county, and I can't find a farmer that has ever heard of it. I have only asked four, but you'd think someone would have mentioned it at the barber shop or something.
 

finelyshedded

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Brock said, "15 acres and a sick cow!" lol

That would be very interesting to know BTW. I've talked to some farmers over the years I find it crazy that some even if they have one deer on their land want it killed. WTH! You'd have thought deer raped their children and burnt their barn down. Telling them coon does more damage was like talking to a wall.
 
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Beentown

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I will let you know about my area. 0 for 4 so far. Waiting on four with about another 8k tillable that they own. We will see...
 

brock ratcliff

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You would really think speaking with rather large grain farmers would make it easy to find the ones that were surveyed. I need to speak with one family down the road. They have been family friends for 50+ years and the old man was once on the board of Nationwide Ins. Seems if any big time grain farmers were asked, it would be them don't ya think?
 

Beentown

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My family farms 6k acres total and neither have had the opportunity. They do have the "kill them all" way of thinking.
 

brock ratcliff

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Most of them do. I just can't figure out who they would speak with if they weren't surveying these guys... We are so worried about keeping the grain farmers happy, but the ones I know aren't being asked if they are or not. Granted, I don't know them all, but dang these guys own and farm a LOT of ground.
 

Huckleberry Finn

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You would really think speaking with rather large grain farmers would make it easy to find the ones that were surveyed. I need to speak with one family down the road. They have been family friends for 50+ years and the old man was once on the board of Nationwide Ins. Seems if any big time grain farmers were asked, it would be them don't ya think?

In my experiences, most of the big time grain farmers could give two shits about the deer population. A lot of them have a deer or two on the wall and most have a son that loves to deer hunt, but for the majority that I've met, they are worried about the crops. Same with coyotes, actually. I remember shooting my first coyote and the farmer said "Well, that's pretty neat. But they do eat the groundhogs and deer, not my corn". Did he care that I shot a coyote? Hell no. But does he stay up at night worrying about deer eating his corn? Nope.

That said, the large (over 1,000 acre) grain farmers are probably the worst people you could ask! A farm that owns a patch of 20 acres of sweet corn could talk all day about deer harvest and damages. But the guy that only sees his fields from behind a windshield? He probably doesn't remember which farm he bought out last year, much less the deer activity going on.
 

rgecko23

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Massillon, Ohio
In my experiences, most of the big time grain farmers could give two shits about the deer population. A lot of them have a deer or two on the wall and most have a son that loves to deer hunt, but for the majority that I've met, they are worried about the crops. Same with coyotes, actually. I remember shooting my first coyote and the farmer said "Well, that's pretty neat. But they do eat the groundhogs and deer, not my corn". Did he care that I shot a coyote? Hell no. But does he stay up at night worrying about deer eating his corn? Nope.

That said, the large (over 1,000 acre) grain farmers are probably the worst people you could ask! A farm that owns a patch of 20 acres of sweet corn could talk all day about deer harvest and damages. But the guy that only sees his fields from behind a windshield? He probably doesn't remember which farm he bought out last year, much less the deer activity going on.


makes sense..
 

Jackalope

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There are over 76,000 farms in the state. The last farmer survey metric i saw said the dnr sent surveys to 5,000 farms and got back 1,244. You're looking for a needle in a haystack. I don't think farm size had anything to do with it, probably "random".
 

Ohiosam

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Mahoning Co.
In my experiences, most of the big time grain farmers could give two shits about the deer population. A lot of them have a deer or two on the wall and most have a son that loves to deer hunt, but for the majority that I've met, they are worried about the crops. Same with coyotes, actually. I remember shooting my first coyote and the farmer said "Well, that's pretty neat. But they do eat the groundhogs and deer, not my corn". Did he care that I shot a coyote? Hell no. But does he stay up at night worrying about deer eating his corn? Nope.

That said, the large (over 1,000 acre) grain farmers are probably the worst people you could ask! A farm that owns a patch of 20 acres of sweet corn could talk all day about deer harvest and damages. But the guy that only sees his fields from behind a windshield? He probably doesn't remember which farm he bought out last year, much less the deer activity going on.

That's pretty much my experience. Orchards have the most issues with deer. Small livestock/dairy farms that grow 100-200 acres of corn for feed are probably next. Vegetable growers have more issues with groundhogs, coon and birds then deer. One of the biggest problems I ever had with deer was they would walk across the row cover we used for early sweet corn and their hooves would tear the cover. At that time the row cover ran about $1000 per acre, if we were careful we could get 3 years out of it but if deer walked across it much I might only get 1 year.
 

Huckleberry Finn

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That's pretty much my experience. Orchards have the most issues with deer. Small livestock/dairy farms that grow 100-200 acres of corn for feed are probably next. Vegetable growers have more issues with groundhogs, coon and birds then deer. One of the biggest problems I ever had with deer was they would walk across the row cover we used for early sweet corn and their hooves would tear the cover. At that time the row cover ran about $1000 per acre, if we were careful we could get 3 years out of it but if deer walked across it much I might only get 1 year.

I remember planting a few thousand strawberry plants on row cover for several weekends and being close to tears when deer ran through the row cover. Didn't eat the plants, but their hooves did enough damage. I've never heard of using row cover for sweet corn though.
 

Beentown

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I remember planting a few thousand strawberry plants on row cover for several weekends and being close to tears when deer ran through the row cover. Didn't eat the plants, but their hooves did enough damage. I've never heard of using row cover for sweet corn though.

I haven't either. Does row cover help SC much?
 

Ohiosam

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Mahoning Co.
On average sweet corn planted under floating row cover would beat early bare ground corn by about 10 days and it yielded better. We would plant a patch just as early as possible in April and cover about 1/2 of it then do the same about 10-14 days later. Lay it kind of loose and as the corn grows it lifts the row cover. I would leave it on till tassle then remove it. I never had the nerve to leave it on after tassel but always tempted.

Some of my neighbors plant under clear plastic, it is cheaper but a big pain to do. You have to setup a planter to plant twin rows in a ditch then lay the plastic. The plastic must come off shortly after the corn starts to touch it or it can be scorched on a sunny day. Always seems like it need to come off on a clear day when we are about get a cold night.
 
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Kaiser878

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THe last farmers attitude survey was done in 2000. THere hasnt been one since. There is some scuttle about a new one being done in the next year or two years.
 

Jackalope

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THe last farmers attitude survey was done in 2000. THere hasnt been one since. There is some scuttle about a new one being done in the next year or two years.

http://ohiodnr.com/portals/0/education/wilddeerherd/pdf/tonkovichsurveyresults.pdf

What's interesting to see is something like 42% of farmers thought the herd had increased between 1995-2000.. And 35% though it had remained unchanged. So 77% didn't have a clue that the dnr was reducing numbers. 1995 was the time mrex said he got pissy with the dnr about killing too many deer. And Brock said they were like flies in 1995...

And 82% of the farmers reported wildlife damage with deer taking the blame. But we now know thanks to a two year study by Purdue that coons cause 8 times more damage than deer....

With survey results like that I wouldn't have done another one for over a decade either.. Lol.. I don't know what they're growing but hopefully they've stopped smoking it by the next survey if there is scuttle about another one.
 
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brock ratcliff

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Speaking of coons and farmers; I have a standing order from one of mine to shoot every coon I see. I told him one time that I am not legally allowed to because I refuse to buy a fur taker permit. He said "Don't take the fur". hehe. I love that guy. :)