By: Mark Turner

Mark Turner is an NDA member and Level 2 Deer Steward who is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Tennessee working under the direction of Dr. Craig Harper. His research is investigating how nutritional carrying capacity and land use influence deer body and antler size across the eastern United States. Instagram: @markturner442

Avoid Herbicide Trouble in Food Plots With Simple Plant-Back Intervals

Jun 7, 2023 Mark Turner

Soil-active herbicides can greatly improve weed control in food plots as they control weed seedlings before they compete with planted species. However, soil-active herbicides can have similar, damaging effects on your future plantings if the…

Maximize Clover Food Plots for Deer with Winter Maintenance Now

Feb 1, 2023 Mark Turner

Perennial clover is perhaps the most popular food plot planting for deer, and with good reason! Clover food plots provide attraction during hunting season, high-quality forage during spring and early summer, and several years of…

Avoid Brassica Food Plot Failure With These Simple Steps

Aug 24, 2022 Mark Turner

Approaching the food plot, I was shocked by what I saw: an entire field of yellowing turnip and radish leaves. I wondered if I had skimped on fertilizer. Or perhaps I had applied soil-active herbicide…

How to Defeat Herbicide Resistant Weeds in Deer Food Plots

Jul 6, 2022 Mark Turner

Weed control is one of the most important considerations to produce high-quality food plots, and herbicides are the most effective and efficient tool to reduce weed competition. Unfortunately, several weeds have developed resistance to some…

Planting American Jointvetch for Deer

Mar 16, 2022 Mark Turner

Don’t overlook this browse-tolerant, easy-to-plant summer forage just because its name isn’t “soybeans.” Annual warm-season food plots are commonly recommended to address nutritional limitations when bucks are growing antlers and does are lactating. Warm-season plantings…

Do Brassicas Actually Get “Sweeter” After a Frost?

Dec 22, 2021 Mark Turner

We’ve all heard it in one form or another – that deer select brassicas more strongly after frost because the starches turn into sugars, making the plant sweeter. At the University of Tennessee, we set…

Hunt Elk to Kill More Whitetails

Oct 14, 2020 Mark Turner

No you didn’t click on the wrong website – this is the Quality Deer Management Association! We’re still talking about deer hunting, so don’t leave this page yet. In hunting, much like other things in…

Weird Ways to Find Shed Antlers

Feb 13, 2019 Mark Turner

With shed antler season already underway, many deer hunters are already working on their goal of finding a large number of sheds or locating the antlers from a particular deer. Since I’ve never been particularly…

Do-It-Yourself Deer Processing

Nov 14, 2018 Mark Turner

Moving to Auburn, Alabama to begin graduate school last fall brought about quite a few changes in the way I hunt. It was the first year I was away from my family’s farm in North…

The Payoff of Passing Young Bucks

Oct 18, 2017 Mark Turner

As the buck edged along the creek, I tried to get a better glimpse of him. I had yet to see his body well enough to put an age on him. He turned toward me,…