Pennsylvania Game News - October 2016 - 9

must load up on fall foods to prepare for
winter's leaner times. That means they're
looking to scarf down about five pounds
of food a night, and convenience seems
to matter some.
Where deer choose to eat and what
they eat varies. But given their daily diet
flexibility, and the potential availability of
fall foods - including those in farm fields
- it can be a real crapshoot trying to sort
out where to hunt.
More than a quarter of Pennsylvania - 12,000 square miles - remained
farm country in 2015, according to U.S.
Department of Agriculture statistics.
Hayfields represented the biggest land
investment - 2,500 square miles - followed by 2,100 square miles of cornfields,
which dropped about 9 percent from
2014. Soybeans were planted on about
900 square miles, which also is down
about 10 percent.
Cornfields and hayfields can provide
sanctuary for deer, and whitetails are
quick to take advantage of it.
Scouting will help you sort out where
deer are. But if they're holed up in a cornfield, there's not a lot you can do about it
until the corn comes down.
If you're not willing to wait, know that
the woods still hold plenty of deer.
But many areas of Penn's Woods
have endured assorted problems that
will influence this fall's mast crops and,
consequently, the distribution of whitetails, according to Dave Gustafson, the
agency's Forestry Division chief.
Scouting will matter more than ever.
Most of the state, with the exception

OCTOBER 2016

of some of the high-elevation areas of the
northern tier, escaped late-spring frosts
that could have damaged oak flowers,
Gustafson said.
"This should have allowed for a great
acorn year in the white-oak group," Gustafson explained. "However, the only
areas of the state that have seen enough
rain this summer to allow nuts to mature
have been in our northwestern and some
of our northcentral counties. Much of the
state was reporting - in July - premature
dropping of red- and white-oak acorns
and hickory nuts, due to drought stress."
But the drought's effects aren't limited
just to oaks.
"Other than the northwestern and
northcentral counties that have been
receiving at least moderate rainfall
through mid-July, much of the state
was in near-drought status," Gustafson
said. "Development of many soft-mast
species - including apples - slowed or
stopped. Raspberries, in many places,
dried up as quickly as they ripened;
blackberries also can be a failure without
rain in August."
Pennsylvania's oak-rich forests also
continue their ongoing battle with gypsy
moth caterpillars.
"Eastern portions of the Blue Mountain seem to have sustained the worst
defoliation this year, but it wasn't as bad
as expected," Gustafson reported. "But
when coupled with last year's defoliation
and a very dry summer, trees in this area
are heavily stressed, and some mortality
was already evident in July."
Gustafson said many areas saw some

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - October 2016
