Tired of Deer Damage? Updates to the Red Tag Program Might Help

Sep 26, 2022

By Heidi Reed

Unfortunately, we haven't found a miracle cure for deer damage to crops just yet. However, updates to The Pennsylvania Game Commission's Agricultural Deer Control (Red Tag) Program could make use of the program slightly easier for landowners.

Changes were announced in April 2022, with the new regulations to start in November 2022.

The main changes are as follows:

Old Rule	New Rule
Hunter may obtain one permit per Red Tag property	Hunter may obtain up to four permits per Red Tag Property
Permits are valid from July 1-September 28, then February 1-May 15, excluding Sundays	Permits valid from August 1-September 15, then February 1-April 15, excluding Sundays
Program is closed for summer period May 16-June 30	Program is closed for summer period April 16-July 31
Landowner is required to report Red Tag harvests	Hunter reports for each permit, regardless of harvest success
Only licensed hunters that are Pennsylvania residents qualify for Red Tag permits	All licensed hunters qualify for Red Tag permits, including out-of-state hunters
Red snap tags are used	Standard harvest tags issued through HuntFishPA are used
Landowners need to enroll in the Game Commission’s Hunter Access Program	Landowners do not need to enroll in the Hunter Access program

Permits will be issued for the license year that begins July 1 and goes through June 30.

Hopefully these changes, plus the additional 23,000 doe tags for the 2022-2023 season, will help better manage deer populations and reduce crop damage.

Source : psu.edu

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators