TB, the plot is oriented north/south, and gets good sun - about 8 hours a day during the summer and 5 or 6 during the winter. There is a fairly steep rise of about 15 feet at the south end. The pictures were taken from about five feet up that rise. My box stand is about forty yards back from the top of the rise and is elevated 16 feet. So I'm about 30 feet above the level of the plot when in the stand. I've never been busted in that box by deer on the plot, regardless of wind direction (even though I smoke my pipe in the stand
).
I've had that plot for 17 years. The initial clearing was with a bush hog cutting waist high brush the year after the area was clear cut. For the first 14 years of its life it was planted every fall with the traditional "bush hogging - disking - throwing seed - lightly disking again" method over the course of several coordinated planting days with other club members. It was a lot of work, not to mention a lot of maintenance and repair of our old club tractor (which always seemed to fall to me and one other club member). Also, it was always a hassle planting on coordinated group days.
When the club tractor died for good three years ago I decided to opt out of anything to do with a replacement, and go "throw & mow" and/or "throw & roll". I wanted to be able to control what I did and when I did it, even though the quality of my plots may suffer a bit.
Well, it turns out the quality of my plots did suffer slightly in the first year. However, they have gotten better each year as the organic matter builds on the undisturbed soil surface, and I'm no longer bringing up weed seeds from the seed bank by tilling.
So for the last three years I've been doing either T&M or T&R on my three small plots. Results are about the same with both methods. They are a lot less work than the old tractor days and I totally enjoy being able to do what I want when I want.
As of this year, three other club members are also using T&M or T&R.