Researchers with Alabama Extension are exploring several different avenues to protect crops from deer, which cause major damage to crops in the state. They tested both foliar and field-perimeter repellents made from a variety of ingredients, including human hair, sheep fat, rotten eggs, and other agricultural wastes and byproducts. The most effective product to date is a foliar spray that is undergoing further development before release. The research project also evaluated the effectiveness of boundary crops, and found that sunn hemp planted as a 40-foot field boundary before the cash crop was planted appeared to be an affordable way to reduce deer damage to cotton fields.
