I'd rather have good genetics and less nutrition. Than visa versa. If it aint in the blood to start with nutrition and age is only gonna get you so far. Same with any other animal really whether your talking bout hunting dogs or race horses you pay for the bloodline. Thats where it all starts.
I have heard from deer farmers, gamedog breeders, and game chicken breeders that the female throws better genetics than the male. But having good genes on both sides is even better.

Agreed.

I think good Genetics is the reason you still see the occasional Freak Nasty Buck in low quality habitat, Some times everything just lines up right and they survive 4 years

Here's some of our Selma deer at the feeder by my father's house. They're bout the best we get on camera for our 2.5-3.5 year olds. We have some smaller what we identify as 3.5 year old deer. The 2 8pts with the racks outside their ears is probably the highest scoring bucks we have on camera. The one with one brow tine could be 4.5. There used to be bucks back there that topped 150" and we would see one every year back in the 90s that would be of that caliber. Last decade, you would maybe see one, once in a blue moon. Haven't seen a 140" deer back there in going on 4 years now. That nice 8 is getting my hopes up though. The buck in the last pic is dead. He was 3.5. Scored 115 B&C. There used to be 400 acres close to us that was farmland but of course it is now all pines. It used to be corn & beans. All the rest of the farmland within reach of these deer is now cow pastures. This is not even half of the bucks we have on camera. In my opinion there's just too many mouths to feed and not enough grub to allow bucks to grow the inches of antler they used to. I even noticed deer eating popcorn seeds from a Chinese tallow tree this year.
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In 1978, there was a sure enough Boone and Crockett buck that bedded about 150-200 yards from where this feeder is now. That buck is what made my father start hunting deer and is the very reason why I'm a hunter. There have been several 140" deer killed around here in the past, but not so many lately. These bucks we have on camera now will never reach B&C, a few may touch 130 in their lifetime, but we are definitely not looking at a genetic structure we used to have....not by a long shot...So where does that leave us? There were potential record book deer here in the past. My uncle, who was a taxidermist in Selma for decades, and my father were pretty good judges of deer in the field. Pops used to keep me informed of all the big bucks killed around the area. For a while, there usually wasn't a really big buck killed in Dallas County that we didn't know about because if my uncle didn't have it, Mark Mims did. The genetics are still around. We just have to bring the nutrition level back to the point we used to have.....and at least in this area, get the population down to a level that the land can develop the genetics that already exists. Now in Baldwin County where I hunt, that population already is at a capacity now that bucks can show their full potential.....but 20,000 acres of Pine plantations and gallberries won't allow a deer to express his full potential.

I don't put a lot of weight in what the deer farmers do or say. They have low stress levels (yes, stress makes a difference), targeted breeding, worming, nutrition... the best environment possible.

We free-range hunters (you could not pay me to hunt high fence, but that's me) can't control genetics so I don't even worry about genetics.

The study by Eric Michel of Mississippi State University says all I need to know which is what the QDMA has been saying.

Worry about what you can control. Age and nutrition!!! Habitat Enhancement just takes some work and a "want to learn mentality" and letting immature bucks walk . Shoot mature bucks, no matter what his antlers score!

At some point in a hunter's life, conservation and mgmt should take the lead.

Very few hunters can do full blown habitat management due to factors beyond their control. Mainly, they don't own their hunting land. Everyone can do some but not all out habitat enhancement.