Food plotting for dummies
Contributors to this thread:Kansas
From: Mad_Angler
01-Aug-17
My buddy has 160 acres about an hour from Wichita. It has nice cover and water. It is surrounded by wheat fields (milo some years).
I was thinking of adding a food plot. He planted some milo a few years ago. It was hit pretty hard by raccoons and other things. We never saw many deer in there.
What would you recommend? I was going to rent a tractor for a millet foodplot in a floodable pond for ducks. Since i already will have the tractor, I thought I might as well plant a deer plot too.
From: Brick
01-Aug-17
What are you hoping to achieve? Would you like a food plot that encourages many deer to take up residence throughout the year, or a hot food source that will be a major draw during a certain portion of the hunting season?
From: Catscratch
01-Aug-17
In my opinion it's hard to beat a mixture of wheat, Austrian winter peas, and chicory. Wheat will still attract deer even if it's surrounded by ag if the plot has cover or is secluded from roads.
From: Matte
01-Aug-17
You could lay a bunch of heritage seed corn on the ground and see what happens.
From: writer
01-Aug-17
Always hard to compete with wheat. Peas are good, but never get much of a chance at our place because they get munched back. Late season some deer hammer turnips, some ignore them, some hammer them after they've ignored them a few years. :-)
From: ksq232
01-Aug-17
We live in ag country, we draw deer to our plots every year with: winter rye, oats, forage radish, and clover. Most of our plots we do not have to replant for 3 years. If you're interested I'll give you the details.
From: Forest bows
01-Aug-17
i would like details ksq232
From: ksq232
02-Aug-17
2 year old plot
2 year old plot
This is what we plant per acre. If your deer numbers are high, you can get away with more cereal grain. Of course prep work is needed, but I'm sure you know all of that, so I won't get into soil prep, fertilizer, lime, etc. Winter Rye -- 30 lbs per acre Jerry oats -- 25 lbs per acre Forage Radish -- 2 lbs per acre (a little goes a long way!) do NOT plant turnips, they will have to be worked into soil following spring, whereas forage radish will almost completely die in winter kill Clover -- 12 lbs to the acre (that's pretty heavy, but we really want a good stand of clover so the plot can last a few years, we also will frost seed some on top of that in February) we plant 6 lbs of Alice clover and 6 lbs of red clover
After your fertilizer/lime is applied and soil well prepped, broad cast your cereal grains and cultipack (if you don't have a cultipacker you can lightly drag the plot) Then broadcast your clover and radish seed -- do NOT drag after that or you will run the risk of burying the small clover seed too deep. Cultipack again or drive over with tractor or atv, takes a while but its worth it! Any other questions just let me know, I hope this helps!
From: ksq232
02-Aug-17
Three year old plot
From: ksq232
02-Aug-17
I almost forgot, you'll want to mow your plot the following spring right after the winter rye heads out, don't allow it to go to maturity. The winter rye will give your clover a great boost, as well as help it withstand possible drought conditions.
From: Habitat for Wildlife
02-Aug-17
Good looking plots, and deer.
From: ksq232
02-Aug-17
Thanks! It's good motivation for the hours of work coming in the next month and a half.
From: Budman
19-Aug-17
I have had good luck with turnips. This year I mixed in wheat. Next year I'm going to split all my plots in half. Clover in half then turnips/wheat in the other half.
From: MDW
23-Aug-17
Small clover patch along the creek. It's been in existence for about five years, gets a little more seed and fertilizer every couple years.
Went out two weeks back and sprayed to kill out most of the weeds from another field about 100 yards away. Run a disk over it yesterday and plan to let it set until Sept. 1st. then disk again. Will broadcast wheat, beans & radishes. Last year I was getting pic's with 20+ deer per frame.
From: ksq232
23-Aug-17
Looks great Marvin!! Clover is hard to beat, should have some pretty good nitrogen in the ground from it for you too.
From: Reid
23-Aug-17
I plant milo (after July 1st) in the ridgetop plots then over seed turnips in the thin spots. I plant clover in the lowland spots. I have tried about everything else and this method is about as dummy proof as I have found.
From: Habitat for Wildlife
23-Aug-17
Awesome results Marvin!
From: Boomer
23-Aug-17
Keep it simple to start with. Soil samples are not expensive and worth the effort. Wheat is easy. I've noticed black oats and barley get hammered. On the peas find winter feild peas, austrians are so so, tannin content gets really high and they won't get touched once they get over a few inches tall. Turnips are always worth a shot just remember a little bit goes along ways. Good luck and have fun.
From: ksgoodolboy
30-Aug-17
You guys ever plant any sugar beets?
From: Habitat for Wildlife
30-Aug-17
Yes. Deer love them late season on my farm.
From: MDW
06-Sep-17
Finally got my wheat planted yesterday. Went to pull the camera card and the clover is getting hammered hard. After looking through the pic's on the card, it's easy to see why. Looks like a bacthlier group has taken it over. One thing I don't see is much in the line of fawns. Would that be on account of the group of bucks?
From: MDW
06-Sep-17
Don't mind the time or date, forgot to set them when I hung the camera.
From: ksgoodolboy
20-Sep-17
The plot
The plot
Went and checked on my sugar beet food plot this last weekend, and they seem to be coming up nice. Lots of big foxtail growing in it, but could tell that the deer were already eating the tops of the perimeter plants.
