Food Plot 101

Looking for advice on plotting.

DT,STICKER, GROUSE…….. I know you guys are seasoned PLOTTERS, and I enjoy reading your trials and tribulations on here. Im sure there are other who may be contemplating the big question of what to plant this year.

Here is my situation. I have a 6 acre pasture that is right on the river, the timber is along the whole one side…

My question is… for a PLOT NEWBIE… for high deer density areas..heavy ag area also. if you could plant only 1 food plot… What would it be?

Thanks ahead of time,
SKTR

Whitetail Properties used to run a food plot episode each season and the majority of their guys answered this question with Whitetail Institute’s Imperial Clover.

If I remember right you bow and gun hunt? What season will you be hunting the most? Do you want something to help the deer all season or mainly hunt over?
DT

My first thought was clover also Jordan. But I wanted to run it past the EXPERTS to make sure it was the right call. With corn and beans all around, that is nothing special…unless I can keep them out of it until December/January.

DT- I live on the property so I would be hunting Sept – January. They were really thick on my property during the season , and they stuck around till about Feb. 1st with no real food source except a picked corn field. 80% of the herd moved on to somewhere with a better food source and more seclusion. There are a few “home body” does and fawns that are still around. But just by default my property was a magnet for deer during open season. So any small thing that I put in, I would expect alot of good to come out of it.

Kinda depends on your equipment and if you can maintain during the whole year or just plant and hunt. my opinion beans beans and more beans and plant as late as you can compared to you neighboring farms being a smaller field they could wipe it out, but hopefully they will be attracted to the neighbors during the summer months then hammer yours during hunting season. Best of luck.

If I could only plant one seed it would be BEANS!!! I have hunted all over in MN and there is no better draw than beans. Corn is a close 2nd. Beans though will give you all summer browse and fall feed of the pods. The problem with beans is they love them so much they tend to wipe them out, having ag near by will help keep the pressure down. If you have 6 acres to plant you have a fighting chance though.

Like Abster71 said though, you have to have the equipment and time to plant them. Beans can be broadcast seeded, but you will get better production=more food if they are row planted with a planter. They also require weed suppression in the form of spray herbicide at least twice.

As far as having something different(special) since you have ag near by, it isn’t necessary, bean are very desired by deer and if you have them the deer will come to them. The best part is when the ag farmer harvests his beans you still have yours. Then look out cause every deer in the county will be in yours.

Clover and corn are also good attractants, but they are limited on time they are used by deer. Clover will be one of the first things to green up in the spring giving your does and young fawns a great spring and summer food source. Depending on weather your clover may last into late October here in MN. Corn on the other hand will not be a food source until October, but will last all fall and winter until it is all eaten.

It is very tough to pick just one seed to plant, but if I only had one without question I would plant beans!

Beans in December!!! Need I say more?

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I see my other post failed, so I’ll try to get a short version here as I’m tight on time.

I don’t discredit food plots as they are a very vital key in managing key habitat. For me, I think it is very interesting to see that nearly 30 mature bucks taken from my property were shot away from food plots – NOT IN THEM. I log all our kills and see a very distinct pattern. We kill bucks sneaking along side our plots, and the trail cams show that there are used more at night by mature bucks. Lots of does, fawns, young bucks feed in the plots during daylight. Farm pic – Yellow is main and secondary trails, Red X = Kills, Purple is food/ag plots.

Looking back at 10+ years of trail cam pics, I’ve learned a couple key things that works for me. 1. Add clover & beans to most mixes and you will have consistent does around. Does = bucks during the rut, so eventually, mature bucks will come in at peak times. 2. Unlike what i see on TV, most mature bucks like seclusion. I wall off a plot with 12 rows of corn or dense sun flowers to make a wall between the plot and an open field. Since i started doing this, mature bucks frequent the area MUCH more and spend more time there. 3. Don’t go solo on one seed. Set your plots up for a balance of food sources throughout the season. The deer’s diet changes with weather conditions and season and having a balanced grocery store keeps them coming back. I’ll try kto get back and elaborate more, but in a rush right now.

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here is the big picture.

The green is AG fields that will be planted in BEANS this year.
The RED is the pasture area that is in question for a food plot.
The PURPLE is the travel routs that the deer use to get to my property.
The ORANGE is a low area that is really full of heavy weeds, burrs and thistles. But I was thinking that If I could plant something in the orange area that I could hammer with ROUNDUP to keep it under control it could be beneficial. The orange area floods in the spring so I would have to have something annual in there only.

Thanks Guys

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I am sure they will hit the ag beans had during the summer and early fall, but your plot is more secluded so they will browse thru your plot to get to the ag beans. I would plant either beans or corn in the red plot.

The orange plots seem like a great place for a brassica plot. As soon as the ground dries out enough to get equipment in there disc it up. Give it 4 weeks or until you get regrowth then hit it with gly. Wait for it to green up, but don’t wait to long. You will get a better kill on young weeds. Then wait and see how good of a burn down you get from the first round of gly. You may need to hit it once more with gly about July 1st. Around mid July go in and disc it up good, add nitrogen and anything else a soil test says you need, then plant the brassica. About September 1st you should have a decent stand of brassica that is fairly weed free. It will continue to grow until about October 1st weather permitting and if the deer don’t eat it all. Ideally all thru October and November the brassica will provide a good food source and even well into december of the deer don’t eat it all.

I like that most of the deer come from the north and west toward your plot. This gives you good stand locations with the prevailing winds coming from north and west as they enter your plot.

that looks to be an awesome setup two nice pinches. definitely a kill plot having your neighbors as a destination plot once the sun goes down. the area in orange I would clean up and use brassicas/radishes not a lot of time involved. round up and plant early august and done.

Assuming the goal is to have food available during the hunting season and maximum attraction for after when the ag crops are all harvested, her are my best ideas.

A couple of questions:

First, what kind of equipment do you have or can you lay your hands on? A 6 acre plot is a big plot, which will require a significant amount of “working time” even if you have reasonable sized food plot gear. Of course, if you have access to large farm size equipment it’s a different story.

Second question is do you have the time and are you willing to go to the effort of working up, planting, and maintaining all 6 acres, every year?

If I really had to stick to your request for ONE and only one crop, it’d be a good clover blend. There is NEVER a time when deer won’t eat clover. It’s easy to plant, easy to maintain, highly resistant to stresses, and it will last several years.

Assuming you have the equipment and the time, I think Sticker’s idea of beans is a good one, but back to the question, does it have to be just one crop? If so, I would hesitate to go “all in” on beans for several reasons. The biggest reason is that with a single crop, if anything goes wrong, it’s all gone and you’re back to square one. It happened with Sticker last year when ragweed killed a whole plot of beans. Drought could bring the same issue.

I think the best approach would go with more of a “shotgun” approach by planting several different crops. This is not really more work like it sounds because you will likely have to work in stages anyway when breaking pasture ground, spraying, etc. Most of us are not farmers and therefore the work goes more slowly.

In the “red plot”, which I’m assuming is mentioned 6 acres, I’d go with about 4 acres of beans and this would be your focus in the early going in the spring. Then add 2 acres of a brassicas blend planted in about mid July. That would be a dynamite combo, like a deer CandyLand, but you’d be spreading out both your workload and your risk.

In the “orange plot”, I would kill it with Roundup, then work it up, then when it greens up a second time, kill it again. Then plant it late in the summer with a clover blend with grain as a nurse crop. For the grain part, I’ve been dying to try a wheat/rye mix, myself, but what I’ve been using is straight oats. Which both the deer and turkey love. The grain will stand tall above the early snows and will serve as a nurse crop to protect the clover while it’s establishing. Grain can be very attractive on it’s own if you get it 12-18 inches high before the first snow, it stands up and provides green food above the snow.

What do you think about that as a plan?

Grouse

Uh oh, Randy learned how to use the internet…..
DT

one other thing to think about is preparing if your going to do clover I would kill late summer and plant in the fall the plot won’t be much that year but will definitely be great the next year and you won’t have to battle weeds if you try and plant in the spring. spring planting works but usually the grass and weeds you will battle even if you round up, because once you work the ground it produces new seeds that get brought to the surface unless you wait and spray again, from what I’ve noticed. You will have grass and weeds following your fall planting but after the first mowing the clover will grow faster and choke out the grasses and you will have a beautiful plot. If you do do a clover I would mix in a bag of chicory awesome stuff and a lot of tonnage. most blends have it in it but not enough in my opinion.

This is great insight fellas. Thanks for taking the time to chime in your thoughts.

Grouse, The orange plot is at risk for high water and spring flooding. So that is why I crossed a clover plot off the list for that area. Am I correct on that theory.? Maybe something like BIG AND BEASTY brassicas would be a better option there, that was STICKERS recommendation.

I also was fearful of putting all my eggs in one basket. But If I go beans, my thought was the bigger the plot the less chance it will get wiped out by deer early. And we all know that December or Early blizzard in NOV. will yield insane amounts of deer in standing beans if you have anything left in the pods.

As far as equipment goes I will have a full sized tractor and a smaller disc, also I will have a bobcat to dig up and scoop big rocks that we disc up. I also have a rear mounted tractor TILLER, but I don’t know if that will be necessary. 6 acres would be alot of work on that tiller, but it might be handy in some areas. Do have access to a 12 row planter, 6 would be better but I have to make work what I have.

I also got a 4 wheeler with a boom sprayer for the initial couple runs through, and will have to bribe a buddy to spray beans when they get too tall to run through with the wheeler.

As far as the time commitment… Since I live there, It would be alot easier to put in work here and there. And Im looking forward to putting in the work and then enjoying the spoils in the fall. Makes things a little more simpler than having your plots a few hours away at the cabin or whatever. So there is advantage in that fact.

Yes, I didn’t read carefully enough. Since the orange area floods, that’s your late summer planted brassicas plot.

A couple of thoughts about brassicas, both from me and from what I’ve read. Deer can be a little brassicas fussy and it can take them several years to get in the groove with eating them. My deer are only beginning to figure them out after 3 years of planting in the same plot. They pull some of them, but only this year really started getting into them and then they waited too long.

I suspect this is because unless you’re in an area with sugar beets or similar, the deer simply are not used to digging for food and it takes them a while to figure out that that stuff is sweet and they should get at it. Bottom line is you can’t judge brassicas success by what the deer do the first year.

Also, brassicas are far more fertilizer hungry than I thought. At least in my soil they are and on reclaimed pasture I suspect you’ll have burned out soil too. It’s basically like growing corn. I bring this up because I started to question my own sanity and goal of working up to a few acres of brassicas because the fert costs are going to be over $500 per year just for that plot. All inputs included, that’s going to be a spendy plot.

Another option would be to do a fall grain blend in with brassicas. The reason being that this provides additional food above the snow and the deer can get it when the ground freezes and there’s snow covering the brassicas.

Since you live on the property, you can monitor the beans closely to watch for weed invasion and get on top of them as soon as possible. It would be really nice to spray your own beans for as long as possible. Just one less thing to have to get someone in to do and then you can quickly do it when it needs to be done.

I have an ATV boom sprayer and I can do about 10 feet per pass. I have the boom mounted at rack height and the nozzles facing almost straight back, so I can hit plants as high as the tops of the wheels. I don’t really worry about the impact of wheel tracks in the plots, this isn’t farming where I’m killing thousands of dollars worth of crop with tire tracks.

Sticker, do you use an ATV sprayer for your beans? Can you get through the plots with that until they canopy out and you’re done spraying for the year?

Grouse

Yep, I use an ATV sprayer mounted roughly the way you do Grouse. I have never had a problem spraying beans. Usually they canopy long before they get too tall, but that will depend on spacing. If you have 30″ rows it takes much longer to get full canopy. I like to plant mine much tighter than 30″ rows. I have planted at 15″ rows but that made it tough to get the ATV thru without running over an entire row. I now space them at 20″ rows.

Fairly new to food plots and have only been doing them for 7 years.

Sticker, Randy and Grouse have given you a great head start and I’d listen heavily to everything they posted.

The pure amount of damage deer can do to beans before hunting season is unbelievable. We are up in St. Louis county in an area with heavy hay fields and dominated by lots of good browse, brush and security cover, it’s a much a different scenario than what you are dealing with. Anything we plant gets slammed late summer early fall. Clover is a constant draw. For me personally, have found oats with clover to be a good one two/punch. They don’t deplete either oats or clover, yet the clover attracts all spring/summer and even into early fall, so the deer are acclimated to coming to the plots. By the time the oats become a good food option for them it’s early to mid October and they have yet to completely destroy an oat/clover plot throughout the season. There’s usually still digging for oats into early to mid December. We have had very good luck with brassicas but once they get going on them, it’s truly amazing how much only 15-20 deer can eat in a short period of time. Since we first planted brassicas we’ve never had any problem with deer just going crazy on them. It’s actually gotten to be very annoying how hard they hit them and how early. We’ve tried beans and peas, like Sticker said good luck not having deer wipe them out before the start of the bow season. That needs to be taken to heart big time! At home we have a ag field that borders our back yard. When he plants 160 acres plus of beans, the deer still come into the garden and hit the beans in the garden, so just because you’re surrounded by ag land, don’t just expect them to leave your plots till hunting season. I can not express enough how utterly depressing it is to have a plot or 2 or 3 be completely wiped out before early September. Or like grouse said if something goes wrong, one plant option can be susceptible to numerous problems and be an utter failure. Again that needs to be really taken into consideration and he’s telling you a great piece of advice I’m sure he’s learned the hard way. That’s were Randy is spot on with a balance mixture of plants that draw at different times of the year all year long from April-January. He also made a great point about mature bucks showing themselves in the daylight hours on plots, they rarely venture into a plot during daylight hours. But they do still draw does and fawns and the bucks wont be far behind.

Good luck with it and it’s highly addicting to start digging in the dirt. I never thought I’d be running food plots or gardening, but it’s just so fun to dig around in the dirt and watch stuff go from seed to a growing plant. From turning the soil to fruition, it can be utterly frustrating, but when it all comes together it is so rewarding.

Well there clearly isn’t a cut and dry answer..everyone has their own opinions and experiences. And I appreciate everyone’s input!

My plan of right now after weighing all of your guys advice.

Im going to plant beans in the 6 acre. STICKER is a bean man, and I plan on being one too! I am going to take Abster’s advice and try to plant as late as I can compared to the surrounding AG fields. My father-in-law is a Seed Dealer, So i will have access to free seed, and be able to choose a seed that would be better for a late planting.

As far as the river side plot goes. Looking at planting a mixture of things in a blended plot. This area I would like to be more of a travel route than a place they hold up for long periods of time. There isnt alot of spots for stands, but I could hunt the timber to the South of the ORANGE plot with a SOUTH wind. I saw a mix that I like with a little bit of everything in it. See how they react to some of the grains GROUSE had mentioned. Some brassicas to maybe test to see how my deer like the taste. It also has sunflowers and other things that will be taller to give them some security in this open area. If I notice they are heavy after the brassicas and Beets.. then I will have a good idea of what to put in next year. This mix should give me a little bit of draw throughout the year.

The mix Contains: Spring forage peas, soybeans, sunflowers, rye grain, crimson clover, common vetch, forage turnips, sugar beets, and Daikon forage radish.
25lbs/acre

How does that sounds boys!?

Sounds like a great plan to me. Now we just have to wait for the ground to warm up. I am anxious to turn some dirt!!!

sktrwx2200 wrote:

Well there clearly isn’t a cut and dry answer…

In general, I think guys fear making the “wrong” choice too much when trying to decided what to plant. In some cases there are better choices, but these are often less about what the deer will eat and more about conditions, soil types, timing, and other factors. Rarely is there a plot planted that the deer just won’t touch.

Another piece of advice that has been often repeated because it’s so valid: Put a browse exclusion cage in every plot to see what the deer are REALLY eating.

I can’t tell you the number of times guys say that the deer aren’t touching my plot or that the plot is “slow growing”, but then they finally relent and put out a cage, only to discover the deer are eating in the plot like there’s no tomorrow. It’s NOT obvious in many cases that the deer are eating in the plot. And even if it is obvious, it’s very helpful to have measure of how much they are eating.

And don’t forget to enjoy it all. Because of hunting and predator pressure, I’m not sure food plots really do that much for my hunting overall. I think they benefit the deer in terms of overall food value and survivability for does and fawns. For buck hunting itself, my experience has been that the bucks are doing what they’ve always done, avoiding any daylight during the hunting season, so food plots don’t change that for me.

But I really, really, really enjoy the process and I like just watching deer, turkey, and other wildlife use the plots. Heck, I’m even going to plant some stuff this year that’s for pollinators and birds, the deer have enough.

Grouse

Grouse, go to any feed mill and buy an assortment of sunflower seeds. If you want something unique, put in a plot of sunflowers. Turkeys, birds,…will be all over them all winter.