Our #1 fall food source

I’m a newbie at the food plots, and trying to learn all that I can. Up until this year, its always been plant 19 acres of corn or soybeans and think the deer will come. Well, as I learned the most, that’s not the case. Deer have pretty specific diets when they are focused on what they want.
The first pick is a type of Brassicas (New Zealand mix as I understand it) Next was Turnips, Rape Seed, and Chicory.

By far, the Brassicas was the #1 item on the menue this fall. Just after the first major frost, the stalk turned a purplish-red. Signs that the sugars were more prevalent. In about 19 or 20 days, the deer mowed down about 2-1/2 acres. The only standing stuff left during our gun deer season, was common to areas directly next to a scrape. My therory is the musk and scent/urine from the glands deposited on this kept most deer from eating the little areas off. Well, my Dad called and told me that as of this morning, it was ALL gone. I was fortunate to share a very exciting deer hunting season with my daughter, and we saw a good number of deer based on the exceptionally low population. I am 100% convinced that this food source was the one reason we were able to keep deer on our property.

In comparison, we had 11 acres of corn that was cut 2 weeks prior to gun deer season. With 3 trail cams set on the major trails entering/leaving the corn – we only had a dozen or so pics in almost 3 weeks. My one trail cam located in the center of my food plot near a licking branch / scrape produced well over 300 pics. I’ll be planting a little heavier with this seed again!

I’m so jealous, can’t get this stuff to grow in our ground in SD. Although the deer hit the corn hard every night, so it’s definitely one of their favorites out there.

on getting your desired results. Year in and year out the deer on my properties just hammer the brassicas.

After this fall, are you intending on expanding your food plots with any new species?

I’ll be tweaking a few things on a couple small plots that are more intended for spring and turkeys. But this primary plot will definitely see some changes. Even though we did a great job in prepping the land, I had a couple things go wrong. A lot of fox-tail grass popped up in late summer and went to seed. This spring when it dries, I’m planning on a burn, two weeks, then a killing spray.
One of the tree nurseries that I trap at has a couyple species of pumpkins and gords that the deer are going nuts over. When I run into the owner over the next couple weeks, I’ll get the type of pumpkins identified and include them in for next year.
I was also a little disappointing to see how much of the invasive species that I cut and sprayed with round-up (or equivalent) began to pop back up by late summer. I’ll be doing a heavy duty spray along the wood line this spring. I’m concerned on damaging any of the sapling nut bearing trees that I want to see mature, but if I lose a few, I’ll live with that.
Probably my biggest future improvement will be in the woods. I have about 10 acres that I have been removing Ironwood trees from. Rather than cutting 100% of them at once, I’ve been doing a little at a time. Well, that’s been good and bad. If i cut them all, I’ll have areas that are too thinned out and absolutely no canopy. The under brush will get too much and choke any saplings. What I found though is where I did do that, the rasberry /blackberry brush came in VERY thick. The deer loved using that as cover, and increased their bedding area. I’m also having a heck of a time killing the abundance of grape vines. Where more sun light is getting in, the vines are going nuts.

A final good news on another concern I had was the deer repellant spray on the new trees. The deer have been avoiding eating the tips of the trees, but are still walking the field amongst them. I really thought the spray would have an adverse affect of the deer continuing to use the field.

The final thing I want to figure out is how to legally increase concentrations of acorns on the SE facing parts of my property. Since the snow cover is the least there, I want a better natural food source out in the hard winter months. Where they naturally drop, is obviously fine. BVut by the law, if I recover acorns elsewhere and place them there, its baiting……But if I’m broadcasting them for forest restoration…. I don’t see how they could argue that 20 bushel is baiting