Need some ideas for one of the plots

I worked up a just over another acre that was intended for a garden. Well after reality hitting, changed our minds and need to get it seeded for another plot.
Other than ground cover for the summer, I don’t care about summer/early fall grazing. This plot has a lot of competition for drawing any deer.
Currently have 3 acres of mixed clover/chickory/rape/grasses. 9 acres of corn, 8 acres of early oats that will be late seeded with alfalfa.
So with the large scale plots I have, I really want to enhance the area with another late fall/winter food source. Brassicas gets hammered after the first major frost and the leaves sugar, but never lasts long here. Beans and late oats/wheat are awesome until snow covered. After the snow knocks them down, the deer go back to the corn.

Regardless of what goes in, I’m adding mini pumpkins and black sunflowers

Any thoughts on anything unusual or outside the normal “food plot seed” This is a good chance to roll the dice on something different. Oh, additionally the bur oaks I have in my tree planting stands are all producing acorns now. So that adds a new element to the plan

Oats are thick and cut most by in strong

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Boy meets girl….wait wrong plot

Maybe try Milo in the new plot. Good cover, lasts all winter long and when the heads are ripe it’s great food source.

Is Milo also known as Sorghum?
DT

deertracker wrote:

Is Milo also known as Sorghum?
DT

Yes, some varieties of sorghum are known as milo. Not sure of its attraction for deer but pheasants love it. Best pheasant hunting I have experienced was on a large field planted with alternating strips of sorghum and alfalfa, decent CRP land adjacent. Birds everywhere.

Lots of things you could try, but true late season food source options are the toughest thing to pull off here in the northern tier states.

– Brassicas are always a good option. More is always more. You could plant a “pure” field of them rather than a blend or go with some of the more unusual species like cale or collard greens.
– Triticale – cross between winter rye and winter wheat. The durability of rye, protein content of wheat. Easy to grow.
– Winter wheat
– A true forage variety of cereal rye
– Annual ryegrass. Easy to grow, can be seeded thick, deer like it, it’s cheap, as with annual grains, it matures and dies off in the following summer.

Grouse

The last plot to do is finally done and officially named – Heart Stop Lane.

I quit over analyzing it and kept it simple 48 x 48’ black sun flower seed

48 x 30’ will be fenced off for personal garden space

48 x 1000 combo soybeans, brassica, cabbage, and sugar beats. Then randomly added a variety of pumpkins and squash down the middle.

Last 48 x approx 250 i let a buddy plant a pack of maxirack stuff to compare to what I mixed

Didn’t use any specific brand pre-mix. Just got bulk seed and mixed my own

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Up north here in Tomahawk we have a tradition of deeper winter snow depths. While our summertime plantings all seem to satisfy the deer, it’s our maintaining a n abundant supply of winter browse. There’s a reason deer have evolved to be able to thrive on “twigs” all winter.

So what I’m getting at is give them what they want and should have that’s appropriate for each time of the year.

On a side note, we planted root intensive brassicas last year and when we tilled those areas in April/ May the deer flocked to those areas eating all the remnants of now easily gotten to root pieces. While it’s tempting to always see green on the plots, sometimes the brown of turned soil and what’s left over from the year before are what the deer really like.

castle-rock-clown wrote:

tilled those areas in April/ May the deer flocked to those areas eating all the remnants of now easily gotten to root pieces.

Had a very similar result with beets. When I tilled it over, they hammered all the left over beets in the spring.

I agree on differences of Tomahawk and further south down here. We have places near Prentice and you get the snow DEPTH up there, without the layering of ice like we do here. I’ld rather deal with30-40″ of snow than layered snow/ice. Critters can dig in snow, can’t in ice.

No silver bullet for a perfect solution. Just thought this would be the time to experiment with something new. Of the 30,000 trees I planted, about 25% was burr oak. They all began to have acorns last year. Unlike white or red oak they tend to hold their nuts longer. It will be interesting to see what influence that has on deer/turkey this year