Small, in-woods food plot suggestion

Here is a quick run down of my property. Heavily wooded 40 acres butted up to 400 acres of state, hay field to the north, surrounded by private on 3 sides. I would really like to try some sort of a small, maybe 1-2 acre food plot in the middle of the property that gets good sunlight. Over the last several years, we have cleared about an acre size clearing and threw out some THROW AND GROW with decent results and absolutely no other prep work. We also have several shooting lanes/wheeler trails that all converge in the center of the property making a central pinch point/crossing. FYI, historically, this area has produced some of our best deer. I am limited to a wheeler with a pull behind tiller. Here are my plans, please advise if I’m missing something. I also need to know the best times to start this. I basically envision a small, 1-2 acre round/square central food source but also want to plant something along one or both of the wheeler trails that spoke off into the woods.

1. Continue to clear out area, remove any stumps,rocks, etc…
2. Get the dirt tested
3. Round-up the area to kill off weeds/grass
4. Add lime or necessary nutrients to ground
5. Till the ground and prepare for seed

Here in lies the biggest question. Given my area (McGregor, MN) and known growing season, what would be the best thing to provide in this plot? My goal is to obviously improve our hunting by keeping deer on our property. As far as I know, there is no other food plot or crop other than alfalfa in the hay field to the north (SEE PIC). This plot WOULD be hunted, and not an isolated safe zone.

I would appreciate any help you guys could give me, I’m new to the food plot building. What am I missing?? FYI, My 40 is in the middle with a field to it’s north, the property’s border is easily seen by dirt roads.

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I think just about anything you put in is going to draw deer as it will be the only other crop other than the hay field. That being said, it is probably going to get hit pretty hard. I usually like to start a new plot with a round up ready crop to get control of the weeds, but with only 1-2 acres and nothing around but woods beans and corn are going to get wiped out pretty quickly. My thought would be brassica with maybe clover mixed in. That would be fairly browse resistant and you would have the first couple months of summer to get weeds under control.

Start in spring by getting a soil sample and clearing your plot and getting the dirt turned. Wait a couple weeks then spray with gly(round up). Give it about a month or however long it takes the weeds to get about 2-4″ tall and add fertilizer and lime per soil sample and turn the ground again. Wait about 3-4 more weeks, again until the weeds get 2-4″ tall then spray again. This should take you to about the middle of July. Get a bag of Evolve habitat shot plot(or other brassica seed) and some clover seed for extra browse, spread the seed, and cover by dragging or cultipack if available. About September 1st broadcast about 50lbs/acre of fertilizer, urea(46-0-0). This should give you a decent plot of greens for the early bow season and good bulbs for the gun season and will control the weeds.

I like your plan and I agree with Sticker re planting some kind of brassicas mix for late season attraction.

Sticker is right on with the planting timeframe for brassicas. Do NOT follow the instructions on most packages that says early to mid August. We are too far north for that, I made that mistake last year. Get them anytime from the second to the third week in July. This extra two weeks will be critical where you are at in McGregor.

Personally, however, I would NOT add clover and here’s why. What I found out with small plots is that the problem wasn’t getting the deer to find them. It was getting deer to leave them alone! They mowed down my little brassicas plot like it was a putting green and kept it mowed, despite the fact that the brassicas leaves are supposed to be relatively bitter when young.

Adding clover would potentially make this problem worse as deer LOVE young clover. Usually this is not a bad thing, but in a 1 acre plot, it could attract overgrazing pressure. Clover is usually a great crop to have for all season attraction, but in your specific case I’m not sure it’s the way to go.

Clover may also not be necessary as many commercial brassicas and winter mixes already contain a lot of filler like rye, which will serve the same purpose anyway.

Another thing I learned the hard way. In an in-woods plot, you will lose over 25% of the plot productivity to shading from the surrounding trees, so a 1 acre plot would actually be .75 acres or less. Now that I realize how much this impacts things, I changed my plot orientation to make the plots rectangular with the long edge running south to north to maximize the amount of mid-summer sunshine that comes straigt down the plot while minimzing the impact of the shadows off of the trees at the south end.

Also, a longer rectangle plot is easier to work because it keeps you going in a straight line longer with whatever equipment you’re using. Which brings me to my last point…

2 acres is do-able if you have ATV equipment like a sprayer and a disc, but IMO this is getting on the upper end of things. I just opened up some new plots and while 3-5 acres didn’t sound that big in theory, I instantly found myself undergunned with my ATV equipment. Just saying that in relative terms, 2 acres will be plenty if you’re going to put it in an annual crop unless you have the biggest ATV equipment out there.

If you don’t already have a sprayer, again, get the biggest one you can. I have a 22 gallon sprayer and it’s certainly not oversized. The main time consumer in spraying is faffing around filling and mixing, so once you get up and running, you want to keep it rocking as long as possible before you have to refill. A sprayer is a key tool and you’ll use it constantly. Buy a good one that has a 100% duty cycle. Wimpy “lawn and garden” sprayers won’t cut it.

Grouse

This is great stuff guys, thanks. I knew you guys would chime in.

If you have somewhat worked this soil before, I would disc the ground as soon as possible. When the weeds start growing either spray or work soil again. Id then plant a cover crop of winter wheat or winter rye. Rye grows fast and tall. It will also provide a little nitrogen when tilled under, green manure some call it. Id then till it all under and plant brassicas on half the plot and a rye clover mix on the other half. Then every other year rotate your brassicas and rye. You could even do strips. Brassicas, winter rye, clover,and some rape seed or whatever.

Pm me this spring, I might be able to help.

One thing I forgot to mention is to keep the big picture in mind.

Before I planted even my small test plot, my whole property was essentially a crossing area. It was the deer equivalent of flyover country, they crossed through my property to get to somewhere else because other than bedding areas, my property didn’t offer them anything.

So if you look at my past trail cam pics on the property, it was mainly traveling deer on their way to or from someplace.

Fast forward to last year and even with just a small plot and some mineral licks, I suddenly had deer staying on my property for extended periods of time. Instead of just visiting to lick some mineral or crossing through, I had deer in the food plot, and I would routinely bump into deer just standing around.

By adding food plots this year, the big picture I’m trying to achieve is to give the deer a reason to stay on the property for lack of any better place to go. I have food, I have a stream for water, I have mineral licks, I have bedding cover (that I hope to improve later). My hope is to continue the trend of having deer hanging around a lot more rather than just passing through.

So before you start on any food plots, I’d just say try to figure out what your goals are and then do things that advance those goals.

Grouse

I like the idea of food plots and I think you have some great advise listed above. Though i would take it a major step forward. Looking at all the main trails along with secondary trails, i would enhance a bedding / sanctuary area. Maybe 5 to 8 acres that no one enters. Stage tree top piles and brush to create wind breaks and a sense of seclusion. Besides having a place to eat/snack, your giving them the sense of security in a bedding area and trippling the reason for deer to stay on your property. Additionally, the more does you have taking a residence, the more bucks that you will have frequenting your 40 in the fall

I couldn’t agree more with Randy! When we added our 15 acre sanctuary about 5 years ago it made a HUGE difference. We had food plots and an 55 acre ag field on the property, we had woods for cover, but nowhere on the property was there a place for them to feel safe. They would come to our property to feed, use the woods for a travel area, but very few would stay and live on the property and none would winter there. Now they live there,feed there, and in the last 3 years have been wintering there. Last spring I could not believe the amount of beds on the property. I walk through the sanctuary found beds everywhere, hard to find a spot that didn’t have beds in the whole 15 acres. I did some improvements the last few springs by hinge cutting in there which really seem to enhance it. That is the only time that we go in there though, just in spring to shed hunt and hinge cut. The rest of the year that is void of human scent and the deer really take advantage of it. Here are a few pics of the hinge cutting and one of the beds in the sanctuary.

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