What is good to plant for a small deer food plot.?
by admin on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011 | 8 Comments
I was wanting to plant a small food plot in one of my hunting locations and maybe in other locations if it works out well and I was wanting some tips on what to plant that is cheap and works good.
hey man for a cheap and easy to manage and easy to grow plot i would recommend soy beans. deer love the soy beans and the usually grow pretty quickly. hope this helps you out a little. save me some back strap or some sausage. good huntin and be safe
well… i would use raw corn or apples
Guess it all depends on where you are. Soybeans, corn and peanuts are good for most of the south. However, you said small food plot. You may want to try winter wheat, rye, or peas. They are easy to plant and require little preparation and no maintenance other than maybe some fertilizer to green up and grow should the deer over graze. I have planted Australian Winter Peas and the deer will eat off the tops when they get just 4 inches causing the growth to stop. It doesn’t take many deer to go thru a small food plot so you want to consider the wheat or rye grass since it will continue to grow.
A good part of this will depend on your area, growing season, planting time, climate, local crops, etc.
-clover is a good forage that will last a few years and has decent protein
-rape and canola are great annual forages that deer absolutely love and is high in protein
-soybeans are delicious and high in protein also
-small grains work quite well and are higher in energy
-turnips are something that few people will think of but are easy to grow, palatable leaves and if planted shallow will provide a good food and water source over the winter, as long as the bulbs stick up a little so they can dig them out.
-Alfalfa is more expensive but it’s the king of forages and will last 4-7 years
-Birdsfoot Trefoil is another great forage that still thrives on less than ideal soil conditions, and has decent feed value
- a few rows of corn or sorghum will help also, deer love it and it provides some cover. Try to get a forage variety as they are more palatable.
Try to plant something that’s not terribly common in your area. For example if you plant a few acres of alfalfa in an area where it’s the main crop, it won’t be anywhere near as attractive to the deer. Also most co-ops will have deer plot mixes for sale, usually cheaper than sporting goods stores. Or better yet go to your local co-op and blend your own. Personally I would go with a mixture in your food plot, as more feed types will be more attractive to the deer, and if one fails or doesn’t work as well there’s still plenty of backup in your plot.
In this area we have a lot of success with turnips and sweet beets. Deer love those big juicy leafs. You can grow a lot of turnips in a small patch. They are tough and require no care. You might mix in some clover to just fill in.
Turnips are easy and grow quite a whilte till it gets cold the tops keep regrowing . When it gets cold
they will dig up the turnips. IF you are luck and a few seed out they can be a good self regenerating
thing.
IF you can find a small perrsimmon tree or two and stake it out. They love them during the fall
we usually use this bio mix stuff, milo, alfalfa, beans and other things like that.
Purple hull peas about three weeks before you hunt. The deer will eat the tops off before they ever make a pea and they love them.