What are you planting in your food plots?

[cornfedkiller]

As far as my plots, I am not doing anything this season..The past couple seasons I have worked hard on my plots, which consist of clover, kale, rape, turnips, and chicory. I planted that combo two seasons ago, and then last season I didnt replant anything and just let the clover thrive. Both plots were a really nice stand of clover and really got hit hard. I mowed it several times last summer to keep new growth coming and keep weeds and stuff down. Anyways, because of family disputes and issues with the other people that hunt the land, Im not sticking any time into the plots this year. The clover will come back again, but Im not going to spend any time or money mowing them or taking care of them...which kinda sucks because I enjoyed doing it..

My next plot though will be straight soybeans..LIke LB said, they get hammered all fall when they are young, and they really get hit in the late season too. Nothing better for late season hunting than a stand of soybeans. Also, I am going to with roundup-ready beans so weed control will be very easy (something thats not that simple with a broad range of plants like in my other plots). Also, they wont require near as much maintenance as something like clover or alfalfa because they wont require mowing or anything. They will also be much cheaper!

[JRM6868]

I plant winter rye,rape,clover, turnips and winter peas in 3 plots.In hardwoods area(no crop fields) and the deer love it.
Another plot I plant in farm country is oats, corn and beans. The deer don't hit the clover or brassicas in the farm country in my area for some reason. I think it has to do with all the other clover,winter wheat and alfalfa fields in the area.

[BackWoodsHunter]

Different plants require different amounts of different nutrients to grow. So if you use the same crops year after year after year they will basically suck up all of that specific nutrient from the soil til it isn't there anymore and your stand of crops will struggle to grow because the one thing it needs most has been used abused and gone missing. Plant matter, organic matter, whichever you want to call it dies and decomposes back into the soil putting some nutrients back in there. By rotating the crops no one specific nutrient is depleted and various nutrients are returned to the soil. That is from a soil aspect of things why its not healthy to consistently plant the same crops over and over again. There may be more to LB's theory switching corn and beans in but I know from a science aspect that is why farmers and what not rotate crops. To keep the soil healthy!

[cornfedkiller]

Different plants require different amounts of different nutrients to grow. So if you use the same crops year after year after year they will basically suck up all of that specific nutrient from the soil til it isn't there anymore and your stand of crops will struggle to grow because the one thing it needs most has been used abused and gone missing. Plant matter, organic matter, whichever you want to call it dies and decomposes back into the soil putting some nutrients back in there. By rotating the crops no one specific nutrient is depleted and various nutrients are returned to the soil. That is from a soil aspect of things why its not healthy to consistently plant the same crops over and over again. There may be more to LB's theory switching corn and beans in but I know from a science aspect that is why farmers and what not rotate crops. To keep the soil healthy!

Right, but corn and beans are alternated by farmers because corn robs all the nitrogen from the soil, and soybeans puts it back in (they are legumes). So the reason I asked that to LB was because he said he likes the beans better than the corn, but rotated them every year to replace the nitrogen..so if that is the case, you can just do soybeans every year and not worry about the corn.

[BackWoodsHunter]

I'm no farmer lol but maybe the build up of nitrogen can become too high in the soil with years and years of soybean plots?

[JRM6868]

Different plants require different amounts of different nutrients to grow. So if you use the same crops year after year after year they will basically suck up all of that specific nutrient from the soil til it isn't there anymore and your stand of crops will struggle to grow because the one thing it needs most has been used abused and gone missing. Plant matter, organic matter, whichever you want to call it dies and decomposes back into the soil putting some nutrients back in there. By rotating the crops no one specific nutrient is depleted and various nutrients are returned to the soil. That is from a soil aspect of things why its not healthy to consistently plant the same crops over and over again. There may be more to LB's theory switching corn and beans in but I know from a science aspect that is why farmers and what not rotate crops. To keep the soil healthy!

Right, but corn and beans are alternated by farmers because corn robs all the nitrogen from the soil, and soybeans puts it back in (they are legumes). So the reason I asked that to LB was because he said he likes the beans better than the corn, but rotated them every year to replace the nitrogen..so if that is the case, you can just do soybeans every year and not worry about the corn.

I was also told that certain plants get parasites in them and the soil and by rotating the crops without that certain plant in it for a year will kill them off with nothing to feed on. Atleast that's what I was told I'm no farmer.

[Black Squirrel]

Different plants require different amounts of different nutrients to grow. So if you use the same crops year after year after year they will basically suck up all of that specific nutrient from the soil til it isn't there anymore and your stand of crops will struggle to grow because the one thing it needs most has been used abused and gone missing. Plant matter, organic matter, whichever you want to call it dies and decomposes back into the soil putting some nutrients back in there. By rotating the crops no one specific nutrient is depleted and various nutrients are returned to the soil. That is from a soil aspect of things why its not healthy to consistently plant the same crops over and over again. There may be more to LB's theory switching corn and beans in but I know from a science aspect that is why farmers and what not rotate crops. To keep the soil healthy!

Right, but corn and beans are alternated by farmers because corn robs all the nitrogen from the soil, and soybeans puts it back in (they are legumes). So the reason I asked that to LB was because he said he likes the beans better than the corn, but rotated them every year to replace the nitrogen..so if that is the case, you can just do soybeans every year and not worry about the corn.

I was also told that certain plants get parasites in them and the soil and by rotating the crops without that certain plant in it for a year will kill them off with nothing to feed on. Atleast that's what I was told I'm no farmer.

Those are all good reasons to rotate. Soybeans become suseptible to white mold after a couple of years of continous planting. Rotating is just a good practice for all the reasons stated above. Alfalafa is a legume as are soybeans so it's always a good idea to plant a high nitrogen demanding crop like corn after them. This takes advantage of the extra nitrogen available.

[cornfedkiller]

I was also told that certain plants get parasites in them and the soil and by rotating the crops without that certain plant in it for a year will kill them off with nothing to feed on. Atleast that's what I was told I'm no farmer.

Those are all good reasons to rotate. Soybeans become suseptible to white mold after a couple of years of continous planting. Rotating is just a good practice for all the reasons stated above. Alfalafa is a legume as are soybeans so it's always a good idea to plant a high nitrogen demanding crop like corn after them. This takes advantage of the extra nitrogen available.

Forgot about that..Yeah it is probably a good idea to rotate them with some corn every other year. The good news is that corn is also fairly cheap to plant, easy to get in roundup-ready varieties, and deer will hit it hard in the late season. Only downside is, as LB mentioned, it doesnt really get touched til then..

[Bucky]

I have corn and beans naturally on my lease (neighbors leave a big bean field standing as well), so I'm going try Frigid Forage Big and Beasty this fall. According to reports rape and turnips are easier to grow and the soil does not need to be primo (although the land I'm on is pretty fertile with beans and corn + excellent sunlight). I buddy of mine planted this in the same general vicinity and the results where unreal. There had to be almost 30 deer a night in a 1 acre plot from late Oct-Nov until is was totally destroyed, they 1st ate the green foilage, then the turnips, then they dug into the ground late Nov and ate the roots! There was a standing bean field and the deer would tend to hang in the turnips until almost dark before moving off likely to the bean field.

I plan to mow around July 1st, spray with round up a week or so later, then till, fertilize/possibly lime if needed, and plant around August 1. I plan to post pictures regardless of success... anyone with suggestions/hints please be sure to speak up. I'm lucky in that my father n law has all the right equipment to make this a little easier, I'm sure it still will be plenty of work though...

[BackWoodsHunter]

I have corn and beans naturally on my lease (neighbors leave a big bean field standing as well), so I'm going try Frigid Forage Big and Beasty this fall. According to reports rape and turnips are easier to grow and the soil does not need to be primo (although the land I'm on is pretty fertile with beans and corn + excellent sunlight). I buddy of mine planted this in the same general vicinity and the results where unreal. There had to be almost 30 deer a night in a 1 acre plot from late Oct-Nov until is was totally destroyed, they 1st ate the green foilage, then the turnips, then they dug into the ground late Nov and ate the roots! There was a standing bean field and the deer would tend to hang in the turnips until almost dark before moving off likely to the bean field.

I plan to mow around July 1st, spray with round up a week or so later, then till, fertilize/possibly lime if needed, and plant around August 1. I plan to post pictures regardless of success... anyone with suggestions/hints please be sure to speak up. I'm lucky in that my father n law has all the right equipment to make this a little easier, I'm sure it still will be plenty of work though...

another good thing to add to a turnip/rape blend is radishes. They grow in the ground like turnips but obviously based on the name are not turnips LOL anyhow, I also did some reading and found with the brassicas 3 applications of glyphosate(round up) and a cultipacker can get just as good of results when planting if you don't have or want to use a tiller. Mowing mid may then spraying, spraying mid june, then broadcasting and cultipacking seed mid july and right after seeding adding a 3rd app of round up gets the best result. The glyphosate won't kill the seeds so spraying right after you broadcast seed kills all the remaining weeds that your new plants compete against but not the seed for new plants. By broadcasting before spraying you don't have to worry about any of the seeds sticking to weed leaves as they will be on the dirt ahead of time. Not sure how big of a plot you are planting but would be interesting to see a comparison plot planted to compare the effects of what you planted on tilled ground vs the ground that was just sprayed 3 times.

[Bucky]

Backwoods, it will like be around 2-3 acres total (The area I'm planting was once part of the cornfield, that was planted in clover years ago and is now mostly golden rod/praire grass). The cornfield just to the South of the plot is roughly 15 acres. Major buck bedding areas are only 300 yards off this plot going from crop land into thick black/red brush/marsh grass, only 125 or so yards to the inside corner on the corn. It is a dynamite spot tucked back off the road that deer feel comfortable coming out early and browsing. I probably don't need to plant the plot as the picked cornfield tends to draw does right up to the rut... but in never hurts to have more food

[lungbuster]

One thing to say about food plots and how they relate to your hunting. Alot of my plots are just for winter feed and don't get hunted as i want to keep the most deer on my land for the majority of the year. The plots I do hunt only get hunted 2-3 times during season. I will hang and hunt a set for one evening sit and if nothing shows I let it lay for about 2 weeks before I try it again. Last year during the beginning of Nov. I hunted one of my corn plots that had not been touch by me all season. We hung our set and I killed the freak buck about 2 hours later, the following afternoon we needed another doe and low and behold 3 showed just before last light. I think that if I would have cooled the spot for more than 24 hours, those same does would have smelled where we killed the buck and walked in and out and would not have fed in the plot that night.
The other plot we killed a buck on was an oat plot I planted late (end of Aug.).We set our stands for a morning hunt as I figured it would be a good spot for Steve to get his EAB doe. That morning a small 1.5 year old buck was the only deer to come through, so we switched up and hunted a couple other spots til he killed his doe, 3 days later we moved our set to another tree about 150 yards from our initial set up. We had a doe deke in the plot, which may have tipped the odds in our favor a tad, but the 10 point Steve ended up killing that morning was coming into the plot before he even saw the deke.

My point in all of this babble is keep your pressure low on the plots you plan to hunt and you should see sucess even on marginal plots that maybe won't make it all season long. Also I believe that feeding plots are very important to keeping the deer off your nieghbors property (if you have the acreage to do so). for every "hunting plot" acreage I have double if not triple the acreage in just "feeding plots".

[BackWoodsHunter]

Maybe we could use a clarification in between the difference of a hunting and feeding plot are? I assume hunting plots are the ones planted back in the timber closer to bedding areas, are small in size and a place where a buck or bucks feel comfortable feeding in daylight on their way to the main food plot? A feeding food plot would be multiple acres in size and pretty wide open as a central location for the deer to feed primarily in the evening hours.


Is that about right? Sounds similar to what we have set up, or are in the process of setting up this spring.

[lungbuster]

Yes and no, A hunting plot is one in which you have situated to hunt over, whether it be near bedding or just in a good location on a travel route that does not have any other high protien food source close.

A feeding plot can be 2-50 acres depending on how many deer you have in your area and how much food you need to keep them on your property all year.
Feeding plots need to be somewhat secluded as well so the deer feel comfortable feeding in them at all times of the day, otherwise they may bed on the nieghbors, feed in one of thier crops then venture to yours if it is too open for them to feel secure in daytime hours.

I don't know if this clarified things or not?????????

[Gardner Swamp]

This year Iam going with some clover(Ladino,White dutch,Aslike). I also bought some field forage peas, and a 60/40 pea/oats mixture.For my smaller plots Iam going with Dwarf essex rape and trying out some chicory this year.