What are you planting in your food plots?

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DEERSLAYER
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What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby DEERSLAYER » Tue Feb 08, 2011 7:06 pm

What are you planting in your food plots this year?


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Re: What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby BackWoodsHunter » Wed Feb 09, 2011 2:22 am

Purple top turnips, Dwarf Essex Rape, and Daikon or Groundhog Radishes in Plot #1

Rye, Clover and possibly oats in Plot #2

Chicory and clover in Plot #3
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Re: What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby matson123 » Mon Mar 21, 2011 1:43 pm

BackWoodsHunter wrote:Purple top turnips, Dwarf Essex Rape, and Daikon or Groundhog Radishes in Plot #1

Rye, Clover and possibly oats in Plot #2

Chicory and clover in Plot #3



How do you choose those over the other "standard" plots of alfalfa, beans, wheat, etc.?
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Re: What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby matson123 » Mon Mar 21, 2011 1:45 pm

I should actually say Why instead of how. Very curious as we are going to try a few food plots, but where we can put them, it we will have to haul in a rototiller! No 4-wheeler, so I'm trying to make the best decision possible.

Thanks!
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Re: What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby matson123 » Mon Mar 21, 2011 1:46 pm

What does everyone here think? We have a ridge that is mostly south facing and runs in length 200 yards sloping down into marsh/swamp. It is maybe 20 yards in width with a 10'-15' slope. Ever heard of planting in an area like this, or if it is possible? There are oaks and birch growing on this hill that we would plant around. Any thoughts on what to plant here? I was thinking turnips, but I really have no clue.
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Re: What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby BackWoodsHunter » Mon Mar 21, 2011 2:14 pm

I made my choices based on a lot of time spent on the QDMA forums LOL I read what is working for other guys from my area. I also chose based on what is easiest to plant. I know that if you prep the seed bed with 3-4 applications throughout summer the weeds/grasses will all be dead by mid July. Then you can plant the turnips, rape and radishes in a mix and cultipack them to the exposed soil. Its a "no-till" approach to planting brassicas. Those brassicas become sweet to the deers taste AFTER the first frost and become more appetizing into the late season. They are a really good late season choice if you hunt in an area with a lot of agriculture. As the crops come off the deer will find and start to hit brassicas that have sweetened up for them.

Clover and chicory are a good combo for the woods/logging roads. They are perennials and keep coming back year afrer year. They are a good choice for planting in the woods and maybe around some larger trees like you have been talking about doing. They don't need as much sunlight and they can be planted just like I said the brassicas can above. Just spray spray spray and then apply your seed in mid to late july before a good rain. A good thing to mix with clover is winter rye I have been reading. The deer like the rye into the fall and winter months. Then in spring the clover should come back very strong and as it becomes more well established you will have a solid clover plot that just needs some slight maintenance like mowing and some weed control.


IF you are working on a ridge or any part of the property with good nut and fruit producing trees it is crucial to "save" those trees. By saving I mean you need to eliminate a lot of the competitors that are not as beneficial. Sure its nice to have a thick/dense forest but nut producing trees are more valuable. For example on our land we have a few clumps of nice young oaks and they are being shaded out and competing for nutrients and sunlight with some nasty old popples. I will be cutting all the popples out to get more light to my oaks to promote a larger and healthier acorn crop this fall.


If you would like some links I can send you some links to some good stuff over on the QDMA forums. One guy planted the brassicas in a no-till plot like I said, another thread is all about clover and other threads are dedicated to timber stand management with tons of good info. Another option for your south facing hillside might be spending some bucks on some apple trees and fruiting shrubs with a wildlife value and planting/fencing your off. Good luck!
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Re: What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby BackWoodsHunter » Mon Mar 21, 2011 2:22 pm

Also the standard plots you listed are harder to plant for me. I have the farm equipment of an advanced polish-man, literally NO agriculture within miles of our hunting land and not enough acres to plant.

We have some farm equipment that works (old allis tractor, atv, a bad disk, quack digger, and I'm finding more as I wander through the woods LOL) but it makes life a lot harder to break soil and get seeds planted for something like corn or soybeans. I don't have a seed drill even though beans could be broadcasted by hand. I could plant wheat too I suppose but haven't/don't plan too. Also our land used to be farmed 40+ yrs ago and has since been overgrown prairie and stuff we are slowly converting back to planting for plots . That being said it would be a pain to plant and maintain a good crop of alfalfa because it needs to be babied and maintained a little bit more than the things I have chosen.


Also, our deer herd relative to the amount of available food in the area is not proportional. We hunt north/central WI and any plot we have planted so far has been eaten basically down to the ground. Corn, beans, ag crops in general wouldn't be so successful. This year we will be expanding our plots and incorporating the brassicas hoping they last til the late season for gun/bow season.


Another good option is oats that we are thinking of using.
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Re: What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby matson123 » Mon Mar 21, 2011 3:33 pm

That is great information! Thank you for the reply. It would be great to have those links as well. I'm in the middle of a 1300acre QDM cooperative where they all have the corn, beans, hay, etc., and the money to do so. Myself on the other hand, nada. I have a 2 foot rototiller and a strong back! lol I'd love to be able to draw some of the other bucks to my area after my acorn drop. Once the mast is done, I tend to lose all of my deer. And...most of the deer are does. It makes for a nice rut, but slow the rest of the year.
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Re: What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby BackWoodsHunter » Mon Mar 21, 2011 3:54 pm

I am taking credit for none of this material other than I found it read it and am passing it along because its helped me so much.You will probably have to copy and paste the links I posted into the web browser thingy at the top of the page.

[glow=red]Here is a guy from Shawano County WI who planted a "no till" brassica mix and look at the results.[/glow]
http://forums.qdma.com/showthread.php?t=37078


[glow=red]Same guy planted soybeans with an atv, small drag and disk and like you a strong back.[/glow]

http://www.qdmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=35185
[glow=red]here is a link a guy put together called "getting started" it is everything you need to know to get started in managing your land for more and bigger deer. This guy is THE MAN[/glow]

http://www.outreachoutdoors.com/phpBB3/ ... =33&t=3063


same guy did a topic on hinging trees to funnel deer, provide cover for deer, get more sunlight to the forest floor, and create bedding (hinging trees creates a beautiful mess)

http://www.outreachoutdoors.com/phpBB3/ ... =13&t=2010


[glow=red]and finally some good info on growing clover[/glow]

http://www.outreachoutdoors.com/phpBB3/ ... f=27&t=475








I would think if you could get a good size brassica plot in (an acre or so) that you could have a pretty great late season draw. You could also save your time and energy with the rototiller by just getting a backpack sprayer or atv sprayer and some glyphosate and putting a half day or so in walking and spraying. Its a lot of work for one acre but you should be able to crank it out pretty fast. One warning with turnips though is the deer might not recognize them as a food source right away if they are newly introduced to the area. It may take a season or two before the deer realize they are edible and delicious. Good luck planting take a lot of pictures and let us know how everything turns out.
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Re: What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby BackWoodsHunter » Mon Mar 21, 2011 3:58 pm

Something else that might interest you is GrowingDeer.TV. Biologist Dr. Grant Woods has 1500 acres in Missouri I believe it is. He bought the land as a barren wasteland. When he toured the property before buying it he said they only found like 10sets of deer tracks on the whole place and saw hardly any wildlife at all. Since then he has made a show out of how he has managed the deer herd, turkey population, and also the predator population on his land. Its incredible to watch and learn about different benefits to the deer different food sources and mineral licks can provide. Unfortunately most of us don't have access to the equipment and tools that Dr. Woods does but its still neat to see the management process and make attempts at replicating it on a smaller scale.

here is a link to his site. He has a lot of good videos. My personal favorite is when he sticks a coyote through the top of the shoulders right down into the ground with his bow :lol: He also has tons of informative stuff though and not as much hunting. I watch his videos every sunday when they are posted online.

http://www.growingdeer.tv/#ep/69
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Re: What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby BackWoodsHunter » Mon Mar 21, 2011 4:01 pm

Another thing along the lines of equipment is obviously the best plots are the ones were everything is tilled up or disced and then cultipacked. If that is not an option its probably best to get most debris and stuff out of the way to get the best seed to soil contact as possible after you kill off all of the grasses/weeds. Another thing many people don't know is that when you broadcast your seeds. You can go right over them afterwards and spray for weeds one more time. The glyphosate won't or shouldn't kill the seeds but should kill the last of the weeds and stuff so the seeds can get a good competitive start!
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Re: What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby lungbuster » Thu Mar 24, 2011 11:35 am

Soybeans............I plant them late in july early Aug. They stay green later into the season and will still produce a decent beanpod, they are the preferred food source in my area, the deer will stage on the beans before going to the corn in late season. I have tried brassica,oats, rape,ladino clover, and a host of other fancy seed blends and bar none the best has always been beans for me. Even better than standing corn, the only drawback is I rotate corn on beans every other year to replace the nitrogen in the soil, so every other year the plots don't get hit as hard.
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Re: What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby BackWoodsHunter » Thu Mar 24, 2011 1:03 pm

Where do you get your beans from? I think they work better in the southern part of the state where the deer have options to feed on. I THINK if I planted every tillable spot on our land up north the soybeans would still be wiped out by Oct 1st. There's just no agriculture whatsoever by us. Good tip on when to plant them though I may look into that and test them out and plant an acre or so.
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Re: What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby DEERSLAYER » Fri Mar 25, 2011 9:14 pm

lungbuster wrote:Soybeans............I plant them late in july early Aug. They stay green later into the season and will still produce a decent beanpod, they are the preferred food source in my area, the deer will stage on the beans before going to the corn in late season. I have tried brassica,oats, rape,ladino clover, and a host of other fancy seed blends and bar none the best has always been beans for me. Even better than standing corn, the only drawback is I rotate corn on beans every other year to replace the nitrogen in the soil, so every other year the plots don't get hit as hard.

Thats the way to do it. Darn hard to beat soybeans planted at that time. Nice tender young beans for the bow opener have the deer all over them. I used to cut back on the amount of corn I planted in a food plot and then when the corn was almost to high I would broadcast the beans into the corn. I planted the corn on the late side so I could get the beans in at the right time. It works great.
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Re: What are you planting in your food plots?

Unread postby cornfedkiller » Sat Mar 26, 2011 2:58 am

lungbuster wrote:Soybeans............I plant them late in july early Aug. They stay green later into the season and will still produce a decent beanpod, they are the preferred food source in my area, the deer will stage on the beans before going to the corn in late season. I have tried brassica,oats, rape,ladino clover, and a host of other fancy seed blends and bar none the best has always been beans for me. Even better than standing corn, the only drawback is I rotate corn on beans every other year to replace the nitrogen in the soil, so every other year the plots don't get hit as hard.


Why even both with the corn? Why not just do beans every year?


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