Thinking about changing some things up this year in my food plots. What is everyone planting these days? Typically in the winter I’ll plant rye and winter wheat and then beans during the summer.
OT - Food Plots
- Thread starter Ellisville Dawg
- Start date
Wheat and then spread some crimson clover after the wheat has been covered up. Unless you need the rye for erosion control just eliminate it. The deer will eat it if they do t have much to choose from, but it is not a very good attractant and offers no nutritional value to the deer. It’s kind of like humans eating pop corn. Spend those rye dollars on more fertilizer for the wheat. I used to mix in some bob oats but haven’t bought any oats in several years but they are excellent to add into your mix. Fertilizer cost are painful this year but be generous with the fertilizer 33-0-0 and plant about mid October. The forage will be lush but not get too tall and lose its tender texture until late winter in most of Mississippi. M Y personal recipe is one bag of 33-0-0 per one bag of wheat and then top dress with about 2 pounds of crimson clover per bag of wheat. I have modified my recipe several times over the last 20 years but this seems to work well for me. Good luck with it.
MS Complete at your local seed store works great. As wheat is usually cheaper than everything else, we mix a bag of wheat in per bag of whatever mix we are planting.
Thanks for the replies. Sounds like I need to get rid of the rye and add oats and clover plus a few extra goodies for them.
Did it last year. After the grass dies, drag the crap out of it to get as much grass out as possible (i use an old metal gate chained behind a side by side). After broadcasting the seed and mowing, drag the crap out of it again, you want as much seed contact with the ground as possible. Rye grass will grow in a pickup truck bed, so whatever mix you use needs to be rye heavy.
We planted rye grass for many years-everyone else around us planted it, too. About 4 years ago my then-new son-in-law suggested we do something different from the neighbors, so we planted wheat and bob oats and left the rye out of the equation. We have a little over 1200 acres between what we own and what we lease adjacent to us. We found out that first year that these deer would walk across 20 acres of rye to get to the wheat/oats. We also added some Austrian winter peas to the mix-but we found out that was not worth it. Deer will eat the peas first, and the peas will be gone quickly. The wheat and oats have staying power, and they pulled the deer from the neighbors to our place quickly and the deer stayed there. Year 2, we bought a 25-ton truckload of lime and put between 1.5-2 tons per acre of lime on our food plots. We stuck with the wheat/oats combo, but we started adding clover to the mix. The clover won’t help you in the fall, but it really pays dividends in the spring. Plant it along with the wheat/oats in the fall. We come back in the spring and plant soybeans right in there with the clover, and we also plant vetch along with the soybeans. Turkey love the vetch and the deer eat it as well. We also apply 200#/acre of 13-13-13 with out fall plantings and come back with 100#/acre of nitrogen in the spring when we plant the soybeans/vetch. No, the soybeans don’t need the nitrogen, but the vetch loves it. The key is to have something that deer love to eat year-round. My place isn’t in the Delta, so soybeans are a rarity in our area, and they pull deer to us in the summer because nobody around us plants soybeans. They eat them quickly, but we’re the only ones around who plant them. Of course, the clover is the real attractant here. Well, the clover plus the protein feeders lol. We keep our feeders stocked with a product called “Rack Attack” all summer, and the deer absolutely love it. Bottom line-you gotta do something that your neighbor either doesn’t want to do or can’t afford to do.
Use 19-19-19 instead of 13-13-13
I took a walk through a warehouse that mixes both seed and fertilizer for a lot of the MS River clubs, and going to explain this best I can remember....
He told me that 19-19-19 provides more phosphates (obviously) and it makes the grains taste better to the deer and better for them....He also went on to show me that 19-19-19 is actually cheaper than 13-13-13 when applying the proper rates per acre.....AND that 13-13-13 is not a true 13-13-13 and has to add fillers to it to get it to that point.....
It made a lot of sense to me when they were explaining it to me a few weeks ago....Ive always done 13-13-13 for fertilizer, but will try the 19-19-19 this year.....one of the guys said since he started using the 19 several years ago, that bc it worked so well, that he doesn't do soil tests/lime anymore....made that much of a difference.
Im going to do it this way this year, so i guess ill have to let you know if it works or not, but these guys knew their siht....
I took a walk through a warehouse that mixes both seed and fertilizer for a lot of the MS River clubs, and going to explain this best I can remember....
He told me that 19-19-19 provides more phosphates (obviously) and it makes the grains taste better to the deer and better for them....He also went on to show me that 19-19-19 is actually cheaper than 13-13-13 when applying the proper rates per acre.....AND that 13-13-13 is not a true 13-13-13 and has to add fillers to it to get it to that point.....
It made a lot of sense to me when they were explaining it to me a few weeks ago....Ive always done 13-13-13 for fertilizer, but will try the 19-19-19 this year.....one of the guys said since he started using the 19 several years ago, that bc it worked so well, that he doesn't do soil tests/lime anymore....made that much of a difference.
Im going to do it this way this year, so i guess ill have to let you know if it works or not, but these guys knew their siht....
Wannaker Seed makes a great blend called R-T-R. Rape, turnips and radishes. We also oversow with naked oats.
Lots of good recommendations here. Some great info on the National Deer Association(formerly QDMA) website (https://deerassociation.com/) on mixes and fertilizer recommendations. Just Google NDA/fall food plots and you'll get some great ideas. They also have a fantastic book on food plots for deer. Some fertilizer is better than none but the overriding consensus of the experts will be to get properly gathered soil samples and take them to the MSU Extension for analysis. Cost about $7-$8 each and results are back in a week or so. They will identify exactly what your soil needs. Not sure where you are at but if you anywhere east of I55, you will need lime to make your fertilizer work correctly. Your extension agent can help you understand all of this more. I would start there. Oh yea, and--scrap the rye. Wheat Oats and annual clover with some brassicas mixed in will do great.
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