Summer Food Plots

Just finished planting warm season plots this morning. 11 plots. Sprayed, disked, and planted over past 3 weeks. An acre of chufas, 4 acres of cowpeas, millet, and sorghum. Went from too dry about a week ago to almost too wet now.




The owl decoy dont keep the squirrels from digging up the chufas...look close, there is one in front of the owl in the pic.

A few visitors....

Looks great Patrick!
You need to pinch that turkey killer this winter!!!!

His/her days are numbered....along with a family group of coyotes and a few coons. Ive been slouching on predator control on that property. This winter gonna be several Bridger 2s planted.

Firebreak plantings....peas and browntop millet...combination for deer and turkey

Them food plots are another hobby that’s turned into an obsession, lol. All started with a bag of winter wheat for me .

Looks good! The rain this year is just about right. Rain on and off for a week then dry for a week then repeat. Our beauty berry and ragweed is looking good too.

Expensive too. Diesel fuel, herbicide, seed, fertilizer, lime, tractor and implement repairs, and the sweat equity. I love to give back to the wildlife instead of just taking. Plus, I do my best scouting from the seat of my tractor especially when mowing the logging roads and fields.

Its a lot of work but its how I punch my reset button...

How do you keep the deer out of the cowpeas till they get are able to stand the grazing pressure ?? Every time I plant them the deer destroy them when they reach about 6 inches tall

Tractors make great deer stands if they see them enough too. Heck I’m out in the woods so much they don’t even pay my truck any attention anymore. If I ever get a new one it’s going to be white too, lol.

Looks great!!!

Dont try to keep them out. The deer bite the top leaves off of many of them then slow their grazing pressure on the peas. The millet grows up fast and covers the bit off pea stems. The millet gets knee high and makes seed heads in about 60 days. The turkey broods come in and stomp the millet down while stripping the seed heads. This exposes the peas that survived the initial deer grazing and here come the deer back to browse them again. By now its about September. Disk it under and plant rye, oats, and clover.

This combo works well here in the deep south.

What is it about a white vehicle? I have a white truck and have noticed that deer and turkeys seem to hold longer than when seeing other color vehicles.

They usually let me drive right to them on my Yanmar tractor too.

Planted a couple plots that I hadn't got to yet. Replanted one and part of another that were too small to withstand the grazing pressure on first planting. Riding that tractor is how I punch my reset button.

Deer were everywhere today....mostly fat does and one with a fawn....up and moving even in this heat.

Looking good.

Awesome plots!

We don't start our food plots till late august. We don't want to feed deer all summer just during the hunting season.

This country is mostly huge tracts of timber...not much agriculture. I call myself giving something back to the deer as southern summers can be a stress period with tougher browse only available. Soils here are sandy and nutrient poor...a lot of browse but none is very nutritious. The plots are hammered, especially by nursing does. Plus summer plantings of millet, grain sorghum, and chufas are geared toward fall turkey feed as all they have here is acorns then. Another reason is I just like getting on my old tractor.

Will also plant in the fall, usually late September or first week of October here....rye, oats, clover, etc. These are select kill plots.

I can remember when I trapped In SC those boys spent a lot of time and money on doing what your doing. And they dumped tons deer corn along the roads on a daily basis.

Yessir...a lot of southern deer management includes spring/summer plantings. Corn and/or deer protein feed is big business. Corn business is huge in the fall during hunting season as most people are too lazy to plant or dont have the equipment so they just buy a bag(s) of corn to hunt over....which is legal here in Ga.

.. dang swampwolf... I hate to be the bearer of bad news... but if you put that much effort into raising beef instead of venison .....you might come out in better shape

It is expensive if you total the cost of seed, fertilizer, lime, diesel, tractor maintenance, etc. Fertilizer is the most expensive part of food plotting....unless you factor in your time. You gotta love doing it. I have to throw my $$ away on something. Just as well pour it out on the ground and go back in a few days and look at all the deer and turkey tracks walking thru it...lol

Wife said the exact same thing....

looks great , cant wait to see pic.of the big bucks

Lol ... I appreciate men like you ... especially if y’all are next to public land... I put a few dollars into this set up , but man it feels like freedom to throw it on your back and find where the deer are... I just hope my body holds out to keep doing it for another 20 years..

Had this property for 20 years....400 acres. Have been 70 plus total deer killed since 2000. We havent shot a buck less than 3.5 years old in about 15 years. There are usually several "shooter" bucks that use the property as part of their fall/rut range. We usually only take 1 or 2 of these bucks annually. Have been seasons where no bucks were killed. Usually look at several dozen bucks thru binos or scope that the neighbors would shoot in a minute. Sometimes they do, but most survive, based on trail cam pics.

My neighbors plant plots and selective buck harvest too....mostly. Sometimes we allow kids and other neophytes take what they want. If i bordered public land i would not put in the same effort. I hunt some public land but not often.

That a Lone Wolf? Those hang-ons and sticks are rough on an older guy.

.... shoot swamp I’m too cheap to buy Lone wolf... it’s the xop knock off ... and they’re rough on us “younger” guys too lol

.... dragging the dang deer out through all this youpan mess for a mile is the part that’ll make a man question his sanity though lol

Nice looking plots. I’m with you it’s a labor of love and a way of giving something back. Food plots are my way of pressing the reset button as well. I had to laugh about the squirrel in the chufa. I had the same thing happen, I pulled up at my chufa plot and 4 squirrels scattered for cover. My buddy looked at me and replied “food plot for squirrels?” I never thought of trying an owl.

JUST SPRAYED 4 PLUS ACRES OF CORN WITH ROUNDUP. PLUS 1/2 ACRE OF SOYBEANS. BOTH PRODUCTS ARE ROUNDUP READY. THE DEER WILL HAVE GREAT GRUB TO EAT

Nice plots. The squirrels got my chufas too, but there are 7 that went to bushytail heaven.

Those plots are impressive. I am looking forward to getting a tractor small enough to cary on with my 3 small plots I have mostly cleared so far with a mulching blade on a weed eater and a chain saw. But the next tractor will have a front loader and a brush hog on it to play with. .

Wheels man!...wheels! Deer cart or a duck decoy sled works pretty good.

Dont waste your $$ on the owl. It might work with movable "wing" blowing in the wind. Didnt try that n4 they ate em all up with the help of coons.

Our partridge pea is getting hammered right now. But, I’m in SWGA where there’s agriculture and pine plantations. I think Swamp Wolf is in SEGA...and entirely different eco system.

Hey Swamp Wolf how do you like that Firminator?

I see lots of hard work and some great looking results.

Give your deer some "eat more squirrel" signs LOL

The Firmator im using is a loaner from a friend. Its the 48" ATV or tractor model. It has 9" cultipacker wheels which are too small for my sandy soils....pulls sand instead of rolling over it sometimes. And if the cultipacker ain't rolling the seed distributor stops. Works OK here if soil is moist or the few places where i have heavier soil.

The bigger model has 16" cultipacker wheels that work well in sandy soils. My tractor doesn't have enough arse to pull that model.

Red Ripper peas. Been getting rains daily with low pressure system that was hanging over us past few days. Can grow plots on the sand ridges when rains come regularly.

4 sure. Here its pine plantations and swamps....minimal ag fields.

Browntop millet on right. Egyptian wheat on left. Wild game sorghum mixed in entire plot. Cowpeas also mixed in but deer have already browsed most of them below the millet tops.

Eating in the heat...

These southern deer are adapted...