food plot clover

Would you use ladino or alsike or a combination of both?
1 Plot has fairly heavy canopy - other 2 are mostly open.

Only plant the mostly open. Dont waste your money on the heavy canopy. I tried a few times. Also make sure you get the ground right with fertilizer & lime. DO A SOIL TEST. Its cheap to get done compared to wasting your money on seed and your time.

Takes awhile to get clover started in canopy. Prolly 2 years to get it going good.

I'd plant medium red because you are in Missouri and it grows well and is cheapest. Good stand of that is very good for wildlife

This all the way

What are you trying to feed and when?
Clover is a great warm season food source but goes dormant in late fall to winter and is virtually unavailable when animals, like deer, need it most.

Most animals have a surplus of food available in the warm seasons from natural sources. So adding more food at this time is not going to be as impacting as during a time of hardshio. If you really want the bang for your buck, consider planting winter rye (grain, NOT RYE GRASS). It can be planted late and feeds all winter. It handles sun and shade and will grow almost anywhere. Deer and turkey love it here in VA.

You can overseed with rye or winter wheat (what I use) in late summer to provide forage over the winter. I also planted brassicas and they came up great but nothing will touch them but the groundhogs. I've got turnips the size of softballs in the same plot but the deer don't care. Apparently they've got better things to eat.

It often takes a couple years of planting until they learn that they’re edible. Once they figure it out, its hard to get a small plot to winter because they wipe them out

I've read that and will probably plant some in the fall. Groundhogs must be smarter than deer because they hit them hard.

I suspect that if people tilled up, thereby exposing and breaking open the turnips and beets, that deer would discover and learn to eat and dig them faster and better.

Keith

The turnips grow at least half the tuber above the soil. They don’t have to dig them. Really, the bulk of the food is the leaves. Once deer here figured it out, they swarm as soon as they sprout.

Keith,

In my frustration I took a couple of those softball size turnips and smashed them up about 2 weeks ago. I thought maybe the scent and visual would get the deer to try them. No luck. They laid out and dried up untouched (I had shot the groundhog that was stripping the plot clean months ago).

Around here they like the white dutch clover

Check out Grandpa Rays seeds. Have had great luck with is seed and blends. Canopy and clover is tough. Clover we have found is great year round and the deer really pound it year round once PH is correct. We have switched a lot of our plots to clover blend due to they are hard to get to every year. We plant around 40 acres of plots a year, adding a couple acres more this year.

In my experience planting food plots for deer, it’s hard to beat Whitetail Institutes Imperial Clover. Expensive, yes. However, my best clover stands have came out of those bags. Clean up the weeds best you can before planting. I spray, till, then wait 2 weeks. You’ll get a flush of weeds. Spray again, till and plant. Be sure to do a soil test, clover likes high PH. (A good stand of this will last 5+ years if properly maintained. Clover takes maintenance).

Last two years I’ve been experimenting with Frosty Berseem Clover. I’m having good luck with it, and the deer seem to love it. It’s an annual, so you’ll have to re-establish every year. I mix it with oats and rapeseed, and it’s a great blend .

John

I bet you could successfully introduce clover into a food plot by covering the ground with second or third cutting red clover hay after tilling it. There has to be many, many thousands of clover seeds in a normal sized square bale. If you used local clover hay, the clover should be adapted for your area and conditions. It should save you hundreds of dollars from buying seeds, if you plant much ground.

Keith

I use red and white clover.
I stopped the turnips and radishes and only plant clover.
Keeps coming back and you can kill the weeds and add a little more clover seed if needed.
I dont plant until July around here in order to get the weeds killed first.

friend had great luck with this last year. I was thinking of maybe trying the inner sanctum for the plot in the woods.
What specific ones did you have luck with?