food plot time

before and after pic.

Looks good so far
What are you going to put in?

I didn't plant nothing this year.

winter oats or rye

That’s awesome. I want to do that with the property I bought three years ago but there’s no water on it yet. Costs around $30k to have a well drilled and I don’t want to haul that much water so it’ll have to wait a few years.

Just planted some peas/beans/rape today and then got a good rain on em. These are for bowhunting beginning Sept 10th...if the deer let em make it that long...

Didn't get a pic of the 3 plots, but trail camera did take my pic...several times....lol

If I was going to have a food plot it would have some sainfoin planted in it. You would plant it once and never have to mess with it for years. Deer love it here.

Anybody plant oars? Had great results with them 25 years ago. Planted for doves but the deer enjoyed them the most.

Planted cow peas once for deer and turkeys scratched them right out of the field before we finished with the cultipacker.

Looks great!

planted rye in it today

3_4 weeks to early for rye.

I hope you fertilized it. ?
I've made every mi$take in the book planting plots for 20 years.
Jumping the gun (timing) and not fertilizing are 2 common mistakes.

Nice looking spot though.

Rye will do ok planted now in the north if your daytime temps have moderated into the 60s or 70s. If yall get a warm stretch with temps into the 90s for several days/weeks...not so much.

Also..by planting rye this early it will be stemmed and tougher by best part of deer season.

Are some of your food plots still working good this late in the year?

They are hitting the greens here under this snow we have.

It was so dry I didn't plant until late Oct and they are up about 3-4"

Mostly oats

1 nice thing about things like oats & winter rye is they are relatively easy to grow

The farmer that plants my ag field food plots is very efficient on a comparative scale to the previous guy- he does custom jobs and as soon as the combine is gone from the field, it is plowed and disced by the following team., often the same night. His yields are way better from what I've seen in the past but when the beans are gone- they're gone, the previous farmer would leave a lot of residual beans and corn behind and often wouldn't plow until spring some years. I would like to plant more cereal grains next year between my browse plots and the fields- I noticed a lot of digging down in the limited snowfall on my border edge when we were shutting stands and the deer were foraging on the Arrowhead Leaf clover I planted. I'm thinking about buck forage oats next year to allow a transitional choice in addition to the legumes provided. Brassicas haven't done the best in our soil substrate- but that could be more my farming ineptness than soil. Are all oats created equal? or are some better than others?

I've noticed that some around here Eagleye: farming practices seem to have improved such that now very little waste is left in the field after harvest

My plots doing great and the deer using them well right now

Eagleye , I plant a lot of Buck Forage Oats. I started mixing them with Frosty Berseem Clover a few years ago, as a filler. With the idea that the deer would browse less on the Clover as it was getting established. Well, I found that this mix was highly attractive to our deer, and one landowner has me planting those Buck Forage Oats with a brassica mix. It’s a lot cheaper mix to plant than the Frosty.

We plant some oats as cover crops behind our field corn every year. I think the Buck Forage Oats are a different variety. Seems like they have a wider blade and get more fall growth. Forage varieties in other crops, such as alfalfa and silage corns, have characteristics that make them more palatable and desirable to be grazed on. Maybe this is the case with these Forage Oats? IDK but the deer sure like them! I recommend trying Frosty Berseem Clover as well, it’s been great for us

John

Interesting thread

Do many of you rely on soil testing to help your food plots?

My experience with the Buck Forage Oats was that the deer loved them. Make sure to use an exclusion cage to protect a small space so you can see the growth. The reason I suggest that is because mine never were more than about 1” tall. The first time I wondered if they were not growing. The cage showed the comparative growth. The deer loved them!

I sent out a soil sample for a few areas intially- the information that gets returned is extremely detailed. Right, wrong or indifferent- the agronomy I focus on, is almost solely PH level. I have a couple test kits and prefer the handheld probe type that was actually almost spot on to the lab soil sample PH. For most of my legumes, I usually shoot for PH of 6-7 and I use predominately pelletized lime (albeit more expensive) because I'm doing smaller areas and it acts faster than Ag lime. This year when we logged, we selected the landing areas to serve as future turnarounds for skidding and kill plots- these soils after clearing are extremely fertile- if you think about years of composted leaves on the forest floor... I plan to soil sample those two new locations before spring planting.

Willy- that's a great idea for oats... a little easier to tell with clover. (This is not my picture) but similar to what you describe above.

my food plot looks like it was just tilled , was about a foot high and then the deer and fall came lol

Will crimson clover come back next year if it didn’t flower this year?
Was planted this year late summer

I did not bother with food plots this year. I did in the last couple years but here the ground is covered in acorns and the deer don't touch whatever I plant.I have tried rape, radishes, winter peas, clover, rye. The rabbits loved it but the deer are into their acorns and here ya can't see the ground for those things and hickory nuts. I could rake up a 5 gallon bucket of acorns without moving two steps. So I guess like kids, if you are ankle deep in sweets, ya aint going to eat that salad.

I might try putting in a food plot(s) next year. I need to try to gain an advantage.