Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Northeastern MN deer zones changing

I don't even know if turnips would grow up there, but they normally stay green through the first snow so the deer can eat the leaves, then they can dig out the bulbs later in the season. It is more common here for a December/January food source, but that might work for your rifle season.

Turnips will grow in food plots in northern MN, but many deer seem slow to eat them, and they get pretty hard to dig out "later in the season".

Have you ever been to northern Minnesota? There isn't the same opportunity for food plots that there is in Ohio.

I have been up there. There was a reason I started that post the way I did. There might be some other plant that works up there that doesn't work down here. Just asking if guys are planting food plots to help the deer through the seasons. That is the late season plant often used down here, YMMV.

Actually, turnips & radishes are a great planting for northern MN - or any other northern climate.

In northern WI, after the greens are mowed by deer, they'll turn the late season snow into a moonscape - eating the veg while it's still in the ground. (rather than digging it out)

Oftentimes the problem is plots/fields large enough to accommodate and the work/time/money involved in getting the soil acidity levels where they need to be.

The best late season food source is a clear cut about 2-5 years old. New growth is plentiful and low enough for the deer to eat. It is usually full of dogwoods which are a very important winter food source. White cedar used to be an important winter source of food as well as shelter but much of it is gone and the large number of deer has been detrimental to its regeneration. Pines and spruce are much more common but lack food value. Except for white pines and everything possible is done to prevent deer from utilizing them in many planting seeds.

Low pulp prices and high operating costs have put a serious dent in timber cutting as has fracturing of woods into smaller, privately owned parcels. The "green movement" with their anti-logging views hasn't helped much either.

Greens and bulbs are a poor winter fare in these parts. They require a different group of enzymes to digest than the woody browse which is available here. It takes nearly 4 weeks for the enzymes to change over and that is a death sentence up here if not done before much snow falls. This is why winter feeding is so heavily discourages as the specialized feed required is relatively expensive. If a higher roughage feed is not used, the deer could starve with full bellies due to the nutrition not being absorbed and, those which do survive, face the same risk going back if the supplemental feeding is not continued until things green up in the spring- long after the snow is gone. If the feeding is stopped too soon, not only will more deer die but pregnant does will often reabsorb the fetus' and few fawns will be born, maybe none.

This area was not deer country until it was logged off in the early part of the last century. The new growth allowed deer to expand northward and they thrived as long as winters were not too severe and there was plenty of new cutting. With less cutting and the poorer winter cover and food it brings, deer have a harder time in "good" years and a potentially impossible task in tough winters. Add in added mortality from predators and cars (due to the best available forage being roadsides) and increasing deer numbers can be a difficult goal to achieve.

Turnips can be a one time deal that may or may not draw the deer in for a short term so I go for perennial solutions.

I lean towards planting our fence lines with clover for year round food that grouse eat and prevent soil erosion too.

Mowing the grass late summer for property maintenance brings fresh regrowth that draws them in too.

Otherwise time is too limited to deer farm when it robs beef farm time.

Looks funny: like a little turnip cup left in the ground; the inside eaten out.. But it showed me that beets and turnips can be used by deer even after frozen ground.

Sometimes the deer need some time to figure out a crop that is new to them. I've planted squashes for them and had to bash the squash open for a couple years before they learned to do it for themselves.

I live in Cook County, MN. I'm only about five miles from Lake Superior, yet even though I've fed corn plus sunflowers, etc. (AS much as they can eat, any time of day) presenting the corn at all times, all winter, the deer all leave my place about early Jan (earlier if heavy snow accumulation), migrating toward the "Big Lake." Artificial feeding will not keep them here even with little snow accumulation.

Bill