Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Do you plant a food plot?

Ive always be weary of the plot mixes…

1) it nevers grows for me like on the package. 😂
2) look at the %. Its usually a good percentage of cheap “filler” seed.
3) deer are like goats. Theyll eat dang near anything.


Watch deer while Hunting the woods. Every step they take, is a bite they eat….

P.s….


Stopped at the feed store to get crickets and some cool cats for tomorrow..

Asked about fertilzer..

Said it’ll be $18-21 a sack…

Dammit boy…

😳😳😳😳

Wonder how many have soil samples done for their plots?

Nope, I relocated to a location that has a surplus of deer and opportunity.

I go to various stores and buy clearance seed after season. I usually pay less than half price sometimes 25% for last years seed. Never had a germination issue. Same with lime and fertilizer I usually go to the stores that sell the stuff and look for after season clearances, then look for broken bags.

This year I picked up close to 15 bags for 1$ I did pay full price for 4 bags…. 110$. Spread it over the tilled plot, lightly disced it in and seeded right before the rain that night. Got good brassicas growing. Less than 150$ for seed, lime and fertilizer

Buckwheat, and sun hemp

Sure do. One plot gets soybeans in the spring. I will over seed around Labor Day with grain. Three small plots. The don't get as much attention. Every year about Labor Day they get seed spread. Mostly a grain like oats or cereal rye and anything else I want to throw in the mix. Then I spray them and roll them flat. A bit of rain and I get deer chow.

Put in about July 28

We've done soil samples a couple times. Very important, testing is free in the next town over. Our area was very acidic so we have been treating it, next sample was better but we still were treating it. Last couple of years we are actually getting good growth. Gonna do another sample in the spring.

I want to open up another spot, starting clearing it a couple weeks ago. The whole area was red pine, I believe. Loggers came in 5 years ago and now it's all aspen. Next year I'm gonna finish clearing it, ripping it up and bring in lime to start treating it.

Wanted to do it this year to get the ball rolling but spent a couple months rebuild our road (mile long) and with only weekends to work on it, the road took longer than I thought

My food plots are called apple trees.

Wanting a small orchard at the new place.

Fully understand that I will be sharing with the critters.

I no-till 3bu oats, 1bu wheat and a mixture of clovers, radish and turnips at 10lbs to the acre. I just filled my protein feeder and put 10lbs of corn behind the house. They'll be out when it cools off.

My wife makes fun of my area, calls it a "deer park", but I've got 2 food plots and 2 orchards going.

I call it my "Deer Engagement Area".

I've been working on the apples and pears for a while now. For apples I've been planting Arkansas Blacks as they drop late, with Dolgo Crabapples to pollinate. One of the best fruit tress I've found, especially for the late season is common persimmons. Luckily we've got a boat load and they grow like weeds. They will drop all the way into DEC which is our rifle season.

Big old persimmon, 100yds from my box blind:



Loaded again:


My 1st Chestnuts:


Last years plot starting:



Some day going to be oaks, mix of Chinkapins and Sawtooths:



Lately I've been focusing on planting hard mast trees to get later into the season. The fruit is great if your a bow hunter, but it's mostly gone by the time we start rifle here.

Did you plant the big Persimmon?

15 acres Durana clover

4-5 acres chufa

35-40 pear trees
35-40 saw tooth oaks

Nope, that one was there. I just cleaned it up and cut away the brush around it. Funny thing is for the 1st 8 years we owned the place it wasn't producing. Common problem with the Common Persimmon, you need male and females and it take a genius to tell them apart. Apparently a male got large enough nearby to pollinate "her", now it's reliably producing yearly.

I've got 5 "stands" of persimmons on my place, just not in my "engagement area". So I started stratifying seeds and planting seedlings in tree tubes where I want to kill deer.

This is the back of that same persimmon with seedlings in tubes (most of these are now exiting the tubes):



Usually these start producing in about 6 years depending on soil rainfall etc. Unfortunately due to the male/female thing, you end up planting more than you think you'll need just to ensure you get fruit. Great part about them is they're native and very, very hardy.

Good to know on the male/female thing.

I have 1 in my yard that doesn't produce and 1 in the timber that is the same. Makes sense now.

Not anymore since corn is legal where I live

Uh, no. Thats what farmers are for.

Unless the only farms are a bit away and there is nothing to draw the critters to a man's hunting area other than passing through.

Only 1 bunch of row crops near me and the closest are about a half mile away to the south. Nearest any other direction is about 2 miles as the crow flies. Mainly cattle farms right in my AO.