Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Food Plot advice for Pennsylvania

Was wondering if some people out there could give me some advice or some pointers on a food plot with out having to use machinery/equipment...was planning on just turning up the soil and liming it with pelletized lime for a smaller feeding area where the deer come through near a creek...I was looking at purchasing the Mossyoak Biologic Clover or chicory...was wondering if anyone has used this? or would recommend something else?..trying to introduce something different to the deer since there are a few corn fields hundreds of yards away and a couple fruit orchards hundreds of yards away as well.

On small plots, clover and chickory should be good for the summer/early fall if you can get the ph up. I would think about overseeding brassicas and fertilizing for the fall as it will probably produce more tonnage later in the year. If it is a small plot without much agriculture around it and there are many deer, it will get hammered either way and not make it to long into the fall. How big a plot are you looking to make?

We have a 1/3 acre plot on our hillside that is good during early archery, but is pretty much gone by Nov 1.

About the same...1/3 id say if that...So your thinking Brassicas would work better to plant then clover or chicory?...the area i am trying to plan is on the edge of a woodlot which gets sunlight but also has a little canopy of tree cover.

Why can't you use a small tractor? Your plot will be a lot easier to start and the refresh later in the season.

Don't have a tractor...or access to one.

Bump it to the top!

Before you waste time and money get a soil sample done.

Check out some of the no till options designed for woodland areas. We have had decent luck clearing small areas and using them. Especially around oak groves

On ours, we found the turnips and such would grow fast and bring them in a little later, during our rifle season. The clover would stop growing before that and not provide as good a draw in the late season. It would, however be a better draw in the Sept-Oct timeframe. I just picked up some clover and chicory which I will plant on ours (now that we have killed the plot to kill some of the weeds) and then will overseed with purple top turnips in the early fall. Try checking out the QDMA forums as they have a lot of foodplot advice.

I am not sure that you are allowed to keep planting things in fall in PA since the season would have already started by then...i believe our season usually starts in late september early october...Any one try the Brassicas? or specifically tryed mossyoak biologic? i have seen good reviews about it and also the whitetail imperials.

i'm not in PA, but some thoughts come to mind. i do quite a fair bit of plotting on my place.

1) Is the area to be planted heavily weeded/overgrown? i ask because smaller seeds such as clover/chicory do well in well prepped seed beds, but have a more difficult time taking hold & getting established in a densely packed soil that has not been disced/worked. heavily thatched grass is a pain to work...and burning is not always an option in the late summer due to risks. i burn every spring, mostly to remove thatch and woody brush from areas that will become new plots the following fall. I try to burn on a 3 year rotation, by torching about 1/3 of my place each spring (usually burn in late feb, weather permitting)

2) How is the area for other green crops? the Corn & Fruit you mentioned are great deer magnets, but most times i have planted a palatable crop in a new area they move in quickly, and if you have the only green plot for miles in an area with a lot of deer, it'll come up and then be wiped out in days.

3) Rye, wheat, or a mix produce a lot of tonnage, and unlike brassicas that have stopped production after freezing, we get some regrowth during warm days in the winter on the cereal grains. If you are a late season bowhunter, or if you are trying to hold deer in your area for more months, that may be of help.

4) i have had best luck with mixes in my plots....in some years when the weather went to hell, excessively wet/dry soil can affect crops, and having a variety of seed started may mean some of you plantings will tolerate the extremes better than others.

not trying to imply brassicas wont work, because my deer eat the hell outa them...just takes some extra steps. I always mix in a few pounds of purple tops and assorted brassicas in my plot mixes.

when i first started plotting my place, i rented a field and brush mower, buddy & i cleared an acre in a few hours. we scalped it low, and i found a cheap disc harrow on craigslist & drug it behind my huntin truck.

dedicated Clover plots do need some care & maintenance too; such as mowing & an occasional treatment to prevent grass invasion. Since I am lazy and don�t get out in the summer much to mow & maintain my plots as often as I should, I often seed cheaper annual clovers rather than work to keep perennial plots nice for years.

If you have a Co-op or seed store in your area you can get all your seed a good bit cheaper as opposed to paying for brand name seeds, especially if you decide you like plotting & it works for you. on small plots wont be much cost savings, but if you like doing it & start plotting more, will add up.

As an afterthought, we have had great luck in turning some of our less traveled roads/trails that wind through the timber into green highways; we put stands along them in areas where deer trails intersect & have had heavy deer usage on those plots where some of the more shy deer that avoid large open plots in daylight felt comfortable on those trails.

To avoid having to work the soil multiple times, I�ll mow my plots down in the fall, disc, and sow my seed mix. The deer enjoy them all winter, and some February or thereabouts I�ll walk around and hand broadcast clover seed, (no disc/plow) along with a bit of Rye�the Rye acts as a cover crop, helps prevent weed intrusion, and fixes Nitrogen in the soil.

As Spring comes along, it all greens up, looks nice, the Turkeys like it, & deer get a second round of high protein food at fawning time. By may/june or so the rye is done with, I mow a second time, and the clover which has been sheltered by the rye pops nicely, so I get food plots that provide nutrition most of a year by mowing twice & discing once.

I went out to harass the turkeys 2 days ago, and I drove around taking pix of some various plots; here are a few pix as of last Sunday showing various stages of greenup as the rye/clover mixes are looking pretty nice:



the Green Mile....one of the roads we seeded, where it runs into a food plot.


One of our bigger clearings....i put a plot at each end with a ladder, and stuck another ladder halfway in between. 2 pix, first one as it looked last Sunday, the other a couple years ago when we did our last controlled burn on that piece:

Looking good Gerald!!

Planted these plots in cereal rye last September........these photos were taken in late November during deer season.......they don't look like much......because the deer had eaten them to the ground!! I checked them last Friday.....looks like a green carpet......the rye is about 8" tall and the red clover I broadcast into the rye last month is starting to show.







As far as the original question........If your plot is too small and there isn't much food around, the deer will eat it to the ground before you get to hunt it. If, on the other hand, you have other food sources, you could plant a small but very attractive plot and you might have a chance to hunt over it before it is gone.

I second the suggestion to visit the QDMA forums, you will have hours of educational reading and can visit with people from your area that know what works there.

Thanks...Yea i am already on the QDMA forum getting suggestions...it isnt a very big area..more like a big garden which the deer do currently travel through as i have a feeder in the area...there isn't an overload of brush or weed growth in the area..brushy on the woods edges but thats about it...and have a running creek about 15 yards away in which i think the deer frequent since there aren't many water sources around.