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I know nothing about them but I always thought sugar beets would be a cool thing to try. miles

Food plots are rewarding and fun to experiment with. A successful food plot is not hard with a little thought and preparation.

First, get a soil test done...it's cheap. It will tell you how much lime and fertilizer you will need to amend your soil.

Lime - Don't use pelletized lime if you can access the plot with a spreader truck. It's a LOT cheaper and easier to have a fertilizer company spread it with a truck. Where I live it's, $45 per ton with a truck vs $218 with pelletized and spreading it by hand.

Fertilizer - most people put down too much seed and not enough fertilizer. Using 19-19-19 or 17-17-17 will have a higher Nitrogen content per bag vs 10-10-10. It will save you both time and money.

Seed - I plant winter grains, clover, and brassicas. Don't buy the crap seed with a big buck on the front of the bag. It's nothing more than a marketing ploy to get hunters to waste money. You pay a lot more and you end up getting a lot of grains vs clover and brassicas. Figure out what you want to plant and buy individual bags of each seed and prepare you own mixture.

Plant your grains first then cover to the proper depth. After that go back and plant the clover and brassicas and roll or lightly drag. They need to be planted shallower than grains if you want good germination. Clover and brassica seed is a lot more expensive. If you plant them too deep they won't germinate well and you will have wasted a lot of money. Make sure you buy fresh innoculant with your clover and mix it with the seed per the directions.

Pray for rain and enjoy watching your work grow.

here's mine from this year. rape, turnips, and radishes about 2 weeks growing time.

wheat, oats, peas, and clover on the other side.

Looking good rc!

Rockchucker, is that tall stuff the rape? My neighbor down the road tried that last year. He said the deer ignored it all season going for the clover right next to it, but by spring you couldn't find a leaf.

Deer here in central Arkansas usually hit my greens hard right after Christmas. They will eat the turnips down into the ground until just the skin is left. It looks like somebody burried a white bowl level with the ground. miles

We've tried a bunch of different types of fall plots and finally decided that oats and winter wheat were the best for our area. Both will continue to grow as they graze and last until the spring green up. Once new leaves bud in the spring, they usually quit hitting the plots for us, but turkey love them(a win/win).

We haven't had much luck with the leafy types, but they sure do look nice. Peas are probably one of the best to draw deer in, but they eat them very quickly and the plants can't keep up unless the plots are quite large. That's another plus for the winter grains, they'll continue to grow even in small plots. Not to mention they are super easy to grow. I've even quit fertilizing the past two years and haven't seen much difference in our wheat or oat plots.

For best results before planting anything,,,,get a soil sample. Then, prepare as needed. Will save you a butt-load of money and improve your yield/effort ratio.

Very true, but it can also cost you a "butt-load" of money to bring the levels up to par. As a rule of thumb, we've found that if the ground already has good weed growth prior to brush hogging, it will grow wheat or oats with ease. For example our best plots by far are the ones planted in areas where weeds grow very thick and high throughout the summer. In the areas where the weeds and grass are thin or short, fertilize is needed, but wheat and oats will grow.

Any suggestions if there are sandburs in your potential plot area?

the tall stuff is rape. the saw tooth leaf stuff is radishes

I've never planted anything up that way, but the properties we hunt deer and turkey on in TX are near the Ok border. It looks like sand and is full of those damn sand spurs. The farmer puts in either rye or wheat every year and the stuff grows amazingly well. I never would have thought it could grow so well in sand. They don't get samples, they just disc and plant. He doesn't even irrigate, but by turkey season at the end of March we sometimes have stands thigh deep. I've seen them go in and bushhog the oak brush, weeds, and cactus, disc, plant, and a couple weeks later had nice green fields. OTOH, that is a good reason deer and turkey grow so large in that country.

bbassi, you don't mention where you live.

From a northern Mo. perspective:
Winter wheat is simple and hard to beat - plant enough and you can get some dove shooting in next year.

I love turnips and rape. I plant a fall patch of both, as well as lightly overseeding them around the edges of sunflower plots when those are planted in late spring.

Rape and turnips are not palletible to deer until after a frost converts starch to sugar, or what ever the tech reason. They then are hit hard - the frozen turnips being real popular in late season.

I plan on trying some of the Daikon radishes next year. Buy bulk and skip the cashy mixes.

Good points, all. I get my soil samples for free and knowing where and what to place where saves time and money YMMV, though.

The costs benefit of pouring money and effort (continually) into a poor place is little more than good after bad. Can't make chicken salad outta chicken schittt, especially if you're in it for the long haul.

Just an FYI the beets turnips and radishes won't become appealing to the deer until you have a couple of really hard frosts and the sugars begin to rise. They are good for late season hunts. If you are looking for a bow hunting plot they would not be my #1, rye grain and winter wheat and clover would go first for an early season plot. You can help an unimproved piece of ground by planting buckwheat for 2 consecutive seasons . It will aid in getting rid of native grasses without the use of chemicals. Let it come up , cut it let it come back and cut it again. Third season disk it under . A soil test is a must like others have stated , do that first and find out where you stand. Get rid of the native grass first then start to plant. If you do not kill the native grass first and you disc it under all you have done is replant all those hay seeds that fell and didn't get any sun. Kill the grass, its the biggest downfall of new plots.Another thing not to get hung up on is all the name brand stuff on the market right now. You can get quality seeds at most of the local mills or farmers co op for a lot less money.

we do a number of plots on my farm each year; often wheat/rye/clover mix plots, in varying sizes.

have also had great luck making some of our access trails into long green plots that are great travel corridors.

green fields have really helped hold deer & kept doe concentrations high; when the rut starts we get a lot of bucks cruising the field edges looking for a girlfriend...





working some smaller patches:


starting a burn to clear out an area for a new plot..


a different plot, viewed from the ladder, seed bed prepped to plant...

Look up the no till methods and cover crops over at QDMA forum for building soil, holding preffered crops and more.. I don't fully dig on QDMA but there is a ton of great information there for the new food plotters. I no longer disk or herbicide, saves a ton of money.

my turnips, rape and radishes a 5 weeks old yesterday

You'd get better results if you'd spread the lime before discing.

It won't dissolve and soak in like fertilizer, so it needs to be worked into the soil

Fyrepower,

What attachment are you using with your 4 wheeler? Looks like a nice set up!