deer food plot ideas

[Dean Lydey]

Guys,

I'm looking for something unusual to plant for a food source for deer in NW Ohio. I have clovers and brassicas along with soy beans next door. I'm looking for another grain I can plant in the spring and leave up in the for the winter....sorghum? buckwheat? oats?

Ideally I need somthing I can plant with abroadcast spreader and cultipacker, I don't have a planter/drill.

 

[Arkansas]

Not a grain, and not really unusual either, but Austrian winter peas. You'll have to ask to see how they do in your area, but here in west central AR they do well. Easily broadcast onto well disc ground and germination/growth rate is great. You can't keep the deer away, or the goats, or the cows........
Never planted them in spring, so I don't know how they keep in summer.
Elbon rye will make it through summer

 

[old]

Not a grain but I know at least one of them will bring in the deer. I plant turnips and will be trying Rape this year. I also plant sweet corn or field corn either one work and if you want to keep it cheap buy a bag of whole feed corn I have found more then 80% will grow and it sure does bring in the deer I know one almost gave me a heart attack one day when I was checking out my corn food plot and it jumped up about 10 feet from me where it was laying down in the carn

 

[GordoSD]

Food plots for hunting season, or food plots for winter survival? Lots of info on them if you just google whitetail deer management.
I try to split the 15 or so plots i plant between plots for November hunting and Jan-Mar maintenance. How deep does the snow get where you are?
Tall crops for the late survival feed. Corn, sudan, feed sorgham. You would have to broadcast the corn and then disc it in. It needs to be down 1 1/2 inches.

 

[usetob]

try some chickory I know it's not a grain but deer loves it!

 

[dej(Jed)]

Here in Pa I think it could be called baiting. I was just wonderiing when the Pa Game Commission will get around to fining guys who plant food plot crops here. The law states that you must be a commercial farmer and then you aren't baiting deer. In Pa the Game Commission has become the keeper of the Governors deer herd.It is pretty much like back when Robin Hood was running around England with his merry men and the King was nailing people for poaching. Like everything else today, it is all about money. LOL.

 

[jackinok]

heres an idea,simply let it grow up in weeds.rotate out every year or so with one plot in weeds.thats what they eat most of anyway, things that we consider a weed.Would provide some cover and food at the same time so it may hold more deer on your place than a simple grain or other low growing crop.I dont have any trouble attracting deer to my places,but it takes cover to hold them.It just dont make a whole lot of sense to me to feed them and watch them grow if they have to return to the neighbors places for bedding cover and those folks harvest the best ones.I have planted different things for about 20 years now for wildlife,and can see a real improvement of the size and quality of deer.but i'm lacking in any real bedding cover so thats my next project.My intention is to plant more sumac and sand plum along terraces and at heads of draws used for travel routes to and from food plots to try and hold them longer.as for a food plot you may look at those new radishes folks are starting to use.Like someone lse mentioned,lots of guys around here use turnips thrown right in their other crops.

 

[delberts]

I just planted some lab lab its a vining legume bean that grows 2 to 3 ft tall during the summer and has the pods for winter, i planted a bag of corn with it to let it clime up and give cover and extra food on the plot for winter