Why should you plant food plots for deer?

 Two reasons. One is to provide feed and attract deer to your property. The other is to keep deer on your land by decreasing the size of a herd’s home range. If you hunt a 200-acre property, will planting a plot or two keep deer on it all the time? No. But food plots can help you go from 50/50 (deer on your property/off it) to maybe 70/30 or even 90/10. For the small landowner (or hunting club), decreasing the range of bucks is the biggest benefit of food plots.

How many plots should you plant?

That depends, depending on the size of your land and especially the deer density in an area. If you’ve got, say, 5 to 7 deer per square mile, one plot every 150 acres should do. But if you planted just one plot on a small piece of land down South Carolina, where the deer numbers are way up, the animals would eat it up in no time.

A good average is one plot for every 150 to 200 acres, but again it depends on an area’s deer density. Before spending a lot of money on plots, check with a local biologist for deer numbers in your area and go from there.

How large should a food plot be?

The days of huge “green fields” are gone. Most deer managers now plant small and manageable plots of an acre or less. Again, the size of a plot varies according to an area’s deer density.

Here’s something to keep in mind. A good plot will produce 3 to 10 tons of dry-weight forage per acre per year. A deer consumes 1,000 to 3,000 pounds of forage a year. So plan on feeding 5 to 7 deer per acre of plot.

Where should you plant a food plot?

You’ve got to plant a plot where the soil moisture is good enough to germinate the seeds. If you live in a fairly dry region, you’d want to avoid ridge tops. It’s too dry up there. Generally speaking, the northeast corner of a slope has the moistest soil, and that is a good spot for a plot.

Here’s a critical but often overlooked thing. Plant a plot so that it runs NORTH TO SOUTH, not east to west. A north-to-south plot gives enough sun to grow crops, but there’s also plenty of shade. An east-to-west plot bakes in the sun.

When should you plant a food plot?

You can plant a plot in either spring or fall, depending on your mission. A spring plot provides the most nutrition for deer. Lactating does and bucks growing racks really suck up minerals and nutrients, and they get those from spring plots. You plant a fall plot mostly to attract deer and keep them on your property.

You should plant a spring plot when daytime temperatures reach the 70s or higher, which means the soil temperature is in the 60s. Plant a fall plot as early as possible in summer, but make sure there is enough soil moisture for seed germination.

In the temperate South, you can plant a spring plot as early as March or April. In central and Northern states, aim for May to early June. Planting fall plots in mid-August to mid- September, depending on latitude and region, is pretty typical. Don’t wait too long though. You don’t want to plant a food plot a week before the first frost.

What seed should I plant in a food plot?

For a spring plot, I like to mix it up and put in 60 percent of a perennial, like clover, and 40 percent of an annual blend, like Buck Forage oats. The perennial gives deer something green to eat all year. The annual grows quickly in either spring or fall. Research shows that an annual blend tastes better to deer, and it really attracts them.

For fall attractant plots, brassicas like purple top turnips, radishes and forage rape are excellent. Deer eat both the leafy tops and especially the roots when they become sweeter after frost. Brassicas offer high protein (up to 25% in some varieties) and improve soil health in a plot by breaking up soil compaction.

How do you sow seeds so the plants grow best?

Biologists and food plot experts advise that after clearing a relatively flat spot for a plot, disc the soil and prepare a firm seedbed. Plant seeds with a drill, machine or hand broadcaster (the latter is most practical for hunters putting in small plots). Don’t plant too deep! Cover seeds with no more than 1/4–inch of soil. As with any crop, apply lime and fertilizer as recommended by an annual soil test.

How do you maintain the plots you sow?

Growing plants suck nutrients out of the ground. Deer eat the plants and then defecate 24 times a day, sometimes in a plot but many times in the surrounding woods and thickets. A plot loses nutrients quickly. The best thing to do is get an annual soil test from your county’s extension agency. Then lime and fertilize a plot accordingly.