Food Plots

 You can make any piece of deer hunting ground better in two ways with the right food plots.  Even small efforts made in improving the quality of food available in your hunting area will be rewarded.  First, better nutrition, even on a small scale, will promote a healthier herd. In areas that lack adequate food, such an effort can make a big difference.

 Even in the richest farm country where deer are never hungry for long, a well-chosen and well-sited food plot can attract and hold deer in one area making them easier to hunt.

 Plots are pivotal to most deer management plans and they are becoming a more valuable part of hunting strategy, as well.  But, simply scratching the earth and throwing out a little seed isn’t going to produce fat deer, more fawns or bigger racks.  Nor will just any planting automatically pull deer to your stands like moths to a flame.

Balance is the Key

 Ideally, you will be able to plant a variety of foods that deer prefer at different times of the year so that there is always something attractive on their plate.  In a perfect world, each spring will provide a leftover bounty of high-carbohydrate grain and an early green-up of winter wheat or rye.

 As spring advances the deer will quickly shift to your high protein clover plots. During the heat of summer they will be hammering your soybeans and alfalfa.

 In early fall sorghum seed heads will be the tastiest thing around, as deer shift out of the beans and into the grains.

 Then, in late fall and winter they’ll flock to the high carbohydrate content of your corn plots to fuel their furnaces.

 The smorgasbord approach requires a lot from the deer manager.  There is the need for good tillable land, and lots of it.  Without adequate acreage the deer will wipe out each seasonal planting before it even has chance to produce benefits.

 Just because you have the open ground available to plant the perfect food for every season, that doesn’t mean you have the budget or the manpower to pull it off.

 High quality food plots aren’t cheap and there is plenty of hard work involved.  While this is definitely a labor of love and a good way to get away from your day job (unless you’re a farmer) it still takes time.

What to Plant

 Corn?  Sorghum?  Rye?  Alfalfa?  Clover?  Soybeans?  Brassicicas?

Making the Final Choice