Hunt 365 April 2019-The Right Food in the Right Places
Over the past 20 years or so, food plot popularity has grown and grown. Most hunter/landowners are either putting in food plots, or are considering doing so. The focus is always about what to plant. Every seed company has their proprietary blend of big buck attracting seed, and every hunting personality that’s sponsored by one can attest to the attractiveness and ease to which this seed or that can be planted to attract and hold giant whitetails. But, as sure as I am that it’s all a bunch of hype, I’m also sure that food plot plantings do make a difference. What you plant, how you plant it, and where it’s planted does make a difference.
Last month, I talked a lot about where to locate food plots. The where in planting is more important than any method or seed. If you are planting plots in a fashion that puts more stress on your deer herd by locating them where they see a lot of human and hunting pressure, you would have been better off planting none at all. In April of every year, I develop my food plot strategy for my farms. I try to incorporate necessary plot rotations, attractiveness, monitor neighboring hunters and what they have planted…all in an effort to make my farms the best hunting farms they can be but also to protect younger bucks so they can make it a few more years. The where is critical, but what we plant also plays a role in shaping our own deer heard and our hunting enjoyment.
Exterior (destination) Plots Last month, I talked about trying to create a movement pattern on your farm that establishes a huntable bed-to transition-to exterior plot pattern. So, if you’ve taken that to heart and have thought about where to located your plots, now is the time to decide what planting makes the most sense for you. An exterior plot’s goal is to attract deer to it to establish the daily normal feeding pattern that deer have. The feeding that takes place at dusk, is in my opinion the most important for the deer herd in terms of how much they consume, and how this sets a deer’s total daily pattern. As a hunter, you want the local deer herd to be able to rely on this exterior plot the entire hunting season. That means no hunting pressure at all, no bumping deer on this plot, and making sure it is a viable food option from season opener until the last day of the late season. Attractiveness needs to be considered too in making sure the deer will want to come.
An exterior plot can be planted in many different things. Corn, soybeans, alfalfa, cereal grains, brassicas, milo, the list is really endless. But remember that it needs to attract deer from season opener until you throw in the towel sometime in late season. This is where a good study of your neighboring farms is important. If you are in an area with low hunting pressure and the neighboring farms see very little in the way of food plots, an exterior plot planted in only greens like brassicas and winter rye might be the ticket to attract deer all season long. If, on the other hand, you are in an area where there is standing corn and soybeans that remain well into winter, then that same green plot of yours might become less attractive by say the end of November. Food plot attractiveness is always relative to what is available.
Another thing to consider is available acreage. A good exterior plot should be big enough to accommodate the local deer herd on their evening feeding pattern. In most cases that means having a larger plot of 2-5 acres or even bigger. Maybe it means having more than one so that deer have room and are not stressed by trying to pack 20 deer onto 2 acres every evening. If you have 40 acres total to work with, a 2-acre exterior plot might do the trick. If you are managing 200 acres, maybe a larger 5-acre plot or two will work to create multiple options for destination food sources. In every case though, you must consider season long attractiveness, the amount of food so that it lasts, and “competition” from neighboring hunters.
So, let’s break it down a bit. If you have little to no competition in your neighborhood, a green plot alone will probably do the trick. In early August, plant half your plot in a brassica blend that contains both forage brassicas and brassicas that put more of their energy into the root or tuber. I like appin turnips for forage brassicas and purple top turnips, radishes, or others that put energy into their tubers. A blend of forage and tuber producing brassicas planted with 100 lbs./acre of nitrogen will give you a great stand of brassicas that will last well into winter. The other half of your plot should be planted in a blend of oats and winter rye. For this half, you can wait until about September 1st or so before planting. Cereal grains are excellent nitrogen scavengers so adding nitrogen is not necessary, although putting down some nitrogen, say a 50-pound bag of urea/acre won’t hurt either. There are some opinions out there that adding a “sweetener” seed like late planted soybeans, winter peas, or maybe even clover will help make the plot more attractive. While this might help, it may not be necessary and just adds more cost to your plot. A purely green destination plot can and will work if there is very little if any competition in your neighborhood from other hunters also planting food plots, or from agriculture practices that result in all the grain crops being harvested well before season’s end.
Although an entirely green exterior plot might work, in many cases throughout the Midwest and certainly Iowa I see a need for grains. More and more hunters are putting in and establishing plots of soybeans and corn and leaving them. If your neighbor has a standing corn or soybean plot, and you are relying on only greens, the attractiveness of your plot might suffer by late November as temps start to plummet or snow starts to fall. This was never more evident as during the hunting season of 2018 when we saw cold and snow in November. During that cold and snow this past season, I saw greater action than I have ever seen in over 30 years of hunting whitetail…all on standing soybeans and corn. Had I only had green plots, I am sure the local deer herd bedding on my farm would have gladly left and walked only a few hundred yards to eat on neighboring grain sources. In this case, I wouldn’t abandon greens, just supplement them with a grain crop. This means planting a rotation of corn/beans on half your exterior plot and a highly attractive green on the other half.
The whole point with what to plant on your exterior plots is making sure there is food from season opener until January. Greens alone might work, but if you have grain competition nearby, then plantings of grains yourself might be necessary. Exterior plots have to be larger in size too to accommodate the evening feeding pattern of the deer on your farm. A good rule of thumb might be to establish one destination plot for every 100 acres or less of land you are managing. Hunting pressure including pressure during entrance and exiting your property should be at a minimum…in fact avoid hunting exterior plots all together until maybe the very late season.
Interior Transition Plots Transition plots located between bedding and destination plots should always be planted in greens. These are small plots no bigger than maybe ¼ acre in size that are the ambush spots. The last thing you want is for these plots to be so large and so attractive that deer can get their entire evening feeding requirements met at them. Instead, think of these as the snack bars of the deer woods…where deer come to rub, scrape, and stage before heading out to their main food sources. Even if you can’t plant larger exterior plots, these small interior plots can still serve to stage deer between their bedding areas and where they’ll end up at dusk and after dark. A planting of cereal grains is a great choice for these plots. I like winter rye because even when the temps get cold the plot remains green. Oats can be added making them a little more attractive earlier in the season. As with all plots, the location of these plots is way more important than what is planted in them. If you’ve located these transition plots correctly between bedding and exterior plots, what you plant in them becomes less and less important because deer will naturally be traveling the area already…the plot just serves as an attractant of sorts. Plant these greens in early September for the best attractiveness early and late in the season.
Each and every night the goal is to provide a low hunting, low stress area the deer bedded on your farm can count on for their daily evening feeding pattern. These plots have to be large enough to provide food from season opener to January. Then, transition plots are planted to establish a staging area directly between bedding and where the deer will end up each evening. For each larger exterior plot, a hunter can establish one or several patterns through a staging plot for multiple wind directions and to limit hunting pressure at any one staging area interior plot.
Remember the pattern…Buck bedding-to doe bedding-to staging food-to exterior or destination food. If you can establish this pattern on your farm using food and bedding, you are well on your way to great all-season hunting.
Next month I’ll go into the dangers of too much food in all the wrong places and how high population farms can be bad for buck hunting and buck age structure.
Next month, we talk what to plant in your food plots using this same methodology of creating great travel patterns and how to make sure you don’t have a farm loaded up with only doe family groups.