Planting Fall Food Plots

Planting fall food plots can be a hunter's biggest challenge. After many years of practice, I have finally perfected the art of planting fall food sources for wildlife. There are three ingredients required to make a successful fall hunting plot: good rain, fertile soil, and good seed. Hunters can adjust the fertility of their plot's soil by adding fertilizer and lime, and of course, seed can be purchased easily. However, the first ingredient, rain, is beyond any hunter's control and it is the most important of the three. Without rain, any food plot seed that is planted will sit in the dirt until a hungry little bird or field mouse comes along, uncovers it, and makes several seeds its dinner. Instead of a fat and happy deer eating the sweet green sprouts, you get a fat, chirpy tweety bird.

Soil Moisture

My number one rule is do not plant in dry dirt. As I explained above, seed will sit in dry dirt until some form of wildlife comes along and eats it. However, if you plant in moist soil just after a rain, the seed is much easier to cover and it will germinate in a day or two rather than weeks. This eliminates a good bit of time that different creatures can go snack on the seeds. If the seeds are eaten by animals, they will not grow. If you have very high populations of doves or other birds, I recommend increasing the amount of seed that you plant in order to account for an expected loss of some seed. When planting late food plots with winter grains such as rye, wheat, or oats, the doves here usually eat about 20% of the grain that was planted. This makes it a good idea few extra pounds of seed to your plot if you have a lot of doves in your area like we do. Or just sit on the edge of the food plot with a shotgun and take out any dove that flies in until the seeds have germinated. But it is a lot easier to just throw out a little bit extra seed.

Planted September 14	6 days later

Plot Preparation
 
 

When preparing a plot for planting, always cultivate the soil about 30 days prior to planting. This helps the soil gather moisture prior to planting. It is best to add any fertilizer or lime that is needed prior to planting. If fertilizer is allowed to sit in the soil through a good rain prior to planting, those nutrients will be available for your plot to utilize immediately which greatly helps germination rates. Choosing the right seed for the soil conditions in your plot is also vital. You are not going to get a lush clover stand out of acidic or extremely dry soil, so you must consider other options. If the soil is able to be broken up very well, a great choice would be wheat, oats, and turnips or rape. The wheat and oats act as an early season attractant while brassicas are excellent for late-season hunting after a hard freeze. When the temperature drops below freezing, turnips send sugars into the large leaves of the plant making it very tasty for deer. Brassicas provide tons of forage and will grow in almost any soil condition. About 20 days after planting, I always apply ammonium nitrate to my plots. This adds a great deal of nitrogen to the soil and makes the plot have a growth spurt. The plot also gets a lot greener after the application, and the deer browse it more heavily. I apply about 40-50 pounds of 34-0-0 per acre on my fall plots.

What to Plant

From my experiences, the easiest food plot to plant and maintain is a rye/wheat/oat green plot. This mix will grow under most any condition and soil type, and it is a time-proven mix that hunters everywhere harvest deer over each and every fall. It tolerates slightly acidic soils, heavy clay, and sandy soils. The best tip for a rye, wheat, and oat plot is do not forget the ammonium nitrate. If the deer have eaten most of the forage to the ground, prior to a good rain, apply up to 50 pounds of 34-0-0 per acre, and it will give your plot a great growth spurt.

Deer will begin feeding on the green grasses almost immediately after germination. Turkeys are also drawn in to eat any seed that does not germinate. Consumption by deer tends to slack off a few weeks after planting, however, this can be jump-started with an ammonium nitrate application prior to a rain storm, especially if the grass is not as green as it should be. Within days, the plot will return to a bright green color, and deer consumption will rise.

Wheat, oats, and rye will continue growing new blades of grass until the spring. A thin stalk will then form and at the top will be a small seed head. Wheat and rye look very similar during the seeding stage, but oats will have small sacks hanging off its stalk which will contain the oat seed. Once fully mature, the seed will become a hard grain and the grass will turn from a bright green to a golden color. This hard grain is readily consumed by deer, turkeys, doves, and quail. Once the grain is gone, it will be time to plant something else because the plants will no longer produce forage.

Another excellent deer food plot is planted by taking the rye/wheat/oat mix and adding in something extra such as winter peas. Winter peas are a favorite of deer during the fall and winter months. They grow to have very long vines with small rounded leaves. These leaves have high sugar contents, so they are very sweet tasting. They work best when planted with winter grains, especially when mixed with oats and planting a sandy soil area. Like winter grains, winter peas are easy to plant. Cover these seeds with one inch of soil and you cannot go wrong.

Many people attempt to plant ryegrass as a fall food plot for deer. This is highly impractical. A lot of these hunters confuse ryegrass with grain rye when purchasing seed, and there are many "food plot mixes" that actually contain ryegrass. Ryegrass is very low in attracting power compared to other food plot crops. A deer would much rather try to find an almost rotten acorn to eat over ryegrass. Granted, a few deer will be seen eating the green ryegrass in the dead of winter. However, with 13-13-13 Fertilizer running at over $20 per bag, there are much better choices of things to plant such as wheat, oats, or even grain rye.  The winter grains are a lot cheaper than ryegrass, too. Winter grain mixes usually only cost about $12 for a 50-pound bag. Winter grains grow extremely well when used in rotation with legumes such as peas, soybeans, or lab lab. Legumes fix nitrogen to the soil which is readily consumed by winter grains such as wheat and oats.

Small Seeds

Some may ask "How can something with such a small seed feed my deer herd?" The truth is that many plants that have small seeds grow a tremendous amount of forage. However, because of the size of the seed, planting these crops can be much more difficult.

Small-seeded plants include most perennials such as clover, alfalfa, and chicory. There are also some small-seeded annual plants including arrowleaf clover, rape, and turnips. I have found that the most effective way to plant these small seeds is not to attempt to cover them at all. If planted just prior to a rain on a well-prepared seedbed, the rain will do its job and pound the small seeds into the dirt at the proper depth. This will ensure germination of the seed.

With perennials, planting is only required every few years. The downside to most perennial plants is the cost of planting and maintenance especially in larger plots. Alfalfa and clovers require mowing or herbicide applications every spring and fall to eliminate weed competition. Most perennial plants, with the exception of chicory and alfalfa, are difficult to grow where we are because we have frequent droughts. Chicory develops a long tap-root which makes it very drought resistant.

Arrowleaf clover and brassicas such as rape and turnips are excellent plants to add to any fall food plot made of winter grains. Because they are annuals, they are not as expensive as perennial plants and do not require as much maintenance. To plant with winter grains, simply broadcast the arrowleaf clover or brassica seed on top of the seed bed after covering the winter grain seed.

Unlike other small seeds, brassicas love nitrogen. The more, the better. These tiny seeds can grow into a large plant up to 2 or 3 feet tall if fertilized properly. Especially in larger plots, the tonnage of forage these plants produce adds up quickly. Deer typically begin browsing on brassicas just prior to a hard freeze. The cold temperatures send the sugars up from the roots and into the leaves making the plant's leaves very tasty for the deer to eat.