RE: What to plant?
Mount Dave,
This is really an easy question, an easy answer is to plant whatever you want to plant.
When you have more information gathered from your person experiences, you can make a great decision. but plant SOMETHING and keep track of the results...
I was in your position about 10 years ago when I started this on our 360ac farm in Missouri. I started out with the Biologic in a small 1/2ac food plot, smack dab in the middle of an 80ac old brome grass field. I used a cattle panel to make a circle so I could see if the deer were using the plot.
Well they did and they ate it down pretty good, but some portions of the field did not grow at all!
I was concerned why some portions of the field did not grow well. I did some research and spoke with my elderly uncle who owned the place. He said since this field hadn't been planted or fertilized in 20 years that I needed to grow some nitrogen fixing plants in order to get some nitrogen back into the soil. He suggested planting forbs and legumes to establish the plot and return some nitrogen back into the soil. Well I planted korean lespedeza that was given to me by the Quails unlimited people. To my amazement this grew knee high and flourished. I had a nice green food plot, but were the deer using it? I suspected so, I would see deer in the plot on occasions. I left this plot in Lespedeza for a couple years and it began to die back. So I over seeded ladino clover in the plot and the following year the clover just took off. I began to see more deer than ever in my food plot. I started another food plot closer to the timber and found that with the location closer to cover and the crop selection, I had hit the motherload. In this plot, I planted a mixture of Ladino clover and winter wheat. And mind you all of this is from the local seed company and the seed costs about $20 per acre. The winter wheat was planted with the ladino clover so that in the fall, the deer would have great green browse before the clover came in the following year. I would mow yearly to help the clover overcome competition. We continue to plant corn, wheat, clover and lespedeza (korean) in food plot to dertemine what works the best. What we have found out is this.... The grain plots generally are seasonal, when the grains mature, the birds will use them most. When the wheat is young the deer will browse it. We determined that our corn plots feed the coons rather nicely. I suspect the deer have an opportunity to use it, but we have really no evidence they use any before the coons/possums take it all. The clover is by far the best, you will notice that the clover will start to thin out over a couple years. Mowing can prolong the plot but requires equipment and access to the plots with the equipment. We use a clover rotation scheme where every second or third year we plant a new plot or overseed an existing one. This keeps the clover plots in excellent condition and in great palatable shape. We also plant alfalfa/timothy mixture in a 10 acre food plot for use as hay. However, the deer utilize this plot even more than the clover. If money is no concern I would plant 10 acres of alfalfa and allow nighbors to hay it. You can use the money from the hay to buy fertlizer and seed for the following year. In addtion to the alfalfa plant and rotate several 2-3 acre clover food plots every two-three years. Do not use the specialty seeds they are a waste of money. If you are interested in a flurry of activity nest to your deer stand, plant about 1 acre of red-top turnips in shooting distance of your deer stand. Detemine the date you should plant by counting back from deer season they days it takes for you variety of red-top turnips to mature. Fertilize as required and during deer season, sit back and watch the deer actually dig these up out of the ground!!
But whatever you do, plant something and see what happens. You may need fertilizer, lime to get the soil in the optimal condition. Don;t be afraid to contact the local USDA extention. They have the answers to most all beginer questions. I would start with clover and if you want to try something else, that fine. but keep your base plots in clover.
Cliff
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