RE: Whitetail Institute Secret Spot
Secret Spot , like any other food plot seed, will grow better with the right soil. Get a soil sample, they only cost 10 bucks or so at a co-op.
Secret spot will grow in fair soil without additional lime and fertilizer, but it'll be mediocre. If there was no lime, or no fertilizer going in, I'd plant later to the end of the planting date suggestions. Reason being that PH booster is designed to jump start the growth, and it fades quickly in hopes of fertilizer and lime application (which makes little sense because lime does take a good while to work itself into the soil system). Planting later will allow it to be quasi-lush at the start of bow season.
The seed blend is just a mediocre sub-5% blend of several seeds. It'll attract deer under the right circumstances, but at what level they go after it is determined on a large number of variances. The ones you can control, should be controlled(ph, fertilizer, micro-nutrients [other than npk], location, seed planting, etc.). My question is, why even consider skipping one of them?