GAHogMan

Hi, all. This year I'm starting to plant food plots on our hunting property for the first time. I'm planning to keep a food source all year and don't completly have an idea what I'm doing(at best) . I'm wanting to plant some kind of bean for the summer, then when the frosts arrive, plant oats. Both of these work really well down here. My question is, what kind of bean to plant? My immediate response was soybean, but someone told me that when the deer mowed them down, they basically didn't make it. Is that really true? So what I thought next was what we planted in our garden: butterbeans. Boys, I could mow those things to the ground after getting way more beans than I wanted to and they'd just keep on coming up. About the butterbeans, I have a few questions: One, do the deer like butterbeans in the first place? Do they supply protein like soybeans do? And as the shoots are coming up for the first time, when the deer mow those down, do they just keep on coming up like they do when they mature and are mowed down? Thanks for all your input so much. I could probably research all that, but i wanted some straight up answeres from people that know something about it. Appreciate it.

timbercruiser

If you have a large deer population, and you probably do in your area, you will need to plant a large area of either iron clay peas or soybeans to do a lot of good. If the deer like them, they will eat them down, which is what you basically want. Placing an electric fence around the area until the plants get a foot and a half or more in height will definitely help, especially in smaller plots. I think the peas will make more forage than soybeans. There are other things to plant like lablab or others. Welcome to the board.

rick_reno

The deer in my yard have a preference for tulips..plant tulips.

Ryan Campbell

I'm given to understand, although I am no expert, that peas have to reach maturity before deer can benefit from them. The problem is that deer usually eat them before they are completly mature. I'm not 100% sure on this but I do know a Rancher that planted a very large garden of nothing but peas and built a deer proof/high fence around it to keep deer out of the peas until they were ripe. This was approximately 30 acres or so, and when the peas were ripe he opened the big gates he'd built to let the deer in. This made sure they got the full benefit of the protien.
This isn't practical for everyone but it did allow the pea to mature and he did tell me that deer will mow them down before they are ripe if you don't keep them out.