boldplate

when you are planting your food plots are you doing anything to keep the deer off the plots till they get good start? If so what? We thought about the spray stuff that keeps them away but, you have to reapply every time it rains and it's a 2hour ride. Don't see that working.[8D]

SKIDMARK

What kind of seed did you plant?

Rick James

My seed isn't going in till August.......

boldplate

Whitetail clover

farm hunter

I don't - I want the deer to get as much as possible.

The first year of any clover plot is more about the ROOTs than the forage - it will probably get browsed back - but the next year - the deer won't be able to keep up.

Mow off the annual weeds before they go to seed.

Plant at least 1 acre - with 2-5 acres being ideal. Most of our plots are 2 acres or smaller.

FH

bowhuntermws1981

I think it depends on how big your plot is. When we planted our 2 acre clover plot, we didn't bother putting a plot saver in because it was just too large to worry about the deer mowing it off before it could get started.
When we planted a small (1/4 acre) plot of full draw last year, we had put a plot saver around it along with a trail camera. The first week after it started coming up we had 3 pictures of deer inside the plot saver, but no real damage done to the plants. We figured that the plot saver was worthless, so we took it off and in less than a week the entire plot was gone, I couldn't believe it, every single leaf of every plant was completely chewed off.
Long story short, plot savers won't keep every deer out of your plot all the time, but they will help protect your young plot from being completely destroyed before it can get a start.

huntinyoung

I usually plant so that the plot will be ready when it is time to start hunting them. When I say "ready" I mean the time the deer start wanting to use it.