barely

my partners and I are trying to find a good crop to plant for deer. A customer of mine goes hunting every year at a GA peanut plantation and says that the deer there are always heavy and have far better than average antlers.
Our hunting place is in Alabama and is scattered plots surounded by pine and clearcuts several years old.
Has anyone ever planted these as a deer crop? If so, how hard is it to get them to grow? I know they are good for replenishing the soil.

timbercruiser

Sounds like you are hunting the same type area we do in S. Bama. I don't think it would be feasible to try peanuts, but definitely couldn't guarantee it. We are going to put out feeders as soon as the season goes out next week starting with shelled corn and then gradually weaning them to whole dry soybeans. It should be more cost effective than planting crops that you must rely on rain to make a good crop. We started a mature buck only requirement about 4 years ago and it is definitely paying off already. We hope the high nutrition of the beans will help increase the rack size some.

barely

Thanks for the info. This place is probably real similar to S bama, its in central alabama, lots of thick, thick, and thicker cover. Problem with feeders, its 60 miles south of where I live, so Im not going to be able to get down there as much as I would like. Im going to have to literally cut down trees and create openings along trails to try and plant stuff. Im looking at honeysuckle, but then this peanut idea came into play.

Russ otten

Don't know how well peanuts will recover from foraging, our garden plants usually stunt badly when they hit them. I would suggest Cowpeas. I have seen deer eat them to the ground and they will bounce back. They will grow all summer, but one good frost and they are gone. I am thinking of mixing cowpeas and clover in one plot.They will shade the clover until frost, then the clover will take over, hopefully.