nvrhapy

hey guys i have a small 20 acre parcel that i hunt on in mid michigan, this area is covered with trees and tons of oak trees, every year we have tons of acorns on the ground. The surrounding areas are setup the same way there is a i acre plot of rye across from me that i know of. tons of woods and no farm land. i want to clear out an area and put in a food plot what size of an area would be ideal and what should i plant. i also have a few trails and loggin roads i was considering to plant. i already sent in some soil samples just waiting on the results. looking to maybe attract turkeys to. My purpose is a plot to attract deer and turkey for hunting purposes.

VT Outdoorsman

Size is not as big of an issue as many people think it is. The key is planting the right food in the plot. I read a great article about small food plots...i was looking for it for you but wasnt able to find it. sorry.

Chasebaker

Well....my favorite is clover....also turnips work well out here in Illinois...its all about where your at...

USFWC

Take a few pictures of your understory and post them, if ya would...you may not need to clear much ofanything for hunting plots.

timbercruiser

I would plant chufas, if they will grow in your area. Around here they are usually planted in May.

Remnard

5% of your property is the water mark for food plots. That would be 1 acre on 20 acres. Are you doing this to feed your deer and give them what they need to grow? Or are you doing it to hunt over. Chufa is great for turkeys, but I don't know how deer feel about it. I have never heard of deer eating it. Your best bet is to Plant a mix,maybe several different clovers , Alfalfa, and some Brassica for late season. Brassica turns very sweet and the protein level increases when it frosts. After wilt, I have witnessed the deer digging the bulb/roots up and eating them. The turkeys will be in there eating the bugs in the field. A large part of their diet is bugs. As a matter of fact about 90 percent of the young turkeys is bugs.

If this is a wooded lot, are you going to pull the stumps? That can get expensive. If you don't pull them, getting equipment in there is hell. If you do pull them you will be better off, but its pricey for the machinery. Is there easy acces for equipment? If you can log the area, maybe you can make money selling the timber to pay for the stumping and the plowing, etc. Make sure you get several prices if you do harvest timber. You would do best to get a forester to inventory the property and find out what its worth, then get bids. I have seen people get taken if they don't know what they are doing. If there are white oaks, move the plot to an area where there arent any, again they are preferred.
Some times its easier to just find some good native food sources and fertilize them. If there are white oaks in the area, you would do well to release them and fertilize them. A whitetail will walk past 10 miles of red oak acorns to get to the white oaks acorns. There are less tannins in the whites and they taste better I guess. do you have a layout of the area? Are there any southern facing slopes? Give us more info.

falcon

"I would plant chufas, if they will grow in your area. Around here they are usually planted in May."

Unless you own a really trashy place do not plant chufa, aka, nut grass. It spreads quickly and is a nuisance. Once established, ittakes years of weed killer application to get rid of it.

DanM3029

If you have a lot of stumps, you could just cover them with C'mere deer and the deer will eat them till they're gone!