kaop

Does anybody plant this for deer??

I am in Arkansas. How effective is this as a food plot?

gregrn43

Rye grass has very little nutrition for whitetails,however my experience is that they will eat it somewhat. It is not there favorite food source by any means. Rye grass is easy to grow, if it can make contact with the ground it will usually sprout and come up. I have planted it here in arkansas before and the biggest benefit that i have seen is that it gives shade the next spring and summer to the alfalfa and clover that i plant with it. I would never plant just a rye grass food plot. But thats me, other people may have different ideas.

North Texan

Deer will eat it during the winter and get some benefit out of it. However, they will walk across three fields of ryegrass to get to a field of wheat if there is one around.

timbercruiser

QDMA doesn't recommend it in a plot. Once you get it planted it comes back year after year. I wish I didn't have a single seed in any of my plots.

M.Magis

Rye grain and rye grass are two different things. Rye grass is worthless as a food plot. Rye grain is what one would plant.

Iron Archer

Winter rye is what I use, grows very well all winter and also attracts deer. Every year I plant some in my garden as cover crop and it gets tall. On the farm the deer keep in mowed down to about an inch high.
It is usually fairly cheap as well, I think it was about twenty buck a fifty pound bag the other day.

WestonAU

Exactly. I used to plantnumerous rye food plots before we made several drastic habitat changes on our property. It is cheap and easy. Deer keep it mowed downin the winter as it is agood source of calories,andin the spring it gets chest high and will provide nesting sites for turkey. I would only reccomend it if the plot is over an acre in size as it is not as nutritious as other plants, so the deer need more of it.

A rye/corn plot around 1.5 acres in size used to be my most effective setup. Now I plant a variety of plants and mainly hunt the woods.