four season food plot system
 

what do you guys plant for your four season system???
what are your favorite kill plots too?

RE: four season food plot system
 

Hello Rauch - Welcome to the board.

Like Most - you will find the clover is at least a 9 month food source for us, no crop around here is a 12 month crop (too much snow).

Kill plots - If I hunted on fields it would probably be Rye - but I'd rather hunt the funnels to the fields and call the fields "sanctuarys" because generally - at least w/bow - they are too low percentage hunts.

RE: four season food plot system
 

I almost always agree with Farm Hunter and do so here as well. Clover, or some other perennial legume is generally the best all around plots. If you add some sort of grain like corn or milo, you will have a year round system that provides protien most of the year and an energy source in the winter.

I rarely hunt the plots and generally hunt the trials as well. During the firarm season in MO., lots of people will plant rye, wheat or oats as a kill plot.

RE: four season food plot system
 

The only way to go multi season is to plant multiple plots. Corn, soybeans, clover, winter rye. Even better would be to have an additional 2 or 3 in clover. A 3 year old clover field can be turned under and planted with corn to take advantage of nitrogen fixing. Rotate your plots to minimize disease, weeds, fertilizer, and chemical spraying just like the farmers do.

RE: four season food plot system
 

Greg, I have always heard that corn was a very low source of protien (3-7 percent).

As someone else said it's tough to have a year round 4 season food source here in the north. If I had the choice I would plant multipe plots consisting of a different mixtures of clover, chickory, brassica, austrian winter peas, winter wheat and corn (obviously not all mixed in each plot). They could then bounce between the lot of them and have good nutrition through out the year. TGK

RE: four season food plot system
 

Corn is low in protein, but high in energy, just what the deer need to survive the winter in good shape.

Legumes are high in protein, low in energy with a high relative feed value which is what the deer need most other times of the year.

RE: four season food plot system
 

Corn:It is not recommend feeding deer a pure corn diet as the high starch content of corn can cause high acidity in the rumen which kills microorganisms necessary for digesting food. Corn is widely used deer food It is less expensive than the deer mixtures, but not as nutritious. If corn is fed, it should be mixed with oats at a ratio of 4 parts oats to 1 part corn. Do not use corn unless you start feeding it early in the winter before deer are stressed.

Deer need a variety, even in winter. Corn and soybeans left standing, and let them dig through the snow for clover and winter rye.

RE: four season food plot system
 

1Sag.
I agree. I was referring to corn planted in foodplots, where it is unlikely that corn will be there sole source of food. Deer browse enough, when possible so that seldom one food source is their only intake. We have clover plots that deer still utilize late in winter as well as cereal grain plots that they also hit. Even so, corn, accorns or some other source of energy will maintain deer in better physical shape (pound per pound) then food source high in protein during winter stress.