Planting Successful Food Plots
There are ranging opinions on the best mix, shape, location, and size of food plots. Some arguments have merit, while some are anecdotal. Stretching beyond what the shady guy outside your local hardware store told you, there are solid general recommendations for your food plots that are guaranteed to increase your chances of success in your upcoming hunting season. Read on below to explore the importance of proper seed choice and maintenance.
Diversity in Your Food Plots: Creating a Dynamic Food System.
A strong and reliably successful whitetail food plot necessitates properly mixing fall and perennial hunt plots. Each type of plant and style of plot brings a different piece of the puzzle to the table. Alternating between the annuals and perennials outlined below ensure soil health and reduces pest and weed encroachment, while the intentionally designed mixes guarantee your herd will never leave your plot in search of nutritional food.
- The mixes showcased below are strategically engineered to appeal to your deer during each season of the year – promoting health, growth, and energy at every stage.
Perennials: The Backbone of Year-Round Deer Habitat.
Perennials offer consistent growth, year over year, without the requirement of replanting. This contributes several key factors to a healthy deer population. A base function of a good perennial is that they require low maintenance, especially when compared to their fall, annual counterparts. Once established, a strong perennial will keep a plot productive for up to five years with periodic weed control and mowing. A neat feature of these consistent growers is the huge benefits in soil health. These can fix and stabilize the nitrogen levels in your soil as well as improving the overall soil fertility – this reduces the need for extra, synthetic fertilizers. The deeper root systems of these hearty plants also enhance the structure of your soil, enhancing strong water retention and anti-erosion properties.
As far as deer health/growth is concerned (which is most likely why you’re reading this), perennials offer the key benefit of long-term, reliable, and patterned deer nutrition. Your deer will be able to enjoy antler and fawn development, as well as overall herd health, during the Spring and Summer months when other food sources might be a bit more limited. Our recommended perennials, Hot Chic and Comeback Kid, provide high protein levels while being able to thrive in less-than-ideal, tougher soils.
Annuals/Falls: Maximizing Energy Levels and Attraction.
Perennials are great for soil health and especially for providing your herd with a strong, reliable nutrition foundation throughout the year. When it comes to Fall plots and hunting season, though, a focused effort on cold weather annuals will keep your deer energized throughout the rut, sturdy throughout the Winter, and coming back for more.
More so than their perennial siblings, annuals can be strategically placed on your property to help funnel deer from travel corridors into “destination” food sources near your stand locations. Promoting peak attraction through the use of specific annuals is key to bringing in deer when the temps start to drop. Highly-palatable choices for after the first frost include mixes like Big Sexy – irresistible for when the deer start to convert their starches to sugar. High-energy plots, like Green Machine, and NO BS, are key to providing your deer with the nutrients they need to prepare for the rut and to survive the winter ahead. These crops offer calorie-dense choices when all other crops have been harvested or become dormant.
One key thing to remember when designing your next food plot is that deer thrive with a reliable, healthy, and intentional mix of perennials and fall mixes. Making sure your seed choice aligns with their developmental stages will ensure stronger deer and a successful hunting season.