Five Kinds of Food Plots
Posted By
Bill Winke
at
5/23/2011 12:00:00 AM
Filed under:
journal
I finally have all my food plots in for the spring planting season. It is not too late if youy are still thinking about planting. There are five kinds of food plots and only one of them is pushing the deadline for establishment right now.
I break my food plots up into these five categories: spring planted clover, spring planted agricultural plots (beans and corn), spring planted forage, fall planted clover and fall planted forage. I will spend a few sentences discussing each one and how it plays into my food plot plans on this farm. But first, if you haven't already, please take a look at the video that Jim Ryser put together for us depicting his experiences with fall planted forage (Frigid Forage Big N Beasty brassica blend).
http://midwest2.digitaloffice.com/2011Live/BlogVideoLive/RyserFF.mp4
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SPRING PLANTED CLOVER
You can get a very good stand of clover by the first fall if you get it into the ground early or broadcast (frost seed) onto a prepared seed bed in late winter. The goal when seeding in the spring is to get the seed planted while there are still a few good rainy periods left in the spring to be sure to not only get the seed to germinate, but to have enough moisture present to allow the plant to put down roots and start to grow before the dry times of summer set in. If a seedling is shallow-rooted when the weather turns off dry, the plants will die. That is why most food plot companies provide planting deadlines for their seeds for each geographic region. Throughout most of the Midwest, April is the ideal month for clover planting. However, on wet years you can still get away with planting in May. If you go very far into June, you risk a dry spell.
Frost seeding is even more effective because you don't have to wait for the fields to dry out in the spring in order get the seed germinating and growing. Plus, it has the benefit of the entire duration of spring moisture to get a good headstart on the challenges of a potentially dry summer.
I have planted Frigid Forage's Pure Trophy Clover the past two years and it has done very well for me, growing aggressively and competing well with weeds to fill in the plots where I have planted it.
Maintenance:
The first year, you need to keep weed competition to a mininum. You do this by spraying with a grass selective herbicide, such as Select Max shortly after the clover starts to take off. Then come back and mow the plot in June to clean up the broadleaf weeds. I fertilize my clover plots heavily the first year to get them off to the best possible start. Clover doesn't need Nitrogen so the fertilizer mix you use should be heavy in P and K (phosphorous and potassium). Check with your local ag co-op to have them mix you up the correct blend for clover.
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CORN AND BEANS
I planted corn last year and it was very expensive. Inputs have only gotten more expensive since then. Basically, it is the nitrogen that corn loves so much that makes it so expensive to plant. It is not a big deal if you are going to sell it for $5+ per bushel, but it is just too rich for my blood when I am going to let the deer eat it. Soybeans have become my choice now and I will stick with beans for as long as I can before rotating out to something else in a couple of years. Basically, when I called the co-op and told them I was going to plant beans on beans for a couple of years they recommended that I fertilize wtih a heavy rate of potash. The guy said, "Beans love potash." Those were his exact words. How could I make something like that up? Anyway, I took his advice and spread 16 - 56 - 90 (N-P-K) on a few of my bean plots. In the amounts I spread, (I am not sure how much I put on per acre - I just followed his recommendation) it cost about $85 per acre. If I can get by with doing half my plots each year (some of the P and K will carry over to next year) I should be able to keep them in good shape without breaking the bank. If you have really good soil you can get by without fertilizing your beans for a couple of years, but it will soon catch up with you. My soil is not that good, so fertilizing is an important part of soybean food plots for me. 
Corn is a great winter food source, but very expensive to grow.
SPRING PLANTED FORAGE
I don't plant much forage in the spring, unless you consider clover, which I covered in an earlier section. However, in certain situations it is a good idea. In this section, spring forage would include forage soybeans and plants such as sugar beets. In the most recent episode, Jason Vickerman took us through the process of planting Frigid Forage sugar beets. It will be interesting to see how they do and how the deer adapt to them. Interestingly, according to QDMA's food plot book, sugar beets will produce 20 tons of forage per acre. Compare that to alfalfa that will produce about 4 or 5 tons in a good field. Sure, they offer different quality of forage and are available at different times, but the point is that sugar beets will produce a lot of winter deer food. You plant them in the spring - about now in many areas. Forage soybeans are another spring planted forage. I have not experimented with them, but my neighbors have. They are best suited to summer and fall forage and not as well suited to winter food except in areas with limited food and high deer numbers. The deer noticably favored traditional ag beans over the forage beans after the first hard freeze. The way I understand it, the forage bean doesn't have a maturity when it stops growing and putting out pods. It just keeps going until a hard frost kills it. That means that many of the beans on the stalk will be green, undried beans when the plant dies and you head into winter. Deer will eat them, but would prefer the dried beans that come from soybean plants with a specific maturity. I normally don't need high volumes of summer browse on our farm, but we do often run out of winter food during really hard winters (the kind we have had recently). I am sure I will try forage beans at some point, but I still feel like I need to maximize my farm for winter foods right now.
Conventional ag soybeans are a great overall food plot choice. They
are affordable to grow and offer summer and winter food.
FALL PLANTED CLOVER
It works very well to plant clover in the late summer and early fall. If you don't have the time, or the weather conditions are such that you can't get your clover into the ground in April or early May, don't despair. You can come back and plant them in late August or early September here in the Midwest. I will plant my fall clover with oats and winter wheat. They grow fast and do a good job of keeping weeds out of the clover field while still producing fall forage for the deer. When spring comes, your clover will really take off since it already has a root established and is ready to go. Use the rated fertilizer for both the winter wheat (mostly wants nitrogen) and the clover (mostly wants phosphorus and potassium) and you will have an awesome plot. Be sure to kill the weed competition two weeks before tilling and then plant immediately after tilling. If you are forced to wait after tilling, spray with Round Up again before planting to kill any fresh weed growth.
FALL PLANTED FORAGE
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You can double crop your soybeans by broadcasting Big N Beasty into thin areas within your beans to make the most of the plot. |
My guide is just an overview. I didn't pretend to cover everything you need to know about food plots, just a "Quick Start Guide". You still need to follow the planting instructions on the bag to the T. It starts with a soil sample and then just do what the bag says and you will be happy with the results.
Food plots make all the difference in your ability to attract, pattern and effectively hunt deer. I (and the entire pro staff) have had great success with Frigid Forage products and can heartily recommend them.
Good luck with your planting.
