Food plot experts......need advice

[Onestringer]

Been scouring the internet looking for food plot suggestions, mostly what I am finding is companies wanting to sell me a premium plot mix.

I planted my very first food plot this fall.  Its 20 yards across and 120 yards long.  I planted a fall mix, the mix contains winter wheat, rye, peas, oats turnips and rape.

It came up beautiful, I limed and fertilized appropriately.  Since its right off a standing bean field and we had a tremendous acorn crop the deer are really just starting to use it.

Next spring I will be putting in another plot in a different section of the farm.  This plot will be 2 acres.

I live in Southwest Missouri and wonder what the best plot would be.  I was thinking of planting 1 acre in soybeans (summer food and late fall food), and the other acre in a fall mix like my plot this year.  A friend is suggesting I put in a clover mix, its a perennial and less work the following year.  I like the idea, but since I have never hunted clover, do deer eat it in the late fall and winter?  I want to do more than just feed the deer I plan on shooting a few also.

If it helps I have access to a tractor, disc, and no till drill.  Frankly building a fence to keep the cows out will be the hardest part.

Thanks,

Scott

[Red4arm]

I have planted them all and hears my 2 cents.
Plant lab lab this spring for the summer. Then till under and plant a mix of oats and clover or wheat and clover. Wheat is cheaper but not as good as oats, but almost as good. Use a annually wheat. This gives the clover a chance to come up, it grows slow at first. Don't plant clover in the spring, it will die. When the annual wheat dies out the next spring, mow it 8 inches and the clover that was planted will be coming up good by then. I used imperial whitetail clover and it is by far the easiest plot to maintain I have had and the deer love it, can't hardly run them out of it. I will be adding a other next year.

[Earl Jeff]

Clover will provide the deer with quality nutrients from spring to early winter and they do find it preferable to most wild plants. Deer will eat clover as long as they can get to it I've seen them dig through a foot of snow to get to it, but you got to remember that it will go dormate durning the winter like grass. it is easy to maintain once you have it established just spray it with poast or poast plus to kill grass and fertilized and apply lime as needed.

[Jedimaster]

If you're going to plant clover save yourself some money (and a lot of headaches) and have your soil tested. Then after making the recommended adjustments, check it again. I've found clover to be somewhat finicky (at least for me) and some varieties are quite expensive - like the Imperial. Of course it makes an outstanding plot when done right.

The only other advice I have is to save your money on the expensive 'brand name' mixes. You can get the same results - maybe better - by mixing your own.

[rolltidehunter]

One stringer. i plant and maintin over 30 food plots on our property every year. i have planted  clover, Wheat ,rye oats, turnips, rape corn ...ect  and they best food plot is a Clover Plot! its high maintance but well worth it! yes beans and corn are great but were talking about a 2 acre field. not 20 or 200. the deer and other wildlife will eat  corn and beans  up so fast it wont grow worth a Dang. Yes you can plant clover in the Spring and Fall but you have to plant them right. Clover takes a high Nitrogen fertilizer to come up properly. 0-20-20 is what i use on them, I plant 5 LBs per acre of clover in our fields. clover is a fine seed so it doesnt take much to load it down. also i use 200-250lbs of fertlizer per acre.... so if your going to plant 2 acres buy 10 lbs of clover and 400-500 lbs of fert. this may very on your land. do a soil sample and send it in to the co-op. you can buy one there. in the  late spring-summer you have to spray it with POST to keep the weeds out.

PM me and we can talk about this more
here are my results. take a look at the clover in these pictures

   
this field is a clover wheat mixture. clover in the 1st 2/3rs of the field and wheat in the back. yo can see the color change. clover is dark
 this is a turkey i killed in the clover field

   

called this in in for a buddy
this clover field looks like carpet!

   

trail camera pic this spring

[rolltidehunter]

oh yea to answer your question deer eat it all year long.

[rolltidehunter]

this was taken in late summer. I had to spray it this fall again the weeds really got in there. but you can see this buck is in there finding the clover

[overbo]

I like alfalfa over clover but I'm in Va and we have clover everywhere.We also plant apple trees especailly the kind that drop late.You combined a legume plot w/ apples,you've got something.

[Onestringer]

Thanks everyone.

Scott

[Stump73]

At the farm I use to own I planted Ladina Clover and alfalfa on a hill side I had cleaned off which was nothing but rock . Hard to get anything growing. I added lime that my soil tester said I needed. I went to Southern States Farm supply and talked to the guy who worked there about food plots they had from different companies. He suggested That I just find a brand that I wanted and see what plants they had listed in it and He could make me up what the brand name had for a cheaper price. He even mixed up the ferilizer with the seed  that it called for.

Well after planting that early that spring.  
Two weeks I mowed it one week later I bush hogged it. The deer hit like crazy But didn't put a dent in it. It stayed about 3 ft tall until late winter. In the spring it bounce right back. Only had to reseed it after the 3rd year and is probably still looking good.

An easy plot I planted was I would take a weed eater  and garden rake in august around one of my stands you couldn't get a tractor to. I cut the grass and rake under brush in about 100 ft radius around the stand and sowed winter wheat. It stayed green all winter long had deer in it all the time.  Cool thing was it didn't need fertilizer.

[Tom Leemans]

You will always see deer eating clover, alfalfa, corn, and beans in farm country. Don't forget that does eat oats!

[Bow man]

Deer and Turkey Love Clover if you don't but it from a company like Whitetail inst. you can get it from your local elevavator just be sure to ask for a forage type clover You will find deer will eat from it all year

[Missouri CK]

Scott,

My brother lives down near you in Rogersville and so his foodplot experiences might be of interest to you. He has been doing it for the last 4-5 years.

He has planted soybeans, corn, milo, millet, brassicas, clover, oats, wheat, and canola. He recently tried a plant called joint vetch. He really likes in the early season because it grows in shaded areas around some trees. I was down there this fall and you could really see where they were browsing it off.

The big thing we have found is that during early season and rut times foodplots are really hit or miss.  Unless you have the cover and bedding areas close they may or may not used them because deer are such browsers of anything and everything. Throw in acorns and its easy to spend a lot of time over plots and the deer are somewhere else.

The late season is a different story and the foodplots that stand up in the winter are a big draw.  The canola was awesome, wheat and oats seemed like places we saw deer.  I can't say the turnips every really drew in a bunch of deer.  Someone I talked to said it took them several years to learn what to do with them???
Clover is ok but I wouldn't expect to have 10 deer running around in your clover plots like you see on the deer videos.

PM Andrew Kinslow and have him give you a call and you'll get some good info.

[Jim Jackson]

Scott,

Sounds like you've got the soil tests down good.  Thats the key for sure.  I basically plant two basic mixes in addition to the farm crops we use for hay for our cattle:

1.   Half of the plots I put in a warm season annual mix of milo, haybeans, and jointvetch.  I have a couple shady valleys that only jointvetch works well in.  Its an early season magnet.

2.  The other half I plant is a cool season annual mix in the fall:  Oats, winter peas, a brassica (turnips or canola/rape), and crimson/arrowleaf clover.  I mix it up myself, but its essentially the same fall mix that Nixa Hardware sells, only I like the arrowleaf clover in addition to the crimson. (it extends the growing/grazing season).  Plus its just more fun to figure it out and try different things each year.    


I'm by no means an expert.  Honestly I just like to do the plantings and see it all come together.  All of this I've gleaned from a variety of sources.  The best I've found is from the University of Tennessee. They have a big foodplot publication in PDF format available free.  Its a big document, try    this    one for 40 pages of great information. PM me if you want more info or if the link won't work for you.