Food Plots Best seed for Ridgetop Foodplots

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FLcracka

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Hi guys, would like your opinions please.

I have 7 food plot areas I have had cleared out over the winter ranging from 1/2 acre to 1 acre on a 170 acre tract. They are old log landings when they logged the land 10 years ago so the clear cut is now about 20-25 foot in growth where the food plots will go. The soil looks good, but rocky (I will be using a rock rake on tractor to removes them prior to planting). I am still waiting on the soil samples to come back. After I lime and fertilize I will be up in April to plant. All the food plots are on the ridgetops so they will have excellent sun and drainage.

I wanted to do one plot white clover and chicory only, and I have a lot of the pre- mixed seed bags I scored from a local tractor supply, like a Trophy Clover Mix, Honey Hole, 7 card Stud, a few bags of the Throw and Grow, Shot Plot, Slam Dunk and Last Bite. I got about 80% off retail so I scooped them all up about 15 bags in total for about 85.00. I have a feeling the companies market the seeds like a drug dealer would to make the most profit buy cutting the "Good / Expensive" seed with "Cheap" seed. Food plots are new to me because I only been hunting public land the past 20 years and never owned my on land until this year.

Please chime in with your best experiences with hill top food plots and give me some pointers please.

Thanks
 
I would wait till fall to plant. Just my opinion. My rocky ridge tops turn into a concrete desert floor around here when going through the heat of summer and very little makes it till fall. Plenty of rain through summer might help. Also, many of the seeds in these pre mixed seed bags will likely consist of seeds that will likely be better utilized during the fall and some even after a couple of good frosts.
I have a couple of bottoms here that I will plant here in a week or so in white clover. They hold moisture pretty good. My ridge plots will get some crimson or red clover. It's cheap, might add some nitrogen, and if it doesn't make it through summer it's not much loss. YMMV
Good luck.

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Thanks for the tips. I can get my tractor to only one bottom where the soil is always moist. last year I did throw and grow and the deer destroyed it way to fast. only problem is that that area is about 60 yards. I already got most of the seeds so I will try the planting and prey for rain.
 
Save your perennials for the bottom ground and put winter annuals on the ridges. I can't really recommend or criticize any of those products as I roll my own mixes. Avoid anything with ryegrass in it. Use this summer to control weeds and plant in September.


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If you are fertilizing and liming now, I would wait on the seed you bought and plant in fall. Fertilizer and lime need a few months to work into the soil. But, if you want something to plant on those ridgetops to see what kinda growth you can expect, go with buckwheat in late April. Buckwheat not only produces a fast forage, but it's a awesome soil builder. So, you give your fertilizer and lime time to get in soil, and build the soil with a planting. By fall, your soil should be good for those mixed to really take off and maximize your production.
 
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I planted sunn hemp with quail haven soybeans in some plots along a powerline. The soil is pretty sorry but with the rain we had last summer this mix did extremely well with the hemp growing ten to twelve feet tall and the beans climbed out the top. No fertilizer necessary. I got my seed online from Petcher seed. I also used this mix in some better soil to give me something that I could over spray with Clethodim to thin the johnsongrass. Planted it like in June which allowed me to burn the johnsongrass with Glyphosate then hit the regrowth with Clethodim before the hemp got too tall. Seems to have worked as planned. Hemp also enriches the soil.
 
I posted a couple years ago about using a growing system known as Hugelkultur. It is definitely different than what everyone is used to doing but after reading article after article and checking out many websites on the subject, I think that it would be a very viable system on dry, poor, ridge tops. The system makes use of the logs and litter from the clearing to form a bed which becomes a water maintainer (the wood absorbs moisture that is made available to the plants over a longer period of time, through dry periods, than simple soil moisture) for the plantings that are in layers of leaves and dirt that is piled over the logs and limbs. Lots of info online. If anyone tries it, please document your results and share with us here. I know of a couple that does this for their gardening. It reduces their weeding and watering and the can be eating produce weeks earlier than those of us with conventional gardens.
 

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