Corn

[BSK]

pass-thru,

I'm not saying food plots are useless. They absolutely have value in a management plan. I'm just saying their benefits are overhyped, UNLESS a manager is willing to pour huge amounts of money into them, which automatically places them low on the cost-benefit ratio priority list.

In addition, a big difference exists in how MOST hunters/managers utilize food plots, and how a few maximize plots. In most cases, food plots are small little plots scattered around a property and usually only make up 1-2% of the landscape. In this typical situation, what is planted in those scattered small plots produces very little nutritional improvement for a substantial, seasonally-shifting deer population.

That is a very different situation than the few who have the tillable acreage, equipment, and money to produce production-agriculture quality plots that make up 10+% of a property, with some of those plots being 5 to 10 or more acres in size. THAT type of food plot operation absolutely CAN produce noticeable results. But very few properties have that type of food plot program. And again, for that size operation, when you add up the costs of equipment, man-hours, fertilizer, seed, and herbicide per year... Ouch.

 

[Hunter 257W]

One point missing from this discussion so far is the idea of enhancing overgrown fields with lime and fertilize. I see this mentioned every now and then in habitat improvement articles but mention it to most deer hunters and they laugh at you thinking you are making a joke. To most, they see spending money to grow weeds for deer as a waste but growing a food plot as ok. Either way, you are only going to benefit from your "crop" when/if the deer eat it. If you can grow something that deer naturally prefer to eat, plus they will bed in it, and it will grow with no effort on your part, other than enhancing it with lime and fertilize, then there are no negatives.