Food Plots Newbie warm season food plot question

[volsfan1976]

This has probably been asked plenty before so sorry if it has. I bought some land last summer. Since deer season has ended I have been trying to do habitat improvement. In one area I have an old roadbed that I have cleaned up. I'm guessing it is probably 300 yards long. Maybe more. It will not be used as a road. I want to plant some down this woods road this spring. I have the Quality food plot book and 4 other publications from Dr. Craig Harper that I ordered. I have one other food plot I planted last fall of imperial clover on this land. It's only about 1/2 acre. This is all new to me and after reading all this I am overwhelmed. I honestly don't know what kind of blend would be good to use for this and just looking for suggestions. Any input would be great. Thanks so much

 

[wildlifefarmer]

i was in your boots 8 or 9 years ago. I watched Growing Deer, Mossy Oak and other practices to get different ideas that would suit me. Don't try to too much at one time. It will drive you nuts!!

 

[DoubleRidge]

Congrats on your land purchase!! Habitat improvement projects can be very rewarding....and there is always things to do year around.....for the logging road plot the concern is going to be the amount of sunlight your getting to the soil.....if it's narrow with the canopy covering the road you might consider trimming some limbs (or entire trees) back.....second concern, being in the woods, is the pH of the soil...plan on liming....as for seed you might try oats, winter wheat, cereal rye, crimson clover....go with a blend and see what grows well in the area.

 

[JCDEERMAN]

i was in your boots 8 or 9 years ago. I watched Growing Deer, Mossy Oak and other practices to get different ideas that would suit me. Don't try to too much at one time. It will drive you nuts!!

I definitely agree on watching all the https://www.growingdeer.tv/ stuff on habitat improvement and food plots. I've learned so much from there. You did well by following Dr. Craig Harper - that man is a genius.

First thing I would do is look at your neighboring properties and figure out what they don't have. Fill that void on your land - make it stand out and the deer will find it and utilize it. Figure out how much quality cover you have - you'll need that regardless if the neighboring properties do or not. You may need to do some hack-n-squirt. What food is available? What can you do to create more food? I'd mainly focus on food and cover.

 

[megalomaniac]

If this is the first year, id focus on building soil and not worry about feeding deer. Go with a blend of sorgham and buckwheat. Bushhog it 8wks or so later to reseed the buckwheat. Burn it with gly in late Aug, then plant your fall blend in Sept

 

[DoubleRidge]

I definitely agree on watching all the https://www.growingdeer.tv/ stuff on habitat improvement and food plots. I've learned so much from there. You did well by following Dr. Craig Harper - that man is a genius.

First thing I would do is look at your neighboring properties and figure out what they don't have. Fill that void on your land - make it stand out and the deer will find it and utilize it. Figure out how much quality cover you have - you'll need that regardless if the neighboring properties do or not. You may need to do some hack-n-squirt. What food is available? What can you do to create more food? I'd mainly focus on food and cover.

JC....watched a video this morning by Dr Grant that was along the same lines as you described....I believe it was called the "rubiks cube method" .... evaluation of 9 one mile squares with your property being in the center square.....what food, cover and water is available in the 8 squares around you and adjust or manage your property accordingly...all in an effort to reduce the deers range....or to keep them in your area as much as possible by providing them what they need.....I imagine satellite images would be helpful in this process... interesting stuff.

 

[JCDEERMAN]

JC....watched a video this morning by Dr Grant that was along the same lines as you described....I believe it was called the "rubiks cube method" .... evaluation of 9 one mile squares with your property being in the center square.....what food, cover and water is available in the 8 squares around you and adjust or manage your property accordingly...all in an effort to reduce the deers range....or to keep them in your area as much as possible by providing them what they need.....I imagine satellite images would be helpful in this process... interesting stuff.

I've seen that, but it's been some time. We essentially took a similar approach at our place. There is no ag anywhere around where we are / and not hardly any food plots that people plant that I am aware. It's all pines and clear-cuts. The pines are on a rotation and the clear-cuts are getting to the point where they are starting to open up some. We focused on adding some bedding on the interior of our property and several food plots to draw them out of the cover of neighboring properties and hold them in our cover in close proximity to our plots (even if that meant 10% of the time). I focused on hunting them to and from our food. We would get pics of great bucks all night in our food plots, scrapes and travel corridors.....But they would be back to that cover on the neighbors right as it was starting to get light. And you guessed it, right at last light, like timework, you could hear them making their way toward our property to head to our food.

As these neighboring properties of clear-cuts are growing up and adding not nearly the value to deer that they once did, we are now focused on adding phase 2 to our plan. The logger should be starting today on our place. Going from 9 acres of food plots, to 25-27 acres of food plots. Also adding another 45-50 acres of cover. When looking at the next several years, we saw our neighboring properties changing. Those neighboring pines will also be cut in about 3-4 years, so that gives us time to get our plan established and in place before it looks like a nuclear zone. We are making our change to combat the changes around us to where the deer will hopefully favor us.

We do small stuff each year (hack-n-squirt, burn, etc....), but this phase 2 should really kick things into gear. I don't see any more timber harvests in the future. Just burning and maintaining the select-cut areas in natural grasses and forbs / maintaining the food plots. We just try to stay adaptive

 

[DoubleRidge]

If this is the first year, id focus on building soil and not worry about feeding deer. Go with a blend of sorgham and buckwheat. Bushhog it 8wks or so later to reseed the buckwheat. Burn it with gly in late Aug, then plant your fall blend in Sept

Mega.....we have two new plots I mentioned in a previous post that I planted for the first time last year....the plots did good....but today looking at the soil....I no doubt need to focus on soil building....and the soil building plan you mentioned makes sense....thanks

 

[DoubleRidge]

I've seen that, but it's been some time. We essentially took a similar approach at our place. There is no ag anywhere around where we are / and not hardly any food plots that people plant that I am aware. It's all pines and clear-cuts. The pines are on a rotation and the clear-cuts are getting to the point where they are starting to open up some. We focused on adding some bedding on the interior of our property and several food plots to draw them out of the cover of neighboring properties and hold them in our cover in close proximity to our plots (even if that meant 10% of the time). I focused on hunting them to and from our food. We would get pics of great bucks all night in our food plots, scrapes and travel corridors.....But they would be back to that cover on the neighbors right as it was starting to get light. And you guessed it, right at last light, like timework, you could hear them making their way toward our property to head to our food.

As these neighboring properties of clear-cuts are growing up and adding not nearly the value to deer that they once did, we are now focused on adding phase 2 to our plan. The logger should be starting today on our place. Going from 9 acres of food plots, to 25-27 acres of food plots. Also adding another 45-50 acres of cover. When looking at the next several years, we saw our neighboring properties changing. Those neighboring pines will also be cut in about 3-4 years, so that gives us time to get our plan established and in place before it looks like a nuclear zone. We are making our change to combat the changes around us to where the deer will hopefully favor us.

We do small stuff each year (hack-n-squirt, burn, etc....), but this phase 2 should really kick things into gear. I don't see any more timber harvests in the future. Just burning and maintaining the select-cut areas in natural grasses and forbs / maintaining the food plots. We just try to stay adaptive

Sounds like a awesome plan! Keep us posted as progress is made.... interesting to follow others progress.

 

[volsfan1976]

If this is the first year, id focus on building soil and not worry about feeding deer. Go with a blend of sorgham and buckwheat. Bushhog it 8wks or so later to reseed the buckwheat. Burn it with gly in late Aug, then plant your fall blend in Sept

thanks for the info. this is kinda what I was thinking about planting due to the stuff I have read. my property is basically all mature forest I guess you would say. nothing close at all for deer. its basically just all hardwoods all around me. so im just trying to thicken it up and provide plant a few small places with stuff for the deer along with hopefully now more native browse.. I have never really done food plots and never knew there was so many options.