Typical cereals planted for deer would include oats, wheat, triticale and rye. When native green forage becomes less available from fall through spring, these crops will attract large numbers of deer and provide valuable nutrition to help them through this difficult period.
What is the most attractive food plot for deer?
Corn. The other big Midwestern crop, corn, is a top pick for deer food plots. Standing corn during deer season is an absolute must if you have the acreage. If you’re not arguing that soybeans are the number one food plot species, you would probably be voting for corn.
What’s the best food plot for whitetail?
Brassicas
This is arguably one of the most popular food plot choices for whitetails. There are an array of options. Turnips, radishes, canola, and rapeseed are all great. Most brassicas are attractive because of one thing: glucose.
What is the easiest food plot to grow for deer?
Red clover
Red clover is the Easiest Food Plot for Deer. Spread the seed and spray the grasses to act as a mulch for the clover, or spray in the fall and frost seed in late winter right on top of the snow. The freeze thaw patterns of spring creates cracks the seed falls into to germinate.
What is the best thing to plant to attract deer?
Plants that typically attract deer include red clover, chicory, and orchard grass. Certain high-protein crops, such as peas, soybeans, turnips, alfalfa, sorghum, kale, or corn, are also attractants that the animals enjoy feeding on.
What is the best year round food plot for deer?
You plant this crop one time and, with management, it provides a green food plot on an almost year-round basis for five years or more. Crops that fit this category include Durana clover, Ladino clover, Alsike clover, red clover, and alfalfa.
What do deer like better clover or alfalfa?
Deer prefer the alfalfa. They keep it mowed down. When I mow the plot it’s due to the height of the clover, and the alfalfa has no problem growing up through the clippings, but the clippings are never very heavy. My clover will green up earlier in the spring, and stay green later in the year.
How many deer will a 1 acre food plot support?
If we are an average food plotter who produces an average level of forages per acre (4000 lbs) you will be able to feed about 9 deer per acre. In areas with larger body weight deer you would feed less than that 9. In areas of the south with much smaller body weights you would be able to feed 11-12 deer per acre.
Do deer prefer wheat or oats?
One of the first groups we talked to were farmers in areas with good deer densities. We asked them what they planted in the fall that deer were attracted to that reached a point of being considered crop damage. The answer was cereal grains including wheat, cereal rye, and oats – with wheat being the most heavily used.
What grain do deer like best?
Deer feed mixes are usually a mix of alfalfa, oats, soybeans, molasses and several vitamins and minerals. This type of food is easiest for deer to digest, which is what makes it ideal for supplemental feeding.
What is the cheapest food plot for deer?
Clover blends give you the most bang for your buck, especially when your planting food plots on a budget. Put the seed down with a hand seeder and rough up the soil with your yard rake. The first rain will cover the seed just enough for good seed to soil contact and you’re off to the races.
What does corn do to deer?
As ruminants, deer have a specific blend of microbes in their stomach that break down their naturally high-fiber diet. Large amounts of carbohydrate-rich, low fiber foods like deer corn can disrupt this microbiome — leading to bouts of severe diarrhea and dehydration that could be deadly.
What can I plant in poor soil for deer?
The two seed varieties that have worked best for me have been annual rye and buckwheat. Both seed varieties are extremely tolerant to poor soils, both are known as great soil builders, and both are competitive with weed growth.
What is a deer’s favorite food?
Deer will primarily eat browse (woody portion of leaves and stems), forbs (broad-leaved plants), mast (acorns, apples, etc), and grass. Although these are the main foods deer like to eat, the quantity of these different foods differ throughout the year and the region you are hunting.
Will a food plot grow in the woods?
To make a food plot in the woods, you only need three items – a backpack leaf blower or a rake, seeds and fertilizer. Try and get as far away from a 4-wheeler trail or a food plot as you can, take a backpack leaf blower and four to five pounds of some type of seed that germinates really quickly with you.
How do you attract deer to a food plot?
Food Plot Tips to Attract Deer, Waterfowl, and Turkey
- If your goal is to attract whitetail deer, corn, alfalfa and clover are certainly effective.
- Corn supports many other species, alfalfa and clover are mainly important to deer.
- Diverse planting such as buckwheat, sunflowers and sorghum can attract more game animals.
What clover Do deer like most?
Arrowleaf Clover – Arrowleaf clover is a cool-season annual that is highly productive in fall and spring and a top-choice forage for whitetails. Though it’s an annual, arrowleaf clover is a heavy re-seeder – with the right management, you can get several seasons of production out of one planting.
What food plot is best for antler growth?
Clovers and beans are easily the top two food plots that are going to promote healthy antler growth, but brassicas are another great option that can essentially be planted year round.
Can you overseed a food plot?
One option we have used very successfully, especially on our smaller hunting plots, is to hand seed and rake in additional perennial seed (Clover Plus) on the bare spots evacuated by the brassicas. You could also overseed the area and go over it with a roller or lightly with a cultipacker to ensure good seed contact.
Which is better for deer red or white clover?
Our research found that red clover consistently rated very high compared to other deer forages – including cereal grains, annual and perennial clovers, brassicas, alfalfa, and others – with regard to many of the important features we looked at.
Will deer eat a bale of alfalfa?
Re: Alfalfa Bales
there is a lot of alfalfa grown around me and it works really well. I use about 1/4 bale and tear it apart, shake it into a fluffy pile. If it’s good quality the deer will eat it like candy.