Help identify plant in my food plot

[EddieWalker]

Every year I try something new in my food plot without much success. People tell me that there is so much out there for the deer to eat that it's just about a waste of time planting one. Most years we never even see any deer tracks through the food plot, and the few times I've seen deer eating anything in it, they are just walking through it and sort of take a bite or two before walking off.

This year I tried three different brands of mixed seeds. Half the food plot is from a brand called Evolved Harvest Winter Pz peas and oats bonus mix.




This is what they are loving. I know it's not peas or oats. It's spread out all through the plot and every plant has been hit. Some only have one leaf left, others are similar to this one in the picture.



Nothing else is being eaten. All the tracks are around this one type of plant. Every other plant in the mix is doing just fine and there is no sign of anything eating them.



Thanks,
Eddie

 

[KTurner]

According to the responses on this thread, you should treat is as poison ivy and kill it all

Keith

 

[M5farms]

looks like an IRON clay pea plant to me.

 

[EddieWalker]

looks like an IRON clay pea plant to me.

Thank You!!!! I did a search for them and it looks just like them. Iron clay cowpea

https://www.google.com/search?q=iro...s&tbm=isch&q=iron+clay+cowpea+images&imgdii=_

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Reading up on them, it looks like it's a warm weather plant. Now I'm going to have to see how long they last and if they will all die off during deer season when it freezes.

Eddie

 

[M5farms]

I looked it up after I posted to make sure I was right. Here is a little tip for your food plots. When planting these mixes buy several bags of dried black-eyed peas from grocery store and mix with the seed mix the peas will come up first and the deer love them and it will give the other forage time to establish. also after jan 1st a lot of grocery stores will mark down the excess black eyes and the will keep several years in the freezer.

 

[wngsprd]

I agree they are cowpeas. I grow them in a mix every year (with sorghum, buckwheat, soybeans), and they are eaten the same way as yours. They'll die off with a freeze, but if they matured, they will have long seed pods. Here is a QDMA article...

BTW, nice looking plot and stand.

Food Plot Species Profile: Cowpeas | Quality Deer Management Association

 

[PILOON]

My wife has shredded Irish Spring soap bars and places the shavings in pouches we made from pieces of window screening.
The aroma from the soap bars has kept deer away from our garden.
Friends also have the same results.
Might just be worth your trying.
Every day I see tracks wandering close to the garden but always they turn away without nibbling.
This is the second year that none of our Hostas have been touched, Generally the deer nip them clear ti the ground.
I make a little plastic roof that I staple over the sachets to prevent rain from dissolving the soap.

Don't know if it matters but we have white tails in this area.

 

[M5farms]

My wife has shredded Irish Spring soap bars and places the shavings in pouches we made from pieces of window screening.
The aroma from the soap bars has kept deer away from our garden.
Friends also have the same results.
Might just be worth your trying.
Every day I see tracks wandering close to the garden but always they turn away without nibbling.
This is the second year that none of our Hostas have been touched, Generally the deer nip them clear ti the ground.
I make a little plastic roof that I staple over the sachets to prevent rain from dissolving the soap.

Don't know if it matters but we have white tails in this area.

I believe he wants the deer eating his food plot so he can shoot them.

 

[SPIKER]

Now I know why those Texas Deer are so small, poor things are starving to death looking at Eddies fields! Yep them are cowpeas, as suggested toss in some extra oats/peas/beans to help them get established better and get some seed pods for next years crop.

Or ya might try a trip up north to grain belts to see what bigger whitetails look like and try your hand at taking one of them down. sorry Eddie can't resist, back in the 80's I spent months on western TX and driving down near boarder thru some of the Deer Herds and kept thinking here I thought everything was bigger in TX Some of em was small enough that I thought they might make good house pets & weren't worth slowing down for fear of hitting one.

mark