Seat time finishing up food the plots

EddieWalker · May 22, 2008

RollingsFarms makes a good point. I've bought a dozen brands of food plot mixes and can't say that any of them impressed me. Probably my biggest issue with the brands that I tried is they are all full or rye grass.

I limed the soil and had good growth with all the plants, but very limited use by the deer. I have ALLOT of hogs around here, sometimes they are in the field with me while mowing!!! My wife likes to shoot them, so they are not a bad thing, but I've never seen any of them in a food plot that I've planted.

I will say that the hogs around here are very picky on food. If I change corn brands in my feeder, they stop showing up. If I leave food scraps by the feeder, they stop showing up. I've tried diesel, beer, honey, syrup and oats. They will only eat one brand of corn, and only if there is nothing else out there. Go figure.

Texas A&M has some good information of food plots that I'm following for this years food plot. This is in a new area that should improve the comfort level of the animals and be out of the way of my other projects on my land.

I'm very curious in what works and how the animals use it.

Thank you,
Eddie

EddieWalker · May 22, 2008

RollingsFarms makes a good point. I've bought a dozen brands of food plot mixes and can't say that any of them impressed me. Probably my biggest issue with the brands that I tried is they are all full or rye grass.

I limed the soil and had good growth with all the plants, but very limited use by the deer. I have ALLOT of hogs around here, sometimes they are in the field with me while mowing!!! My wife likes to shoot them, so they are not a bad thing, but I've never seen any of them in a food plot that I've planted.

I will say that the hogs around here are very picky on food. If I change corn brands in my feeder, they stop showing up. If I leave food scraps by the feeder, they stop showing up. I've tried diesel, beer, honey, syrup and oats. They will only eat one brand of corn, and only if there is nothing else out there. Go figure.

Texas A&M has some good information of food plots that I'm following for this years food plot. This is in a new area that should improve the comfort level of the animals and be out of the way of my other projects on my land.

I'm very curious in what works and how the animals use it.

Thank you,
Eddie

Ridgewalker · May 23, 2008

I have been planting red clover and lespedeza. I put out a plot of clover last spring that didn't do that well last year. I saw that plot today and thanks to the record rainfall we have had it's looking great.

Ditto for a new clover patch I started this spring.

The jury is still out on the lespedeza. It did really well in one spot so I tried it about 150 yards away in another clearing and it isn't coming in at all.

I am "cultivating" the land my running over it several times with my landscape rake. It scars it up pretty good. Then I broadcast by the seed by hand. It seems to work fine but I still have to get rid of a lot of fesue.

dixie306 · May 23, 2008

Took me a long time to learn this, Ph is the key to successful food plots, I have about 30 plots mostly in imperial whitetail clover. The Ph was 4.3 4.5 range when I started planting plots and had to use lesser crops until I got the Ph up to about 6 in them, buckwheats a great soil builder but does nothing for the critters, other than the honey bees. I've got the Ph up to 7 in a few of the plots and going to try alfalfa this fall. UGA as developed some called bulldog 505 thats suppose to do well here in the South. We'll see. FWJ nailed it on soil prepping, I use the all purpose plows first then till

Hondo1 · May 23, 2008

Dixie makes an excellent point that I forgot to mention because my soils are so good here. But unless you get the Ph to as close to 7 as possible you will have little to no luck with most of the plot mixes. Also if they do grow their palatibility won't be that great either. Last year my plots suffered but it was due to an extremely dry summer. This year I am starting most of them over but I am behind schedule already so I hope that I catch the Spring rains or that it does not dry up as bad as last year.

Hondo

8NLUGNUT · May 24, 2008

We worked on our last foodplot today and man it was hot. We rebroke the hub on the Hinomoto then killed the 8n.

Electrical?

Probably.

We stopped, called it a day and brought the Hino back to town for another dose of JB Weld.

Can't wait to get the new hub.

If I can remember I'll take a picture of the seed pack we're putting out.

john_bud · May 26, 2008

Hot? I can only dream. Today it was in the low '70's and then we had a severe thunder storm that dumped 1 1/2" of rain in about 30 minutes along with hail in the 2" range. Really makes a loud THUMP on the roof! Made me real glad that I put the truck and all equipment in the barn!

I have no recommedations on food plots for texas. The stuff in Wisconsin for summer wouldn't do too well down there! Do have a comment on brassicas, turnips, and the like. I have NEVER seen a deer eat any, nor have I seen a single leaf with a deer munch mark. I planted that cr---- stuff for 5 years and nothing. Clovers, chicory, oats, wheat, buckwheat are all munched. I'm sticking with them.

wolc123 · May 26, 2008

I understand your frustration with brassicas John. I bet you live in a dairy region where lots of corn is grown. I live in such an area up north and I can tell you with certainty that our deer will not leave the security of standing corn during the daylight hours of gun season to feed on brassicas as long as there is still a few kernals left on the ears. I also have planted brassicas for 5 years and they only worked once. That year, my corn ran out just as we got the first prolonged hard freeze. During the last week of gun season, the deer would begin feeding on the frost-sweetened brassicas about 1/2 hour before darkness set in allowing me to fill all my remaining antlerless tags with great ease. Lots of standing corn always gives me good hunting all season long, but I keep putting in a little bit of brassicas each year in hopes that the cards will fall just right and I will see some more of the "great" hunting I had that one week.

john_bud · May 27, 2008

Yep, corn is big here. But so is beans. For what ever reason, deer just don't touch the brassicas. Even up north where the plots are in the deep woods (2+ miles to a field) they won't touch the brassicas. They will mow the clover, oats, wheat and buckwheat down to a nub, but leave the brassica as if it was dipped in doggy doo. After spending good hard earned money on the seeds, lime and fertilizer then hour after hour preping the field and planting to see the leafy brassicas up an everything else practically gone - it tells me something!

{stop wasting time with the brassicas}

jb