Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management Converting field to food plot

Spray the field first with a non selective herbicide. Wait until the stuff dies, cut it back, disk it under, wait for it to green up and spray it again. Do that a few times and you will kill a lot of the weeds that will give you headaches later.

Whitetail Institute has sample packs so you can see what the deer like the best. https://whitetailinstitute.com/samples-starter-packs/

Before planting, get a soil test done and add the proper amounts of fertilizer and lime (if needed) or you will be wasting seeds, the labor and the $$ to plant them.

Here deer don't like brassicas. 12 miles away I can't get them to grow because the deer eat them as fast as they pop up out of the ground, even though the deer aren't supposed to like them until they have had a frost. Cereal Rye, Winter Wheat, etc. are all good here. Even in the ag areas where they grow beans and corn, once those fields are harvested (especially the beans) there isn't much to eat in those fields - that's when the deer will hit your food plots hard.

I have seen other people post comments like this before - with other favored deer foods.

On your land, do you think there is some food source nearby that they prefer MORE than brassicas? Or does your soil produce less tasty brassicas (like the soil and environment control the taste of wine grapes)?

I honestly don't know the answer to that. According to the NRCS, the soil type is the same on both places.

Obviously, the answer must be that you cultivate deer with a more sophisticated palate on your property!

Deer on our place love radish tops but won't touch a turnip. All they do is make a smelly mess when they rot.

I have found that deer sometimes need time to recognize new plants as food sources. It took many years of using oilseed radish as a cover crop before the deer started eating them. Once they found them, they kept eating them.

Young doe puzzled about sharing dinner.

2 members like this: gehajake, catscratch