Alternative food plots?

K

Kachok

New member
Looking to buy some land soon in East Texas and I was wanting to set up a few food plots to have some prime hunting. I don't own a tractor much less all the attachments to grow conventional food plot crops like soy and corn so I have been looking into alternative food plots that don't require a bunch of chemicals or heavy equipment. I have been looking at orchard plots, strawberry bushes (aka arrow wood), and Japanese honeysuckle all appear to not require any heavy equipment and have a track record of attracting deer. Has anyone here tried anything like this, if so could you give me any feedback?
The property I am looking at already has a large number of oak trees (several varieties) but this whole area does so I am trying to find something to make my spot stand out.
Climate wise I am dealing with about 46 inches of annual rainfall, zone 8 and sandy loam soil.
Heavy deer and hog population but I have yet to see any trophy bucks in that area.
Any advice or new ideas would be helpful.
 
Given you are dealing with the sandy loam soil, you can broadcast seeds from such things as soy beans, peas, etc... and they will grow without a lot of care. The rains we have will allow the seeds to root without being planted in traditional manners. I have even used turnips occasionally, and the deer love eating the tops.
You will find it's hard to compete with the acorn crops some years, if you have a large bunch of oaks as acorns are one of the deer and hog favorites in east Texas.
 
CenTex deer go ga-ga over oats. I was driving back from Luckenbach to Austin one late afternoon and saw an oat patch with at least a hundred greyhound-sized does.
 
I thought oats required tilling? I know a guy who makes oat food plots and he swears by them but he uses a tractor.
 
Barely scrape the ground with a rake, if it's soft. Only need two or three inches at most, if using a disc. Probably do okay with one of those little ones you can pull with a riding lawnmower.
 
You can maintain a plot using hand tools, it's just more work than a seat and steering wheel. Pretty simple to spray out an area using glyphosate, seed it using a small hand spreader, and rake it in a little. We broadcast turnip seed using a hand seeder about 2 weeks back and have a good stand started now-maybe a little thick. The seed was scattered around the bare ground edges of growing soybeans w/o any tillage.
The main problem with small food plots is keeping the deer from eating them as they grow leaving nothing for later. We planted a 2 acre food plot in July(soybeans, sorghum, sunflowers, and peas). The deer ate most of the sorghum as it emerged and have pretty well stripped the soybeans of leaves at this time. By deer season, nothing will be left. Besides the food plot, the deer have also eaten approx 30% of the beans around the edges of 2 large fields of soybeans grown as crops. Next year, we plan to plant an additional 8 rows of beans around the outside of the field as a sacrificial offering hoping to reduce the damage within the crop field. Deer travel to food. If your food plot is the tastiest source within walking distance, it won't have a chance unless you fence it.
 
Mobuck, I gave up on soy beans and peas for that reason. Plus . it is too late for both, around here anyway. Seems like sprouting oats or wheat are just as attractive. I have seen deer walk through peas and not take a bite just to get to some fresh emerging oats. And, those grass type plants have been grazed for a zillion years and they can survive it quite well. It's time to plant "greens" as well, but I have never tried them for deer. I understand they work quite well.
 
"...has a large number of oak trees..." Bambi is most likely feeding on the acorns and nothing else there.
If the orchard plots, strawberry bushes and Japanese honeysuckle are growing Bambi might not know it's food. Up here, there's literally mile after mile after mile of soy bean and corn fields with no predators. Bambi, up here, is a great big SOB. 200 plus pounds isn't unusual.
Oats, being a grass, would probably not need any "farming". Oats are also grow wild in some places. They can be annuals(one season growth cycle planted every year.) or perennials(plant once and they do the rest.)too.
"...greyhound-sized does..." Our mosquitoes would have 'em for lunch.
 
Groundnuts (Apios americana) are a native legume that grows throughout the Southeast and Midwest. They were grown by Native Americans and harvested for their seeds and roots. They form little tubers like Jerusalem artichokes. They will attract and hold deer, turkeys, and other game animals. If I was in your situation, that's what I would plant. They will also attract pigs, so get ready for them, too. Seeds are available commercially.

Jerusalem artichokes (a type of sunflower) will also attract turkeys and game birds who eat the seeds and tubers.
 
Look into food forest and permaculture sorts of ideas.

Food forest is mostly perineal food producing plants and nitrogen fixing plants. There's fungi, groundcovers, shrubs, vines, understory trees, and overstory trees and most of them are edible by you or the deer once established.

If machinery is used it's mostly to put swales on conture with the landscape to slow down water and allow it to be soak into the ground rather than run off, after you make them seed a nitrogen fixing ground cover to keep things from eroding. If you want to plant 1000+ trees, a bobcat with an auger might be handy.

For the first 4-5 years you should source as much wood chips, manure, organic matter, compost, etc to spread around the trees and over your sandy loam, worms will mix it up. Chop and drop the fast growing nitrogen fixers.

Over the years the organic matter in the soil builds making everything there happier. Your plants will establish so firmly that it would take a bulldozer to take it down, and will grow into a forest of edible things.

It'll draw in wildlife of every sort, probably earlier than it should. You might want to put a fence around it or hogs and deer will wreck it.
 
Also stay away from Japanese honeysuckle, it's invasive and I've never noticed any sign of deer eating it, they would rather eat briars.
 
Without machinery you might look into no-till methods. It takes longer than getting instant benefit from tilling and putting down some chemical fertilizer.

When you don't till, it's slow to start. Mow and mulch over heavily, if things pop through mulch add more or block the light to kill things. Just let this sit and decompose, spread some worms out on it. Spread some compost and manure and just let this all decompose and compost and be eaten by worms. Next spring, direct seed and spread a thin layer of compost over it. In winter you can do a cover crop or just mulching heavily again.

Every year the soil in the plot will improve until you don't want the deer to have it because it's become the best garden spot you have. It takes 4-5 years before things start growing crazy in heavy clay.

Tilling a no till plot once with long term amendments could be good if you wanted to till like 3" of compost in, biochar is good forever, Coco coir would provide more water and nutrient holding capacity for 8 years, expanded shale absorbs water and air which can keep your plants hydrated in fast draining sand, it'll be there forever. Lime if it needs it. Following all this by planting nitrogen fixing ground cover or mulching.

Make the soil good enough and seeds don't need much help to geminate.
 
As noted some of the plants touted as "food plot" components may actually be banned by some states as "invasive or noxious weeds". There are plant growing in my area that were promoted by the bunny cops for wildlife food production but turned out to become invasive, noxious plants.
Turnips grow well later in the summer if moisture is available as do "tillage radishes". The Radishes have the added result of penetrating the "plow layer" or compacted topsoil improving the water absorption next year. Both of these plants will provide extended food sources for deer if they're planted early enough to mature and produce tubers. Deer eat the tops and then paw out the tubers later.
 
Are dikon radishes a no-till crop? I know they are very beneficial for hard soil and deer eat them once they freeze and become less bitter.
 
"Are dikon radishes a no-till crop?"

Having seeded both radishes and turnips w/o tillage, I can say both will grow well enough IF the ground is nearly bare AND there's a significant rainfall soon after planting.
We seeded approx 2 acres of turnips on bare (sprayed out) soil and bare, tilled soil a couple of weeks ago. Both areas now have a good stand of turnips. Last year I tilled some areas prior to seeding both radishes and turnips and followed with a drag to slightly cover the seed. Those stands weren't as good as this year's stand--it's too easy to get too much dirt on top of the seed.
It's a common practice to seed radishes by plane in standing crops(no tillage at all) to provide after harvest cover.
 
Are dikon radishes a no-till crop? I know they are very beneficial for hard soil and deer eat them once they freeze and become less bitter.
Click to expand...

Diakon or buster radish usually arent planted for forage. They are planted to bust up the soil with their deep large root and leave the root to rot and put nutrients in the ground. Our deer down here wont touch them, or if they do its not enough to notice they have.

Pear trees and dunstan chestnuts is what I would be planting on my own property if they will grow out there. Then maybe find a neighbor or new buddy who has a tractor to disk ya up a spot or two.
 
Just saying what I've experienced.
Turnips. Yes turnips. Deer will dig thru frozen ground for em day time night time all the time.
A wise old hunter once told me He who baits with a plot of growing turnips or throws a fresh peck of em on the ground in the morning is likely to pull big deer for a square mile to his location in quick step._ If? _he can keep his deer stand salted {supplied with} for a day or two that hunter he's going to fill his Tag and go home early >proud.

Just a tip.
The reason why so many hunters are unsuccessful with food plots?
There is a trick to be learned.
Having the dirt tested. Is not a big deal. Just a delay in your effort.

With food plots there is a need to keep deer from browsing the small sprouting plants. The most successful food plots are plants allowed to grow to maturity. And that can be accomplished with a Hot Shot cattle fence and enough wire tape to surround the entire plot. If you >can't< keep the deer out when the plot is trying to grow to maturity that plot will be history by the time that hunters deer hunting season begins. That's the reality of a any food plot not electrified.
 
I have a buddy that swears by cowpeas. He hand broadcasts them and they come up. They work better if they are actually planted, but he has had good success without the mechanical tools.
 
Cowpeas make excellent summer food plots.

Deer prefer oats over just about anything else planted in the fall. Oats should do well anywhere except the Texas panhandle. Regular oats freeze out in the panhandle. Chilocco oats and other cold resistant types are planted there.

i plant plain old horse feed oats. Sometimes they freeze out. Few years ago i started planting fall plots with horse feed oats and winter rye. If the oats freeze out the deer still have the rye.

Deer like winter rye over wheat. Winter rye is more cold hardy and drought tolerant than wheat. Winter rye has a natural ingredient that kills the seeds of small weeds.

http://www.growbrutebucks.com/a/winter-rye-the-poor-mans-foodplot-with-big-results.html

i've broadcast oats in pasture and then brush hogged the grass. When a good rain comes the oats will grow.
 
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