May 2010 Food Plot Update

A Favorite Picture

Antler Growth

Welcome to the May Food Plot Journal. Thankfully we did get some work done in our plots this month. I didn't get as much done as I would have liked, but I can't complain. We started having problems with our tractor in mid-May and the problems are still not resolved although I'm working on them.

Rain arrived in May and our existing clover plots jumped up strong. Some of them even looked better than I thought they ever could. We also got two plots planted even though conditions were not perfect.

Oldhouse Food Plot

The Durana in the oldhouse plot finally came on strong when the moisture came and by the middle of the month the plot looked great. By the end of May grass had jumped up higher than the clover in some spots so I mowed the plot with a brush hog on May 29.

The Durana in the cornpatch plot was one of the better looking plots in April and it grew will in the moisture in May as well. We mowed the plot with a garden tractor on May 15 and again with the brush hog on May 29 when I mowed the hayfield plot.

By the end of May the Durana clover in this plot may be our plot with the fewest weeds and grass. We mowed the plot with a lawn tractor on May 6, mowing off the top of the clover and our nice wild onion crop. At the end of May we have a nice clover plot with few weeds or grass. I will likely mow this plot again in early June.

The Monster Mix in this plot looks a lot better than I ever would have expected. There is quite a bit of clover and it came on strong once the rain came as well. I mowed the plot on May 29 so we'll see how it does the rest of the summer.

Whippoorwill Food Plot

The Monster Mix and Durana in the this plot still look good and clover was thriving in mid-May. By the end of the month quite a bit of grass had jumped up strong so I mowed it with the brush hog on May 29.

Hayfield Food Plot

Durana is still the only thing left in the hayfield plot and our efforts in May added to the Durana we have planted there.

On May 15 we disked, applied 100 pounds of 10-20-20 fertilizer and 40 pounds of lime, dragged and sowed Durana in the oldest section of the plot. Two weeks later the clover had jumped up and was on its way.

On May 22 we dragged, applied 100 pounds of 10-20-20 fertilizer and 40 pounds of lime and sowed Durana. This plot needed disked more but our tractor wasn't running and I felt like time was running out. This may have been a mistake, but time will tell. After one week you could see little shoots of clover just getting started.

Both of these new plots need rain. We got rain at my home on Monday evening, hopefully it rained on our plots as well.

The oldest Durana is mostly grass at this point. Once I get the tractor running and get the time this will likely get plowed up. I would like to get an annual of some variety in here for the summer or early fall. I mowed this section with the brush hog on May 6 and it needs it again.

The long strip of Durana that I planted a year ago looks pretty good. The good spots are real good and the thinner spots came back pretty nice once the rain came. I mowed this section with the brush hog on May 6 and 29.

If our newly planted sections come on strong we'll once again have a lot of clover for the deer to eat this summer in this field.

Right Of Way Food Plot

The Durana in the Right Of Way plot came on real strong when the rain came. By the end of the month it was starting to get taken over by grass and weeds so I mowed it with the brush hog. Hopefully it will come on strong again.

The weather cooperated sending us rain and allowing our clover plots to thrive, but as is often the case something else jumps up and holds us back. Our tractor started having problems and it's still not completely repaired.

Hopefully in June we'll continue to get enough rain, our tractor problems get behind us and I get some time to plow so I can experiment with some annuals.

I left a couple of small areas un-mowed when I mowed the last time to compare results. If I learn anything from this I'll let you know.

We get thousands of pictures each month with our digital trail cameras but we narrow down each set of pictures to our favorite six or seven and these are usually buck pictures. As you can imagine there are always several more that are very good but don't make the cut.

Below is one of our favorite pictures from May. I like to include our first fawn pictures on our pictures page, but this was our first and it wasn't that great of a picture. One thing that I got from this picture was how the doe had the young fawn in one of our food plots that was a little grown up. You can take a look at our favorite deer pictures from May 29 here.

When I compare our buck pictures to those taken last year it looks like their antler development may be behind. If you compare our best bucks from this week to the best buck from May 24 2009 we are definitely behind. Last year, one week earlier, we had a buck with six points. This year at the end of May we have a buck just starting to get his sixth point.

It may not be fair to compare this years bucks to the buck that grew into a real nice ten point last year. I didn't expect to have a buck that big this year as I looked at the crop of bucks left after the season. I'm not saying we can't have a couple of real nice bucks this year though. I'm actually hoping that one buck we have, that I know is older, finally shows antler growth to go along with his age.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on this matter.