March 2006 Food Plot Update

Deer Feeders

Welcome back to The Food Plot Journal!

It's been six months since our last update and we have finally had an opportunity in March to start working on our food plots. The dry summer last year left our clover plots close cropped so there wasn't a lot of deer in them throughout the 2005 season. An excellent acorn crop also helped keep deer deep in the woods. Later, in the winter, the deer did return to the plots as food became scarce.

We're adding two more food plots this year. One new plot will be about an acre in size and is in our hayfield. The other new plot is less than a quarter acre and is on a gas line right of way, which had been planted in Imperial Whitetail Clover some years ago.

We are going to plant some annuals this spring to add to our perennials. Our clover plots haven't drawn deer well in deer season and the plots have little left for the deer through the winter so we are going to try something different this year.

I have five different bags of seed to plant this spring. They include Evolved Harvest Shot Plot, Biologic Maximum, Imperial Whitetail Power Plant, Tecomate Ultra Forage and Tecomate Lab Lab Plus. These are all annuals and all but the Power Plant may also be planted in the fall. Since I have enough seed to plant four acres and only about two acres to plant I'll likely have some left over to plant in the fall.

The other new thing we are going to try this spring is using Round-Up to kill whatever is growing in our plots before we disk them up to plant them. Hopefully we will get less weed and grass competition now that we are going to do this, we'll see. I’m sure we’ll go through a learning curve with this.

I currently have eight digital scouting cameras and plan on monitoring each of our food plots this year. We should know exactly how much the deer use the plots.

Let's take a look at each food plot.

Oldhouse Food Plot

The oldhouse food plot is eaten down to the ground. I compared the pictures from last year at this time and it looks like there is a little more grass in the plot. I'm going to get some Arrest to take care of the grass once it greens up.

I over-seeded the plot on April 1st with Imperial Whitetail Clover to try and help thicken the clover up again this year. A little more rain would help the seed make good contact. I had to seed it by hand since I forgot to take my spreader with me. I never seem to make things easy on myself.

This plot was planted in the spring of 2003 and has been the best plot over the last three years. I'm going to see how the annuals go this spring. If they do well I'm going to put an annual in this plot this fall to try to get more growth for the fall and winter. The clover has performed real well for us but later in the fall the deer usually have it eaten down.

Hopefully we'll get a chance to add some lime and fertilizer over the next couple of months.

We extended the corn patch food plot last spring. This plot seems to have seen the most deer activity over the winter. Maybe this is just due to the fact that we can see it from the house or that it is the newest plot, but it has more clover left in it than any of the other plots.

I think this plot will jump back good when things green up over the next few weeks but there is a good bit of grass, especially where it used to be a hayfield. We'll use some Arrest here as well.

I over-seeded the whole plot and the bare spots in particular on April 1st. The ground was wet so hopefully the seed will make good ground contact and help thicken the plot up again this year.

I'm going to try to keep the clover going in this plot for a couple more years. This is one of the larger plots and it isn't a place where we hunt so a perennial here will provide good food for the deer.

The garden food plot looks a little better than it did at this time last year.

I over-seeded this plot as well and will try to keep it healthy for a couple more years. It was last disked and planted in the spring of 2004.

I'd like to keep this plot in a perennial as well, but this could change if the annuals perform much better than the perennials have. We'll know more later on this summer. Who knows, if the annuals do not grow well we could switch everything back to perennials.

Like the last two plots we'll use some Arrest in a few weeks and hopefully add some lime and fertilizer.

The Extreme in the middle clearing food plot looks better than it did last year so it should pop back up over the next month or so. Last year it looked real bad and recovered as spring greened up. If it looks too bad and I have time, I could plant an annual in this plot since we have plenty of seed. We'll wait and see how well it greens up.

Regardless of how well the Extreme does this spring I plan on planting an annual in this plot this fall. This is one of our hunting areas and I'd like to see if we could draw some deer here during the season.

What happens in this plot could vary as we see what happens this spring. Like the others I'd like to at least add some lime and fertilizer even if we don't disk it up and plant.

The Extreme was a bust in our whippoorwill plot last year and it was mostly a dirt/mud patch all fall and winter.

I'll plant one of the annual seed blends here this spring. We've already put 50 pounds of lime on it and we cleared some fallen trees on April 1st.

This is some of the best dirt on our property so I'm curious how the annual seed will grow here.

Hayfield

We've spent two days over the last month clearing trees away from the edges of our new plot. Depending on exactly when I turn the steering wheel on our John Deere this plot should be about one acre.

Since this will be one of our bigger plots we'll use more than one variety of seed here. Hopefully we can get the hay killed and the roots disked up well.

The deer spend a lot of time in this area so they should take well to the new plants if we can get them to grow.

Right Of Way

This plot is one that we used to plant in the past. It is at the top of a real steep right of way. It will be small, similar to the size of the Whippoorwill plot. Although it's not very big we're trying to make the most of our open ground.

We've limed it and cleared some fallen trees and overhanging branches.

As soon as the grass and weeds start to shoot up we'll hit them with some Round-Up, then we can start disking. The annual plants can be planted later than the perennials we have used in the past. Our planting dates this year will range from early May into mid July. We may be planting nearly continually between now and the first frost of the fall

Along with adding two more food plots and using annuals we plan on unplugging our feeders once spring greens up.

Although we had several bucks hanging around our property this past year we were not completely pleased with their antler development. We're going to get them away from corn this year and try to get some higher protein green plants into them to see if their antler development improves. Once deer season ends and winter sets in we'll likely start the feeders back up and get some high carbohydrate corn back in them.

We've done a good job letting the bucks grow older but their antlers do not seem to be showing this. Hopefully upping their protein content during the antler growing months will show in their antler sizes.

Our digital scouting camera pictures should give us a good clue as to how things are going into the late summer and early fall. We've had so many scouting camera pictures over the last couple of years I think we will be able to see a difference if it is substantial.

One more feeder note is an update to our raccoon problems. The larger varmint cages that we made have done the job. We haven't had a raccoon steal any corn from us since we made them and installed them last summer. It's almost hard to believe that we’ve finally beaten them.