The deer hunter who spends one or two weekends preparing a fall food plot while other bowhunters are fishing or camping in July and August will reap his reward in due time. It doesn’t have to be overwhelming—you can plant a new fall food plot in six easy steps!
1. Select the Location
Selecting the right location is key to getting big bucks into your food plot. Look for a spot that makes deer feel comfortable traveling to the edge of your plot. In agricultural/woodlot settings, you should look for “soft edges” in the form of thick transition cover. If nothing like this exists on your property, you can create it by “feathering” a wooded edge.
Feathering is creating thick, heavy cover that provides a travel corridor into the plot, a place deer can safely watch the field from. Or even a place for deer to bed. This can be done in two ways. One tactic is to plant shrubs between the plot and the woods. Another is to half-cut or hinge-cut trees along the wooded edges. The trees are cut so they will fall over, but the tops stay attached to the stump. Many trees cut like this will still continue to live, and grass and brush will grow up through the tops. Birds will then create even more edge as they rest on the shrubbery, their droppings providing seeds for more plants.
2. Remove Vegetation
Now that you have your plot location determined, you are ready to remove the vegetation and weeds. You may simply need herbicides, or you may need to clear the land. This means mowing brush and weeds, chain-sawing sprouts, and tree removal. Or you may need to have the spot bulldozed. This is the quickest but also the most expensive. Whichever route you take, it must be done well in advance of planting the food plot.
3. Apply Fertilizers
The quality of your food plots is a direct reflection of the quality of your soil. One way to boost your soil is to dump on plenty of lime to make your soil nutrients “plant available.” You can apply lime at any time. Testing your soil is a good idea so you can supply the needed fertilizers to remedy what’s missing.
4. Prepare the Seedbed
A seedbed should be firm but not compacted. A good way to test this is to step in a prepared seedbed. You should see your boot print but not sink deep enough that your sole is completely covered in soil.
If your seedbed is too firm, just lightly disk it because fall cover crops don’t need to be planted deep. If your boot sinks too deep, find a small cultipacker or take the roller you use for your lawn and firm it up.
Usually plots planted with a no-till drill tend to have greater resistance to drought than fields planted conventionally. Retained organic material helps conserve soil moisture, and the placement of the seed at the proper soil depth reduces the likelihood of withering.
5. Plant the Seeds
Fall Food Plot Planting Chart
Brassicas such as turnips, radishes, rape, kale and canola are great fall food plot choices, usually the first cool-season species to be planted each fall. Cereal grains such as wheat, oats, rye and triticale are also popular and often mixed with brassicas. Cereal grains and brassicas are excellent choices because of their ability to germinate and grow rapidly, minimizing weed problems. Just don’t make the common mistake of planting your cereal grains too early, as they will attempt to bolt and produce seed if there are too many growing days prior to frost.
The key to softball-sized turnips and giant radishes is plenty of nitrogen fertilizer—250 pounds/acre applied when planting. Nitrogen rapidly escapes into the atmosphere, so do not apply it before planting.
Annual clovers mixed with cereal grains make a tasty fall food plot. If you really want to increase the attractiveness of your plot, throw in some winter peas because deer simply can’t resist this delectable treat. Annual clovers, like berseem clover, arrowleaf clover and crimson clover germinate quickly, producing lots of juicy forage.
Successful food plots require a diversity of plants, including perennial plants. Species such as red and white clover often rebound quickly after fall rainfall compared to annuals which have yet to establish. Not every planting season will go as planned and having diverse plantings can help reduce the likelihood of complete food plot failure.
Brassicas no tilled into fall food plot.
6. Let it Rain!
With any food plot, adequate rainfall is critical to success. Unfortunately, many cool-season plots fail because of limited rainfall immediately after planting. Sometimes this is unavoidable (the weatherman is wrong at times!), but often we can take a few precautions that help prevent failure.
First of all, check the forecast. If possible, it is much better to wait until there is a significant chance of rain in the weekly forecast. If you are using conventional tillage or a no-till drill, soil moisture prior to either planting or working the ground matters. It may be necessary to wait until after the first rain to plant if dry conditions would make tillage or drilling difficult.
If you are filling in empty spots in your food plot, no-till top-sow a half rate of the same species just prior to rainfall. Or just plant cereal grains if this is later in the fall.
Then the waiting.
Now comes the hard part—waiting! With these six, easy steps, your fall food plot should soon be growing well and attracting your sought-after trophy.