Would?


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If I would plant a half acre food plot how long would it last? There aint much agriculture fields around or anything at my uncles just corn feeders and such. Im wondering would they bust it hard and eat all the vegetion(sp?) to quick or would it keep growing and be fine. I dont know nothing about these food plots. The main purpose for doing this is to draw some of the bigger bucks onto the property maybe in the morning and also put on some wieght and stuff maybe. wink.gif

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Guest 257Roberts

Re: Would?

If i was going to plant a half acre food plot i would definatley fence it in with an electric fence until the plants matured. If they hit it at emergence it wont last a couple of days. If you really put the fert. and lime to it and fence it off it might last a couple of weeks.

Heres some numbers to think about. A deer consumes an ave. of 7lbs per day. Soybeans produce (on a good field) about 1 ton of brouse per acre. So for a half acre your looking at around 1000#'s of potiential brouse. So if you've got 10 deer going to breakfast, lunch and dinner on your food plot that 70#'s per day so it would last about 14 days. That's assuming you keep it fenced untill the plants reach thier maximum potiential.

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Re: Would?

Something to take into consideration. You are never going to be able to supply all the feed the deer in your area need. Food plots are not intended to do this. What you should aim for is supplemental feed to the natural browse in the area. Dependant on how much land you have access to you may want to consider improving the natural habitat by providing better browse so the deer have a year long food source. This is often a more cost effective and longer lasting solution than planting a plot you know will get devoured in a short time.

Then you can plan plots to draw deer in at certain times of the year, and to certain areas by planting season specific seed.

Without a lot of ag. crops in your area you may be able to establish some plots using the plotsaver ribbon. This would get the plots started without the deer tearing them up before they really got established. This is by far cheaper and more effective than elec. fencing, which really doesn't deter deer movement much anyway.

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Re: Would?

All depends on what you plant, how many deer are around, and what else is available in the area.

We have an abundance of ag crops here, most are out by the end of October though. Have seen deer in picked fields late in the year on numerous occasions.

Clovers are a good year round plot, a half acre clover plot if there are other decent food sources around might continue to provide food on into the winter if there are limited numbers of animals getting to the plot.

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Clover will make a good plot but the best time to plant them is in the fall. So if you want a plot now you need to look for something else. I would not plant soybeans. They will not last in a small plot like that. I can think of two summer crops that will take a beating and keep coming back. That is Lab Lab and American Joint Vetch. Both of these will continue to grow with heavy browsing. Even with these you have to try and keep the deer out at first to give them a chance. If you have a high deer density this may not last but it will keep growing and providing some good protein. The more you can plant the better. If you use a feeder also go with soybeans in the summer not corn. Corn in the winter. Good luck.

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Re: Would?

Cody, not sure about where you are, but here the best time for clovers is in fact in the fall as mentioned above. Soybeans or pea and bean mixes could be planted in a plot where you plan to plant clovers later on, but so could corn. The pea bean mixes with sorghum can be planted in smaller plots with good results. The sorghum will help cut down on the over browsing some. Thing about corn that might be beneficial is that if you were to go with corn, it uses a lot of nitrogen which really is good, could possibly mean less available nitrogen in the soil to supply weed invasion for the clovers you would plant in the fall. Clovers are nitrogen fixing, and they do not need a high nitrogen fertilizer to get established.

With whatever type of clover you might go with, would encourage you to plant some rye along with it. Pennington has a wintergrazer rye grain that comes in very quick, and is very attractive to the deer. I will be trying a new perenial rye this year from hamann farms myself that is supposed to have a high sugar content and also be very attractive to wildlife. I would suggest if you do go with clovers to check with Martin(Oneida Man) check out hamann farms.com and pick one of his clover trefoil blends. Great quality seed and it is attractive to deer and turkeys. Pennington also has some good seed blends out there as well, I am a big fan of the pennington rackmaster clover and rye supreme.

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