Food Plots and Seed

[grayling]

My turn to ask a question!

I have nine food plots on my hunting property . The area I hunt is solid farm land with many acres of corn, alfalfa, clover, etc surrounding my property.

I have never had success with Brassica plants (kale and turnip). Yes they grow and look great but not once in three years have I seen deer eating from these sites.

On the other hand since I have so much farm land around me which has the high protein clovers and such I have switched all my plots over to fall/winter grains like winter wheat, winter rye, and oats. I have been thinking about trying Triticale as well and barley.

Do any of you have experience with winter wheat, winter rye, oats, triticale, and barley?

Have you seen a preference among the deer?

What type of maintenance have you had to perform on these plants.

Clovers and Chicory seem to have a lot of deer activity on them during late spring and early fall but after the first frost deer begin to shy away as it shuts down and goes dormant.

Good luck,

Grayling

[Yooper]

Excellent topic.

My father-in-law is very fond of winter wheat and rye. He does the majority of his hunting late in the year and has found through trial and error that these always produced solid amounts of activity.

One of my smaller fields is usually planted to oats and it seems that every year, there will be a deer or two in it every night, even after the main harvest. ( I lease the farming right to an amish farmer)

It's kind of a hard call to make when you're surrounded by farmland.