We got a late start on food plots last year. I didn’t buy the tractor until way after Turkey Season, so we started with fall plots planted in September. This year, I ordered seed early. Moose started prepping the one new plot in early April, taking advantage of the dry weather.
Review of Last Year
First off, I want to review what happened last year. All told, we put in 8.5 acres of plots. A complete discussion of what went in where is here:
We had mixed success. The problem was the drought. We had germination. We had growth, but none of it was as good as we expected. The good news is much of the seed that didn’t sprout in the fall lay dormant over the winter and came up this Spring. This was especially true of the cereal grains and the clover.
Did it influence our hunting? It’s hard to say. It didn’t hurt anything. I think Mooselette’s doe were chowing down on something in the
Antler King Fall/Winter/Spring Food Plot Blend when she pulled the trigger. Angus’s buck came from the new Fountain Square plot. It was a mish-mash of leftover seed, but Antler King Fall/Winter/Spring Food Plot Blend was in there as well.
If I had to pick a winner for last year’s best plot, I would have to go with Hit-List No-Till. Honestly, I didn’t think this stuff was going to be much of anything.
It looked from the ingredient list that most of it was going to be a bunch of junk. However, it was one of the first seed to germinate in near-drought conditions. What’s more, it attracted deer close to the house. I kind of used it as a throw-away, tossing it up close to the new house. If I’d had a mind to, I could have plugged a doe right off the Living Room during the first week of Rifle Season. Over the winter, they dug the heck out of the turnips. Here it is May, and the deer and turkey are still visiting it.
What didn’t perform? I don’t want to bad-mouth any of the various seed blends. None of them went in 100% according to directions. The drought we had last fall was significant. There was one mix that really didn’t do much for us– not in the November Rifle Season and not now. That’s Antler King Honey Hole. My reason for singling this mix out is that it featured heavily in our plans. It got placed in several key plots. It sprouted, it grew, but nobody touched the turnips until late winter. If anything, it gets the award for “Looked the Least Like the Pictures.”
Somebody else might get great results with this stuff, but we did not.
My overall conclusions from last year’s planting:
- Food plots are not magic. Do not expect big bucks to suddenly swarm an open plot planted with seeds that had antlers on package.
- Food plots are worth the effort, but the payoff has less to do with shooting opportunities and more with the overall health of the herd
- Buck-on-Bag food plot mixes are fine for experimentation, but I intend to take what I’ve learned and simplify things and source them locally. You pay for the convenience and you pay for stuff that doesn’t work.
This Year’s Plots
Somebody recommended Hancock Seed, and I went over and started browsing. There was a pre-season sale on, and several things caught my attention. I ended up with three mixes of seeds:
Where this is going is in a new 1.5 acre plot out in the west pasture between The Hand and Blackberry.
Hancock’s Spring & Summer Food Plot Seed Mix
As you can see, Moose has also dug up some test plots to the right of the main plot. He’s going to throw in some wildflowers and various vegetables and see what comes up.
Hancock’s Fall & Winter Food Plot Seed Mix
Right now, it’s fairly impossible to determine the continued effectiveness of what we planted last fall. I’m going to let it grow for now and decide how much of it has to be redone for hunting this year. Pursuant to that, I ordered an acre’s worth of Hancock’s Fall & Winter mix
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