I am a firm believer that corn and soybeans are the best food plots to use in Iowa, but want to try something this year. What I am going to do is plant some fall plots in between the rows of picked corn and soybean fields. There are some fall blends that are not to be planted before fall and last into January. Has anyone tried this? Is so, any advice would be appreciated.
O
Ollie
Guest
I'm having someone plant some rye on my place this fall. He claims the deer love it and it is cold-tolerant. Next year I would like to try some of the special cold-resistant oats which some wildlife biologist claim deer prefer over all the other cold cereal grains. We'll see if he is just trying to sell a product or if it is really prefered.
Last year I hunted near a plot of buck forage oats that next to a plot of imperial whitetail clover. The deer started in the clover then work to the oats. They would feed in them at least until I left then I don't know how much longer they stayed there. Sometime there would be 25-30 deer feeding at a time. Sure was fun to sit there as I never knew what I was going to see there. Got some great video footage of all sorts of bucks chasing does in those fields. The oats lasted well into shotgun season as I sat near the plot or trails to them morning and night until I ended my season on the 7th morning on a buck that I have chased for 2 years. The 5 acre oat patch never got taller than 2 inches as the deer kept it trimmed back. I don't know if it will work as good where you hunt but I bought some to plant on my own food plots this year. Seeing is believing. Have fun with it!!!
W
wanab.c.
Guest
John V. I have had good luck with rye but notice when it gets longer that they dont like it as well.So I asked around and was told that it gets a bitter after so tall, and was told to try winter weat.So I now have weat planted and if the turkeys would leave it alone I might see how the deer like it.I may try some oats,sounds like they work.
Is it too late to plant oats? The product that I am thinking of using is made to be planted in the fall, so I thought that I could wait until the crops are harvested and plant it in pick fields. The beans should be out in 2 to 4 weeks, and I figured that the soil should be already prepared for planting since beans provide the soil with nitrogen. Maybe I can try a couple of different types of plots.
O
Ollie
Guest
Since I don't own any farming equipment I am at the mercy of neighbors that I hire to do some mowing and planting for me. Hopefully about four acres got disked and planted in rye this past week. I really would have prefered to try the buck forage oats but you have to order them through the mail and I figured by the time I got some ordered and planted it would be getting very late to establish a good stand before cold sets in. Plan to buy some this fall and plant it around Sept 1 next year so I will have a good stand started when deer season opens.
arrowsmith
New Member
John V,
Last year I hunted over rye that had been planted in late August. It resembled a recently seeded yard (very sparse and thin growth). The deer were all over it, actually walked past standing corn to get to it. I also talked to someone that planted rye in the middle of his corn field after the corn was established. Then he allowed it to grow all season. In the spring he turned the soil and the rye eliminated crop rotation so he could continue to grow corn annually in the same soil.
Last year I hunted over rye that had been planted in late August. It resembled a recently seeded yard (very sparse and thin growth). The deer were all over it, actually walked past standing corn to get to it. I also talked to someone that planted rye in the middle of his corn field after the corn was established. Then he allowed it to grow all season. In the spring he turned the soil and the rye eliminated crop rotation so he could continue to grow corn annually in the same soil.
O
Ollie
Guest
Smokepole, check out the website for buck forage oats at "www.buckforage.com". Their oats are supposed to be cold hardy and will stay green and grow at lower temps than the typical oats sold at most seed stores. I've had a lot of knowledgeable people tell me they have seen a marked preference by deer to feed in the winter hardy oats when they had a choice between several winter grain crops.