Food Plots for Wildlife

Food Plots for Wildlife

Food and cover are fundamental to maintaining a quality habitat for deer or other wildlife. The more food there is for wildlife to eat the less likely they are to go looking for another food source.  An adequate food source will keep wildlife in your area; therefore, they will live longer, and reproduce healthier young.  Cover and bedding areas will also keep wildlife on your land for they need not travel.

Our specialized mixes can be planted in strips or patches along the edge of woods, near ponds, along fence lines or near areas of thick grass.  Whether planting annuals or perennials, both will provide an excellent food plot for deer.  Perennial food plots are a great food source because of there longevity and persistence to all the weather conditions.  Perennial food plots like White Clover, No-Till Mix, or Drought Mix are a good start.

You can also get good results from many of our annual seeds such as Turnips, Radish, or Peas.  Many hunters over-look annuals just because they must be planted every year.  But the ease of planting and benefit of an annual food plot are not to be over looked when building wildlife habitat.

The best thing to do is to have an abundance of food for your wildlife to choose from when you build a food plot.  All of our mixes have been field tested before we offer them for sale.

Soil preparations is essential for a good food plot. Weed competition is the most common problem experienced.  Food plot areas can be worked several times during the spring to eliminate annual weeds.  One thing to keep in mind is that tilling the soil will bring more weed seeds to the surface that will germinate as the soil temperature warms in the spring.  A spray, such as Roundup, can also be used prior to planting.  Roundup is sprayed after the weeds have germinated and started to grow to a height of at least 6 inches. Roundup will kill anything that is green and growing.  Wait 7 to 10 days after spraying and then plant you food plot.

All of our Wildlife Food Plot Products have their own unique growing characteristics to provide an attractive food plot.  The more food and cover you can provide for wildlife the less threatened they will feel.  Kester's mixes are best planted along the edge of a woods, where the deer can retreat if they feel threatened.

Poster’s comments:

1)       I try to keep about 3% of my land open, to include for planting for wildlife. 3% appears to be a magic number even many PhD wildlife biologists use these days. Now the numbers do change, so just be aware.

2)      My land work mostly focuses on edges and lanes. I always try to make my wildlife open areas irregular in shape. I do use a tractor with implements to help me get the job done.

3)      While humans like larger more rectangular type open areas (like growing pine trees like corn), wildlife tends to prefer edges of open areas where they can then disappear into the nearby forest land.

4)      Rabbits and other such small game also tend to like “greens”, like the leaves of the vegetables we may be growing.

5)      Feral hogs and other such large game also tend to prefer things like sorghum patches. I have seen many sorghum patches “mowed down” by feral hogs just eating. Often they did the deed at night.

6)      Quail and other small birds also like sorghum seeds, and other seeds like from “ lespedeza bicolor” plants.

7)      Consider establishing wildlife plots away from garden plots (if you can) as a method to better protect our human food sources that we grow.

8)      Home defense includes our plots of food that we grow to eat. Yep, garden areas should be defended somehow.

9)      Humans can eat many of the products of wildlife plots, too. Two obvious examples are turnips and peas. Just how much to take where you live is a judgment decision.

10)  Wildlife plots do take time and money to establish and grow, too.  There is “no free lunch”, as the old saying goes.

11)  There is plenty of “grazing” food in the forests for most wildlife and most areas. Now the area grazed is large and not concentrated, and it does take time to graze. Even one can “take the temperature” of their local forest by seeing how high the “graze line” is.

12)  Many wildlife move throughout the day and night. Where I live on the Cumberland Plateau in east Tennessee, I expect most wild game that moves will be hunted out (or fished out) within a year of any future hard times beginning. For wildlife that does not move much, then I expect other wildlife will move in to eat them, like coyotes chasing and eating rabbits. I hope to make it for a year, and then more traditional and often hard work routines will have to be established if I want to eat game food after that period of time.