Deer food plots

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Tnoodle

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What do most of the hunters on here plant for food plots, I'm looking for perennial low growing ground covers with good protein.
 
What do most of the hunters on here plant for food plots, I'm looking for perennial low growing ground covers with good protein.

They've developed some good drought-tolerant white clovers as of late. Ladino clovers, specifically Osceola var. is one of the best. We've tried white clover here, and even though we get 50 inches of rain a year, the summers are really tough on it. Our plots played out in two years. We do have sandy soil though. Sandy-loam at best. We pretty much gave up on perennials and went with winter rye. It's cheap, grows well in all soils, is very cold-hardy and can withstand extreme browsing/grazing pressure. We used Abruzzi variety. It is an annual though, but fertilized properly, and top-dressed with nitrogen, you can't get better protein numbers for the money.
 
Awesome thanks, my family farms do I have great access to rye and wheat. I'll look at some clover to see how it would do in clay soil.
 
Awesome thanks, my family farms do I have great access to rye and wheat. I'll look at some clover to see how it would do in clay soil.

Good luck. Lab Lab, mixed cowpeas, and reseeding soybeans are good bets too, but they are planted in the spring, and weed competition is sometimes severe. All of the legumes will have much higher crude protein, but rye is just so dang easy. Rye and winter wheat are planted in the fall. That allows time for scouting!
 
We have tried to grow sow beans but we don't get enough rain for them to do really well. I'm probably going to grab some wheat and rye and toss it out to see what grows. We have a few bags lying around from planting this year.
 
Everyone I know around here uses Rye for deer cover food. I think it lasts after the corn has been harvested. Some people just leave a strip of corn a few rows wide in the field and shoot them from cover.
 
What do most of the hunters on here plant for food plots, I'm looking for perennial low growing ground covers with good protein.

Here are a couple links you may find useful, Even if you opt to not purchase their products, they'll at least give you some ideas.

http://www.monsterbuckfoodplot.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PLST&Store_Code=M

http://www.noble.org/ag/Wildlife/ThinkFoodPlots/index.html

http://www.ces.purdue.edu/extmedia/FNR/FNR-194.pdf

http://www.whitetailinstitute.com/products/samples.html?gclid=CJ7T84nShKwCFeYZQgodK2Kw_A

Regards, GF.
:mug:
 
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