Vet Judy

            By this time, your weed worries in your food plots may be a thing of the past.  Your food plot plantings may be well on their way to providing deer forage this fall.  However, if you’re establishing a new food plot this fall, there is a class of weeds that may prove quite troublesome.   They’re the cool-season weeds that thrive in the same conditions that some of your best food plot crops thrive.

            Cool-season broadleaf weeds can be especially troublesome, especially in areas a little farther south than mine.  (Weeds like deadnettle, common chickweed, and henbit have proven to be especially troublesome.)  Such weeds present particular problems when you’re trying to seed perennial crops in the late summer or fall.  Many perennial crops that are used in food plots can be slow to grow after seeding; this gives the weeds a great chance to overtake your plot. What a waste this would be prior to fall and winter hunting attraction goals for whitetail  or Mule Deer.

            Honestly, the best thing you can do under heavy weed pressure is spray the weeds.  The most effective sprays are pre-emergent herbicides that you can actually spray before seeding.  Obtain a local recommendation for these and be sure that any herbicides you use are properly applied.

            If you’re applying a post-emergent herbicide, take special care that the herbicide you choose won’t affect the variety of crops that may be in your food plots.  Some herbicides, for example, will affect legumes in younger stages but not in older stages.

Of course, replanting may sometimes be an option.  Like anything else that deals with food plots or growing other crops, you may sometimes have to start over from scratch!

For More information on Do It Yourself deer food Plots, please visit our website www.diydeerfoodplots.com/

Let’s take a closer look at rye and ryegrass and their use in deer food plots.
 

   Annual ryegrass (Lollium multiflorum).is a cool-season annual grass commonly used in deer food plot plantings.  It is not to be confused with rye (Secale cereale).  Rye is also an annual grass, but is more commonly grown for grain than for forage.

 If you’re planting for deer forage in a warmer season, rye can be an excellent choice.  A disadvantage in cooler weather is that lower temperatures cause the rye plant to bend over (a condition called “lodging”).  This puts the plant on the ground rather than up in the air.

• Still, rye is a very valuable food source for deer and other wildlife.  In northern zones, some university research has recommended simply seeding rye into forest openings each year in the spring to improve food value for wildlife.
• My experience with the deer food plots on the ranch, however, is to treat crops as annuals with a “harvest” by the deer in the fall and winter.  Annual ryegrass really meets that purpose.  It contains about 16% crude protein.  It is also relatively high in calcium when compared to other common deer food plot crops.
•  As I’ve noted when writing about cool-season grasses, be sure that you don’t select a perennial ryegrass variety.  The perennial version can be aggressive and hard to get out of your food plot.  In addition to avoiding perennial varieties, there are some disease issues in ryegrass that can occur, especially in warmer climates, if it is seeded continuously.  (That’s another argument for rotating crops in your food plot.)
• Annual ryegrass will perform well when seeded into a food plot with a moderate pH (between 5.5 and 7.5).  Another advantage to annual ryegrass is that it is more tolerant to soils that are not as well-drained. 
•  Annual ryegrass is a great crop to use in a crop mix, as it serves as a good “companion” for some clovers and other shorter crops.  It’s quick growing and rapidly establishes, and it can be effectively used as a standalone crop to provide food value in spots where other grasses might not grow as easily.  I like to seed it on our fourwheeler trails to provide some deer cover and forage value on hard-traveled paths.

 For more free information on annual options for deer food plots visit: www.diydeerfoodplots.com/

 Soybeans (Glycine max) are a legume that deer  love to consume.  In fact, you may have acquired the right to hunt near farmland where the owners or managers are hoping your efforts will help manage deer populations that have enjoyed eating soybean a little too much!

            There are two kinds of soybeans used in deer food plot plantings: soybeans used for grain production and “forage soybeans” or soybeans planted to provide green forage in the early fall.  Grain soybeans can be planted from spring through the summer for deer forage, and may especially attract deer if soybeans aren’t widely grown in your area.  Some varieties of soybeans have been bred to be resistant to Roundup™.  If you want to utilize such varieties into a new food plot, that can potentially make weed control a lot easier.

            I like soybeans best in larger food plots.  Whitetail deer will keep the soybean from maturing in plantings of an acre or less, especially if there are not other soybean options nearby.  Soybeans can be used as a source of winter feed, but soybean stems tend to lodge (bend/break) in the winter, making them less reliable than some of the other grains commonly used in deer food plots.

            Be sure to use an inoculant when planting soybeans.  Plantings in areas with nearby soybean acreage for fall and winter browsing should be made in the spring.  Soybeans planted as Annual Forage  legumes in fall food plots can be seeded between mid-August and mid-September.  Personally, though, I prefer other fall forage options.

            Some soybean varieties have been bred to be more ideally suited for forage, but many managers find that grain soybeans are suitable for late summer seeding—and in a new food plot, the “Roundup Ready” option of soybeans that can be sprayed with glyphosate may be especially attractive in the first year.

            Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is a cool-season annual grass.  In the Midwestern U.S., it is usually seeded in the fall for early to mid-summer grain production.  As you move further north, it is more common to find wheat planted in the spring and harvested in the late summer or early fall.

            Wheat’s coldhardiness makes it a great choice for fall deer food plot plantings.  It is also a fairly easy crop to seed in large fields to improve the forage options during the early spring.  To improve your wheat stand, consider adding about 75 pounds of urea or ammonium nitrate per acre in the early spring.

            But wheat probably performs best as part of a food plots rotation in larger fields.  It may be seeded in the fall for fall and winter forage; then red or ladino clover can be “frost seeded” into the wheat field in the late winter or early spring.  The natural freezing and thawing of the ground works the clover seed into the ground.  The wheat may then be harvested for grain or straw, and the clover will be established in the field for summer forage.

            Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) should not be confused with wheat.  Its purpose in a deer plot planting is to provide a green forage and cover in the early season, along with grain in the fall.  You’ll find a variety of opinions on the use of buckwheat in deer food plots.  I’m not persuaded that deer will choose buckwheat over other plants in our setting, but this may be due to my northern location.

 For more annual deer plot forage choices check out the article:  http://www.diydeerfoodplots.com/articles/annual-forages.html

            The bulk of most deer food plot crops are cool season — crops that produce during cooler weather.  In today’s blog, I’ll explore cool-season forages, focusing on cool-season grasses and their value in deer food plots.

            Generally speaking, there are two strategies for cool-season crops used as deer forage or other grazing animals.  The plot manager can select a crop to “stockpile,” allowing a crop to grow during the late summer months for grazing in the early fall, when temperatures drop and the crop’s growth slows. 

Birdsfoot trefoil, a legume, is a good example of a crop used in many deer food plots that is suitable for stockpiling.  Birdsfoot trefoil is a popular selection for this practice because it does not lose its leaves as easily as some other legumes after frost.

            Many cool-season grasses, however, are selected for deer food plots because they are able to keep growing in lower temperatures.  This allows for deer to potentially utilize the grasses as a food source over multiple months.  Cool-season annual grasses often grown for grain—such as ryegrass, wheat, and oats—are often used in food plots. 

            If you’ve grown these crops for grain use, such as winter wheat, using them in deer food plots will require some adjustment to your past experience.  Cool-season grains like wheat and oats grown for fall grazing should be planted almost a month earlier than they are typically planted for grain production.  As always, be sure you’re using varieties that are suited to the typical severity of your fall and winter.  Fertilizer application at planting (equivalent to 40 lbs of nitrogen per acre) is also vital for cool-season fall grass growth.

            One note on ryegrass: be sure you’re using an annual ryegrass, as there are many perennial ryegrass varieties available.  On my ranch, I’ve found ryegrass is used best on small spots that are harder to access.  We also seed ryegrass on our four wheeler trails to provide some grass cover and forage availability.

            perennial cool-season grasses can often create problems in managing land for deer forage, because they can crowd out warm-season grasses in the spring.  For this reason, I keep clear of perennial cool-season grasses in deer food plot plantings.