Vet Judy

            Deer food plot planters are well aware that the best food plots are those that are well planned.  In this fall season, I want to take a look at the flexibility that a fall-seeded small grain like wheat may give you next spring.

As I’ve mentioned in this blog before, wheat can be a most valuable deer food plot crop for winter and fall forage, especially in larger plantings.  But it’s time to review another advantage to winter wheat plantings beyond the food value: as preparation for planting spring legumes.

You have a couple options with the 60-120 pounds of wheat that you seed per acre in a fall planting.  It may be utilized for winter forage, and then fertilized in February to provide standing grain cover and habitat the following summer.  Larger wheat plantings, of course, can also be harvested for their grain value.

But wheat seedings in food plots may be most valuable for the flexibility that they give for frost seeded legumes in the early spring.  You can overseed clover or lespedeza into a wheat planting and provide valuable legume forage in the early spring and summer months.  Other legumes may be appropriate for seeding into a wheat stand depending on your location.