Vet Judy

Do you have weeds in your whitetail deer food plots that you can’t seem to get rid of? Are these weeds interfering with a successful deer food plot. What helps is to understand the different types of weeds and their natural biologic behaviour. Once you understand weeds, it is  easier for you to develop a successful strategy to fight them and not contribute to their distribution.

               Just like with plants of any sort, weeds can be grouped by their behavior and growth patterns.  There are annuals, biennials, and perennials.

Annuals are the most common weed found in your deer food plots . These weeds have the following characteristics.

a.       Lots of dormant seed

b.      Grow fast

c.       Produce high numbers of seed

d.      Can be both winter or summer

Summer annual weeds germinate in spring or summer while winter annual weeds will germinate in late summer or fall. The summer annuals will die before winter, remain dormant  in soil for the winter or in some cases for years before emerging again. The winter annual weeds overwinter in their vegetative form then in spring or early summer they flower, set seed and mature  and die with seeds dormant in summer months. 

Annual weeds are the biggest concern in fall seeded crops (ex winter wheat and alfalfa) which go through winter dormant period.

The Biennial weed life cycle lasts two years. In the first year the plant forms basal leaves(rosette) and a tap root. In the second year the flower comes, matures and dies. 

perennial weeds are those that  live 2 or more years. What makes them difficult to control is their  re-sprouting roots, rhizomes, stolons, tubers, and plant fragments which can all result in regrowth.  

The perennial weeds are spread by two routes: simple or creeping. With simple there is re-sprouting from crown buds on tap root and spreed from seed. In this case the roots are fleshy, may be large (dandelion). Creeping weeds reproduce by creeping roots(canadian thistle, field bindweed), or above ground stems (runners or stolons) (bentgrass, bermudagrass) or below ground stems(rhizomes)(quackgrass, johnson grass). These also reproduce by seed. 

Some of the more common weeds that spread by simple means are: dandelion, curly dock, buckhorn plantain, broadleaf plantain, poke weed.

The common weeds that are spread by creeping include leafy spurge, field bindweed, canadian thistle, mouseear chickweed, ground ivy, bermudagrass, johnson grass, quackgrass, and yellow nutsedge.

My recommendation on controlling these weeds: Do not let the seedlings get established. Once they have established the perennial weeds are the most difficult group to control. If this occurs you will spend a lot of time dealing with these weeds and it may require cultivation repeated, herbicide, and mowing.

A lot of us are looking for low maintenance food plots. As such, we may inadvertently contribute to the weed problem. If we neglect proper mowing, judicious use of chemicals, get involved in excessive tillage, or till improperly we may be making the problem worse.

In the next segment we will talk about different methods of weed control available for your deer food plots.