Rain gets landowners, hunters in mood for planting deer food plots

Published 11:12 am Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Billy Higginbotham

Widespread soaking rains falling across East Texas means just one thing, it’s time to start preparing those fall food plots for deer.

All fall-planted food plots should accomplish two purposes: Serve as “hunting plots” to attract deer for harvest purposes and help deer through the cold weather stress period from January until spring greenup in mid-March.

East Texas is blessed to receive 40-inches-plus annual rainfall, which allows us to grow deer forages year round. Consider these food plots as an integral part of your overall deer management strategy-if excess deer need to be removed from the property, properly designed plots can help pull deer out of heavy escape cover typical of deer habitat in the East Texas Post Oak and Pineywoods Ecological Regions.

The strategy should be to establish numerous, small plots with lots of edge so deer will use them during legal hunting hours. A great way to enhance these plots is to establish or allow a transition zone to develop between the edge of the woods and the open food plots so the deer will feel comfortable moving through the head high screening cover from the woods to the feeding area.

Also consider at least 1 percent of the habitat (1 acre out of every 100 acres of habitat) in cool season food plots. This is a bare minimum-2 percent would be even better and allow you to establish some sanctuary plots that are never hunted.

In the acid soils of East Texas, it is always good to start with a soil test. This will determine if and how much agricultural limestone is needed to adjust pH so forage varieties can perform at their best. The test will also allow you to customize fertilizer applications to the specific forage varieties planted.

In lieu of a soil test, if the planting ground has never been limed, a rule of thumb is to lime at the rate of 1 to 2 tons per acre and disk in to incorporate it into the soil. Agricultural limestone needs time to react with the soil but liming late if it is needed is better than not liming at all. Again, this is only recommended for the acidic soils commonly found in East Texas.

One surefire combination for use in East Texas is the combination of winter hardy oats, iron and clay cowpeas and arrowleaf clover. When planted in September as soon as soil moisture is available, the cowpeas literally jump out of the ground and provide nutritious supplemental forage to attract deer. Be sure to establish a wire enclosure or cage secured with a t-post on each food plot to allow you to gauge deer use of the established forages.

The cowpeas will be grazed out and/or die back at first frost but by then, the oat component will be coming on strong. Of all the small grains, deer seem to prefer oats when given a choice. Be sure to select a winter hardy variety of oat to plant as they will provide the bulk of the forage available from first frost until spring green-up. Following spring green-up, the arrowleaf clover component will be available until early June. By then, your spring planted (May) warm season food plots should be developing to carry the deer through the warm weather stress period of July through August.

To establish these plots, shred and disk the area to be planted. If vegetation is rank at the site, consider an application of glyphosate to kill the vegetation present a couple of weeks prior to site preparation. The cowpeas should be inoculated at planting so be sure and purchase the appropriate inoculant when you purchase your seed. This results in nitrogen fixation by the plants and serves to boost production.

In a clean disked seedbed, broadcast the oats and peas (at a seeding rate of 40 pounds per acre each) and cover to a depth of only an inch. It is very difficult to disk lightly enough without burying these seeds too deep-a cardinal sin. Consider devising a drag out of cattle panels or old tires so the seed can be covered to the correct depth. Then, broadcast the arrowleaf clover seed at 10 pounds per acre and lightly drag it in also. Check to see if the arrowleaf clover seed you purchased came “pre-inoculated”. If not, like the cowpeas, you will need to purchase the correct inoculant and treat the seed just prior to planting.

Because of the inoculant used on the cowpeas and arrowleaf clover, we have been able to minimize nitrogen fertilizer needs at planting and again in late deer season. However, if the oat component of the combination shows signs of yellowing during late December- early January, top dress the plots with additional applications of nitrogen at 200 pounds per acre.

This combination has proved to be very successful at providing early deer hunting opportunities (youth-only and archery seasons) when established in early September and then provides a constant supply of forage for deer into early summer.

If for some reason you are unable to plant the combination mentioned, a fallback position would be to go with just 100 pounds of the winter hardy oats per acre. Site prep and planting recommendations remain the same.

Get ready now to establish Fall plots next month-deer season is right around the corner.