Food plot seed choice?

[MUSKY18]

Just curious as to what type/brand of seed you all use for food plots. Right now I'm leaning towards planting some 7 Card Stud from Evolved Harvest. Not 100% sure however. The two food plots that I will be making are not very big. One is probably between 1/4 - 1/2 acre in size and the other is a long old field road that is 400-500 yards long but only about 10 feet wide. Just looking for what you have used and what was successful for you. Thanks for any advice/suggestions!

[Lunker]

Depends on what you want and what (if any) has been planted there before. We plant a lot of products from Biologic and Whitetail Institute, but there are a lot of good products out there, just depends on what type of forage you're putting in. For the road you obviously need a shade tolerant plant and I would suggest looking into the clovers. Good all season hardy forage that's easy to plant and easy on the soil. For the other plot you could look into some brassicas/turnip/radish mixes. Great for mid to late season. But there are a ton of options.

[MUSKY18]

Lunker......exactly what I'm looking for. Neither of the areas have had food plots in them before so first time growing on each spot. Obviously going to lime and fertilize after soil test. Both of the areas are kind of in between bedding areas and the big ag fields that they move out to at night to eat. The bigger plot I will be hunting over later in the season and into late Dec season if need be. That's why I was thinking brassicas in there.

[Scoot]

Musky, I put in brassica last year and had a beautiful crop of it in my plot. We ended up shooting five deer off of it. I was surprised that the deer didn't seem too interested in it for a very long time- it took until about Dec. 10th before they started to hit it very hard. I'm told that brassica in a plot for the first time often goes this way- it's like the deer need to figure out that they like it, and that takes a while. If I were in your shoes I'd consider a combo of both clover and brassica (1/2 the field in one and 1/2 the field in the other) for the first year of planting. They'll know they love clover right away and it'll give them a chance to come to love brassica. By next year they'll know they love it right after the first frost.

This year I'm putting in clover on the whole plot to start with. If I'm happy with the results, I'll leave it just like that. If it doesn't feel right at the end of July, I'll dig up 1/3 of the plot and put in brassica there, leaving the rest clover. That's the plan I'm going with for now at least...

[vister]

Has the ground been tilled before? I find tilling a virgin food plot yields many unwanted weeds. I would suggest workin the ground well and goin heavy on clover. Will grow quicker than most weeds, and believe me, first time tilled ground will be full of years worth of weed seeds. As far as any "brand" goes, most co-ops sell pure seed. Anything with a big buck on the bag typically costs big bucks, for maybe 30% seed

[Bowfin]

I am going to put in a couple small patches on some private land up north. I am going to try a mixed clover/chicory plot and a mixed brassica plot (turnip and rape from the the local feed store mixed with "Trophy Radishes" (google Trophy Radishes as it looks interesting).

I plan to rotate the plot beds annually as planting brassicas in the same spot year after year will tend to build up disease susceptibility in the soil.

I planted a food plot about 10 years ago with a mixture of Frigid Forage brand Wildlife Buffet-Monster Magnet-Big and Beasty Brassicas which was very successful. I do think the name brand packaged hunting seed in the hunting aisles are overpriced and the local coop and feed stores will allow you to mix your own seed mixture at a cheaper price.

This years plot is brand new and never been planted before. I plan to disc and drag the areas in a couple weeks let the area sprout for a month then spray it with Roundup in mid-June before I disc and plant.

[Scoot]

I tried to buy my clover from a local place and didn't get what I wanted there. I was only able to buy in bulk sizes and I had no need for the large quantity minimum size that was available. It was a much, much better price, but not when I had to buy enough to do 30 times the area I needed it for.

[sportfish]

I would think the long road plot should be planted in a clover mix . The brassica / turnip mix are great , I have had luck with fridges forage and Maxxie rack .com . Plant the brassicas the end of July or first of aug. 300-400 lbs of firtilizer per acre . If you skimp of the firtilizer it will show

[DaveT]

Welter's seed in Iowa will sell seed in small batches. For Brassicas I use Purple Top Turnips, Dwarf Essex Rape, and Groundhog Forage Radish. The deer around here seem to hit the DER early season, the GFR in November and the PTT late season. This year we're going heavy on GFR. With shipping these seeds cost about $3.00 a pound last year. The mixes at the sporting goods stores are usually around $9.00. This goes for all Buck in a Bag seeds. You can get the same stuff cheaper elsewhere. If you're only doing a half acre it probably isn't a big deal but if you're doing more than that you're wasting money.

[LABS4ME]

Muskie... Try the habitat forum. Lots of threads in there talking about what is working for guys. Some good pics in some of the posts too. You may have to go back through the last couple pages, but a lot of good info in there!

Good Luck!

Ken