SEVEN SIMPLE MISTAKES TO AVOID WHEN PLANTING A FOOD PLOT

BY TALLON MARTIN REPUBLIC RANCHES BROKER ASSOCIATE

Food plots are a great way to add diversity to your property need 6-8 hours of direct sunlight. So if you have a bow blind and provide food all season long for wildlife. Once you tucked in the woods with several shooting lanes, try to avoid the know the basics and how to avoid simple mistakes, they densely shaded areas. Lack of optimal sunlight will lead to leggy are excellent management tools. If you want good results, plants stretching to find the sun, which will hurt yields. you need to slow down and understand your land and prepare it properly. Adding diverse and consistent food sources can be a great DON’T OVERWORK IT As mentioned above, most wildlife value driver. Some of the gamiest ranches I have sold have two crop seeds are pretty small. Once you spread the seeds, you things in common: year-round varied food and water throughout want to avoid over dragging the field. A good rule of thumb is the ranch. Let’s dive into some of the more common mistakes made that most seeds only like to be covered one to two times their when planting your first food plot. diameter. So something like a millet should be lightly dragged DIRT IS DIRT, RIGHT? No! That’s a trick question. Soil it right. Something like a sunflower can handle more heavycomplexities are different across the state. Enhancing your soil’s handed covering. They can sprout even after being buried up composition will be the difference between a bumper crop and to two inches. a lackluster weed farm. I will refrain from boring you with the science behind those three numbers on a fertilizer bag. That is TIMING, TIMING, TIMING (AND A LITTLE LUCK) where Texas A&M’s soil sample lab can help save you a ton of Dryland farming is hard, especially when we need to get wildlife time. You can send in a small sample of your soil; once you get the food plots in the ground. Be patient; it is hard to see one 40% results back, you can plug the results into their handy calculator to chance of rain day in the middle of a two-week dry spell and not understand the adjustments you will make based on the crop you jump the gun. But if you are not patient and wait for a little more decided to plant. consistent weather pattern, your seeds might germinate then DON’T PICK IT JUST BECAUSE IT SAYS FALL DEER Once the plants get larger, they can handle longer stretches FOOD PLOT When you are first getting into food plots, it is without water, but they are fragile when they are young. hard not to resist the colorful, well-marketed bags of food plot mix with your favorite hunting celebrity on the front. But you have to YOU CAN’T PLANT AND FORGET Finally, you cannot remember, rarely do these national companies sell region-specific plant and forget most crops. No matter how much you spray mixes. Something that grows well in Kansas may not grow well and prep a field, you will always have weed competition. Having where you live. I have had very little luck with these types of plots. the ability to spray your plots with a post-emergent herbicide My suggestion is to call your local feed store and ask if they have can reduce competition and allow your plants the room to grow any local mixes. Or ask what has been a popular wildlife crop in well. These herbicides are specially formulated to kill unwanted the area. Sometimes it is great to keep it simple in your first year. weeds and not hurt the desired crop. If you are not managing a Maybe try winter rye for deer or brown top millet for dove. Both vast field that can be aerially sprayed, they make boom sprayers are very forgiving crops as you learn. for the back of your UTV. Several plants are aggressive growers LESS IS MORE Following the suggested seeding rate is critical. are this way, and depending on your management goals, they Most plants are picky about how much room they have to grow, may be a great crop to take your first dip into farming. and they do not want root competition. If you over-apply them, the on a well-prepped field or ideally just rained in if you can time burn up if they do not receive another rain reasonably quickly. and outcompete most weeds until they head out. Most millets crowding will stunt the growth of your crop, lowering the yield. It is I know all of these mistakes because I have made them myself very tricky not to overspread most wildlife mixes with a PTO driven at one time or another. I hope sharing what I have learned over seeder because the seeds are so small. I have found that having the the years helps bring you more success. Food plots have a pretty feed store mix your fertilizer with the seeds makes it much easier to steep learning curve. Rarely are you going to knock it out of the distribute the tiny seeds in a PTO-driven seeder evenly. If you find park the first year; you need to be observant and learn from holes in your plot after plants start sprouting up, you can always go your mistakes. Each year you will find you get better and better back and overseed in those thin areas in a week or so. at it. Once you hit a stride, you will discover they are powerful tools that bring you a lot of enjoyment. It is hard to beat the EVERYONE NEEDS VITAMIN D Most of the wildlife crops feeling when you see a successful plot attracting new game to you will be planting need and thrive from sunlight; most of them your ranch.