If you had to choose...

^^^^^^ I agree.

If you care - Plant both in a way where you can see which one does better for you and which the deer prefer. The rye will stay green a little longer and will wake up a little sooner than the wheat. The rye will also tend to get taller than the wheat come late spring as well. The varieties I have experience with the wheat will get knee high or so while the rye will get waist high. In my area the temperature difference and the time the plants get active are about a 2 or 3 week difference normally. But I also tend to have other food available at those times as well.

If you don't really care - then simply mix the two together and cut the planting rate per acre in half of each when doing so.

You can also plant other goodies in with it as well....clovers, brassica, winter peas.....are all common additions to cereal grain plots.
 
I planted rye and wheat this year, hoping to maybe suppress some weeds. I think deer in my area like wheat better than rye but I don’t have any hard facts to back that up, just observations.
 
I think if you are intent on improving the soil and moving towards throw n mow - plant rye. If planting for deer and doves next summer - plant wheat. My deer prefer rye over wheat in a side by side planting - but if rye is all they have, they wont pass it up. My wheat seems to tolerate water a little better, too.
 
Unfortunately my deer plot is in some bottoms that flood each spring, so there is no carry over from the winter planting.
 
Just north of you in KS. I like wheat as I've observed (over and over) that deer around here prefer it over rye in the fall, winter, and summer. I usually still plant rye but am starting to question the value of it for my purposes. I like diversity a lot, so rye will probably stick around but it doesn't attract or feed deer nearly as well as wheat does. Disclaimer - These are my own observations, people from all over the country often have different results than I do. Hell, I can't even get a deer to try turnips more than once and it's one of the most popular plantings out there.
 
Just north of you in KS. I like wheat as I've observed (over and over) that deer around here prefer it over rye in the fall, winter, and summer. I usually still plant rye but am starting to question the value of it for my purposes. I like diversity a lot, so rye will probably stick around but it doesn't attract or feed deer nearly as well as wheat does. Disclaimer - These are my own observations, people from all over the country often have different results than I do. Hell, I can't even get a deer to try turnips more than once and it's one of the most popular plantings out there.


Cat, my deer must be kin to your deer, ‘cause they don’t want anything to do with turnips.
 
A mix of rye and wheat here, but have slowly leaned towards wheat unless I want more height. Same as above, 3 straight years of turnips and they wouldn't touch em with a 10 ft pole. This year I went with option C, which is letting the plot grow up in giant ragweed. Free food plot:)
 
A mix of rye and wheat here, but have slowly leaned towards wheat unless I want more height. Same as above, 3 straight years of turnips and they wouldn't touch em with a 10 ft pole. This year I went with option C, which is letting the plot grow up in giant ragweed. Free food plot:)
Ragweed is awesome plot material! My deer AND quail love it!

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 
Ragweed is awesome plot material! My deer AND quail love it!

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
Yeah, the quail will be in there thick this winter. Makes for nice cover and food, especially with some foxtail thrown in. Sometimes I wonder why I waste my time planting anything:)
 
Yeah, the quail will be in there thick this winter. Makes for nice cover and food, especially with some foxtail thrown in. Sometimes I wonder why I waste my time planting anything:)
I still think a person could have a pretty good plot by just throwing some fertilizer in the right place. Finding the “right” place would be the trick.
 
I still think a person could have a pretty good plot by just throwing some fertilizer in the right place. Finding the “right” place would be the trick.

I watched a series of Videos on YouTube by a guy that does nothing but design and improve Timber and Food Plots for landowners. He had some great stuff about the making of Plots and Shapes and what not.

However on one Video he answered a question about the No Plow and Toss n Grow mixes that are available. His answer to those was to instead of buying them Buy some Fertilizer and feed the Native Growth. His opinion on those was that by Feeding the Native Growth you would get much better and longer lasting results than you would with a Throw and Hope mix.
 
Well I put out both so we'll see which one grows better and attracts the deer.
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Update on what the food plot looks like now, even without any rain except for the day after the seed was out out 3 weeks ago.
I put out liquid fertilizer today.
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