I have long been convinced that variations in soil composition, as well as regional availability of other food sources, has a profound impact on what level of attraction or palatability results from the stuff we plant in food plots. I don't plant dedicated brassica plots, either, but it's because deer won't stop eating them long enough for them to get established! Where Bull has observed very little usage of rye from deer, it's one of a select handful of plants that can tolerate the kind of browse pressure my plots get. Ideally, I would have more acres in plots on each property. If I had a lot of acres in various plantings, deer probably wouldn't eat as much winter rye as they do, with one or two exceptions.
I have several goals in planting food plots, two of which are to provide the earliest possible green-up in the Spring, so deer can begin to recover body mass lost during hard northern winters, and hiding fawns in early Summer, when coyotes do the most damage to recruitment numbers. Where I'm at, fall-planted oats provide neither of those critical benefits. BFO might create the best possible hunting plot for the Fall, but that is a tertiary goal, for me, at best. Soil building is probably more important than that, making improved hunting no higher than the 4th reason I plant food plots. (Although, all three ultimately contribute to better hunting?
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Above all, I stand by my earlier comments about the relative security of the location in which a food plot has been planted. You can't throw a bucket of corn, apples and cut up sugar beets into the local Walmart parking lot and expect good hunting. On the other end of the spectrum, give me a 1/4 acre plot that is effectively screened, adjacent to good bedding cover, and I'm confident hunting the lines of movement nearby will result in elevated adrenaline levels, no matter if it has boring old WR or the most expensive food plot seed known to man!
