Mark, the hogs would definitely eat the sorghum and tear up any plot that it was growing in, but, I don’t have any clover growing now. Here at home, the largest plot I have is maybe an acre, and wheat is just too good an attractant to not have it in the fall. Even if it would make a good clover plot, my experience tells me that clover is least attractive here in August through September, and that’s when I need it most. I have three other plots smaller than that, none really suitable for clover. In my experience clover, at least white clovers, need soil that has some residual moisture, all of my plots need rain to flourish. That’s just the soil and terrain I have. I bought this place 25 years ago and I didn’t have a clue about laying out food plots to take advantage of the best soils or even the best stand sites. On 80 acres I have four plots that probably don’t total out to 2 acres. I’m gonna add just a little more to my bow blind plot, but other than that, no plans for more plots. In the winter we feed corn and I have one protein feeder that I keep up from January to late summer.
I was thinking about this last night and I think my plan for next year will be buckwheat in all the plots here at home for a late spring planting. The two plots I planted this year did very well in a couple of places that nothing has excelled in before. I had a good stand and the deer browsed it somewhat. I think they will browse it even more next year. It’s easy to grow and should help keep the weeds out, provide for a little moisture retention, and give them something green to eat.
Catscratch, as you can probably tell, I have no room room for fallow fields because all I have is woods and thick brush. I cut quite a bit of pine timber two years ago and my place has gotten quite a bit thicker with low brush, weeds, etc., and without that, I’d have no deer actually living on me. In the past most of the deer we see would come off of the neighbors’. Now, some bed on me and I want to keep it that way. We only average one buck per year off this place, either myself or my son takes it, and no does. We both have other places to hunt so no need to kill more.
In reading over this thread, I can see that I probably confused y’all somewhat. I hunt three different places and I kinda mixed them up. Here at home (80 acres) is the place I’m currently posting about.
My lease (350 acres) that I share with others has several plots that we plant in IC peas for spring and wheat for fall. We’re gonna plant another in clover this fall in hopes of having a perennial clover plot. It will be a long, narrow plot on a pipeline. I planted buckwheat on two of these plots this past spring with fair results. Each of those two had been limed but it hadn’t been in the ground long enough to help much. I expect better results this fall. The wheat crop each year in these plots are very good.
My other place is a 2,500 acre lease (out of 16,000 acres) that I have a small corner of. My son and I have one spot each to rifle hunt. It costs us nothing, and we plant wheat each fall. I have zero interest in spring plots here since it’s pine plantation and what little area I have would be devastated in two weeks. If everyone who hunted there would grow spring plots we could do great things, but they hunt over feeders and are just interested in big antlers, not deer nutrition. I can’t and won’t fight that, especially since I only hunt by invitation and the friend who leases it could give it up at any time. There’s no future there for me, so I’m gonna use my resources elsewhere.
Not important to this discussion, but just as a matter of information, I’ve never shot a buck there, but I’ve passed more 3 to 4 year old 120” to 140” bucks than I ever thought I would. Those bucks would probably go down on any other place I hunt, but when I was invited to hunt there I determined not to shoot a buck that wasn’t 5 years old or older. I’ve killed a few does, but so far the only bucks that I was sure of did not give me a good opportunity for a shot. I don’t do iffy, antlers aren’t that important to me. It sounds like a cliche, but at my age the journey is really more important than the destination.