Last spring I made my first attempt at planting summer food plots. With a combination of poor preperation, heavy deer grazing pressure and a moderate drought, they were a complete failure.
Last fall with a severe drought, my fall plots were even worse!
So this year I am saying third time is a charm and trying to get some food plots for the deer.
The new 12 acres has a quarter acre field which now gives me just a little over 2 acres total plots on 89 acres.
I know I won't feed the herd with this but I like giving the does some extra forage and getting them used to feeding on our property as much as possible until deer season comes. In February I believe it was, I added 2000 lbs of pellet lime on the two acres. I put out 2000 lbs last year but soil test this winter still called for another 1000 lbs per acre.
In mid April I sprayed glyphosate and gave it two weeks to work.
At the end of April we put out fertilizer and disked everything.
I put out 25lbs Sunn hemp, 25 lbs iron clay cow peas, 25 lbs buck wheat and 10lbs alyce clover.
I knew the cowpeas weren't going to make it but the alyce clover is supposed to withstand heavy grazing.
All but one plot is doing well right now last I checked. That one plot we call the swamp plot is 1/2 acre in the best location on the land.
Last couple weeks I've been getting 50+ pictures a night of groups of does feeding in it. When I checked a few days ago there was nothing but bare 3" stems. I'm hoping the other plots don't get killed too!
