Food plot tips and tactics

Finally the drought has somewhat ended and cooler temperatures might start hunters thinking about deer season. Food plots are a great way to attract deer to your place and in particular the areas that hunters will be.

Here are some tips to make the most of your plots.

· Rather than planting several 3- to 5-acre fields like deer managers did the old days, scatter 5 to 10 smaller plots across your land. Green strips and pockets of 1/4- to one-acre maximum are easy to plant, maintain and hunt. Small plots are all the rage with the best deer biologists/managers these days.

· Design before you dig. On an aerial photo, lay out a series of strips and pockets of open ground toward the interior of your property, and plant those first. This keeps your plots—and the bucks they will attract–away from roads and the neighbors’ fence lines.

· The closer you plant to thick bedding cover the better your chances that a mature 10-pointer will pop out into the plot to eat in shooting light one evening next fall.

· Work the wind into your plan. Say a southwest predominates on your land in October. Plant a few plots on the northeast sides of thickets where deer loaf/bed. A lot of animals will approach your plots with the wind in their noses.

· Mark strategic trees in the corners and along the sides of new plots. Don’t doze or cut them down. Hang stands in those trees and sit in the one where the wind is in your favor as you hunt your plots next fall.

· If you’re ready to plant now, spray cleared spots with Roundup or a similar herbicide. Come back in a week to 10 days and plow, disk and seed. In two weekends and with about 3 hours of work per acre you’ll have your plots in.

· Take a soil sample. Dig 5 or 6 six cups of dirt from various spots around a plot, mix well in a bucket and come up with one representative soil sample. Have it tested at your county extension office or a seed company for recommendations on liming and fertilizing.

· Watch the weather and broadcast seeds over a well-worked seedbed just before a steady rain. The water will help work the seeds into the soil.

· When in doubt about what seeds to plant, go with a perennial clover, like Imperial Whitetail Clover. You can plant it either spring or fall. A 4-pound bag plants 1/2 acre. One plot of perennial clover can draw and feed deer for 4 to 5 years without reseeding.

Fertilizer basics

Humans, animals and plants rely on a safe, healthy supply of food and nutrients like nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) for proper growth and development. Fertilizer is the ‘food’ that plants need to produce a healthy and bountiful crop.

Plants require 14 essential nutrients for healthy growth. The absence of any one nutrient in the soil can limit plant growth, even when all other plant nutrients are present in adequate amounts. The three macronutrients that are essential for food production and quality are: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

Nitrogen — Nitrogen comes from the air and is the primary building block for all life. The air we breathe is about 78 percent nitrogen, but there are very few plants that can make direct use of nitrogen in the air. To make this nitrogen available to support life, nitrogen from the atmosphere is converted into a form plants can easily use.

Nitrogen helps make plants green and plays a major role in boosting crop yields. Nitrogen plays a critical role in protein formation and is a key component of chlorophyll. Plants with adequate nitrogen show healthy vigorous growth, strong root development, dark green foliage, increased seed and fruit formation and higher yields.

Phosphorus- Phosphorus is present in all living cells and is essential to all forms of life. Phosphorus is the second most abundant of all the mineral nutrients contained in our bodies. It can be found in every cell, but nearly 80 percent of phosphorus found in people is concentrated in teeth and bones.

The source of phosphorus in fertilizer is fossilized remains of ancient marine life found in rock deposits in North America and North Africa, and volcanic activity in China. The phosphate manufacturing process combines phosphate rock from these natural geological deposits with sulfuric acid to produce a concentrated phosphorus solution.

Potassium — Fertilizer producers mine potassium, or potash, from naturally occurring ore deposits that were formed when seas and oceans evaporated, many of which are covered with several thousands of feet of earth. Once the ore is brought to the surface, unwanted minerals are removed in the manufacturing process and the product is then granulated for application.

Analysis — How much N, P and K are in your bag of fertilizer? The analysis found on each bag or bulk shipment of fertilizer tells the farmer or consumer the amount of nutrients being supplied. States have a system of laws and regulations that ensure the fertilizer is properly labeled and delivers the amount of nutrients stated to the farmer or consumer.

The three numbers on your bag of fertilizer are referred to as the “analysis.” It is the percentage of nitrogen, phosphate and potash that is available to plants from that bag of fertilizer. In this diagram, this product contains 5 percent nitrogen, 10 percent phosphate and 5 percent potash.

So what’s the other 80 percent of what’s in this bag? While brands vary, typically the rest will contain some micronutrients and filler material, which allows for even application of the nutrients across the fertilized area.