Week 2: Where to start in planting my food plot?
Getting started planting a food plot can be confusing and frustrating, especially if your past projects have not turned out the way you intended. The key to successful food plots is planning, before you take a soil sample or break any ground, have a plan in place. The first step in successful food plotting is purpose. Understanding the purpose of your food plot will help you determine your next step. The purpose of your food plot(s) can be categorized into two functions, hunter plots or management plots. On the Nutri-Plot Test Farm we incorporate both.
Hunting Plots vs. Management Plots:
Hunter Plots are just what they are, plots that you plant in the fall to hunt over to attract whitetails to that location and aid in harvest. Hunter plots should be cool-seasoned plants (cereal grains: triticale, cereal rye, oats and wheat. Brassicas: turnips and rape. Corn is a warm season annual that’s planted in the spring for a carbohydrate food source in the fall) that contain carbohydrate sources for whitetails providing a high energy source during peak periods of the winter, including the rut. These plots are usually smaller in size, an acre or less and located in secluded areas where mature bucks feel more secure. You can accomplish these types of plots in open areas by using crop barriers or strip planting; we’ll talk more about this management technique in Variety Selection.
Management Plots are large areas (3-5 acres in size) dedicated to varieties of plants that contain high levels of protein (soybeans, peas, clovers and chicory) offering whitetails a food source year around in the form of perennials or summer annuals. These are food plots designed to maintain whitetails and other wildlife on the property. This type of food plot is especially important during the spring and summer months when protein requirements for whitetails are at their peak.
The purpose of your food plot can be determined by a number of factors: the size of your property, lease restrictions, tillable soil, budget and the time you have to manage an area. If possible, the best advice would be a combination of both hunter and management plots on your property to ensure year around success.
Location of the food plot: Once we have a purpose for our food plot, we can begin with our next step of location, or where to plant our food plots. Where you plant your food plot is important, we want to pick a site location so that will get the most utilization by our deer herd. You can use computer topography software (Google Earth, for example) to locate possible bedding areas and travel corridors, these are natural land marks that can help determine the best site location for your food plots. In the pictures below are examples of good site locations for hunter plots (orange) and management plots (blue), including how we actually set this property up on the Nutri-Plot Test Farm:
Also, keep in mind the following strategies when picking a site location:
- Sunlight (4 to 5 hrs. of direct sunlight will allow us to grow just about any type of forage for wildlife)
- Soil condition (fertility, soil pH and drainage)
- Cover (if the plot’s purpose is for hunting, will whitetails feel secure using the area during daylight hours, if it’s a management plot security is not an issue, spring & summer deer will be nocturnal)
- Access (is the area easy to get to for equipment & management purposes for you, at the same time hidden from public access)
Size of your food plot: Most wildlife agencies or biologists will tell you to provide 5% of your total land mass to supplemental food plots. I like 8-10%, how many plots you have on your property or total land mass devoted to plots depends on agriculture in the area, deer population and what your management goals are. It really comes down to common sense, if year after year your plots are being demolished by deer and other game before they get the chance to produce or support the wildlife you intend to feed, increase the number of plots or make the existing plots bigger so that you provide adequate forage. Your natural browse could be inadequate, putting to much browsing pressure on your food plots. Food plots are just a piece of the puzzle to creating a whitetail paradise; giving your natural browse some management attention will go a long way in relieving browse pressure in our food plots. As we stated before in Hunter vs. Management Plots, leave small openings and areas for your hunter plots, we need large open field areas for management plots. If large open pasture or old fallow fields define your property, you can use crop barriers to provide cover (check out Forage Ultra seed blend, from NP Wildlife Products).
Knowing the exact size of your food plot is important, it’s often overlooked by most hunters. Not knowing the size of your food plot area can lead to failure before you even get started. Acquiring the correct size of your management area will determine how much seed, lime and fertilizer needed to apply for a successful growing season and will ensure we are not spending more input cost than needed. Here are a few equations for determining different plot sizes and shapes.
How to determine acreage of a square plot:
L x W / 43,560 ft² = acreage
56 x 3ft = 168 ft
134 x 3ft = 402 ft
168 x 402 = 67,536 ft
67,536 / 43,560 = 1.55 acres
How to determine acreage of an L shaped plot:
L x W (+ 2 sections) / 43,560 ft² = acreage
Divide the sections in two, measure each section, add the total square ft of the two sections and use the square equation:
46 x 3 = 138 ft 67 x 3 = 201 ft26 x 3 = 78 ft 26 x 3 = 78 ft
138 x 78 = 10,764 ft²
201 x 78 = 15,678 ft²
10,764 ft²
+15,678 ft²
26,442 ft²
26,442 ft²/ 43,560 =0.6 Acres
How to determine acreage of a circle plot:
Figure out the radius of the plot by measuring the length from one side to the other (diameter) in a couple of different areas for an average, then divide that value in half (radius). Once you have the radius use the following equation, we have determined that the radius is 54yds (162 ft):
¶ x r²
43,560 ft = acreage of a circle
(¶ = 3.14 x 162²) = 1.89
43,560
3.14 (162)(162) = 82,406.16 / 43,560 = 1.89 acres
How to determine the acreage of an irregular shaped plot:
Irregular shaped plots are easy to measure, simply establish an average for the width and length of the plot by measuring the longest points and use the square equation method.
L = 125 yds (375 ft)
W = 62 yds (186 ft)
L X W
43,560 = 1.6 acres
How to determine acreage of a triangle plot:
Field corners are excellent locations for food plots, especially if you have tree lines on both sides; this is where the deer would want to feed anyway. In order to know your acreage for a triangular shaped food plot, multiply ½ the base times the height and divide by 43,560 ft.
½ b = 48 yd / 2 = 24 yd x 3 ft = 72 ft
h = 84 yd x 3 ft = 252 ft
252 ft x 72 ft = 0.41 acres
43,560