By Glen Wunderlich Outdoor Columnist Member Professional Outdoor Media Association
Wildlife food plots are a great way to provide essential nutrients to deer and other animals throughout the year. The concept is a simple one: we feed the animals and they feed us. Our sites have a mix of perennial legume plants (clover and alfalfa) and annual plants, for which we are now preparing.
Already, the clover plots have been fertilized in the spring and have been mowed several times. It’s a beautiful, springtime sight to find the green plants emerging after a long and snowy winter. Deer no longer have the brassica roots to feed on, as they did all winter. Those that remain have rotted, and although their remnants will provide essential elements to the next season’s plants, they no longer have value as a food source. Ah, but the legumes are there for the taking.
However, since deer are browsers and not grazers, varied plant species are the best way to hold them on your site, while giving them a balanced diet. That’s why we have planted brassica mixes over the years alongside the perennial plots. Brassicas include members of the mustard family: radish, turnips, canola, kale, rape, rutabaga, etc. and when planted the first of August, can carry the deer through a harsh winter. The brassica plot also affords a hunter some hot late-season action, when cash crops have been harvested.
This season, I thought it would be worthwhile to mix in some soybeans into the brassica planting in a few weeks, so I picked up a 50-pound bag of RoundUp ready soybeans. Soybeans contain about 45 percent protein and can be broadcast with a hand spreader and pushed into the ground with a cultipacker, which is all the equipment we have. The idea is to have green, young, succulent forage leaves for browse instead of actual beans – all this, when spring-planted beans are turning brown.
When I began reading the label on the soybean bag, the precautions jumped out like utility pole to a drunk driver: this seed has been treated with seed protectants…Treated seeds exposed on soil surface may be hazardous to birds, fish, and other wildlife. Cover or collect spilled seeds. Forage may not be grazed for 30 days.
I don’t season my food with poison and I’m sure the wildlife wouldn’t eat it, if they knew better. I really didn’t want or require RoundUp ready beans, because I had no intention of spraying for weeds after germination. But, since the local elevator didn’t have any untreated soybean seed, I settled for the chemically altered variety – that is, until I became aware of the precautions. I returned the bag of soybeans and exchanged them for buckwheat.
Buckwheat is a good choice for weak soils; it will grow just about anywhere. It germinates fast and is a natural herbicide, which suppresses other plant growth and builds up poor soil by bringing up minerals from deep below the surface. And, deer love the stuff. One note of caution, however: it disappears when the first frost hits it. Therefore, it is only good for a very short period of time, if used as an attractant at a bow site. Typically, it is disked under and then replanted with other desirable food plot mixes which take advantage of the minerals brought up by the buckwheat plants. But, it sure is fun while it lasts.
We should be ready to plant the first of August, as long as neighbor, Bucky, is able to fashion some new maple wood bearings for the antique cultipacker we picked up last fall.
Food plots may require some cash and plenty of labor. But, they’re a labor of love that reaps their own rewards.
