This year was by far our most successful year in food plotting. Not only did we have lush productive plots, but my fiance and I were able to harvest animals off our property that were being attracted by them. My fiance was able to fill a doe tag and I harvested my first elk, a huge cow, right as she was walking out of our food plot. It was an amazing experience and it feels so cool that we can attract and harvest game from our own property. This year was a huge success and a milestone for the game management on our property.
My last update was at the end of spring last year and at that point we had just started to see some good growth from our newly planted summer annual plots. Because of our relatively wet spring last year, I was able to plant a warm season annual mix into our main food plot. It is split into two parts. On one side it had an annual cool season mix planted on it in the fall of 2021 and grew through the spring of last year. In June, we broadcasted our summer annual mix into the standing vegetation and then crimped it down onto the new seed. Because of crimping too early, however, a lot of the rye in this plot stood back up and/or regrew new flowering stems from its roots and competed with the newly planted summer annual mix. Because of this the mix did fairly poorly, but had some growth and provided a decent amount of food for the wildlife.
The other side that was newly established last spring with the black tarp method did very well. Early on, every species sprouted and started growing. As time passed and the deer found the most palatable species, including soybeans, sunflowers, buckwheat and safflowers, they were almost completely wiped out, leaving only millet and a few sorghum plants. But, wow, did the millet thrive! Even though we got practically no rain from July through mid-September, which is normal in our climate, the millet, which was mostly german and white wonder varieties, was still able to grow and produce a lot of seed. Because the actual grass leaves are fairly unpalatable to deer, the millet and sorghum were largely avoided while everything else was eaten to the ground.
Even though this meant it was not providing a lot of food during most of the summer, after the seed ripened in early fall, it started attracting a lot of game birds such as turkey, chukar and quail. Once winter hit, it was also getting heavily used by deer and elk. And that's how we filled our tags from the attraction of the millet. Also, the other side of the food plot was somewhat of an attraction as well, because when I had failed to terminate the rye in the spring, it grew back and ended up reseeding itself. When the fall rains started, we had new rye seedlings growing as well. I didn't even have to plant them. It was pretty cool to see such a success despite all of my mistakes and the harsh conditions of our climate.
Going into the winter, we had one side with mostly dead standing millet that still had a lot of seed available to wildlife. On the other side we had mostly rye, but also some clovers, camelina and vetch that reseeded itself from the previous year's cool season mix. I am expecting this mix to do well through late spring.
For the first time in a few years, I decided not to plant a new cool season mix anywhere on the property this past fall. My main line of reasoning for this was I wanted to see what would naturally reseed itself from the previous year's planting. For example, on the roadside plot where I have been trying to reduce the invasive star thistle plants, I have been able to see a good amount of regenerating rye reseeding itself. I suspect we will get some other cool season annuals reseeding themselves also.
Despite my huge success with these annual plots, going forward, I'd like to start focusing more on perennial plants. This is because, ideally, I'd like to create food plots that are largely self sustaining. That means buying and planting seed one time and then maintaining what grows for multiple years. It's really great that many of the cool season annuals are self-seeding. However, I suspect that over time, if I didn't plant anything new in these plots, then weeds, especially perennial grasses and forbs, would slowly take over.
Ultimately I need more permanent root structures in the ground to prevent perennial weeds from creeping in. I will likely still overseed reseeding annuals into some perennial plots in the future, such as using cool season annuals like rye in warm season perennial plots a la "pasture-cropping". However, I believe perennial plots should be the staple of my food plot management moving forward due to their ability to resist weeds and sustain themselves in harsh conditions.
This spring, I'm planning on turning both sides of my main food plot area into a diverse perennial plot using species like cicer milkvetch, small burnet, chicory, blue flax, alfalfa and kura clover. This means I will need to successfully terminate the rye to prevent re-seeding so that it doesn't outcompete my new planting of perennials.
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I'm also planning on tarping a new area of perennial grass to expand my plot, but I will likely not be able to plant it until the following spring. This will be where I will plant my "pasture-food plotting" mix. This is a project I'm really looking forward to.
Lastly, I am planning on creating some mini single-species test plots this spring to test out native wildflowers that I could use to create a pollinator friendly native food plot mix. This is something I've been researching a lot lately. There will be a lot of work this upcoming growing season and I'm super excited to see if I can hone in on the ideal food plot recipes for creating amazing wild game habitat on my property.
