Food Plots

I was wondering what works well down here in Texas for food plots? My hunting ground is in Grayson & Fannin Counties. Where I lived before moving down here we would put clover, chicory, & alfalfa in the spring and then a smaller Brassica/turnip plot in the fall. I wasn't sure if that would work down here or even when I should start planting them for next year.

Thanks

Are Grayson and Fannin counties not in Texas?

I would say Oats and wheat are big staples. We plant oats and turnips in south texas.

Yes they are in Texas just north of DFW area. I just thought there maybe a difference on what I plant from other parts of Texas.

I have used oats for decades but the past 10 or so years, I started playing around with various other seeds and blends. My properties are all in central Texas (Burnet, Lampasas, Williamson, Llano counties). The majority of my blend is still oats mainly due to the price but also have chirory, clover, blackeyed peas (or field peas), clover, turnip, wheat for fall food plots ... and I usually save the seeds out of pumpkins carved at Halloween for the following year late spring planting. Deer eat the crud out of the blooms.

on a previous property that was under wildlife improvement, there was about a 20-25 acre field that I had to plant in strips with a 7 year rotation (3-4 acres each year). This is where I started playing around with the different varieties, the blackeyed or field peas seemed to be by far the favorite until first frost. On several occassions I was late and my feed store was out of those seeds, so I merely went to HEB and bought a couple bags of blackeyed peas (like for cooking) and put those out. They came up really good but was quite a bit higher price per pound that the bulk from a feed store of the field peas.

Oats and Austrian winter peas. Plant them mixed together or the deer will eat your peas down so much that they stop growing.

You can still plant a dryland type alfalfa if you want to try for a few year stand. 80% oats,20% Wheat and you're GTG. You can add anything you want after that since both are great "nurse" crops/ Common here is adding clay peas and most feed/seed supplies will have them.

I use the above ratio (and follow my fertilizer recommendations from a soil sample) then add a bag or 2 of the wildlife blend from MBS Seed out of Denton TX. They have a good supply chain and sale seed grown in our country, for N Texas.

http://www.mbsseed.com/

For best growth, you may have to plant in stages, large seed first, then broadcast small seed on top and drag/roll, this will get the depth best, one of the biggest reason for poor growth or failure (planting depth)

When are you guys planting your Oats and Wheat? Is it in the fall or Spring?

Fall, usually around 1st of Sept or so in N Texas. They will generally grow through late Spring, hard freeze and the Wheat may be the only thing that survives, but I have never lost my Oats in 30 years that I recall.

Summer plots are bit trickier IMO, all hinges on moisture and what the land make-up you have is (bottoml-and ect tra)

We usually get a rain the 1st week of September. I've heard/found that with oats, you can dust it in and wait for a rain, but with wheat it's better to plant on moisture. We use ours for livestock graze and typically it's strictly oats-we usually plan prior to Labor day. Oats will freeze out easier than wheat but it's rare, and I think deer like it better.