Any advice on what grows well in a west Texas food plot given our rain/soil conditions? I have done a soil test and know what I need to do. Have all equipment. Have a good plan, but am interested if there are any West Texas hunters that have recommendations on what grows best and draws deer the best in our specific area and understands our conditions are different than central/east Texas. Looking at one large 5ac plot and two smaller harvest plots. Thanks in advance!

I would think weat would be the best choice out there... bout all I see when I get past Georgetown headed out there

These folks are the gurus:

Turner Seed - Breckenridge

Dust

If the wind keeps up, we will have plenty of that dust crop to go around.

What he said

Don’t forget cactus

Rocks and mesquites do very well in this droughty times we are having the past few years. First off can you keep livestock off the plots? How many deer will have access to the plots? Do you have good tillage equipment to plow and get the planting done correctly to help increase success?

I have tractor, till, disc, sprayer, etc. Equipment not the problem. I will keep coed out with electric fence.

Deer from about 2500 acres will have access to it on about a 5000 acre ranch. It's all low fence so if I can keep it going I hope to draw more and hold more on my section.

And yes, mesquite and rocks grow very well here! And it don't know what you heard but the wind never blows here and there isn't any dust!

With a deer to 20 acres you will have 125 mouths at least pounding that small acreage as soon as it breaks the surface and grows. I did not even factor in jack rabbits.

We don't carry that many deer per acre. We may have half that many. Do you think that is too many?

You probably have 1 per about 50-60 acres. I'd try and get the plots as big as possible.

Plant wheat in mid September. Its your best bet. Don't even fool with a summer plot. You might get lucky and have a wet year, but chances are spring/summer plots will fail 9 times out of 10.

I'm in Montage County and they say that we have from 20 to 35 deer per section. I have no idea whether that is true. I plant 3 wheat plots. Altogether they cover about 6 or 7 acres. They eat it but really prefer natural browse like wild rye, acorns, and forbs over cereal grains. About 3 or 4 years ago we had a huge acorn crop and every feeder in Texas looked like a gold mine on the ground. They also ignored wheat that year..

Timing is totally dependent on rain. You need a minimum of 6 inches of moisture for the wheat to germinate and grow. Then start praying for more. I didn't get enough rain last year to plant before the 2nd week in October. It came up and has stayed alive but has never gotten over about 2 inches tall. I try to plant about 100 pounds per acre.

I've tried perennial rye but it is really expensive. I generally get about a 50% return so in a couple of years it is gone.

When I can get turnip seeds that coincide with my wheat planting I over seed with them. Deer and hogs love them and you will almost never see a turnip root. They just don't last long enough to make the tuber. I did it this year but an ices storm came along before the turnip had time to make a deep root and lost all of them. Due to the size of the seed, turnips have to be spread with a hand spreader while walking around. Or get somebody to drive a 4 wheeler while somebody else sits backwards and cranks madly.

Fertilizing is great and will suck in a lot of deer. They, like cattle, will walk over unfertilized plants to get to the nutritious stuff. The price of fertilizer has gone out of sight so I no longer do that. However, if you are on new ground, it may already be fertile and adding fertilizer can burn up the whole thing. That's a sickening feeling. Have the soil analyzed before you do anything. Liming is generally needed in East Texas but not always in West Texas. Send a soil sample to TAMU to get it analyzed.

Disk up the soil in advance so rain can get down deeper with less runoff. This really matters.

Rain, continuous rain, is the biggest factor of success.

These are my experience, on my land in Montague County, and your mileage may vary. I've been doing it for about 20 years.

++++++ on Turner. The deer have mowed down both my plots with Turner seed. Fixing to buy a bunch of grass seed from them.