Decided to put in two food plots this year. Started in spring and planted a little over 1 1/4 acres worth of soy beans and cowpeas. Sprouted great after the first week. It had me dreaming of fields of beans standing 4 feet tall. Came out two weeks later, hoping to see significant growth. Literally every plant was eaten down, looked like someone came thru and mowed all the growth down to an inch. Needless to say nothing came of those plots during the spring and summer.

Take two, fall food plot attempt. Watched the weather forecast in early September. Chance of rain greater than 60% for a few days. Hauled up to the property, tilled and sowed winter forage seeds.

Surprise surprise, not a single drop and none forecasted for another 2-3 weeks, mid to late October. So probably close to 6-8 weeks with seeds in the ground and no moisture to speak of.

Question?
Option 1: Attempt to irrigate, transfer and pump 350 gallons or more of water at a time each weekend until rain. This will be a pain in the @$$ the tote takes at least 45 minutes to fill from the well. And too far to run an irrigation line.
Option 2: Replant when forecast has better chance of rain. But it seems it'll be too late in the season, or not?
Option 3: Leave it, it'll grow when the rains come. Leaning towards this and starting a new next season.

And this was the first season to attempt a food plot, so still learning.

Food plots flourish when you don't really need them and visa versa.

We have planted cereal grains as late as mid November with success so definitely won't be too late.

With warm season plots, you are fighting a lot of elements (drought, deer browse pressure, hogs will eat beans and cowpeas in the ground) and to Hud's point, the majority of the warm season the deer have ample forage. If you want a warm season plot, I would do grain sorghum. The deer won't eat it until the heads are at dough stage and it is more drought proof than many other plants. The heads will mature in August/September when the habitat can be lacking quality forage if it is dry like this year and will last as long as the deer let it or until you want to seed in your winter crop. Helps the birds out too.

You planted way too early for fall IMO. If the plot had come up it prob would have been decimated by army worms. With a small plot and hungry deer you will have to put up an electric fence to give the plot time to grow and get established or they will eat it to the dirt in no time.

Don’t feel too bad, I wouldn’t make a pimple on a farmer’s [censored].

Not trying to burst your bubble on Irrigation, but a 350 gallon tote on 1.25 acres isn’t going to do much at all. It takes a little over 27,000 gallons of water to equal one inch of rain on an acre of land. It wouldn’t be very practical at all with a tote that size.

Thanks for the suggestions and the humor. Didn’t think the toting the tote 100 times would be feasible.

The seeds in the ground will be fine and come up when they get rain. Planting around the 1st of October has always
been good for me. It's late enough that you don't have to worry about Army worms but still early enough to have a
good plot by opening weekend.
And I laughed when you said you were thinking about toting water. That would be a 24/7 job. Easier just to pray for rain.

Option 4 : Free choice protein feeder, quality deer protein pellets, feed pen around feeding area.
Drought proof.
Consistent feed source.
Concentrates deer in smaller area, perfect for game cam set up. More and better pics to assess deer population on property.

I've been feeding protein and corn all year. But hunting with family in Alabama, I was always impressed with the food plots and just thought that would be awesome to have one on my place. But a farmer I am not.

I’m in Foard County which has been hit pretty hard by the drought. I also planted my food plots this year anticipating rain which was listed as 80% but it never came.
Over the last 5 years I planted my food plots around Labor Day. In 4 of the 5 years we didn’t get rain until early to mid October. The plots came up great after the rain. They continued to thrive with periodic rainfall,
Last year I couldn’t plant until late September. We got a substantial rain 2 days later. The wheat, oats and peas sprouted and were growing great. The problem came when we didn’t get any more rain for more than a month. The plants dried up and turned brown. We got another rain a month and a half later and everything greened up again, then no more rain. The freeze came and 3/4 of my plots were gone.
The wheat farmer who’s land borders mine had the same problem. He ended up plowing more than 400 acres of his field over this early spring because there was very little to harvest.
The bottom line is, If they get enough water throughout the growing process, your plots will grow.

We used to plant right before Labor Day; the last 15 years or so, that would have resulted in nothing but failure. We started waiting until the last 10 days of September or even later. This year, the forecast is dry, dry, dry. I am likely going to plant 15 acres any way, but it won't be until this weekend, and likely the next before I do so. At this point I give it about a 40% chance of doing anything. La Nina is supposed to continue until the spring. Last year, planted on October 9th, a timely rain brought it up but the deer kept it flat all winter. Mills county

Growing Deer TV is one of the best YouTube channels I've seen for educational/informational videos on food plots:

https://www.youtube.com/c/GrowingDeerTV

Also, you will likely need to implement some sort of electric fence to prevent young plants from being eaten. The Gallagher Fence pioneered this concept:

https://valleyfarmsupply.store/coll.../products/gallagher-1-acre-food-plot-kit

as others have stated, I would just wait for rain ... about 10 or so years ago, I got everything prepped and planted mid Sept. but didn't start getting any rains until mid/late November, by mid December, my plots looked great. Other times I have planted mid Sept. thinking a good wet front was pushing thru but only got about 1/4 inch and then weeks of no more, the plots came up but quickly died.

I pretty much agree with MrT.
Outa Throckmorton, for a dozen years, we planted about 10 to 12 plots about 5 ac each. They always came up enough for deer, which isnt much. Sometimes timely rain and sometimes not. As others have said, it may come up good but it needs more rain periodically to keep going. Deer like the new stuff and not the older stuff. We would plant from mid to late Sept or very early Oct. Im no farmer at all but as some have said and I have always heard, that too early can be issues with Army worms. There is no "too late" from what I know(planting or replanting) unless its too late to hunt. Folks at Turner Seed in Breckenridge (I assume other feed stores) are very helpful with advice.
Also, my new lease in SE Okla, the landowner plants similar plots to my other example, along with an 80 ac field. All wheat and always has come up. Timely rain is great, but it seems to work out if not. For some reason he planted earlier this year(Sept 8) and no rain since then or in the forecast, so we may test the theory this year..... Once again, no farmer here, so take it for what its worth.

I jist put my seed i. Last weekend, woth no chance for rain in a couple weeks. I have no worries the seed will germinate when it gets rain, and wondering if enough dew will allow some of it to sprout.

I think of fall food plots as a little extra nutrition in the winter when everything else is dead. Nothing more, nothing less. We will get some rain between now and November into february. .

Wait till a rain in October and it is cold. Plant wheat; it’s cheaper.

My 40 acre field is turned and waiting for forecasted rain. I'll plant wheat a couple of days before it's forecasted.

Nothing is cheap this year! Wheat was $17.50 a 50lb. bag, Oats were $22 at the Co-op.
Peas had the smallest increase at just $2 a bag more than last year’s price.

I prefer to wait for rain to give me plenty of sub soil moisture prior to putting seeds under ground. However, I break it up in advance so rain can penetrate deeper. I have had some rains earlier this year but no good one soaking ones recently enough for successful germination.

Due to having way too many hogs, I haven’t planted in several years. They pretty well destroyed the last one I did.

We plant 11 acres total in 3 different fields each year in oats. We've tried seed blends and nothing else seems to make it but the oats (or if it does the deer mow it down), we've tried several different types of peas and most came up about 8", turned yellow and died. I think our pH is too high runs about 8. With a small pot about an acre without some way to protect peas, even if you did get good rain the deer would decimate the crop before it ever put on peas. You would need a large plot without any protection for peas to ever make in most areas of the state. We put out exclusion cages on our 3 plots and its always eye opening to see the difference in the oats inside vs the oats outside the cage. Some years the oats inside the cage could be over foot to a foot and a half tall while outside is 2"-3", and that's in a 6-acre field.

I attempted to establish plots for about 5 years at my place in Dickens. Needless to say my dreams of being a farmers had turned to nightmares!!!! Only once did I a get reasonable result. All other attempts were crashed as a result of inadequate rain,

Tried wheat milo commercial mixes to no avail!!!

I certainly have the greatest respect for anyone who succeeds!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, it's all about watching the forecast and being ready to plant at just the right time. I can remember one October when I got soaking wet on the tractor driving back in a driving rainstorm after finishing up planting. Planting and then hoping for rain will leave you disappointed most of the time.

While the window between Labor Day and October 1st is my target window for planting, I've planted as late as the week before the start of the general season when the conditions were not right earlier. Nothing is usually lost since food plots often become hotspots later in the season when all the acorns are gone and frosts have taken down much of the natural browse. This is also a good time to "sweeten" your plots by scattering corn near the spots where deer prefer to enter them.

You maybe planting it to deep and or early deer grazing or worms is knocking it out before it gets established.

You may try deep plowing in summer so it collects and retains moisture better then non-till or drop seeding it in

No it’s not. That’s how you end up not planting it or it’s to wet to plant.

The wheat belt of North America has extremely low moisture from Oct-Jan. It’s about soil moisture retention. You don’t need a ton of moisture for wheat. My place averages 15” total a rain a year with majority of that March -July

Waiting to plant until it rains is mot sound advice. I’d be more worried about army worms on small plantings then moisture. I’d plant now until mid oct, which would alleviate worm issues assuming our first frost isn’t Jan this year

You can’t control the weather. It can’t grow if it’s not in the ground.