Ok guys, I am planning to plant some food plots this year and am looking for best seed to sow. I am wanting to do plant both warm season and cold season so hoping you guys have recommendations for both.

I was going to start by killing the grass and weeds that are currently where I plan to plant then till that up and so the new seed. All other tips and tricks are appreciated.

Check with East Texas Seed in Tyler, they can help you..

For fall I planted Bob Oats. I had sprayed and had ground worked and waited for the rain. Don't get in a hurry you'll need at least 2 good rain storms in one week. With it being warm and dry this past fall I didn't plant till the end of October.

How big an area are we talking and where are you planning on planting the plots (east tx vs south texas vs north texas vs west texas)? Does it have irrigation or is this just going to be rain giving the moisture?

Also, what type of equipment do you have, or have access to?

These questions need answered before any recommendations can really be given

I plant two fields, 10 acres and 5 acres, in Mills county and the deer absolutely hammer them. Just plain oats. I watch them come as much as 1200 yards from four of my neighbors' places. There isn't much green to eat in the winter so it's a huge attraction. You can also add clover and winter peas for a good mix (or buy a blend).

I plant sorghum hay in the summer for my own use so I don't have a suggestion for a warm-weather crop. I'm sure there are blends available from the deer-seed companies but they might be $.

Pick a legume with a cover like Milo or corn for spring/summer and forge oats and turnips for winter.

Don't worry much about what to plant when it never rains...
Adios,
Gary

I would pick out the varieties that are heat and drought tolerant, no need to waste time and money on the generic food plot blends that the feed store sell. Peredovich sunflowers, Iron and Clay peas or Sunn Hemp for summer, but you have to remember that by July your plots will be dried up unless you get a lot of rain, although I have had Sunn Hemp make it to the fall. For winter plots I use oats and purple top turnips or Daikon Radish, winter wheat seed costs a lot more than oat seed and Elbon rye is expensive then if there is no rain then you wasted money and time on expensive seed.

I really like Sunn Hemp and it holds up good to over grazing and heat but the seed is expensive. IC peas get eat off quick and seem to not recover unless there is significant rainfall. In the perfect summer plot the Iron and Clay peas will vine up on the sunflowers or Sunn Hemp and create a heck of a plot. Here is a picture of a two acre plot that was Peredovich sunflowers and IC peas, it was thick and all you could see was the deer heads in it in the evening time.

Call Turner Seed. They have all kinds of mixes for year round plots.

Half of what is in the food plot mixes will never germinate because they do not consider a specific area. I went down that road for several years, paying big money on blends that end up with very little germination. I did figure out what would grow in my area out of the several loads of 40.00 bag plot seed though and isolated it to those particular varieties.

Rougly 10 acres to plant and I am in the coleman/cross plains area. No irrigation so I would be relying on Mother nature (yes I know hit or miss). We have all tractor with disc, rake and spreader.

With that, you could do a soybean crop in the summer but might be better with some of the other summer crops detailed above. There are some pretty drought resistant varieties of soy but the moisture to get them started may not be there.

For winter, cant go wrong with oats, some radish/beets, and some clover mixed together. I get a mix from justin seed that comes from turner seed, a really good blend of a bunch of stuff that would do really well in that area too.

With that much space and that equipment, really the only limiting factor is water and your pocket book.

Turner seed knows what's best for every area in Texas.

I have dealt with Turner Seed for a very long time. They cannot predict rainfall or heat, you have to find what is best for your area . 19 years of planting food plots in south Texas.

There is a lot of knowledgeable people on here so I went out and found the "Turner Seed Company" .
I assume there was only one and it was near Breckinridge Texas. I sent in a request to see what type of
fall food plot mix they recommend for the Childress Texas area. I know rainfall and heat are always a guess
but felt that getting the right fall food plot mix would help my odds. I will see what they say and will see how things work
out next fall. Take care fellow THF hunters.

Have a great and safe 2025.

Yep, they cannot predict rainfall or heat or "army worms" who love to munch on new seedlings.

Turner and East Texas Seed are valued resources who know their business.

Planting East Texas for over 50 years.

Turner Seed. Talk to J Mercer. He knows what grows and where. Then start talking to God, cause if it don’t rain, it won’t grow.

Gary, I know what you mean about rain. It’s actually about getting mucho rain at the right time and then enough to keep it going.

I’ve planted wheat, rye and oats. They all work if you get enough rain to make fertilizer work. I experimented a couple of years ago by fertilizing 1/2 of a wheat patch. Deer walked over the non fertilized to get to the fertilized side.

Everyone,
Here is the response I got from Turner Seed Company. I hope this helps others.

Well unfortunately there aren’t any super drought tolerant fall planted items for the fall and winter seasons. It doesn’t really matter whether you are in Tyler, TX or Big Spring, TX we plant the same things in each place. But we do change the seeding rate / plant population in order to make them more drought tolerant when heading farther west. We only offer one deer food plot mix in the fall and that is our Fall Deer Mix
https://www.turnerseed.com/fall-deer-mix-461.html

It is recommended at 50 lbs per acre in central Texas. In Childress it may be a good idea to lower that rate to 35-40 lbs. and adjust from there.

Soil can be very different from one part of your place to another. The lower parts of mine are fertile as can be and the upper parts are sandy. Different types of trees and plants grow in the upper and lower parts. Do some soil samples.

Lower part of mine…..

I have been planting a little over 10 acres for the last 30 years. Have planted every mix available along with oats and wheat. I have come to the conclusion for my area, and me, simple mix of oats and wheat, at about 90 lbs. to the acre and I put about 200 pounds of a good fertilizer to the acre, is hard to beat. I also graze my cows from December on.

That is the same for me but I use oats and purple top turnips at the same rate as you. I paid 22.00 a bag for seed oats from Lyssy and Eckel in Poth back in October and got the turnip seed from King seed in San Antone. I put down 200 lbs of 28-6-8 per acre in early November, slung the seed and made one pass with my disc. I did not drag my grain drill out this fall just used the broadcaster on my tractor. I have gotten 1.75 inches of rain since I planted, my plots are green but really need rain.

I never planted last spring as it was so dry, but I kept my plots shredded about 8" high and had deer browsing in it all summer. It was mostly Johnson grass.

Having shopped Turner and ETS in the past, their fall mixtures are fairly identical. They are both geared towards sandy soil that are more tolerant of lower PH soils. Both companies have extremely knowledgeable folks. ETS is my go to, just because they are 1.5hrs down the road. Too convenient to swing by and grab what I need rather than drive elsewhere. Their fall mix has a good variety and will provide a viable food source of vetch, different varieties of clover, peas, oats, rye, turnips into early summer, if I let them run wild. Sometimes I get a wild hair and do a throw and mow with IC cowpeas. Sometimes I will let the fall plots go to seed and leave all the biomass in the field. Makes it a pain to disk the following fall though.