East Texas Food Plot Questions

Hi Friends,

I am a total newbie when it comes to food plots and have a few questions for those of you guys that have some experience. Any help or being able to point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

The plot of land is located in southern Sabine County (East Texas). I was thinking two spots on the property for food plots - one area has a lot of sunlight and the other would be very limited sunlight. What takes best in those types of areas for whitetail? One big issue is I live in the DFW area, so it would have to be something that doesn't take very much maintenance. I have done some research online and can't find anything specific to East Texas pineywoods. Maybe some of you guys have experience in this area?

Thanks again for your help. I really appreciate it.

~Alan

Check the following and contact them:

https://easttexasseedcompany.com

I'm live in DFW but have a place several hours West.

For whitetail - I've been planting oats with great success. I use a seed drill, but know people who simply cast and then drag over and have had them grow. In fact, I spilled some oats near my barn area and I was surprised how many grew in the area I spilled the oats.

I planted in 3 areas. Most were in rather sunny areas, but one of the food plots had an area that was covered by shade. Oats grew up first in the shaded area - which I think is due to the soil holding moisture better there.

After planting, they are maintenance-free. They are fairly forgiving and the deer love them.

Awesome! Thanks for the info. I appreciate it!

Will do. Thank you!

Yep, oats and winter peas for food plots is all you need.

We added Crimson Clover this year to our oats and peas. It did really well and had more critters on camera.

Great. Thank you!

Thanks!

First off, this is east Texas so the soil will probably be pretty acidic- probably between a 5.8 and 6.5pH, so unless you lime it you will need something that will grow well in acidic soil. In the spring I have had good luck with Iron and Clay Cowpeas- that tolerate the crappy east Texas soil pretty well. In the fall, oats, winter wheat, and some kind of winter pea will work good. Turnips are also an option for the late fall. Word to the wise, getting the pH about 6.5 will save you money in seed and fertilizer in the long run. You probably don't have much in the way of equipment to do foodplots with, but even a tiller will be better than nothing in prepping the soil. You can probably go by a local feed store and get info on someone with a tractor that can do some work for you.

Hey Russ,

Thanks for the info. I was thinking the same -- get a tiller out there and prep the soil at a minimum. Working on getting a tractor out there (to re-cut an overgrown road that hasn't been driven on in 25 years...) and will take advantage of it for the food plot while it's there.

Thanks again. I appreciate it.

Be sure the tractor operator knows your plan so he can bring the right equipment for the job.
Oats work well here as does rye grass,if planted in late August to mid September,to give yourself a nice green deer attractor be sure to watch the weather and plant before a rain or front.I disk with a atv,but you don't have to turn the ground completely, for late and or the grass.Good luck please let us know how your plot turns out.

Btw a cheap soil test will save you lots of time and money it will tell you how much fertilizer and lime you'll need
To put down. before planting.

Several studies have shown that WT will walk around every thing else to get to fertilized oats for the hunting season & Iron & clay peas work great during the late spring thru early fall. The peas are drought resistant (good for use in ET) and deer will continue to feed on them even after a killing frost.

This is what Iron and Clay peas look like getting hammered by deer in east Texas

Nothing is going to grow if you don't get rain at the proper time- even Iron and Clay cowpeas. That is what I normally plant in the spring here in east Texas but the last time I planted them two years ago started good but ended bad. I try to plant early in April to take advantage of the spring rains. Two years ago I was actually throwing seed into water puddles from the rains we had gotten. Plants got up about four inches, got no more rain, and they burned up. This year I actually planted a mix, for a change of pace, but wasn't able to get the seed in the ground until the first part of May. They are up about 4 or 5 inches but once again we haven't had any rain in some time now and worried they won't make it much longer.

just another reason I don't mess with spring plots ... no matter what my timing is, it will hit a hot dry spell and they burn up, too many wasted years in my history for me to mess with them again in any of my areas I normally plant. I am interested to see how the large plot my son and I did back in April of peas NE from Fairfield as I believe they have had some pretty consistent rains over the past couple of months to keep them growing (hopefully)