Planting can be tricky in many ways. What do I plant? How do I plant it? Where do I need to plant? Will it grow under shady areas? How well dose it hold up in the early spring?
The first question I ask is what do you want out of your food source for your deer herd. Do you want to plant an Annual or a Perennial. There is a big difference between the two.
Annuals are plants that require only one growing season to complete their life cycle. This means that if you want them to keep growing then you must replant these forges each year. Some annuals can be encouraged to reseed themselves through proper management of the food plot. This management may include mowing, fertilizing, and disking, and will depending on the forage species you have planted. Annuals such as soy-beans, corn, rye, oats, and wheat will need to be planted each year for maximum growth.
Now Perennials on the other hand can be planted one time and may last from 3 to 5 years in a single planting. Most of these forges produce their own nitrogen from their roots. Things like clovers, alfalfa, chicory, and some vetches. These are all perennials. They do this by developing specialized root systems that allow them to regenerate from their roots after the leaves and stems of the plant die at the end of the growing season. The number of seasons you will get from a single planting depends of the specific forage species, how well you maintain the food plot, and the region you are in.
By far, the biggest benefit of planting perennial forages is that you can get more than one year of good forage production from a single planting. This will allow you to keep your seed and labor costs lower than required on annual plots, which must usually be disked and often replanted each year.
Most of the Perennial food plots will have to have plenty of moisture and some of these can be planted in an area where sun hit’s for only four hours a day. Annuals will need more sun light to produce the tonnage of food per the acre. You wouldn’t plant corn or soy-beans in a swamp.
Remember that you have two different types of annuals as well. The winter annuals are planted in the late summer and early fall. They will begin growing soon there after and go dormant in the winter and begin growing in early spring and die in mid summer.
Summer annuals are planted in early spring through early summer and will put on most of their forges in summer time and will die in early fall or early winter. This is where your grains such as beans and corn are here.
It is important to know whether the forages you are planting are annuals, or perennials. Most importantly, the life cycle of your forages determines how often you will have to replant them. There are also some situations when you might want to select to plant an annual forage instead of a perennial, and vise-versa. Also remember that the foods that you plant for you deer may even benefit your turkey as well. So the next time you decide to plant make sure your planting the right food source.