Food Plots for White-tailed Deer

Food plots may increase the value of hunting leases, make deer more visible for viewing opportunities, and improve the diet quality of deer. However, planting food plots is not a replacement for poor habitat management. Maintaining deer densities within the carrying capacity of the habitat, sound livestock grazing management, and maintaining quality habitat should be the first priorities of any management program. Perennials do not require planting every year, but they produce less forage than annuals. All food plots should be fenced from livestock and warm-season annual food plots should be protected from deer until they are established. To improve diet quality, a ranch should have one cool-season and one warm-season food plot per square mile. Plot size depends on the density of deer. The size and number of plots that can be established may be limited by lack of farmable soils. Rectangular-shaped plots are preferred to long, narrow plots. Food plots are the most productive if all woody plants inside the plots are removed. When planting legumes, care should be taken to inoculate them properly. In semiarid habitats, skip row planting may increase plant survival and reduce seed costs. taining 0.5% of an area in year-round agronomic food plots increased body mass, number of antler points, beam circumferences, and beam lengths of white-tailed deer. In Louisiana, yearling male whitetailed deer exhibited a 19% increase in live weights following establishment of cool-season food plots. Much interest exists among landowners in improving antler size of white-tailed deer. Genetic improvement of deer has received considerable popular interest, but nutrition is more important in free-ranging deer. Good nutrition is essential to produce large-bodied and large-antlered deer. Improving genetics through culling of “inferior” animals or introducing superior “breed bucks” will have little impact on free-ranging white-tailed deer populations on a practical time scale. Even if genetic improvement did impact free-ranging deer, habitat that provides high levels of nutrition is needed for deer to express their genetic potential. Unfortunately, nature does not consistently supply an optimally nutritious diet to deer. Nutritional quality and availability of forbs (broad-leaved weeds) and browse (shrub leaves and twigs) fluctuate seasonally, limiting availability of natural foods at certain times of the year. Deer prefer forbs over browse and generally consume little grass except when it is young, green, and succulent. During rainy winters and springs, forbs often are abundant, resulting in deer that are on a high nutritional plane. Most forbs grow best