Food Plot Planner
Food Plot Planner
Most plots fail for one of three reasons: wrong pH, wrong timing, or seed buried too deep. Answer five questions and get a plan built around the week you actually want deer standing in it.
1. When do you want deer on this plot?
This is the whole question. A plot that peaks in October is useless to you in December.
2. Annual or perennial?
3. What can you get in there?
Be honest — this rules some seed in and out.
4. How much sun does the plot get?
5. Have you limed it?
Answer honestly. This changes the plan more than any other question.
6. How big is the plot?
In acres. A quarter acre is fine — type 0.25.
Your plot plan
Why plots fail
The pH, almost always
Soil under New England hardwoods runs around pH 4.5–5.2. Brassicas and clover want 6.0–7.0. At pH 5.0 a large share of the fertilizer you spread is chemically locked up and the plant simply cannot reach it. You are not under-fertilising — you are fertilising soil that cannot deliver. Lime is slow, so it is the first thing you should do and the last thing most people do.
Seed planted too deep
Brassica and clover seed is tiny. Quarter inch, maximum — and clover is happiest simply pressed into the surface. If you disc seed in like corn, it will never see daylight. When in doubt, broadcast and roll, do not bury.
Nitrogen on clover
Clover makes its own nitrogen. Spreading more does not help it — it feeds the grasses and weeds competing with it, and they will out-run the clover. A clover plot wants potassium and phosphorus, not a bag of triple-nineteen.
