New 06 Food plot

[HunterHads]

This spring I am planing on putting in a new food pot on the front of my property nothing big just a small powerline strip along my driveway. For about the past 5-6 years I have had Alfa-rack planted there and while it came up great the deer never seem to hit it much. So this year I am planing to put in something new but I would like to do something that is not common in the area. At first I was thinking of planting corn, but that would not do much for the deer until late summer early fall and I want something the deer can use all summer and fall. I am now thinking of trying pumpkins. From what I hear the deer love to eat the plants in the summer and in the fall you would have pumpkins. What do you think. I am also open to any more ideas. The plot is about 20 feet wide and 100 yards long.

[Ed Spin04]

HunterHads, 5-6 years for Alfa Rack is a normal lifetime of growth. You can get more life if you want and there is a way to do it. Spray with RR around the middle of May. Alfalfa does not regenerate new plants. It is self toxic and over seeding with more affalfa will not work. What you established in the beginning you will not have any more. But you can rejuvenate the existing plants with that RR spraying and I would suggest a few lbs of a clover mix plus one lb of chicory per acre as an overseeding the day of spraying. What do you have to lose, you were going to destroy the plot anyways and this just may work.

Deer like, (wrong love) alfalfa and Alfa Rack is the right kind of alfalfa, it is the grazing variety. Alfalfa is tricky in that it needs to be mowed for new, young, fresh. nutritious, palatable and succulent forage. You should mow it around the first of June for new growth timed with the birth of fawns. It should be mowed again around the first of August to have that great desirable forage available at the right condition for you the deer as an attractant for your hunting seasons. I repeat alfalfa needs to be mowed for new forage to grow.

Fertilize when you mow and ferilize again 100 lbs of urea around September 15th for an extra boost in desireablity.

[Liver and Onions]

I am not sure if this plot is near your hometown, but if it is you might want to think about delaying the first mowing to late June to let any pheasants complete their nesting. As Ed said, you must mow alfalfa to get new growth for the deer to eat. If you don't have a good way to mow the area you described, put in a smaller area and mow it with your lawnmower. From late April to mid-Oct. nothing beats alfalfa for attracting deer.
For the past 15-20 years I have been throwing out ours & neighbors Halloween pumpkins because some have said they have success in deer eating them. I don't think a one has ever been nibbled on. If others in your area have success with pumpkins, I am sure you will too. If you're not sure about others success, I wouldn't plant a lot of pumpkins. Deer love buck wheat and you can disk it down and plant rye in the fall if you have the equipment. Pheasants Forever has a good mix of corn, buckwheat, sorghum, & sunflowers that attracts a lot of birds if the deer don't eat most of it during the early stages of growth. Gives decent cover in the fall.

L & O

[HunterHads]

Thanks guys but maybe I should put down some more info. First off we have been planting food plots for 20+ years and have had some great success growing them. As for the AlfaRack I have been using the stuff since it came out and the first few years it worked well. However in the past 3-4 years the deer have kind of turned off of it and stopped eating it. Even in the summer when it is the greenest thing around. I have not seen a deer on it since 2003 so I am looking for a change. Also this is a plot in northen Michigan.

[Backwoods-Savage]

HunterHads: I've not heard of deer eating the pumpkin vines or leaves at all nor have they eaten any of ours through the years. However, they do eat the pumpkins, but not like they would eat apples or such. What we do is to take the pumpkins out and break them up. It sometimes takes a week or more before they will actually try them. Then they will eat on them but I certainly would not depend on them for food or bait. We just put out the ones we don't want; take them back to the woods and break them up and, yes, scatter them a bit. Turkeys sometimes will eat at them too.

[nessenswamper]

I wouldn't recommend pumpkins , every year we grow them in the garden,every year I throw the leftovers out for deer and they barely eat on them.

[marco]

Deer love the pumpkins we throw out for them. We have also discussed trying to plant them. I am curious if anybody has made a food plot out of them.

[plotmaster]

marco/Hunterhads,

I have planted pumpkins for deer in a food plot. This past year, in fact. The deer were initially attracted to the flowers and the soft vines. They didn't hit them too hard though. Maybe 10 plants out of 100-120 were eaten on. By the time the pumpkins were reaching maturity, the deer did chew a little on the outer shell of some and ate the insides of the rotten ones. I busted several more pumpkins, and the deer did eat them right up. By rifle season however, the deer seldom touched the pumpkins. We had an excellent year for apples, which might be why they were not hit hard. So....I find that it never hurts to have a variety of food for the deer, it seems to be a year to year change in what the deer prefer. I would personally stick with a buckwheat and corn planting in the spring and a rape/oats planting in the fall.

[November Sunrise]

What we do is to take the pumpkins out and break them up.

This past fall I hunted several hundred yards from a pumpkin field that the farmer disced around the 30th of October. The discing broke most of the pumpkins up. On Nov. 3rd-5th that field was hit HARD by deer - there was massive feeding activity in the field both morning and afternoon. For the rest of the fall I continued to do a lot of hunting on neighboring properties, but saw minimal feeding in the pumpkin field. The concentration of feeding in that field was only for a short number of days.

I wondered if maybe the pumpkins became more palatable for a short while once they were broke up AND once a good frost had hit. I know that I've read with other plants that they'll become more palatable to deer after a frost - maybe that's the case with pumpkins as well?