NO Till Food Plots For Deer - Whitetail Obsession Outdoors

So there is a new buzz going around and that is no till food plots. Also known as no plow food plots. I’m sure you have heard of them. I actually made a video about them 3 years ago or so which i think it has about 100,000 views on youtube.

No plow food plots isn’t really anything new to be honest. There is a lot of buck on the bag seed companies that put on the bag no plow or no till seed mix. Its just like anything else, you get out of it what you put into it. Years ago i sorta did it this way because it was cheap. Surely no plow or no disc food plots has a place but they often require you to use a lot of chemicals and that i’m not a fan off. I wont make this whole blog about the use of chemicals that can be left up to you weather you want to use them or not…

What i will provide is a way to use less or no chemicals at all. There is absolutely a way around it and it starts in the spring! I will start out by saying working the ground is not a broken system. Farmers have been doing it before we were even around. For us food plotters i believe the image we see is that a food plot has to look like a picture on a post card and that is simply not true. Deer do not i repeat do not care what a food plot looks like. As long as its palatable they will eat it.

Sure we want it to look good just because we put pride into as well as time any money. We spend money on seed and fertilizer and we don’t want all weeds to overtake the plot. Most of us go to the local store and buy a bag of buck on the bag seed and throw it out on the ground and hope for the best. Then you have the folks that put some TLC into it and get soil samples and do it the proper way. HIGH FIVE TO YOU.

We can get money back but we cant get time back. Id rather not waste both to be honest which is why i try to do things the proper way.

So how do we plant food plots with no chemicals? simple. We work the ground like farmers do and sling some seed. Sorta?

Clearing a food plot in the woods. we used nothing but hand tools and zero chemicals.

Here is the after picture of the food plot in the woods.

Step 1. The prep starts in the spring. There is no need for chemicals. Take whats there and just disc it in. Obviously you need to take soil samples and correct it with lime and fertilizer. But pick a area that gets enough sunlight and that you can get in and out of without spooking deer. Work that soil up when its not to wet. What this will do is create green manure “compost” do not spray it with chemicals.

Wait a few week 2-3 and disc again. What we are doing is purging. Bringing old weed seeds to the surface and allowing them to germinate and then letting the sun bake them and kill them. You can do this maybe 1-3 times.

Step 2. Next step is to spread your fertilizer and work that in only after you are done the purging process. Once you work that fertilizer in and you go ahead and spread the seed whatever it is you are planting. Use a little more seed then the recommend rate. You don’t want to much but just some. We are compensating for birds eating the seeds, turkeys and some that do not germinate. We are also trying to choke out any weeds that may come back. I cant tell you how many times i see people plant a food plot with the recommended rate and they are left with a million bare spots.

wait until rain is in the Forecast and let mother nature do its thing.

Step 3. Let it grow! Now with this method i am referring to planting annuals. If you are planting perennials such as clover then that’s a slightly different method. I am talking about planting things like annual clovers, buck wheat “which i love” Beans, Cow peas etc.

Step 4. Hopefully by mid to late summer you are not left with bare ground from having a large deer herd lol. But that goes back to the planning stages and sizing the food plot correctly. Now my favorite thing to plant in the late spring is buck wheat. Its high in moisture content and good for the soil. It can also provide deer with a good amount of protein. But we can monitor it here over the summer. Buck wheat grows pretty quick and matures in about 65 days. Depending in what state you are in you can get away with 2-3 plantings a year before planting a fall crop.

Step 5. when its time to plant the fall crop some where about the end of July to mid August. DO NOT USE CHEMICALS. That whole thing is strange to me. We plant a spring summer crop just to kill it with chemicals. WEIRD! Anyhow take whats there and disc it in. Buck wheat is very good for the soil and will help to improve it over time. Again we are creating green manure and “compost” we are letting the plants decompose naturally as nature intended. You could even spread some fertilizer first before you disc if you wanted.

working the fertilizer in will help prevent run off into the water ways. Run off means you are loosing money when it was intended to help the plants. So be sure to work that fertilizer in.

Step 6. Go ahead and put out your seed and drag it or roll it however you like to do it. Again when spreading seed you want to over seed a little. Don’t go crazy with brassicas as they shade things out already. I still add a little more when planting them. Keep in mind the more brassicas you plant the less bulbs you will get. Less seed equals larger bulbs. there is give and take here.

But again we are shading out any weeds that may grow back. Some mixed that i like are a mix of brassicas and winter wheat. Winter wheat and oats. Winter peas are good as well.

This is it guys. You might be thinking wow this is easy and it truly is. The overuse of chemicals are not needed. Again the idea of planting something just to kill it with chemicals is crazy. Let those plants break down naturally. Now i do not want this to turn into a argument about the use of gly. We could argue about that all day. Weather its good or bad to use etc etc etc. This is for people that don’t want to use chemicals and maybe even help some other folks.

I am not against chemicals. There a time a place for everything just like no till planters and such. Everything has a purpose. But we are food plotting for deer here it doesn’t have to be rocket science.

Below is a Video link to Our youtube channel that you can watch about creating chemical free food plots.

How To Create HERBICIDE FREE Deer Food Plots. Creating herbicide free food plots is easy. Set yourself up in the spring and summer by planting Buck wheat and clovers and such. Disc that back in when you are ready to plant fall plots using it for green manure.

Here is another video on how we planted our fall food plots.

planting Fall Food Plots With ATV 2019 | Firminator G3. We started planting fall food plots with the atv model firminator G3. We planted a mix of winter wheat, oats, Brassicas, winter peas and some clovers. Planting food plots can be done easily with hand tools, atv, drags etc.