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An objective journey into the creation, maintenance and productivity of a whitetail food/kill plot |
| May 1st 2009 | July 10, 2009 |
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Long Term History of the Bowsite.com Food Plot
| Year | Overall Result | Commentary |
| 1998 | Good | New planting of Imperial Whitetail, did fairly well despite heavy grazing in summer and fall. No noticeable weed or grass intrusion. |
| 1999 | Excellent | Unbelievable second year results. The plot was as good as it could ever get. Deer really browsed it down in fall but held up well. |
| 2000 | Fair-Poor | Weed and grass growth took over plot. Imperial Clover all but gone. |
| 2001 | Poor | Had to plow under, installed Imperial whitetail again, but the weeds and grass took over quickly. Had to plow under in late summer and installed buck forage oats. Had marginal success with growth. |
| 2002 | No Plot | We decided to spend the entire spring/summer spraying roundup and killing existing vegetation. We planted peas in the fall but the deer over-browsed and killed it. |
| 2003 | Poor | We planted Imperial No-Plow. The Rape came up in abundance, but the deer never touched it during archery season. Our plot was a failure despite a successful growth of rape. |
| 2004 | Good | So far, plot is looking good. Heavy spring rains in the NE along with a new planting are showing positive results. Still some bare spots to overall progress is good. |
| 2005 | Good | Due to lack of utilization, we planted Tecomate Monster Mix in the Big Plot and Imperial Clover from Whitetail Institute on Small Plot |
| 2006 | Good | Big Plot (Monster Mix) came up great, moderate to low utilization, Imperial Plot highly utilized and healthy |
| 2007 | Fair | Big Plot (Monster Mix) still healthy and thick, still moderate to low utilization, Imperial Plot all but vanished, completely overtaken by weeds and grass |
| 2008 | Good | Big Plot (Monster Mix) remarkably healthy and thick - great action resulting in our largest kill on the property. Small food plot remained a disaster. |
*Your results may vary based on the size of your plot, annual rainfall, planting times, fertilizer choices, etc. This chart represents the results of the Bowsite.com Food Plot only as a reference to our experience. No Seed companies are Bowsite.com sponsors and all products were chosen and paid for by us.
Every summer we look forward to seeing our plot checkup. After killing our largest buck ever on the plot last fall we have a lot of enthusiasm for 2009. This year, we cleared additional land and doubled the size of our food plot. Results are Fantastic!
July 10th, 2009 Results |
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Big Plot - Growth is very good. The Monster mix has come up strong despite a small amount of grass mixed in. Great results. |
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Big Plot - Close-up - Growth is strong and healthy. |
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Small Plot - This plot has always been our problem area and this summer didn't change that fact. However, the imperial whitetail clover we planted last year has come up stronger than we expected and it was being heavily utilized like it has in the past. But as we pointed out before, Thistle has been invading this plot and spreading. While grass used to be our problem here, Thistle is now our problem.. |
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Small Plot - I had originally decided to plow this plot under and replant but we decided to give it a shot, liming and fertilizing, then mowing to control the thistle. |
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New Plot - Back in May we planted a brand new plot (consisting of a mixture of Tecomate Monster Mix and Imperial Whitetail Clover) after clearing trees and preparing new ground. The results were amazing! Top photo was taken in May, the bottom photo was taken during our July trip. click on photo to expand |
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New Plot Close Up - Both the Imperial and the Monster Mix is coming up very strong. We had a tremendous summer with above average rainfall and low temperatures which is perfect for these plots. |
| Summer Maintenance | |
The only thing we did given these results was to mow the plots to about 10" of plant height. This is important to control the weeds, and especially the thistle which is a growing concern on our smaller plot.
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