

Seeding Food Plots

Once you have weeded several times or sprayed your seed beds with an appropriate herbicide, you need to prepare the bed for your Whitetail Institute seeds.

If you own, or can rent or borrow, a cultipacker, it will be very helpful at this time.  Before planting your seeds, cultipack the entire lot.  Get the plot bed firm and it will be best prepared for your seeds.

Depending on the size of your South Carolina hunting land food plots, you’ll need to decide what type of broadcaster you’ll need to use.  For smaller plots, an acre or less, a hand seeder is best.  This way you can pinpoint your seed dispersal more accurately and easily.  For larger food plots, you might want to use a pull-behind, ATV-mounted, or larger type of broadcaster to save time and work!

Finally, cultipack your food plot one more time for optimal results.

Spring is a great time to plant since there is generally a perfect amount of rainfall to get a new food plot established.  Getting lots of rain on your plot will prepare it for the dry summer.  Imperial Clover needs to root down well in order for it to be drought resistant.

These new crops will provide a huge amount of nutritious food for the deer on your South Carolina hunting property.  Particularly if there aren’t any food plots like these in the area, you’ll be surprised how many deer will migrate to your hunting land and depending on the quantities, stay there.  This is an excellent benefit of establishing food plots on your property several months prior to deer season.  It can also be very rewarding to watch them grow from the spring into the fall from your created food plots.  Put a Reconyx camera out on your hunting land and you can enjoy seeing them feed even when you can’t be out there in your stand.

Spring is arguably the best time to plant new food plots to get the most out of your money and work.  Careful preparation and timing are important factors to creating the best plot possible.  All of the effort and details needed to ensure the best crops possible will prove worth it once hunting season begins in the fall.  Quality food plots will provide excellent nutrition for your deer herd for several years.