Do I Allow Wheat to Mature?
Filed under: Ask Grant, Food Plots
Grant, Do you use winter wheat as just a green fall and spring crop or do you let it mature and develop seed heads for the deer to eat? I have several acres of beans, corn, and clover but at this time of year and the first few weeks of archery season the deer love these seed heads and choose it over everything else. James
James,
If you have enough food plot real estate to provide ample quality forage for the local herd elsewhere while the wheat is between the forage and seed stage, then leaving it standing is a good plan.
Deer rarely consume wheat after it matures to the stem stage and before the seeds are produced. Given this and the limited amount of food plot acreage I have, I need to kill the wheat once it matures past the forage stage and plant a crop like soybeans that will provide forage through the early antler and fawn growing months.
Growing Deer together,
Grant
