Bill,

Food plot crops are kind of like hunting grizzlies with a partner.  To be safe, you don’t have to out run the grizzly, you just have to out run your partner.  Often, it’s not what the best food plot crop is, but what the best in your neighborhood is.  If predator pressure, etc., is equal then deer will feed at the best food source within their home range.  I assume the peas were planted for a summer attractant and to supply nutrition?  If that’s the case, I prefer Roundup Ready forage soybeans as it’s much easier to control weeds.  Eagle Seed forage soybeans have been proven in several university tests to produce the most tons of high quality forage compared to any other variety of forage they’ve been tested against.

Oats are used by deer during the fall/late winter period.  Once the oat plant matures past the forage stage and begins developing a stem, it is rarely consumed by deer.  Then, once a seed head is produced deer will consume the seed.  This interval period is taking up a lot of real estate and resources (moisture, fertilizer, space, etc.) for not that large of yield.

By comparison, soybeans provide quality forage throughout the entire growing season and then can provide 30-70 bushels of extremely high quality grain during the winter.  I’m not aware of any other crop that can provide this much quality food during both the warm and cold season.

With that said, if you and your father are pleased with the results, then don’t change your program.  If you are not, then don’t do the same thing and expect different results.

Growing Deer together,

Grant