Planting Rate for Oats and Clover Food Plots
Filed under: Ask Grant, Food Plots
I plan on establishing clover in some of my smaller plots (less than an acre) and along logging roads. I planned on using forage oats and clover. What rate of seed per acre would you recommend on oats and clover? I want the oats to serve as a nurse crop and food attractant for deer this fall. Late August or early September is my projected planting date for southern Virginia.
Reggie
Reggie,
I like to plant oats or wheat (small grain crops) as soon as there is ample soil moisture for forage production, after August 15 in your neighborhood. This allows the crop to make more tillers (leaves) and a larger root system. In addition, early planting allows oats/wheat to capture any nitrogen produced by previous crops, such as soybeans, or nitrogen left over from previous fertilizer applications. Later plantings allow some of this nitrogen to volatilize or leach too deep for wheat seedlings to recover.
I have more experience with wheat. When planting wheat for forage production, I plant it heavier than most recommendations that are geared toward establishing wheat to produce a grain harvest. I usually recommend planting 200 pounds per acre when broadcasting and 125-150 pounds per acre when using a no-till or conventional drill. This heavier seeding rate allows more leaves to be produced per acre during the fall and early spring. However, the plant count per acre would be too high (too much competition) if the mission is to produce grain.
There are gads of clover varieties and the number of seeds per pound varies significantly. Therefore, my recommendation for clover seeding rates is too generic to be of value to you.
Growing Deer together,
Grant
