Planting Food Plots for DeerPlanting food plots for deer does not require a lot of special equipment, especially with the seed blends that are available on the market today.With many of the no till blends, you can use a rake to scratch up the ground in small areas that are in secluded “out of the way” places.
When we planted our food plots, we bought a small 3 foot garden disc and attached it to the back of our 4-wheeler. We put cement blocks on it to help it dig in a bit better, as we were planting our plots on a hill and parts of the yard that had lots of grass on it. After the disc turned the ground fairly well, we then used a 4' x 4' home-made drag to level out the soil and pull out clumps of grass sod. This drag was a 4' x 4' piece of chain link fence. I attached a piece of pipe, although angle iron could be used, to the front and back with wire. I then attached a rope to the front, to attach the drag to the 4-wheeler or mower. A chain could be used instead of the rope. Cement blocks were wired to the drag to help with down pressure. Small logs would work well also.
This drag will also "rake up" the ground without using discs. You will just have to make many more trips with plenty of weight on the drag to get the ground plantable. We choose 2 different types of deer food plot seed and mixed them together. We then mixed the seed with sand, at a 2 to 1 sand to seed ratio, as sand helps it spread easier and more evenly. Using a hand held spreader, we applied the seed. After seeding, the soil was drug again to cover our seed. We had this project completed in just a few hours and were pleased with the results. As for seed choices, you can read about them in our other article and see the results of our food plots.
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