How I feed deer throughout the season
I feed deer all season, from apples in September, through chestnuts varieties that drop at different times, to persimmons and crabapples.
Most guys who want to attract deer to their property think food plots. You know, clover, turnips, and annual stuff you replant every year.
I get it. That’s what the “Big Bucks” websites sell. Cover crop has its place in my plan, but it will freeze to the ground in that bow hunting prime time in October.
So I started looking at this differently after years of growing nut trees in Kansas and watching deer movement – especially when they go out of their way for that crabapple tree or persimmon on the other side of the pasture. The question isn’t just “what do deer eat?” It’s “when do they eat it?” Because a deer in September has different options than a deer in December. And a food plot that produces everything in October and nothing the rest of the season is basically a buffet that closes early.
What My Food Plots Actually Need to Do
In the Midwest (Kansas, Missouri, Iowa especially), our deer are mostly eating corn and soybeans. That’s how we get the monster deer that people come from out of state to hunt. Row crops are doing the heavy lifting from summer through harvest.
So my food plots aren’t trying to replace corn and beans. They need to do three things.
First, slow the deer down. When deer are moving between row crops and bedding areas, I want them to stop on my land and hang out. A chestnut tree dropping nuts along their path gives them a reason to pause and a reason to come back.
Second, provide variety. Corn and soybeans are carbohydrates and protein, but deer browse for variety the same way you’d get tired of eating the same two things every day. Nuts, fruit, and mast give them something different, and different is what pulls them off the neighbor’s property and onto mine.
Third (and this is the big one), feed them after the crops are gone. Harvest rolls through and suddenly those corn and bean fields are stubble. The deer are still here but the food is harder to work for. December rifle season is a completely different game than early bow season in late September and early October. If my food plot only produces when the crops are still standing, I’m competing with a combine. I need it to produce after harvest. I want to be the only restaurant still open.
Chestnuts Are Only One Course in the Meal
I love chestnuts. I grow them, I sell them, and I design orchards around them. Deer love them too. Deer will walk past acorns to get to chestnuts because chestnuts are less bitter. More bang for the buck. (ha!)
But chestnuts alone don’t cover the full season. I still need to keep deer coming around in rut in November and rifle season in December.
So I started thinking about it the way I think about an orchard design – not “what’s the best tree?” but “what is right for this land?”
I built this deer food matrix below because a picture is always better.
From apples and Chinese chestnuts in September to Crabapples in December, that’s four months of food if the right mix is in the ground.
I extend my season with chestnuts: Chinese hybrids dropping early season to the hybrids (the Dunstan-type) dropping late.
The Oak Question
Oaks are the default “plant trees for deer” recommendation, but oaks have problems that people don’t talk about enough.
Oaks take 10 years to bear nuts. Chestnuts can start in 3 to 5 years.
A white oak might throw a heavy mast crop one year and almost nothing the next. I can’t plan a reliable food source around a tree that takes every other year off.
Oaks belong in the mix. But they’re not the whole mix.
Now is the time for planning and planting
I designed the deer food plot matrix to get you started as fast as possible.
I can help you plan out your food plot, that works on your land, customized for your conditions.
Is your land ready to give deer a reason to hang around?
Buy Midwest Memory trees that will survive in Midwest Zones 5 -7, go to Grow Nut Trees.
