Best summer food plot for deer: species, timing, and setup

Last updated 2026-07-24

What is a food plot, exactly?

A food plot is a planted area, usually somewhere between a quarter acre and a few acres, put in specifically to grow forage that deer (and often turkey, rabbits, and other wildlife) will eat. It's not a lawn and it's not a crop field meant for harvest by the landowner. The whole point is standing forage or grain left for animals to browse in place. Most hunting-property plots fall into one of two seasonal buckets: warm-season (summer) plots planted after the last frost, and cool-season (fall/winter) plots planted in late summer for fall germination. Summer plots are built around legumes and warm-season annuals that can take heat and drought. Fall plots lean on brassicas and cereal grains that thrive in cooler soil. State wildlife agencies regulate what you can plant and how you can hunt over it. Some states treat food plots differently from bait piles under their baiting and feeding statutes, but the line varies a lot. Check your state wildlife agency's baiting and feeding regulations before you plant anything you plan to hunt over, especially in states like Michigan or Wisconsin that have had CWD-related feeding bans in specific counties ^{[1] [2]}.

When to plant food plots for deer?

Timing splits into two windows almost everywhere in the whitetail's range: a spring/summer warm-season window and a late-summer cool-season window. Summer annual legumes (soybeans, cowpeas, lablab) go in after your last expected frost date, when soil temperatures are reliably above 60-65°F. In the Midwest and Upper South that's roughly early May to mid-June. In the Deep South it can be as early as April. In the northern tier (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine) you're often looking at late May into June. Cool-season plots (clover, brassicas, cereal grains) get planted 60-90 days before your average first fall frost, which for most of the whitetail range falls between late July and early September. Planting too early in that window means brassicas can bolt or get hammered by heat stress before they bulk up; too late and they don't have enough growing season left to produce tonnage before a hard freeze. Your state land-grant extension service publishes frost date and planting window data specific to your county, and that's a better source than any generic calendar, including this one ^[3]. Purdue's Forestry and Natural Resources extension, for example, recommends spring legume plantings in Indiana be timed to soil temps consistently above 65°F for reliable soybean and cowpea germination ^[4].

What's the best summer food plot for deer overall?

For most hunters on typical Midwest to Southeast soils, a forage soybean blend or a cowpea/lablab/sunn hemp mix is the best all-around summer plot. Forage soybeans (different from grain soybeans, bred for more leaf tonnage and better regrowth after browsing) produce huge amounts of protein-rich forage through the hottest months and are a legume, meaning they fix nitrogen and improve your soil as they grow. The tradeoff: soybeans are extremely palatable, which is great until you have too many deer and not enough acres. A half-acre soybean plot on a high-density deer property can get grazed to the dirt by July, producing nothing. That's the single most common summer plot failure people report, and it's not a seed problem, it's an acreage-to-deer-density mismatch. Cowpeas (a.k.a. field peas) and lablab are more drought-tolerant and, in a lot of trials, hold up to grazing pressure a little better than straight soybeans because of how they branch and regrow from the crown. Blending 2-3 species (soybean + cowpea + a small amount of grain sorghum or sunflower as a nurse crop) spreads out your risk if one component gets wiped out early. If you're working with a smaller property (under 3-5 acres of plot capacity) and heavy deer pressure, consider planting more acres in a tougher, less-preferred species like grain sorghum or a sorghum-sudangrass mix as a buffer around a smaller core of soybeans, so the beans aren't the only green thing available.

Do deer eat sorghum?

Yes, deer eat sorghum, both the grain heads and the young leaves, though it's generally a lower preference forage compared to soybeans, cowpeas, or clover. Sorghum's real value in a summer plot is drought tolerance and structure. It grows tall, handles heat and poor soil better than most legumes, and its grain heads mature into a fall/winter food source when other plots are picked clean. Grain sorghum (milo) is commonly planted as a nurse crop alongside soybeans, both to give young bean plants something to climb and hide behind from early browse pressure, and to add a standing grain component for late-season deer and turkey. Because it's less preferred early in the growing season, it tends to survive establishment on high-pressure properties where soybeans alone would get mowed down as seedlings. USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service and land-grant agronomy programs classify grain sorghum as a warm-season crop planted after soil temperatures reach about 60°F, generally a couple weeks after corn planting dates in the same region ^[5]. For food plot purposes, most seed companies and extension wildlife programs recommend seeding rates around 6-10 lbs/acre when sorghum is a standalone plot component, less when blended with legumes.

Do deer eat clover, and do deer like clover?

Deer eat clover heavily and, by most extension and wildlife-biologist accounts, it's one of the most consistently preferred forages available to whitetails across the growing season. Ladino white clover and red clover both regrow fast after grazing, which is exactly what makes them so useful (and so vulnerable to overgrazing on small plots). Clover is technically a perennial, not a true summer annual, but it's worth including here because a well-established clover plot is often your single best summer food source, feeding deer from spring green-up straight through fall in USDA zones 4-7 with proper mowing and fertility maintenance. The University of Tennessee Extension and other land-grant wildlife programs list clover among the top protein sources for lactating does and antler-growing bucks through summer, generally testing at 20-30% crude protein in vegetative growth stages ^[6]. The catch with clover: it needs a soil pH close to neutral (roughly 6.0-6.5) to perform well, and it's slow to establish, usually needing a full growing season before it's producing real tonnage. If your soil test comes back with a pH below 6.0, lime is not optional, clover simply won't hold up long-term in acidic soil no matter how good the seed is. Your soil test lab's specific lime recommendation, not a generic number, should drive how much you apply per acre.

When to plant oats for deer?

Oats are a cool-season cereal grain, not a summer plot species, and they're planted in late summer to early fall, generally August through September depending on your zone, timed so they germinate and put on growth as temperatures cool. Oats aren't a summer plot answer, but they come up constantly in the same planning conversation, so it's worth being clear on the distinction. Oats germinate fast (often within a week in warm, moist soil) and are extremely palatable to deer in their vegetative stage, which makes them a popular component in fall blends with clover, wheat, and brassicas. Because oats winterkill in colder zones, they're sometimes used specifically as a fast-growing nurse crop or early-season fall attractant that's expected to die back, with the clover or wheat in the blend carrying the plot through winter. In the Upper Midwest and northern Great Lakes states, oats are typically seeded by early-to-mid September to get enough growth before frost; in the Southeast, growers can push oat planting into October ^[7]. If you're building a full-year plot rotation, oats fit the late-summer fall-planting window, right alongside brassicas and cereal rye, not the May-June summer window.

When to plant turnips for deer?

Turnips are a brassica and, like oats, they're a fall-plot species, planted in late summer (roughly late July through August across most of the whitetail range) so bulbs and leaves size up before the first hard frosts. Turnips need 80-90 days from planting to reach good bulb size, so backing that up from your average first frost date is the standard way to pick your seeding date. Deer often ignore turnip leaves in September and go straight for soybeans or other more palatable food, then switch hard to turnips (leaves first, then bulbs) once a couple of frosts convert starches to sugars, typically sometime in November in most of the Midwest and mid-South. That freeze-triggered palatability shift is well documented by wildlife extension programs and is the reason turnip plots seem to "turn on" late in the season . Because turnips are a fall species, they don't belong in a summer-plot conversation as a planting choice, but they matter for planning: if you want a turnip plot ready by hunting season, you need to have your summer plot (soybeans, cowpeas) already established and thriving elsewhere, because turnips go in the ground while your summer legumes are still in full growth, not after they're done.

What are deer's favorite foods overall?

There's no single universal answer, deer preference shifts by season, region, and what's locally available, but wildlife research consistently ranks a short list of foods at the top: acorns (especially white oak group), soybeans, clover, and, seasonally, agricultural crops like corn and standing beans. A commonly cited whitetail food-habits study from the Mississippi State University Deer Lab and similar regional research groups finds that when acorns are available in fall, deer will often shift the majority of their diet to mast over standing food plots, sometimes dramatically. In summer specifically, deer preference leans hard toward high-protein legumes: soybeans, cowpeas, and clover routinely test as the most heavily browsed plantings in university forage-preference trials. That's exactly why those species make up most of the "best summer plot" recommendations you'll see from extension programs and seed companies alike. Regional native browse matters too. Blackberry, honeysuckle, greenbrier, and forbs make up a big share of a wild deer's actual summer diet on most properties, food plots supplement that, they don't replace it. A property with strong native browse and mast can often get by with a smaller plot footprint than a property that's mostly closed-canopy timber with little understory.

Do deer like honey, and does it matter for food plots?

Deer don't seek out honey in the wild and it has no real role in food plot planning. Deer are herbivores built to digest plant fiber through a four-chambered rumen; concentrated sugar sources like honey aren't part of their natural diet and there's no wildlife agency or extension guidance recommending it as an attractant. Where this question usually comes from is confusion with commercial mineral and attractant products that use molasses or sugar-based binders, sometimes marketed with names or scents that reference honey or sweetness. Those products are a different category entirely from food plots. Some states restrict or ban mineral/attractant use for hunting purposes the same way they regulate bait, so check your state wildlife agency's regulations before using any mineral lick or scent product on land you plan to hunt. If you're trying to draw deer to a specific spot on the property, a planted food source (clover, brassicas, soybeans) does that job legitimately and, in most states, without the legal gray area that comes with bait and mineral products near a stand.

How do you choose the right summer plot for your property?

Forage soybeans	Moderate	Very high	Larger plots (2+ acres), lower deer density
Cowpeas	High	High	Smaller plots, hotter/drier sites
Lablab	High	High	Season-long tonnage, regrows well after grazing
Grain sorghum	High	Moderate	Nurse crop, buffer species, fall grain carryover
Clover (perennial)	Moderate	Very high	Multi-year plots, needs pH 6.0-6.5	If you want help translating a soil test and your acreage into an actual seed and rate plan instead of guessing, that's the exact gap our $99 Custom Food Plot Plan is built to fill, you send us your test results and property basics, we send back a species and planting plan. It's general guidance built from your numbers, not a site visit or a substitute for your soil lab's specific lime and fertilizer recommendation.

Start with your soil test, not the seed bag. A $10-20 soil test through your state land-grant extension office tells you your pH and baseline nutrient levels, and that result (not a national average) should set your lime and fertilizer rates. Clover and most legumes want pH near 6.0-6.5; skip liming a low-pH plot and you'll waste money on seed that never fully establishes. Next, be honest about deer density and plot acreage. If you're hunting a small lease with heavy deer pressure, straight soybeans on a half-acre plot often fail outright, they get grazed to nothing before they can build tonnage. On pressured small properties, blend in a less-preferred, tougher species (grain sorghum, sunn hemp) or fence a portion of the plot temporarily to let beans establish before opening it up. Here's a quick comparison of the main summer options: | Species | Drought tolerance | Deer preference | Best use |

How much seed and fertilizer does a summer plot need?

Seeding rates vary by species and by whether you're planting a monoculture or a blend, but rough per-acre benchmarks from most seed suppliers and extension guides are: forage soybeans 50-60 lbs/acre drilled or 75-100 lbs/acre broadcast, cowpeas 60-90 lbs/acre, and grain sorghum 6-10 lbs/acre as a standalone or 3-5 lbs/acre blended with legumes. Always check the specific bag or blend label, rates differ by variety and by drilled versus broadcast method. Fertilizer is where the soil test really earns its keep. Legumes fix their own nitrogen once nodules establish, so heavy nitrogen fertilizer is usually wasted money and can even suppress nodulation. What legumes do need is adequate phosphorus and potassium, plus lime if your pH is low. A soil test converts guesswork into an actual number of lbs/acre for each nutrient, ask your extension office or private lab to include that recommendation with your results. Most university extension soil test reports come back with specific pounds of lime and P/K fertilizer recommended per acre based on your crop choice, so tell the lab what you're planting before you submit the sample.

What equipment do you actually need to plant a summer plot?

At minimum: something to break up the soil (disc, tiller, or a no-till drill if you're planting into existing sod or a killed cover crop), a way to broadcast or drill seed, a cultipacker or drag to firm the seed bed, and a sprayer if you're using glyphosate to kill existing vegetation first. An ATV or UTV with a small implement train handles most plots under 3-5 acres just fine; you don't need a full-size tractor for most hunting-property plots. No-till drills are worth the rental or co-op cost if you can get one, they get better seed-to-soil contact with less soil disturbance and less erosion risk than broadcast-and-disc methods, especially on sloped ground. If you're broadcasting, seed-to-soil contact is still the thing that makes or breaks germination, a cultipacker pass after broadcasting matters more than most people think. For legumes specifically, check whether your seed is pre-inoculated with the right rhizobia bacteria strain. Soybeans, cowpeas, and clover all need a specific inoculant strain to fix nitrogen properly, and if your seed isn't pre-inoculated, adding the correct inoculant at planting is cheap insurance against a plot that grows but never really thrives.

Frequently asked questions

Do deer eat sorghum?

Yes. Deer browse young sorghum leaves and eat mature grain heads, though it's generally less preferred than soybeans, cowpeas, or clover. Sorghum's real value in a summer plot is drought tolerance and its use as a nurse crop that protects young soybean seedlings from early, heavy browse pressure on small or high-density properties.

Do deer eat clover, and do deer like clover?

Deer eat clover heavily and most wildlife extension research ranks it among the top preferred forages available across the growing season. Ladino white and red clover regrow fast after grazing and often test at 20-30% crude protein in vegetative growth, per University of Tennessee Extension wildlife forage data, making it valuable for lactating does and antler-growing bucks.

When to plant deer food plots?

Summer annual legumes (soybeans, cowpeas, lablab) go in after your last frost, generally April in the Deep South through late May-June in the north. Fall plots (clover, brassicas, cereal grains) go in 60-90 days before your average first fall frost, usually late July through early September. Check your county's frost dates through your state land-grant extension office.

When to plant oats for deer?

Oats are a cool-season cereal grain planted in late summer to early fall, generally August in northern states and into September or October farther south, timed so they germinate and grow as temperatures cool. They're not a summer species; they're commonly blended with clover or wheat as a fast-establishing fall attractant.

When to plant food plots for deer overall?

Plan on two windows: warm-season legumes after your last spring frost (roughly April-June depending on latitude), and cool-season plots (brassicas, cereal grains, clover) 60-90 days before your first fall frost, usually late July through early September across most of the whitetail range.

When to plant turnips for deer?

Turnips need 80-90 days from planting to bulb size, so most growers plant in late July through August to have mature bulbs ready by the time frosts hit in October or November. Deer often ignore turnip tops early and switch hard to them after a few hard frosts convert starches to sugars.

What is a food plot?

A food plot is a planted area, usually a quarter acre to several acres, established specifically to grow forage for deer and other wildlife to eat in place, rather than to be harvested by the landowner. Plots split into warm-season summer plantings and cool-season fall plantings depending on species and goals.

What are deer's favorite foods?

Preference shifts by season and region, but acorns (especially white oak group), soybeans, and clover consistently rank at the top in wildlife food-habit studies. In fall, deer often shift heavily toward acorns when mast is available, even over standing food plots, according to regional deer research programs like the Mississippi State University Deer Lab.

Do deer like honey?

No. Deer don't seek out honey in the wild; they're herbivores with a diet built around plant fiber, not concentrated sugar. This question usually comes from confusion with molasses-based mineral or attractant products, which are a separate category from food plots and are regulated differently (sometimes restricted) under some states' baiting rules.

What's the single best summer food plot species for deer?

For most properties, forage soybeans or a cowpea/lablab blend perform best, offering high protein and heavy deer preference through summer heat. On smaller plots with high deer density, blend in a tougher species like grain sorghum or sunn hemp so the whole planting doesn't get grazed out before it establishes.

How big does a summer food plot need to be?

There's no single right size; it depends on deer density and browse pressure. As a rough guide, many wildlife extension programs suggest food plots total 1-5% of total property acreage, with individual summer legume plots often needing at least a half acre to an acre to survive heavy browsing long enough to produce real tonnage.

Do I need to worry about baiting laws when planting food plots?

Food plots and bait piles are treated differently under most state laws, but the specifics vary a lot, and some states restrict feeding or mineral use in CWD management zones. Always check your state wildlife agency's current baiting and feeding regulations before planting anything you intend to hunt over.

Sources

1. Michigan DNR, Baiting and Feeding of Deer and Elk: Michigan regulates baiting and feeding of deer, with restrictions tied to CWD management
2. Wisconsin DNR, Baiting and Feeding Regulations: Wisconsin restricts baiting and feeding of deer in specific counties related to CWD
3. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, Frost/Freeze Data: Frost dates vary regionally and are tracked by USDA for agricultural planning
4. Purdue University Forestry and Natural Resources Extension, Food Plots for Wildlife: Spring legume plantings should be timed to soil temperatures reliably above 65°F for germination
5. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, Grain Sorghum Production: Grain sorghum is classified as a warm-season crop planted after soil temperatures reach about 60°F
6. University of Tennessee Extension, Wildlife Food Plots publication: Clover in vegetative growth stages commonly tests at 20-30% crude protein, valuable for lactating does and antler growth
7. University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension, Establishing Wildlife Food Plots: Oats and other cool-season cereal grains are planted in late summer to early fall for fall/winter food plots