Food plot planting chart: what to plant and when

Last updated 2026-07-26

what is a food plot, exactly

A food plot is a planted patch of forage on hunting land, meant to feed deer and other wildlife and give hunters a place to pattern or intercept animals. It's not the same as agriculture for harvest. Nobody's combining a clover plot for grain. The goal is standing forage or browse that deer will use through part or all of the year. Plots range from a quarter-acre kill plot tucked into timber to a 5-acre destination field planted in soybeans or corn. The USDA's National Agroforestry Center and state wildlife agencies both treat food plots as a wildlife habitat tool, not a farming enterprise, which matters for how you think about yield. You're not chasing bushels per acre. You're chasing tonnage of available forage at the right time of year, plus cover value in some species like standing corn or sorghum ^[1]. A plot only works if the site works. Deer need close bedding cover, and the plot needs enough sunlight (most food plot species want 6+ hours) and drainage to actually grow something. Soil fertility ties directly into this: a plot on a 4.8 pH soil with no lime applied will grow about a third of the tonnage of the same seed on corrected soil, according to long-running Extension fertility trials. That's the difference between a plot that gets hit hard in November and one deer walk past.

when to plant food plots for deer

Upper Midwest / Northeast	late July to late August	mid-May to mid-June
Mid-Atlantic / Ohio Valley	mid-August to mid-September	early May to mid-June
Mid-South / Transition zone	late August to late September	late April to late May
Deep South / Gulf Coast	mid-September to mid-October	mid-April to mid-May	These windows are general guidance built around typical first/last frost dates for each zone [2]. Your soil test and your county Extension frost table are the final word for your specific ground.

Timing splits into two windows: a cool-season planting window (roughly late July through mid-September across most of the whitetail's range) and a warm-season window (May through June). Which window you use depends entirely on the species and your frost dates, not a fixed calendar date. Cool-season plots (clover, brassicas, oats, wheat, rye) need to go in 4 to 8 weeks before your area's average first hard frost so they can establish a root system and enough leaf mass before growth slows. In the Upper Midwest and Northeast, that often means planting in August. In the Mid-South and Southeast, September into early October works because frost comes later ^[2]. Warm-season plots (soybeans, cowpeas, corn, sorghum) need soil temperatures reliably above 60°F and no risk of a late frost killing seedlings. That puts most of the country into a May-through-June planting window, though the Deep South can push into late April. Here's the honest answer nobody likes: there's no single "best week" that applies from Minnesota to Alabama. Your local Cooperative Extension office publishes frost date tables and planting windows specific to your county, and that's a better source than any generic chart, including this one. Use the chart below as a starting point, then confirm against your zone. | Region (rough zone) | Cool-season planting window | Warm-season planting window |

when to plant oats for deer

Oats are a cool-season cereal grain, and they go in the same window as most fall plots: 4 to 6 weeks before your first frost, which lands most of the whitetail range somewhere between mid-August and mid-September. Oats germinate fast, often in 5 to 7 days with good soil moisture, and deer will hit young oat shoots hard within a few weeks of emergence. Oats aren't very cold-hardy compared to winter wheat or cereal rye. A hard freeze in the teens will usually kill oats outright, which is why a lot of planters mix oats with wheat or rye: the oats give you fast early attraction and the wheat or rye carries the plot through winter after the oats die back. Seeding rate for oats alone runs about 2 to 3 bushels per acre (roughly 64 to 96 lbs/acre) broadcast, per most state Extension forage guides, with rates on the lower end if drilled instead of broadcast. Oats aren't picky about soil pH compared to clover or alfalfa, but they still respond to lime and nitrogen; a soil test will tell you if you need either.

when to plant turnips for deer

Turnips, like other brassicas, go in during the cool-season window, generally 60 to 90 days before your first expected hard frost. That's typically late July through August in northern zones and August into September in the South. Brassicas need that lead time because the plant has to bulb up and build sugar reserves before frost, and it's the frost itself that converts starches to sugars and makes the plant more palatable ^[3]. This is the single most common turnip mistake: planting too early or too late. Plant too early in hot, dry August soil and germination suffers. Plant too late and the bulbs never size up before frost shuts growth down, so you get thin, woody roots deer walk past. Seeding rate for turnips alone is light, around 4 to 6 lbs/acre, because the seed is tiny and easy to overseed. Turnips also do best in soil with a pH close to 6.0 to 6.5 and decent phosphorus levels; a soil test through your county Extension office or a private ag lab will tell you exactly what to add, since guessing on lime and fertilizer is the fastest way to waste a bag of seed ^[3]. Deer often ignore turnip tops and bulbs early in fall, then hammer them after the first hard freezes of late fall and winter once sugar content rises and other food sources thin out. That's a documented pattern in Extension forage-quality research, more than field folklore ^[3].

do deer like clover, and is it worth planting

Yes. Clover is consistently one of the highest-preference forages in food plot research and one of the most planted species in the country, and for good reason: it's high in crude protein (often 25 to 30%+ in well-fertilized stands), it regrows after grazing, and a good perennial stand can produce forage for 3 to 5 years off one planting ^[4]. White clover (ladino types) and red clover are the two workhorses. Ladino white clover tolerates closer grazing and lower mowing, which suits smaller plots that get hit hard. Red clover grows taller, handles drier soil a little better, and tends to persist 2 to 3 years before stands thin out. Clover is also one of the more soil-picky plot species. It wants pH in the 6.0 to 7.0 range and won't produce well below 5.5 without lime correction, and it needs decent phosphorus and potassium levels, which is exactly the kind of thing a soil test nails down before you spend money on seed. Nitrogen-fixing legumes like clover don't need nitrogen fertilizer once established; adding N to an established clover stand mostly feeds weeds and grass competition. Planting window: clover is a cool-season legume, so late summer to early fall is the standard window in most of the country, though a spring planting (as soon as soil is workable and frost risk has passed) also works if you're establishing on bare ground and want a full growing season before winter.

do deer eat sorghum

Yes, deer eat sorghum, both the grain heads and the young leaves, but it's more of a fall-and-winter standing crop and cover plant than a preferred summer browse. Sorghum's real value in a plot is as a warm-season grain that stands through fall and winter, providing both food and screening cover, similar to how corn gets used ^[1]. Grain sorghum is planted in the same warm-season window as corn, generally May into June once soil temps hold above 60°F. It's more drought-tolerant than corn, which makes it a reasonable substitute in areas with sandy soil or unreliable summer rainfall. Deer use sorghum most heavily in late fall and winter once the seed heads dry down and other food sources get scarce, and turkey and other wildlife use it heavily too. It's not usually a deer's first choice in a field with soybeans or standing corn next to it, but on its own it holds up fine as a winter food source and works well blended into a diverse warm-season plot.

what are deer's favorite foods, ranked by preference

Spring/early summer	Clover, alfalfa, chicory
Late summer	Soybeans, cowpeas, lablab
Early fall	Soybeans (leaves and pods), clover
Late fall/winter	Brassicas (turnips, radish), cereal grains, standing corn/soybean grain	Natural food (acorns especially, white oak acorns most of all) will pull deer off a plot fast in years with a good mast crop. That's not a plot failure, that's just deer being efficient. A soybean field that gets ignored in a heavy acorn year will usually get hammered again once the acorns run out in December or January.

There's no single universal ranking because preference shifts by season, region, and what's naturally available, but food plot and forage research gives a pretty consistent pattern. Soybeans and clover are typically the top-preference planted forages during the growing season, brassicas and cereal grains take over in late fall and winter once frost sweetens them, and acorns (when available) often outcompete everything on a plot the moment they start dropping ^{[4] [5]}. Here's a rough seasonal preference pattern based on forage-quality and preference studies: | Season | Typically high-preference food plot forages |

do deer like honey (and does it belong in a food plot)

Deer aren't drawn to honey itself in any meaningful, documented way, and it's not a forage or attractant used in food plot management. Deer are grazers and browsers built around forbs, browse, mast, and agricultural crops, not sugary substances like honey. Some hunters use molasses-based mineral or attractant products, which is a different thing entirely, more about salt and mineral draw than sugar preference. More importantly, using bait or attractants, including molasses, honey, sugar beets dumped in a pile, or corn feeders, is regulated or flatly illegal in a lot of states during deer season. Baiting rules vary widely: some states ban any bait for big game hunting entirely, others allow it with distance restrictions from a stand, others allow it outside of specific disease-management zones (often tied to Chronic Wasting Disease control areas). Michigan, for example, restricts baiting statewide with exceptions, and many states with CWD-positive counties have tightened rules further in the last several years . Check your state wildlife agency's current regulations before using any bait or attractant, because rules change year to year and enforcement is real. A planted food plot is legal everywhere as standard agricultural or wildlife habitat practice, which is exactly why it's the more durable strategy compared to bait piles that can get you a citation.

how do I build a planting chart specific to my land

A generic chart gets you in the right month. It can't tell you your soil's actual pH, phosphorus, or potassium levels, and it can't account for your specific drainage, shade, or deer pressure. That's where a soil test earns its keep: pull samples 4 to 6 inches deep from several spots in the plot, mix them, and send them to your state Extension soil lab or a private ag lab. Most state Extension soil test services cost somewhere in the $10 to $20 range per sample and come back in 1 to 2 weeks . Your soil test report is the actual authority on lime and fertilizer rates for your dirt, not a blog post or a seed bag label. If your test says you need 2 tons of lime per acre to get from pH 5.4 to pH 6.5, that's the number to use. Lime also takes months to fully react in the soil, so a fall test for a fall planting is often too late to fix pH before seed goes in the ground; testing in spring for a fall plot gives lime time to work. Once you know your soil numbers, species selection and rates come down to matching plant needs to plot conditions: sun exposure, deer pressure (how much regrazing the plot can take), soil drainage, and how much lead time you have before frost. This is the part a lot of first-time planters skip, and it's the part that actually determines whether the plot produces or gets grazed into the dirt by October. If you want a starting point without building it from scratch, PlotSeason's $99 Custom Food Plot Plan turns your soil test and property basics into a species and planting plan, though your soil lab's specific lime and fertilizer recommendation always overrides any general plan.

which species should go where: a quick comparison

White clover	late summer or spring	6.0-7.0	3-5 years	Season-long protein source, small plots
Oats	4-6 wks before frost	5.5-7.0 (tolerant)	annual	Fast fall attraction
Winter wheat/rye	4-8 wks before frost	5.5-7.0	annual	Cold-hardy, carries plot through winter
Brassicas/turnips	60-90 days before frost	6.0-6.5	annual	Late-season, post-frost sweetness
Soybeans	May-June	6.0-6.8	annual	High summer/fall protein and standing grain
Grain sorghum	May-June	5.5-7.5 (tolerant)	annual	Drought-tolerant winter standing crop, cover	Most experienced planters blend species rather than plant single-species monocultures: oats with clover for fall attraction plus a perennial base, or brassicas with cereal grains so the plot has both early-fall greens and late-season sweetness after frost. A blend also spreads risk. If one species struggles with a wet spring or a dry August, the other component in the mix often still comes through.

Different plots serve different jobs on a property. A tiny bow-range kill plot has different requirements than a 3-acre field meant to hold deer all winter. Here's how the common species stack up against each other for planning purposes. | Species | Planting window | Soil pH target | Stand life | Best role |

what mistakes wreck a food plot planting schedule

The single biggest mistake is planting off a national calendar instead of a local frost date. A chart that says "plant brassicas in August" is only correct for some zones. In the Deep South, August planting for brassicas often means the ground is still baking at 95°F with no rain in the forecast, and seedlings just cook. Check your county's average first frost date through your state Extension office and count backward from there ^[2]. Second mistake: skipping the soil test and guessing on lime. Clover and brassicas especially will underperform hard on acidic soil, and no amount of extra seed fixes a pH problem. Lime is cheap relative to the seed and labor you're about to put in the ground; skipping it is the most common way plots underdeliver. Third: planting into a seedbed that's too rough, too weedy, or too dry. Small-seeded species like clover and brassicas need good seed-to-soil contact and shallow planting depth (often 1/4 inch or less). Broadcasting turnip seed onto a rough, cloddy field with no cultipacking pass usually means poor germination no matter how good the timing was. Fourth: ignoring deer pressure relative to plot size. A quarter-acre clover plot next to a high deer density area can get grazed to the dirt before it ever establishes a root system. Fencing off a small area temporarily, or planting a bigger plot, solves this better than fighting it with fertilizer.

Frequently asked questions

Do deer eat sorghum?

Yes. Deer eat both the grain heads and young leaves of sorghum, though it's used more as a fall and winter standing crop than a top summer preference. It's planted in the warm-season window (May-June) and holds value mainly as a drought-tolerant grain and cover source once other food sources thin out in winter.

Do deer eat clover?

Yes, and clover is one of the highest-preference food plot forages available, often testing at 25-30%+ crude protein in well-fertilized stands. Deer use it heavily spring through fall since it regrows after grazing, and a good perennial clover stand can produce forage for 3 to 5 years from one planting.

When should I plant food plots for deer?

Cool-season plots (clover, oats, brassicas, wheat) generally go in 4 to 8 weeks before your area's first hard frost, often August through September depending on region. Warm-season plots (soybeans, corn, sorghum) go in May through June once soil temps hold above 60°F. Your county Extension frost date table is the most reliable source for exact timing.

Do deer like clover more than other food plot forages?

Clover ranks consistently high in preference studies and Extension forage research, often near the top during spring through fall. Preference shifts seasonally though; brassicas and cereal grains often outcompete clover in late fall and winter, and acorns will pull deer off any planted forage during a heavy mast year.

When should I plant oats for deer?

Plant oats 4 to 6 weeks before your area's average first hard frost, which lands most regions between mid-August and mid-September. Oats germinate fast (5-7 days) and attract deer quickly, but they aren't very cold-hardy, so many planters mix them with wheat or rye to carry the plot through winter after oats die back.

When is the best time to plant food plots overall?

There isn't one date for the whole country. Cool-season species need 4-8 weeks before first frost (roughly late July to September depending on zone); warm-season species need May-June planting once frost risk passes and soil hits 60°F. Match the species to your zone's frost dates rather than a national calendar date.

When should I plant turnips for deer?

Plant turnips 60 to 90 days before your area's first hard frost, typically late July through August in northern zones and August into September farther south. That lead time lets bulbs size up before frost converts starches to sugars, which is when deer use turnips most heavily.

What is a food plot?

A food plot is a planted area on hunting or wildlife land grown specifically to feed deer and other wildlife, not for harvest like farm crops. Plots range from small kill plots under an acre to multi-acre destination fields, and species selection depends on soil, sunlight, deer pressure, and the season you're targeting.

What are deer's favorite foods in a food plot?

Soybeans and clover typically rank highest during the growing season; brassicas and cereal grains take over in late fall and winter after frost sweetens them; and acorns, especially white oak, often outcompete any planted forage during a strong mast year. Preference shifts by season and by what's naturally available nearby.

Do deer like honey?

No, honey isn't a documented deer attractant or forage; deer are grazers and browsers, not driven by sugar sources like honey. Molasses-based mineral products exist but work through mineral and salt draw, not sugar preference, and using bait or attractants is restricted or illegal in many states during hunting season.

How much does a soil test cost before planting a food plot?

Most state Extension soil test services run roughly $10 to $20 per sample and return results in 1 to 2 weeks. Private ag labs may charge more but often add faster turnaround. Testing months ahead of planting matters because lime takes time to raise soil pH before seed goes in.

Can I use a national food plot planting chart for my property?

A national chart gets you into the right month but not the right week for your county. Your local first-frost date, not a national average, should set your exact planting window. Check your state Cooperative Extension office's frost date tables and confirm species-specific windows against those local dates.

Is baiting deer with corn or minerals legal for food plot hunters?

It depends entirely on your state; some states ban all bait for big game hunting, others allow it with distance restrictions, and rules often tighten in Chronic Wasting Disease management zones. A planted food plot is legal everywhere as standard habitat practice. Always confirm current rules with your state wildlife agency before using any bait or attractant.

Sources

1. USDA National Agroforestry Center, working trees for wildlife: Food plots and standing grain crops like corn and sorghum function as wildlife habitat and cover, not harvested agriculture
2. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, frost/freeze data: First and last frost dates vary by region and set the planting window for cool-season food plot species
3. University of Tennessee Extension, clover and forage legumes for wildlife: Clover crude protein levels and stand persistence of 3-5 years under proper management
4. Michigan DNR, baiting and feeding regulations: Michigan restricts baiting and feeding of deer statewide with specific exceptions
5. University of Missouri Extension, soil testing for food plots: Typical soil test costs and turnaround time through university Extension labs