Last updated 2026-07-25
TL;DR
Spring food plots go in once soil temps hit 55-65°F, usually mid-April to early June depending on latitude. Clover, chicory, soybeans, and forage sorghum are the workhorses. Oats and brassicas like turnips are fall crops, not spring ones. Test your soil first; it drives every seed and fertilizer decision that follows.
What is a food plot, exactly?
A food plot is a planted patch of land, usually somewhere between a quarter acre and a few acres, grown specifically to feed and attract deer or other wildlife rather than to harvest for human consumption. It's agriculture with a different customer. Most plots fall into two rough categories: annuals you replant every year (clover, brassicas, cereal grains, soybeans) and perennials that can hold for three to five years with maintenance (clover and chicory blends mostly). Hunters plant them on private or leased ground to concentrate deer activity, improve nutrition through stress periods, and create a spot to hunt over. State wildlife agencies generally treat food plots differently from bait piles or feeders. A planted, growing crop is legal to hunt over in most states even where baiting is banned, because the deer are foraging naturally rather than eating a pile of corn someone dumped. But rules vary a lot by state and sometimes by whether you're on public or private land. Check your state wildlife agency's regulations before you hunt over anything you planted, especially brassicas or grain plots that might look feeder-adjacent to a game warden. Pennsylvania, for example, defines baiting explicitly and separately from normal agricultural practice [1].
When should you plant food plots for deer?
| Deep South (8b-9) | Late Feb - mid March | Mid-March to early April | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mid-South/Transition (7a-7b) | Early-mid April | Mid-April to mid-May | |
| Midwest/Mid-Atlantic (6a-6b) | Late April - early May | Early May to early June | |
| Upper Midwest/Northeast (4b-5b) | Mid-May | Late May to mid-June | These are general windows built off USDA zone data, not guarantees. Always check a soil thermometer or your local extension's frost date tables before you commit seed to the ground. |
Timing depends on whether you're planting a spring/summer plot or a fall plot, and both depend heavily on your latitude and first/last frost dates. There's no single national planting date; extension agronomists tie recommendations to local soil temperature and frost windows, not a calendar date [2]. Spring plots (clover, chicory, soybeans, forage sorghum, cowpeas) generally go in after your last frost date, once soil temps hit the 55 to 65°F range measured a few inches down. In the Deep South that can be as early as mid-March. In the Upper Midwest and Northeast, you're often waiting until mid-May or even early June. The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard reference for figuring out roughly where your property falls and what your average last frost date looks like. Fall plots (brassicas, oats, wheat, rye, clover overseed) go in 6 to 10 weeks before your first hard frost, timed so the plants mature into cold-tolerant, high-sugar forage right as hunting season opens. That's a completely separate planting window from spring work. Mixing the two up is one of the most common mistakes new plotters make. If you want a full breakdown of a whole year's plot calendar rather than just the spring window, our seasonal planting guide walks through both windows side by side. Here's a rough regional spring planting window for the most common spring species: | Region (USDA zones) | Typical last frost | Spring plot planting window |
When should you plant oats for deer?
Oats are a fall plot, not a spring one, in almost every part of the whitetail's range. Oats grow fast, tolerate cool soil, and put on the most tonnage of cool-season growth in the 6 to 8 weeks before frost, which is exactly the window hunters want peaking during archery and gun season. The typical fall oat planting window runs late July through early September depending on zone, roughly 60 to 90 days ahead of your average first hard frost. Southern hunters can push oats into September or even early October. Northern hunters usually need seed in the ground by mid-August to get enough growth before things shut down. Can you plant oats in spring? Technically yes, they'll germinate in cool spring soil. But they bolt to seed head and get tough and unpalatable fast once summer heat arrives, and they won't persist through summer like clover or chicory will. Most agronomy guidance treats oats as a cool-season annual best suited to fall establishment or early spring grazing trials in cattle systems, not a season-long deer plot [3]. If your goal is spring food plot tonnage, spend the seed money on soybeans or sorghum instead and save the oats for late summer.
When should you plant turnips for deer?
Turnips are a brassica, and brassicas are fall-plot species almost without exception. Plant them too early and the bulbs and leaves mature and get tough before the first frost sweetens them up; plant them right and you get a plot that gets more attractive to deer the colder it gets. The standard turnip planting window is 80 to 90 days before your first expected frost, which usually lands in the July to early August range depending on zone. Turnips need that long runway to bulb out properly. Frost actually helps turnip plots: cold converts starches to sugars in the leaves and bulbs, which is why deer often ignore a turnip plot in October and hammer it in December and January. Spring is the wrong season for turnips almost everywhere in whitetail country. If you're standing in a field in April with turnip seed in hand, that seed belongs in storage until midsummer, not in the ground. For species and blend comparisons across spring versus fall options, deer food plot seed breaks down which seed types belong in which season.
Do deer eat clover, and do they actually like it?
Yes, and clover is arguably the single best all-around spring plot species for whitetails. Deer readily browse both white clover (ladino types especially) and red clover, and university forage testing consistently shows clover running 25 to 30%+ crude protein in vegetative growth stages, which rivals or beats most other plot forages [4]. Clover's real advantage over annuals is persistence. A well-maintained clover stand can produce spring through fall for three to five years off one planting, provided you mow it a few times a season to knock back weed competition and keep it in a vegetative, high-protein state instead of letting it flower and toughen up. That's a big cost advantage over replanting an annual plot every single year. Clover does have limits. It struggles in poorly drained, wet soils and it needs a soil pH generally in the 6.0 to 7.0 range to perform well; below that, nitrogen fixation by the clover's root nodules drops off hard, according to university forage guidance [4]. That's exactly why a soil test matters before you plant. Lime takes months to fully react in soil, so if your test comes back at pH 5.5, you're better off applying lime now and planting an annual this year while the lime works, rather than planting clover into acidic ground and wondering why it struggles.
Do deer eat sorghum? Is it worth planting?
Yes, deer eat forage sorghum and grain sorghum both, though it's more of a summer stress-period and screening/cover crop than a primary attractant most hunters plant it for. Whitetails browse the leaves and stalks through summer and will hit the grain heads once they mature and dry down in fall. Forage sorghum and sorghum-sudangrass hybrids are popular in spring plot mixes mainly because they tolerate heat and drought far better than clover or beans, grow fast, and put up a tall screen (5 to 10 feet) that's genuinely useful for breaking up sightlines on a plot edge or blocking a road view. Grain sorghum (milo) is more commonly grown as a straight food source, planted like corn, and left standing into fall and winter as a grain source. One real caution here. Sorghum and sudangrass species can develop toxic levels of prussic acid (cyanogenic compounds) in young or drought-stressed, frost-damaged growth, a well-documented risk in cattle that applies to deer too, according to university extension forage toxicology guidance [5]. It's mostly a risk in stressed regrowth after a frost or drought snap, not in normal healthy growth, but it's worth knowing if you're managing a sorghum plot into fall rather than harvesting it in summer.
What are deer's favorite foods, really?
There's no single universal answer because it depends on season, region, and what's available on the surrounding landscape. But research on whitetail diet and food plot preference consistently points to a short list: soybeans, clover, and acorns rank at or near the top almost everywhere deer are studied. Acorns are arguably the most important native food source of all in fall, when available, because of their fat content, and deer will often abandon a food plot entirely during a heavy acorn drop. That's not a plot failure. That's just deer being deer and taking the calorie-dense option. Among planted crops, soybeans in particular get eaten hard in both the vegetative summer stage and again in fall once pods dry down, which is part of why soybean plots need serious acreage (multiple acres, not a quarter-acre patch) to survive early browse pressure long enough to produce anything. Clover holds up better under heavy pressure because it regrows continuously through the growing season rather than getting wiped out by one bad month of browsing. If you're trying to figure out which species fit your specific ground and deer density, that's the exact question a Custom Food Plot Plan is built to answer for $99, a one-time plan based on your soil test, region, and acreage rather than a generic seed bag label.
Do deer like honey, and does it matter for food plots?
This one comes up a lot from readers researching mineral and attractant products, and the honest answer is: there's no real research showing deer specifically seek out honey, and it's not a food plot input at all. It shows up occasionally as an ingredient in commercial deer attractant sprays and mineral licks, mostly for scent and sugar content, not as anything you'd plant or spread on a plot. If you're trying to add sugar-rich attraction to a plot, that's really what brassicas and turnips already do naturally after a frost converts starches to sugars in the leaves. That's a documented, repeatable food source improvement backed by actual plant physiology, not a bottled additive. Save the money you'd spend on honey-based attractant sprays and put it into lime or seed instead. It'll do more for deer on your ground over a season.
How do you actually plant a spring food plot, step by step?
Start with soil, not seed. A $10 to $20 soil test through your county extension office or a private ag lab will tell you your pH and nutrient levels, and it's the single highest-value dollar you'll spend on a plot all year. Cooperative extension services in nearly every state offer this service directly [2]. Apply lime first if your test calls for it, ideally months ahead of planting since lime takes time to react with soil and shift pH. If you're planting this spring and your test just came back low, don't wait. Get lime down now even if you're planting an annual this season and saving the clover stand for next year. Kill existing vegetation, either by tillage or a burndown herbicide application, 2 to 3 weeks ahead of planting so you're not competing against existing sod and weeds. No-till drills let you skip the tillage pass entirely if you have access to one; a rented no-till drill is often the best equipment dollar a small-acreage plotter can spend versus buying a tractor and disc outright. Plant at the right depth (clover and chicory are tiny seeds and want a shallow 1/4 inch or less; beans and sorghum want 1 to 1.5 inches), and apply fertilizer per your soil test recommendation, not a generic bag rate. Your soil test lab is the actual authority on your specific lime and fertilizer numbers; a general article like this one can point you toward reasonable ranges, but the lab report from your own dirt should be the final word every time. For equipment-specific guidance on drills, cultipackers, and sprayers sized for food plot acreage rather than row-crop farming, deer food plots covers the gear side in more depth.
What should a spring plot mix actually contain?
| Ladino/white clover | Perennial base, high protein | 6-8 lbs/acre | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicory | Drought tolerance, perennial | 2-4 lbs/acre | |
| Soybeans (forage type) | Summer tonnage, high protein | 50-60 lbs/acre drilled | |
| Forage sorghum | Heat/drought tolerance, screening | 8-10 lbs/acre | |
| Cowpeas/iron clay peas | Nitrogen fixing, summer forage | 30-40 lbs/acre | Seeding rates vary by whether you're drilling versus broadcasting (broadcast rates typically run higher to compensate for uneven seed-to-soil contact), so check the specific product label or your extension's forage guide before buying seed. If you want a full rundown of seed blend types and which ones are sold pre-mixed versus which you should build yourself, food plot seed and domain food plot seed both cover blend construction in more detail. |
Most experienced plotters run a mix rather than a monoculture, because a mix spreads risk across drought, browse pressure, and soil variability. A reasonable spring mix for most of whitetail country looks something like this: | Species | Role in the mix | Typical seeding rate |
What mistakes ruin spring food plots most often?
Planting too early is the single biggest one. Cold, wet soil rots seed before it germinates, and a plot planted three weeks early often performs worse than one planted on time into warm, workable ground. Skipping the soil test is the second biggest. Extension research repeatedly shows that fertilizer and lime applied without a soil test either under- or overshoots what the crop actually needs, wasting money in either direction [2]. A $15 test is cheap insurance against a wasted bag of fertilizer. Undersizing the plot for the deer density on the property is the third. A quarter-acre soybean plot on a property with heavy deer numbers can get grazed to the dirt before it ever produces pods; extension and wildlife agency guidance on plot design generally recommends larger plantings (an acre or more) for heavily browsed annuals like beans specifically because of this pressure. If you're planting your first plot and aren't sure what a realistic plan looks like for your acreage, deer numbers, and region, that's exactly the gap a Custom Food Plot Plan is meant to close for $99, a one-time plan rather than a subscription or a generic seed bag label.
Frequently asked questions
Do deer eat sorghum?
Yes. Deer browse forage sorghum leaves and stalks through summer and eat the grain heads once mature. It's more valued for heat and drought tolerance and screening cover than as a top attractant, and stressed or frosted regrowth can carry prussic acid risk, a documented concern in university extension forage toxicology guidance.
Do deer like clover?
Yes, clover is one of the most consistently preferred food plot forages for whitetails. It's high in protein (often 25-30%+ crude protein in vegetative growth) and, unlike most annuals, a well-maintained stand can keep producing for three to five years off one planting.
When should you plant food plots for deer?
It depends on the crop and your zone. Spring species (clover, soybeans, sorghum) go in after last frost once soil hits 55-65°F, generally mid-March in the Deep South through mid-June in the Upper Midwest. Fall species (brassicas, oats) go in 6-10 weeks before first frost, usually late July through early September.
When should you plant oats for deer?
Oats are a fall plot crop in nearly every region, planted roughly 60 to 90 days before first hard frost, typically late July through early September depending on latitude. Spring-planted oats germinate fine but bolt and toughen fast in summer heat, so they don't hold up as a season-long spring plot option.
When should you plant turnips for deer?
Plant turnips 80 to 90 days before your area's first expected frost, usually July into early August. Turnips need frost to convert starches to sugars in the bulbs and leaves, which is why deer often ignore a turnip plot early and hammer it in December and January. Spring planting doesn't work for this species.
What is a food plot?
A food plot is a planted area, from a quarter acre up to several acres, grown specifically to feed and attract deer or other wildlife rather than for human harvest. Hunters plant annual crops (clover, brassicas, beans, grains) or perennial blends to improve deer nutrition and create a spot to hunt over legally, distinct from bait piles in most states.
What are deer's favorite foods?
It varies by season and region, but soybeans, clover, and acorns consistently rank highest across whitetail diet studies. Acorns often win out over any planted crop in fall when available, due to their fat content, which is why a plot can look ignored during a heavy acorn drop even though nothing is wrong with it.
Do deer like honey?
There's no solid research showing deer specifically seek out honey, and it's not a food plot planting input. It occasionally appears in commercial attractant sprays for scent and sugar, but frost-sweetened brassicas do more documented, natural sugar-conversion work for actual attraction than any bottled honey product.
What's the best spring food plot for beginners?
A clover and chicory blend is the most forgiving starting point for most new plotters, since it's perennial, tolerates mistakes better than annuals, and keeps producing for years off one planting if mowed a few times a season. Soil pH needs to sit in the 6.0-7.0 range for clover to really perform, so test first.
How big should a spring food plot be?
It depends on deer density and species. Heavily browsed annuals like soybeans generally need an acre or more to survive early grazing pressure and still produce pods; clover and chicory blends can succeed at smaller sizes (a quarter to half acre) because they regrow continuously through the season rather than getting wiped out.
Can you plant a spring food plot without a soil test?
You can, but extension research consistently shows fertilizer and lime applied without a soil test either overshoot or undershoot actual crop needs, wasting money either way. A soil test typically costs $10-20 through a county extension office or private ag lab and should drive every lime and fertilizer decision that follows.
Is it legal to hunt over a food plot?
In most states, yes, a planted and growing crop is treated differently from a bait pile under state hunting regulations, but rules vary by state and sometimes by public versus private land. Check your specific state wildlife agency's baiting and feeding regulations before hunting over any planted plot, especially grain or brassica plots.
Sources
- Pennsylvania Game Commission, Baiting Regulations: Pennsylvania defines baiting separately from normal agricultural food plot practice
- University of Tennessee Extension, Establishing and Managing Wildlife Food Plots (W374): Planting timing should follow local soil temperature and frost dates, and soil testing should precede lime/fertilizer application
- Oklahoma State University Extension, Forage Oat Production, PSS-2286: Oats are a cool-season annual best suited to fall establishment, growing fastest in a 60-90 day pre-frost window
- Oklahoma State University Extension, White Clover, PSS-2585: Clover in vegetative stages tests high in crude protein and performs best at soil pH 6.0-7.0
- University of Missouri Extension, Prussic Acid Poisoning in Livestock, G4590: Sorghum and sudangrass species can develop toxic prussic acid levels in young, drought-stressed, or frost-damaged regrowth