What to plant for deer in the spring

Last updated 2026-07-25

what is a food plot, exactly

A food plot is a planted patch of forage or grain on hunting land, built to feed deer (and often to hunt over) rather than to harvest for market. It can be a quarter acre tucked into a clearcut or ten acres of soybeans in a river bottom. The goal is usually some mix of three things: nutrition for the herd, a place to hunt, and habitat diversity. The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service treats food plots as a wildlife habitat practice, not agriculture in the commercial sense, and several state cost-share programs fund them under wildlife habitat improvement standards ^[1]. That distinction matters because it changes what "good" looks like. A farmer wants bushels per acre. A land manager wants tonnage of digestible forage sitting in the ground when deer need it most, which in spring means right after winter stress and right before antler growth and lactation ramp up. If you're brand new to this, start with the basics on food plot whitetail planning before you buy a single bag of seed. Spring plots specifically fill the nutritional gap between winter dormancy and full summer green-up, which is exactly when does are pulling nutrients for fawns and bucks are starting antler growth.

when should you plant food plots for deer

Deep South (zone 8-9)	mid-March to April	60°F
Mid-South / Transition	April	58-62°F
Midwest / Corn Belt	late April to mid-May	55-60°F
Northern tier	late May to mid-June	55-58°F	Don't just trust the calendar. A soil thermometer costs under $15 and tells you more than any planting chart. Get a real soil test done before you plant anything; your lab's lime and fertilizer recommendation is the actual authority on your dirt, not a generic chart like this one. For a full-year framework, see how spring fits into the bigger picture of deer food plots planning across all four seasons.

Timing splits into two seasons: spring/summer plots (soybeans, cowpeas, sorghum, sunflowers, sunchokes) and fall plots (brassicas, cereal grains, clover establishment). Spring plots generally go in after your last frost date and once soil temperature holds above 55-65°F for a week, which for most of the whitetail's range falls between mid-April and early June ^[2]. Your local frost-free date drives everything. Extension services publish these by county because a five-degree difference in average spring soil temp can shift planting by three weeks. The Midwest corn belt often plants warm-season legumes in late April; the Deep South can go as early as March; the northern tier (Minnesota, Wisconsin, upper Michigan) frequently waits until late May or even June. Here's a rough national planting window by region: | Region | Spring plot window | Typical soil temp trigger |

do deer like clover, and when do you plant it

Yes. Clover is one of the most consistently preferred forages in whitetail research and it's the closest thing to a year-round staple a plot manager has. White clover (Ladino and Dutch types) and red clover both show up repeatedly in preference studies and extension forage guides as high-protein, high-palatability options, often tested at 20-25% crude protein in vegetative stages ^[3]. Spring is actually the best time to establish or renovate clover in most of the whitetail range. You can frost-seed existing stands in late winter/early spring (broadcasting seed onto frozen or thawing ground so freeze-thaw cycles work it into the soil), or do a clean spring planting once soil hits about 50-55°F. Clover seed is small, so seeding depth matters: 1/4 inch or less, ideally just pressed into contact with soil with a cultipacker or roller. A properly limed and fertilized clover stand can produce for 3-5 years before it needs renovation, which makes it one of the better costs-per-year plots you can plant. The catch: clover needs decent drainage and a pH near 6.0-6.5 to really perform, and it struggles in droughty sand or heavy clay that stays wet. If your soil test comes back with a pH under 6, get lime down months before you expect full production, because lime moves slowly through soil profiles.

when to plant oats for deer

Oats are technically a cool-season cereal grain, so most guys think of them as a fall plant, and that's correct for the primary use case: fall-planted oats are extremely attractive to deer in September and October and tolerate light frost well. But oats also have a spring role in the transition zone and northern states as a fast-growing spring cover crop or nurse crop for clover establishment. Spring oats go in as soon as soil can be worked, often March into April, and they germinate in cool soil (as low as 45-50°F) faster than most warm-season options. The tradeoff is they won't survive summer heat in most regions, so a spring oat planting is really a short-term forage or a nurse crop, not a season-long food source. If you want oats as the main event, plant them in late summer or early fall instead, timed 6-8 weeks before your first hard frost. Most plot plans that use oats do so as part of a blend, seeding them with clover or brassicas so the oats grow fast and provide early cover and forage while the slower clover establishes underneath.

when to plant turnips for deer, and are they a spring option

Turnips are a fall plot, not a spring one, in almost every part of the whitetail's range. They're a brassica, and brassicas need a long cool season to bulb and sweeten (frost actually converts starches to sugars and makes them more palatable). Extension guidance generally recommends planting turnips 60-90 days before your first expected fall frost, which in practice means late July through August across most of the Midwest and Southeast ^[4]. If you plant turnips in spring, they'll bolt and go to seed as soon as day length and heat trigger flowering, and you'll get a bitter, low-tonnage plant that deer mostly ignore. Save your brassica seed for summer planting. What spring actually offers is the chance to prep the ground you'll plant turnips into later. Use a spring cover crop (buckwheat is a good one; it grows in 30 days, suppresses weeds, and breaks down easily) to hold and improve soil through summer before your August brassica planting.

do deer eat sorghum

Yes, and grain sorghum (milo) is a legitimate warm-season food plot option, especially in the South and Midwest where it handles heat and drought better than corn. Deer eat both the grain heads and, to a lesser extent, the young foliage. Sorghum is also a strong choice as a screening/cover crop because it grows tall and dense, giving deer security cover right next to a food source. Plant grain sorghum after soil temps hit 60-65°F, generally 2-3 weeks after your safe corn planting date, at roughly 6-10 lbs/acre for solid stands depending on row spacing ^[5]. It's more drought-tolerant than corn and needs less nitrogen, which makes it a budget-friendly warm-season grain plot, especially on marginal ground. One caution: sorghum and sudangrass forms can develop prussic acid (cyanide) risk in young, frost-damaged, or drought-stressed foliage, a known livestock issue tracked by land-grant extension services ^[6]. It's mostly documented in cattle and less of a concern for deer browsing mature stands, but it's worth knowing if you're grazing livestock on the same ground or if you get an early frost on young sorghum.

what are deer's favorite foods, actually

There's no single "favorite," because preference shifts hard by season, region, and what's locally available. But across preference trials and browse studies, a few patterns hold up consistently. Natural forbs and browse (native weeds, honeysuckle, greenbrier, acorns in fall) often outrank planted forages when they're available, which is a humbling fact for anyone who's spent $400 on seed. Among planted options, white clover, soybeans (as a growing plant, more than the bean), and cowpeas consistently test as highly preferred in university plot trials. Acorns deserve a mention because they're arguably the most important natural fall food across the whitetail's range, and their boom-bust production (masting) can make or break how hard deer hit your plots in a given year. A heavy acorn year means deer ignore plots; a bust year means plots get hammered. Deer are also opportunistic and will hit agricultural crops hard when available: standing corn, soybeans, and even alfalfa see heavy pressure where they border cover. If you're picking a single best all-around plant for a small property, most experienced managers land on soybeans for spring/summer tonnage and clover for season-long return. For a rundown of the seed options available at retail, deer food plot seed covers blends and straight species side by side.

do deer like honey, and should you use it as an attractant

There's no real research showing deer seek out honey specifically, and it's not a practical food plot input. What deer are drawn to is sugar and salt in general, which is part of why molasses-based mineral licks and sweet feed products exist commercially. Honey itself is expensive, doesn't hold up outdoors, and attracts insects (including yellowjackets and bears) faster than it attracts deer. More importantly, using honey, syrup, or any scent/food attractant as bait is regulated or banned outright in a lot of states, and rules vary by whether you're talking about hunting over bait versus simply feeding. Some states ban baiting entirely for disease-management reasons (chronic wasting disease spread is a real concern with any concentrated feed source), others allow it with distance and visibility restrictions. Check your state wildlife agency's baiting and feeding regulations before you put out anything sweet, salty, or grain-based as an attractant rather than a plot ^[7]. If you want a sweet-tasting plant deer will actually work into a rotation, look at forage soybeans or sugar beets instead of honey. Both convert to real tonnage and don't carry the same regulatory risk.

spring plot species compared: what actually makes sense to plant

White/Ladino clover	50-55°F	6-8 lbs/acre	3-5 years	Season-long staple, high protein
Soybeans (forage type)	60-65°F	50-60 lbs/acre drilled	Annual	Summer tonnage, high protein
Cowpeas/iron clay peas	65°F+	60-90 lbs/acre	Annual	Heat/drought tolerant, high protein
Grain sorghum	60-65°F	6-10 lbs/acre	Annual	Grain, drought tolerance, screening
Oats (spring use)	45-50°F	100-110 lbs/acre	Annual, short-lived	Nurse crop, fast cover
Sunflowers (black oil)	60°F+	4-6 lbs/acre	Annual	Cover, seed head, pollinator draw	Seeding rates above are broad ranges pulled from typical land-grant extension recommendations and will shift based on drilling versus broadcasting, row spacing, and your specific product's label; always check the bag [3] [5]. If you're not sure which of these actually fits your soil, your region, and your goals (feeding versus hunting versus both), that's the exact gap our $99 one-time Custom Food Plot Plan is built to fill. It takes your soil test and property details and turns them into a straightforward planting plan; it's general guidance built off real agronomy data, not a substitute for your soil lab's specific lime and fertilizer call.

Here's a working comparison of the common spring/summer options, based on typical extension seeding guidance and known deer preference research. | Species | Plant when soil hits | Seeding rate (broadcast) | Stand life | Best use |

how much does a spring food plot cost to plant

Costs vary enormously depending on whether you're broadcasting into a disked field or running a no-till drill, whether you already own equipment, and what you plant. As a rough range: seed alone runs anywhere from $15-20/acre for cereal grains up to $40-60/acre for premium clover blends or soybean seed at full population. Add lime (if your soil test calls for it, often $30-50/ton delivered and spread, with recommendations frequently in the 1-3 ton/acre range on acidic soils) and fertilizer, and a half-acre plot can run anywhere from $75 to $300 depending on how far off your soil chemistry starts ^[8]. Equipment is the bigger variable. A guy with a tractor, disk, and cultipacker has near-zero incremental cost per plot beyond seed and fuel. A guy starting from scratch renting equipment or hiring it out can easily spend $200-500 just on tillage and spraying for a small plot. If you're building out your first plot and need a rundown of what you actually need versus what's optional, that overlaps heavily with soil prep decisions covered in food plot seed buying guidance.

soil testing before you plant anything this spring

Get a soil test before you buy seed, not after. Most land-grant universities run soil testing labs for $10-20 per sample and return pH, phosphorus, potassium, and organic matter within a couple of weeks . Your test results, not a generic article like this one, should set your actual lime and fertilizer rates. Soil chemistry varies field to field and even within a field, and the lab reading your specific sample is the real authority on what your dirt needs. Lime is the one input that punishes procrastination the hardest. It can take 3-6 months to fully react and shift soil pH, so if your test comes back needing 2 tons/acre of ag lime, get it down as early in spring as you can, ideally the season before you plant your main crop. Most legumes, including clover and soybeans, want a pH in the 6.0-6.8 range to fix nitrogen efficiently; outside that range you're wasting fertilizer dollars regardless of what seed you put down. If you already have a soil test in hand and just want the plan turned into planting instructions, species picks, and a fertilizer rate translated into bags-per-acre, that's a fast use of the $99 Custom Food Plot Plan. It won't replace your lab's specific recommendation, but it turns those numbers into an actual spring planting calendar for your property.

Frequently asked questions

Do deer eat sorghum?

Yes. Deer eat grain sorghum (milo) heads and some foliage, and it's a solid warm-season, drought-tolerant plot option, especially south of the Corn Belt. It also works well as tall screening cover next to a food source. Plant after soil hits 60-65°F, roughly 2-3 weeks after safe corn planting date in your region.

Do deer like clover?

Yes, consistently. White and red clover show up repeatedly in university preference trials as high-protein (often 20-25% crude protein), highly palatable forage. It's one of the few plantings that produces spring through fall across multiple years once established, making it the closest thing to a year-round staple in most food plot programs.

When should you plant food plots for deer in spring?

Most spring/summer plots (soybeans, cowpeas, sorghum) go in after your last frost date once soil holds 55-65°F for about a week. That's mid-March in the Deep South, April in the Mid-South, late April into May in the Midwest, and late May into June in the northern tier. Use a soil thermometer, more than a calendar date.

When do you plant oats for deer?

Oats are mainly a fall crop for deer attraction, planted 6-8 weeks before first frost. In spring, oats can go in as early as soil can be worked (March-April) as a fast-growing nurse crop or short-term cover ahead of clover establishment, but they won't survive summer heat as a season-long forage.

When do you plant turnips for deer?

Turnips are a fall brassica, planted 60-90 days before your first expected frost, generally late July through August across most of the whitetail range. Spring-planted turnips bolt to seed early and turn bitter with low tonnage. Use spring instead to prep ground (a buckwheat cover crop works well) for an August turnip planting.

What is a food plot for deer?

A food plot is a planted area of forage, grain, or brassica on hunting or managed land, intended to feed deer and often to create a hunting location. The USDA and state wildlife agencies generally classify it as a wildlife habitat practice rather than commercial agriculture, and it's judged by forage tonnage and timing, not bushels per acre.

What are deer's favorite foods overall?

There's no single favorite; preference shifts by season and region. Natural browse and acorns often outrank planted crops when available. Among planted options, white clover, forage soybeans, and cowpeas consistently rank as highly preferred in university food plot trials, with clover standing out for season-long, multi-year performance.

Do deer like honey?

There's no real evidence deer specifically seek honey, and it's impractical as a food plot input: it's expensive, breaks down fast outdoors, and draws insects. Deer respond to sugar and salt generally, which is why molasses-based mineral products exist. Check your state's baiting and feeding rules before using any sweet attractant.

What's the best food plot to plant in spring for tonnage?

Forage soybeans generally produce the most total tonnage of any common spring/summer planting, often cited in extension trials as one of the highest-yielding, highest-protein warm-season legumes for deer. Cowpeas and iron clay peas are close behind and handle heat and drought better in the Deep South.

Can you plant clover and oats together in spring?

Yes, this is a common combination. Oats germinate fast in cool spring soil and act as a nurse crop, providing quick cover and forage while slower-establishing clover gets its root system going underneath. The oats naturally die back in summer heat, leaving the clover stand to take over.

How long does a spring-planted food plot last?

Annual plantings like soybeans, sorghum, and cowpeas last one growing season and need replanting yearly. Clover, planted in spring, can persist and produce for 3-5 years with proper liming, fertilizing, and occasional mowing or herbicide maintenance, making it the better long-term investment per acre.

Is it legal to feed deer sweet feed or bait in spring?

It depends entirely on your state. Some states ban baiting and feeding outright, often citing chronic wasting disease concerns; others allow it with restrictions on distance from stands or public roads. Always check your state wildlife agency's current baiting and feeding regulations before putting out any concentrated feed or attractant.

Sources

1. USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Wildlife Habitat Practices: Food plots are commonly funded and classified under wildlife habitat improvement conservation practices
2. University of Tennessee Extension, Clover for Wildlife: White and red clover test at high crude protein levels and rank consistently high in deer preference
3. University of Georgia Extension, Brassicas for Deer: Brassicas like turnips are typically planted 60-90 days before first frost for fall forage production
4. Kansas State University Extension, Grain Sorghum Production: Grain sorghum seeding rates and planting timing relative to corn planting dates
5. University of Missouri Extension, Prussic Acid Poisoning in Livestock: Sorghum and sudangrass species can develop prussic acid risk under frost damage or drought stress
6. Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Baiting and Feeding Regulations: State wildlife agencies regulate or restrict baiting and feeding, often citing chronic wasting disease concerns
7. University of Tennessee Extension, Agricultural Lime Recommendations: Typical agricultural lime application rates and approximate delivered/spread costs per ton
8. Penn State Agricultural Analytical Services Laboratory, Soil Testing: University soil testing labs commonly charge roughly $10-20 per sample and report pH, phosphorus, potassium, and organic matter