Late season food plots for deer: what to plant and when

Last updated 2026-07-25

what is a food plot, exactly

A food plot is a planted patch of forage on land you own or lease, put there specifically to feed deer (and often other wildlife) at a time when natural browse is thin. It's not the same as a garden or a hay field, though the equipment overlaps. The goal is nutrition and, for hunters, a place to observe or intercept deer during legal season. Most plots fall into two buckets. Spring and summer plots (clover, chicory, soybeans) build antler growth and support lactating does. Late season plots (brassicas, cereal grains) exist to carry deer through the cold months when fat reserves are draining and snow or ice locks up acorns and browse. This article is about the second kind. The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service treats wildlife habitat plantings, including food plots, as a formal conservation practice under Conservation Practice Standard 643, Restoration and Management of Declining Habitats, which state and federal cost-share programs sometimes support ^[1]. That's a bureaucratic way of saying: yes, this is a real, recognized land management practice, more than a hunting gimmick.

when to plant food plots for deer

Deep South (Zone 8-9)	Late Nov to early Dec	Mid-Sept to mid-Oct
Mid-South / Transition (Zone 7)	Late Oct to mid-Nov	Early Sept to early Oct
Midwest / Mid-Atlantic (Zone 6)	Early to mid-Oct	Mid-Aug to mid-Sept
Upper Midwest / Northeast (Zone 5)	Mid-Sept to early Oct	Late July to late Aug
Far North (Zone 4 and colder)	Early to mid-Sept	Mid to late July	If you're building a full season calendar rather than just a late plot, our food plot whitetail guide walks through spring, summer, and fall plantings together.

Timing depends entirely on what you're planting and what your killing frost date looks like. Spring/summer plots (clover, chicory, soybeans, alfalfa) go in after your last frost, typically April through June depending on latitude. Late season plots (brassicas, oats, wheat, rye) go in from late July through September, counted backward from your first fall frost. The rule of thumb most extension agronomists and seed companies use: brassicas need 80 to 100 days to reach full maturity and sweetness, and cereal grains need less, often 60 to 90 days to establish a grazeable stand. Count backward from your average first frost date, which you can look up by station through NOAA's Climate Normals data or your state extension's frost date charts ^[2]. Here's a rough planting window by general US zone. These are starting points, not gospel. Your local extension office frost tables will beat any generic chart. | Region (rough USDA cold hardiness zone) | Typical first frost | Late-season plot planting window |

when to plant turnips for deer

Plant turnips 80 to 90 days before your first expected hard frost. Turnips need that much time to bulb up and to go through the starch-to-sugar conversion that makes them palatable once frost hits. Here's the part a lot of first-time planters get wrong: turnips are barely touched by deer until after a couple of hard frosts. Before frost, the plant is bitter and heavy on starch. Cold temperatures trigger the plant to convert stored starch into sugars as a natural antifreeze response, and that's when deer suddenly switch on and start hammering the tops and bulbs. Seeding rate for turnips alone typically runs 4 to 6 lbs per acre, broadcast into a firm, shallow (quarter inch or less) seedbed. Turnip seed is tiny. Too much depth and it won't emerge. Most blended brassica mixes (turnip, radish, rape) run higher rates depending on the mix ratio, so follow the bag.

when to plant oats for deer

Plant oats 6 to 10 weeks before your first fall frost, which for most of the whitetail's range lands somewhere between mid-August and mid-September. Oats are a cool-season annual cereal grain, and they're one of the fastest-establishing, most reliably attractive late-season plantings out there. Oats green up fast, often visible within 5 to 7 days of a good rain, and deer will hit young oat shoots almost immediately. The tradeoff is winter-kill. Oats aren't as cold-hardy as wheat, rye, or triticale, and in the northern half of the whitetail's range a hard winter can flatten an oat plot by January. That's actually fine for a late-season plot if your primary hunting window is November through early January; you get strong attraction right when you need it and don't care that the plot dies back after. If you want a plot that holds up through February in colder climates, blend oats with winter wheat or cereal rye. The oats give you fast fall attraction, the wheat or rye carries the plot through the deep cold. Seeding rate for oats alone is typically 100 to 130 lbs per acre drilled, or higher if broadcast, per most land-grant extension forage guides.

do deer eat sorghum

Yes, deer eat sorghum, particularly the grain heads once they mature and dry down in fall. Grain sorghum (milo) is planted less often as a dedicated food plot species and more often as a standing grain crop or a component of a wildlife blend, because it needs a full warm season (roughly 100-120 frost-free days) to mature. The real value of sorghum in a late-season plan is structural, more than nutritional. A standing sorghum or corn plot left unharvested gives deer both a grain food source and thermal cover once other vegetation has died back and snow has flattened everything else. One practical note: sorghum needs to go in during late spring like corn, not in the August/September window that works for brassicas and cereal grains. If you want a sorghum or corn component in your late season plan, that decision gets made in May, not September.

do deer like clover, and does it matter in late season

Deer like clover a great deal, and it's arguably the most reliably grazed food plot forage across the whitetail's range through spring, summer, and fall. But clover's late-season value depends heavily on your climate. In the South and lower Midwest, clover often stays green and grazeable well into December and sometimes through a mild winter, especially where it's protected under a nurse crop of oats or wheat. In the Upper Midwest and Northeast, clover typically goes dormant once temperatures hold below freezing and snow cover sets in, so it stops contributing much to a hunter's late-season plan even though the stand survives to green up again in spring. Clovers (white clover, red clover, ladino) are perennials, so they're not something you plant in August for a late-season push. They're established in spring and you're managing an existing stand into winter. If your existing clover plot is thin going into fall, an extension-recommended move is frost-seeding or overseeding with a cereal grain in late summer to extend grazing into the cold months. Clover's crude protein content typically runs in the 25 to 30% range on quality forage tests, which is part of why it's such a strong general-purpose plot species even if it's not the star of the late-season lineup. For a deeper species comparison, see deer food plot seed.

what are deer's favorite foods (and does that change in winter)

Deer preference shifts hard by season, and 'favorite food' really means 'most calorie-efficient food available right now.' In spring and summer, deer favor high-protein forbs, clover, soybeans, and agricultural crops for antler and fawn development. In fall, acorns are often the top preference where available; a mast crop of white oak acorns can pull deer off a food plot entirely for weeks. In winter, deer shift toward high-carbohydrate, high-energy foods: standing corn, brassicas after frost, woody browse, and whatever agriculture is left standing nearby. That's a big reason late-season plot success varies year to year: in a bumper acorn year, your December plot might sit untouched until the acorns run out, usually by mid to late winter. The honest answer for a hunter planning a plot is that there's no single 'favorite food' that works everywhere, in every season, on every property. What holds up across most of the whitetail range as a strong late-season draw is a brassica-cereal grain combination, because it hits both the sugar craving after frost and the general forage need when nothing else is green.

do deer like honey (or anything sweet, and does that matter for plots)

Deer aren't drawn to honey the way bears are. Honey isn't a documented deer attractant and it's not something wildlife agencies or extension programs list as deer forage. What deer are drawn to is sugar content in plant tissue, which is a different mechanism entirely. That sugar-seeking behavior is exactly why frosted brassicas work so well. Once a hard frost hits a turnip or radish plant, the plant converts starches into simple sugars as a cold-tolerance response, and the leaf and bulb tissue becomes measurably sweeter. Deer respond to that sugar spike, not to sweetness as a flavor preference in the way people think of candy. So while 'do deer like honey' isn't really a food plot question, the underlying idea, that deer gravitate to sugar, is the whole mechanism behind why late-season brassica plots explode in use after the first hard freeze.

how do you prep the ground for a late-season plot

Start with a soil test, not a guess. Late summer plot failures are more often a pH problem than a seed problem; brassicas and cereal grains both perform best in the 6.0 to 7.0 pH range, and extension soil labs generally recommend testing every 2 to 3 years . Your soil test lab's lime and fertilizer recommendations are the actual authority here, not a generic blog number, because your specific soil chemistry, not a national average, determines how much lime and what fertilizer blend you need. Once you have results, the practical steps are the same whether you're planting a half acre by hand or five acres with a tractor: kill existing vegetation (herbicide or tillage), work the seedbed lightly, broadcast or drill at the recommended rate, and get seed-to-soil contact. Brassica seed is small and wants shallow planting, a quarter inch or less. Cereal grains want a bit more depth, roughly half an inch to an inch and a half if drilled. If you're short on equipment, a lot of late-season species (oats, wheat, brassica blends) establish fine broadcast into a worked seedbed and cultipacked or dragged, no drill required. That's part of why they're popular fall plantings for hunters without a full planting rig. Our equipment and methods coverage on planting gear goes deeper on drill vs. broadcast tradeoffs, and if you want species specifics by soil and region, deer food plot seed breaks down which blends fit which conditions.

how big should a late-season plot be, and where should you put it

There's no single right size; a quarter acre in a small woodlot pocket can work as well as five acres on a larger property, depending on deer density and surrounding food availability. What matters more than raw acreage is placement relative to bedding cover, wind, and how you'll access and hunt it without blowing deer out. Late-season plots specifically benefit from being close to heavy cover, thermal bedding, or a travel corridor deer already use in the cold months, because you're trying to catch deer on their most efficient, lowest-risk route to food when energy conservation matters most. A plot stuck out in the open with no cover nearby often gets used mostly at night in late season, when deer feel the most exposed and the most pressured. Some hunters plant two plots for exactly this reason: a large 'destination' plot deer feed in after dark, and a smaller kill plot tucked closer to bedding that gets hit in shooting light. If you're not sure how your acreage should be split, that's a fair question to run through a soil test and a property sketch. This is one spot where PlotSeason's $99 one-time Custom Food Plot Plan earns its keep: it takes your soil test and property layout and gives you a species and placement plan built for your ground, rather than a generic national recommendation. Start at /plot-plan-builder.

do you need to worry about state baiting or feeding rules for food plots

Standing food plots are generally treated differently from bait piles under state law, but the rules genuinely vary and you need to check your specific state before hunting over or near a plot. Some states draw a hard line: a growing, unharvested crop planted and left in the ground counts as a legitimate agricultural or wildlife food plot, not bait, while a pile of corn, minerals, or harvested grain scattered on the ground is regulated or banned as bait. Other states regulate distance from a plot, require the crop to be unharvested and in a normal agricultural manner, or restrict supplemental feeding entirely in certain disease management zones (chronic wasting disease areas especially). A number of state wildlife agencies, including Michigan's and Wisconsin's, tie their baiting and feeding restrictions to CWD management and update them by county and by year. The bottom line: don't assume your neighboring state's rule applies to you. Pull up your own state wildlife agency's current baiting and feeding regulation page before the season, every season, since these rules shift with CWD detections and can change year to year.

what species mix actually works best for a late-season plot

Turnip / radish (brassica)	80-90 to full maturity	Very high, improves after frost	Prime December-January draw once frosted
Winter wheat	45-60 to grazeable	Very high, one of the hardiest	Holds through deep winter, regrows in spring
Cereal rye	45-60 to grazeable	Highest of common cereal grains	Latest-season green forage, extreme cold tolerance
Oats	45-60 to grazeable	Low to moderate, often winter-kills	Fast fall attraction, may die back by Jan
Clover (existing stand)	Perennial, already established	Moderate, dormant under snow	Extends fall grazing, less useful once frozen/snowed over	A lot of hunters plant a 60/40 or 50/50 blend of brassica and cereal grain by weight, drilled or broadcast together. That gives you the frost-sweetened bulbs and leaves for the December push and a standing green cereal component that survives into the harshest part of winter. If you want ready-made blends built around this exact logic, deer food plot seed and food plot seed both cover commercial mix options.

For most of the whitetail range, the highest-percentage late-season combination is a brassica blend (turnip, radish, sometimes rape) planted with or alongside a cereal grain (oats, winter wheat, or cereal rye). The brassicas provide the frost-driven sugar spike deer key in on from November through January. The cereal grain provides fast green-up, ground cover, and a food source that holds up even in years when the brassica bulbs get eaten out early. Here's a simple comparison of the core late-season options: | Species | Days to grazeable | Cold tolerance | Best late-season role |

Frequently asked questions

What is a food plot for deer?

A food plot is a planted area, often a half acre to several acres, seeded specifically to feed deer and other wildlife during periods when natural forage is scarce. Hunters use them for nutrition support and as places to hunt from nearby stands during legal season. USDA NRCS recognizes them as a wildlife habitat practice under its conservation programs.

When should you plant food plots for deer?

Spring/summer plots (clover, soybeans, chicory) go in after your last frost, roughly April through June. Late season plots (brassicas, oats, wheat, rye) go in 60 to 100 days before your first fall frost, which lands anywhere from late July in the far north to mid-October in the Deep South, depending on species and local frost dates.

When should you plant turnips for deer food plots?

Plant turnips 80 to 90 days before your expected first hard frost. They need that time to bulb and mature, and they become noticeably more palatable to deer after one or two hard frosts convert starches in the plant into sugars, which is why deer often ignore turnips in October but hammer them in December.

When should you plant oats for deer?

Plant oats 6 to 10 weeks before your first fall frost, typically mid-August through mid-September across most of the whitetail's range. Oats green up fast and draw deer quickly but have low cold tolerance and often winter-kill in harsher climates, so many hunters blend them with wheat or rye for late-winter durability.

Do deer eat sorghum?

Yes. Deer eat sorghum grain, especially once heads mature and dry in fall, and standing sorghum also provides winter thermal cover. It needs a full warm season to mature, roughly 100 to 120 frost-free days, so it's planted in late spring like corn, not in the late-summer window used for brassicas and cereal grains.

Do deer like clover?

Yes, clover is one of the most consistently grazed food plot forages across the whitetail's range, with crude protein often in the 25 to 30% range on quality stands. Its late-season value depends on climate; it stays grazeable into winter in the South but typically goes dormant under snow and cold in northern regions.

What are deer's favorite foods?

It changes by season. Deer favor high-protein clover, soybeans, and forbs in spring/summer, acorns and other mast in fall when available, and high-carbohydrate foods like standing corn, frosted brassicas, and woody browse in winter. There's no single favorite food; it's whatever gives the best energy return for the season.

Do deer like honey?

No, honey isn't a documented deer food or attractant the way it is for bears. What actually draws deer is sugar content inside plant tissue, which is why frosted brassicas (where cold converts starch to sugar) become so attractive in late season, not because deer crave sweetness itself.

How big should a late season deer food plot be?

There's no fixed ideal size. A quarter acre tucked near heavy bedding cover can outperform a five-acre plot in an open field, because placement and cover matter more than raw acreage. Many hunters run a larger destination plot plus a smaller kill plot closer to bedding for daylight activity.

Can you plant a food plot without a soil test?

You can, but you're guessing on lime and fertilizer, and a wrong soil pH is one of the most common reasons plots underperform. Extension programs generally recommend testing every 2 to 3 years; your soil test lab's specific lime and fertilizer numbers should always override generic online advice.

Is a standing food plot considered baiting under state law?

Usually not, but rules vary by state and can change with CWD management zones. Most states treat an unharvested, growing crop planted in a normal agricultural manner as a legitimate food plot, separate from bait piles of harvested grain or minerals. Always check your current state wildlife agency regulations before season.

What's the difference between a spring plot and a late season plot?

Spring/summer plots (clover, soybeans, chicory) focus on protein for antler growth and lactation and are planted after last frost. Late season plots (brassicas, cereal grains) focus on carbohydrates and cold tolerance to carry deer through winter, and are planted 60 to 100 days before first fall frost.

Sources

1. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals: Frost date data by location used to time plot planting
2. PubMed, Coblentz, W.K. et al., "Effects of Growth Stage and Frost on Nonstructural Carbohydrate Concentrations in Forage Brassicas," Journal of Animal Science: Frost exposure changes nonstructural carbohydrate (sugar) concentration in brassica forage tissue
3. University of Wisconsin Extension, "Oats for Forage," Team Forage Publication A3801: Seeding rates and establishment windows for oats as a forage crop
4. USDA NRCS Plant Guide, White Clover (Trifolium repens): Clover crude protein content and its role as a high-quality forage species
5. Journal of Wildlife Management, Wentworth, J.M. et al., "Seasonal Variation in Nutrient Content and Digestibility of Deer Forages," JSTOR/Wiley archive: Deer forage preference and nutritional intake shift seasonally, with mast crops favored in fall when available
6. University of Missouri Extension, Soil Testing for Lawns, Gardens and Wildlife Food Plots, Publication G9101: Recommended soil pH range of 6.0-7.0 for most food plot forages and 2-3 year retest interval