Crush food plot mix: what's in it and when to plant it

Last updated 2026-07-25

what is a food plot, and what is a "crush" style mix

A food plot is a planted area, usually a half acre to a few acres, seeded with forage crops to feed and attract deer and other wildlife on land you own or lease. Extension programs describe food plots as a wildlife management tool that supplements native browse, especially during stress periods like late summer drought or the post-rut lean months ^[1]. "Crush" is a marketing term used by several seed companies (Whitetail Institute's "No-Plow" and "Beets & Greens," Mossy Oak's "BioLogic," and smaller regional brands all have similar blends) for a multi-species mix built to hit several jobs at once: fast germination, a long attraction window, and soil improvement from the brassica and legume components. There's no single official "Crush" product data sheet from a university, so treat any bag labeled that way as a proprietary blend, not a regulated seed class. Read the tag. Every bag sold in the US must carry a seed label listing species, percentage by weight, germination rate, and test date under the Federal Seed Act ^[2]. Most mixes in this category combine three functional groups. Brassicas (turnip, radish, rape, kale) provide big tonnage and a late-season sugar spike after frost. Cereal grains (oats, wheat, triticale) germinate fast and give early green-up plus cover. Clover, when included, adds a perennial component that persists past the annual brassicas and grains. The blend ratio matters more than the marketing name. Cheap mixes often bulk up on cheap annual ryegrass or wheat filler; check the percentage breakdown on the tag before buying.

do deer eat sorghum, and does it belong in a crush mix

Deer will eat grain sorghum seed heads and will browse young sorghum forage, but it's not a heavily preferred food plot species and it's rarely a core ingredient in crush-style mixes. Sorghum shows up more often in dove field mixes and as a drought-tolerant grain crop in the Southeast and Plains than in dedicated deer blends. Sorghum-sudangrass hybrids are used more for erosion control, screening cover, and soil building between plot rotations than as a primary attractant ^[3]. If you see sorghum in a bagged mix, it's likely playing a structural role (a nurse crop or wind screen for young brassicas) rather than being the draw. Whitetails clearly prefer soft mast, forbs, and the tender leaves of brassicas and clovers over the tougher sorghum forage once other choices are available. Don't build a plot around it. Use it, if at all, as a small percentage for cover and soil tilth on sandy or drought-prone ground.

do deer eat clover, and do deer actually like it

Yes. Clover is one of the most consistently preferred food plot forages across the whitetail's range, and it's usually a good idea to have some in rotation. University research comparing forage preference and use has repeatedly found clover among the top-selected plantings, largely because of its high crude protein (commonly 25 to 30 percent in a well-managed stand) and long growing season compared to annuals ^[4]. White clover (Trifolium repens) and red clover (Trifolium pratense) are the two workhorses. White clover, particularly Ladino types, tolerates closer grazing and persists 3 to 5 years with good management. Red clover grows more upright, produces more tonnage per cutting, but thins out faster under heavy browse pressure, often needing replanting or overseeding within 2 to 3 years. The catch with clover in a crush mix: it's a perennial competing against annuals for light and moisture in the same seed bag. Some blends handle this by keeping clover percentage low (5 to 10 percent by weight) so it establishes as an understory while the brassicas and grains do the heavy lifting the first fall, then the clover carries the plot into following seasons. If you want clover to be a dominant, long-term stand, it's usually smarter to plant it alone in its own plot rather than folding it into an annual mix. See our breakdown of deer food plot seed options for how straight clover stands compare to blends.

when to plant food plots for deer, by region

Upper Midwest / Northeast (zones 3-4)	Late July to mid-August	mid-Sept to early Oct
Mid-South / Mid-Atlantic (zones 5-6)	Mid-August to mid-September	mid-Oct to early Nov
Deep South / Gulf Coast (zones 7-9)	September to early October	Nov to Dec	Spring plots (clover, chicory, soybeans) go in after your last frost date and once soil temps hold above roughly 50°F, generally April into May across most of the whitetail range, later into May or June in the northern tier. If you're unsure which calendar applies to your specific county, our seasonal planting guide breaks the country into clearer regional windows.

Timing depends on whether you're planting a spring/summer plot or a fall attraction plot, and both depend on your first and last frost dates. For fall brassica and cereal grain mixes (the bulk of crush-style products), the rule extension agronomists use is to plant 60 to 90 days before your area's average first hard frost, so plants have time to bulk up before cold weather triggers the sugar conversion that makes brassicas palatable ^[5]. Here's a rough planting window by USDA Plant Hardiness Zone for fall brassica/grain mixes. These are general windows; always check your local extension office and a 10-day soil temperature forecast before you commit seed to the ground. | Region (approx. USDA zone) | Fall mix planting window | First frost (typical) |

when to plant oats for deer food plots

Oats germinate fast (often 5 to 10 days in warm soil) and are one of the most reliably grazed cereal grains in a fall mix. Plant oats 6 to 10 weeks before your first expected hard frost so they establish a few inches of growth before cold slows them down. In much of the whitetail's core range that lands in late August through mid-September. Oats don't survive hard winters the way winter wheat or rye does; they're generally used as a fall annual that dies back after repeated hard freezes in the teens. That's fine for a hunting-season attraction plot. If you want a cereal grain that carries green forage into late winter, winter wheat, cereal rye, or triticale (all more cold-hardy) are the better call, and several crush mixes substitute one of these for oats specifically for that reason. Seeding rate for oats alone typically runs 2 to 3 bushels per acre, roughly 96 to 128 lbs, since a bushel of oats weighs about 32 lbs . Drilling at a quarter to half inch depth beats broadcasting alone for germination consistency, though broadcasting followed by light disking works fine on worked ground.

when to plant turnips for deer, and will deer actually eat them

Plant turnips 80 to 90 days before your first hard frost. Turnips need that runway to bulb out and to go through at least one frost, which converts starches to sugars and makes both the leaf and the bulb noticeably sweeter and more attractive to deer ^[5]. Planting too early in hot late-summer soil can cause poor germination or bolting; planting too late leaves undersized bulbs with little tonnage. Deer use of turnips is real but inconsistent, and this is one area where hunters overpromise based on a good year. In the first season on a piece of ground, deer sometimes ignore turnip bulbs almost entirely and pick at the leaves lightly, especially where brassicas have never been planted before. Deer learn to recognize and prefer brassicas over successive seasons, a pattern several extension wildlife programs and seed companies have both observed anecdotally, though it's not something with a tightly controlled long-term study behind it. Don't panic if your first-year turnip plot looks untouched in October; by December and January, after multiple frosts and once acorns and other browse thin out, bulb use often increases sharply. Purple top and forage-type turnips (Brassica rapa) are the common food plot varieties, seeded at about 2 to 4 lbs per acre alone, or a much smaller fraction of that when blended into a multi-species crush mix where the bag's overall rate is usually 8 to 12 lbs per acre total.

how do i build and plant a crush-style mix step by step

Start with a soil test, not a seed order. A basic soil test through your county extension office or a private ag lab (typically $10 to $20) tells you pH and nutrient levels, and every legitimate seed company recommendation assumes you'll follow the lab's lime and fertilizer recommendation, not a generic bag instruction . Brassicas in particular are sensitive to low pH; yields drop hard below pH 5.8, and most labs will call for lime to bring a plot to the 6.0 to 6.8 range for a mixed brassica/grain/clover planting. Here's a general sequence that works for most crush-style mixes: 1. Pull soil samples 4 to 6 months before planting so lime has time to react (lime can take 3 to 6 months to fully adjust pH, sometimes longer on heavy clay). 2. Kill existing vegetation with a burndown herbicide (glyphosate is common) 2 to 3 weeks ahead, or till twice, 10 to 14 days apart, to knock back weed pressure. 3. Broadcast lime and the base fertilizer rate the soil test recommends, then work it into the top 2 to 4 inches. 4. Broadcast the seed mix at the bag's stated rate (commonly 8 to 12 lbs/acre for combined brassica-grain-clover blends), then cultipack or drag to get seed-to-soil contact. Brassica and clover seed is tiny; burying it more than a quarter inch deep kills germination. 5. If rain doesn't come within a few days, be patient. Fall plots often sit dormant through a dry spell and jump once real rain hits. For equipment, a plot under an acre is workable with an ATV/UTV drag harrow, a hand or tow-behind broadcast spreader, and a cultipacker. Larger acreage benefits from a no-till drill, which handles the tiny brassica and clover seed sizes better than a standard grain drill set for large seed. See our equipment and methods coverage for a fuller rundown of what's worth renting versus owning.

what are deer's favorite foods, and where does a crush mix fit in

There's no single "favorite food" answer that holds across the whitetail's range, because preference shifts by season, region, and what's locally available. That said, a few patterns show up consistently in forage-preference studies and extension literature. Acorns (especially white oak group acorns, lower in tannins than red oak group) are a top late-fall preference where available. Soft mast (apples, persimmons, honeysuckle) draws hard in late summer and early fall. Among planted forages, clover, soybeans, and chicory rank consistently high through the growing season, while brassicas surge in preference after frost ^{[4] [5]}. A crush mix tries to cover several of those preference windows in one planting: the cereal grain and clover component feeds deer through late summer and early fall, and the brassica component takes over as the preferred item once frost hits in November and December. That's the actual value proposition of a multi-species blend over a single-species plot: it spreads attraction across more of the season instead of peaking once and fading. If you're trying to figure out species selection for your specific property and hunting calendar rather than buying a generic bag, that's the kind of site-specific call a soil test and a written plan handle better than guesswork. We built a $99 one-time Custom Food Plot Plan for exactly that: you get species and timing recommendations matched to your zone and soil test, though your soil lab's specific lime and fertilizer numbers are always the final word for your dirt, not any generic plan.

do deer like honey, and does that matter for food plots

This question comes up because of "Honey Hole" and similarly named commercial mixes, and because hunters sometimes wonder if sweet scents or syrupy attractants pull deer the way food plots do. Deer do not eat honey in any meaningful dietary sense; it's not part of their natural browse and there's no wildlife research suggesting honey or sugar syrup functions as a food source or attractant in the field. Deer are drawn to sugar in the sense that frost-sweetened brassica leaves and bulbs, and high-sugar forages like clover and chicory, are more palatable, but that's a plant-based mechanism, not honey itself. If a product name uses "honey" it's branding, not a botanical or nutritional ingredient claim. Focus on the actual seed tag ingredients (brassica species, cereal grain species, legume species and percentages) rather than the product name when deciding whether a mix fits your plot.

should i plant a crush mix or single-species plots instead

It depends on your acreage, your soil, and how much you want to manage. A blended crush-style mix is a reasonable default for a single small food plot (a half acre to two acres) where you want one planting to cover early season through late season attraction without a second trip to the tractor. If you have multiple plots or more acreage, splitting species out often performs better than blending them. A dedicated clover plot left to establish for 3 to 5 years, paired with a separate annual brassica/grain plot replanted each fall, generally outproduces a single blended plot on a per-acre tonnage basis, because you're not asking a perennial and several annuals to share light, water, and nutrients in the same 8 inches of soil. Extension forage trial data consistently shows monoculture stands, when properly fertilized, out-yielding mixed-species plantings of the same total seeding rate, though the mixed plot wins on season-long attraction diversity. The honest tradeoff: blends are simpler and more forgiving for a first-time plotter or a small property with one good spot. Separate plots give a manager more control and usually more total forage, at the cost of more planning and more trips across the field. Compare options in our guide to food plot seed types before you commit a season's budget to one bag.

what about baiting and feeding rules before you plant

A planted, rooted food plot is legal to hunt over in essentially every state, but that's different from bait piles, mineral licks, or supplemental feed, which many states restrict or ban outright, especially in areas managing chronic wasting disease. Rules vary by state and sometimes by county or CWD management zone, so check your state wildlife agency's current regulations before assuming a practice is legal, particularly if you're also running feeders or mineral sites near your plots . This matters for crush mixes specifically because some hunters top-dress plots with molasses-based attractant powders or mineral supplements alongside the planted seed. That combination can cross the line into a baiting violation in states that regulate feed and bait separately from standing crops. When in doubt, call your state wildlife agency's regional biologist office; the rules genuinely differ enough state to state that a blanket answer would be irresponsible.

Frequently asked questions

Do deer eat sorghum in food plots?

Deer will browse young sorghum forage and eat the grain heads, but it's a low-preference species compared to brassicas, clover, and soybeans. It shows up more in dove fields and soil-building rotations than in dedicated deer attraction plots, and it's rarely a major ingredient in crush-style mixes.

Do deer eat clover, and do they actually like it?

Yes, clover is one of the most consistently preferred food plot forages, with crude protein commonly in the 25 to 30 percent range in a well-managed stand. White and red clover both see heavy use through spring, summer, and fall, and clover often outperforms annual grains in season-long preference studies.

When should I plant food plots for deer?

Fall brassica and grain mixes go in 60 to 90 days before your area's first hard frost, generally late July through September depending on your zone. Spring plots (clover, chicory, soybeans) go in after the last frost, once soil temps hold above about 50°F, typically April through May.

When should I plant oats for a deer food plot?

Plant oats 6 to 10 weeks before your first expected hard frost, often late August to mid-September in much of the whitetail range. Oats germinate fast, in 5 to 10 days under warm soil, but die back hard once temperatures hit the teens, so they're an annual fall attraction crop, not a winter-long forage.

When should I plant turnips for deer?

Plant turnips 80 to 90 days before your first hard frost so they can bulb out and go through at least one frost, which sweetens both the leaf and the bulb. Planting too late leaves undersized turnips with little tonnage; planting too early into hot soil can hurt germination.

What is a food plot?

A food plot is a planted area on hunting land, usually a half acre to several acres, seeded with forage crops like brassicas, clover, or cereal grains to supplement native browse and attract deer and other wildlife, particularly during seasonal stress periods.

What are deer's favorite foods overall?

There's no single universal answer; preference shifts by season and region. White oak acorns, soft mast like apples and persimmons, and planted clover and soybeans rank consistently high, while brassicas surge in preference after the first hard frosts of fall.

Do deer like honey or sugar-based attractants?

Deer don't eat honey as a meaningful food source, and there's no wildlife research showing it works as a field attractant. Product names using "honey" are branding. Deer preference for sweetness in real plots comes from frost-sweetened brassica leaves and high-sugar forages like clover, not from honey or syrup itself.

What is actually in a "crush" style food plot mix?

Most crush-style bagged mixes combine brassicas (turnip, radish, rape, kale), cereal grains (oats, wheat, or triticale), and sometimes clover in one bag. There's no regulated definition of "crush," so always read the federally required seed tag for the exact species and percentages by weight.

How much crush mix seed do I need per acre?

Most bagged multi-species brassica-grain-clover blends call for 8 to 12 lbs of seed per acre, broadcast and then cultipacked or lightly dragged for seed-to-soil contact. Always follow the specific rate printed on your bag's federal seed tag, since blends vary by brand.

Should I plant a blended mix or separate single-species plots?

A blended mix is simpler and works well for one small plot covering early to late season. Separate plots, a perennial clover stand plus a rotated annual brassica/grain plot, generally produce more total forage on a per-acre basis but take more planning and more trips across the field.

Do I need a soil test before planting a crush mix?

Yes. Brassicas especially are sensitive to low pH, with yields dropping hard below pH 5.8. Pull soil samples 4 to 6 months ahead of planting so any recommended lime has time to react, and follow your lab's specific lime and fertilizer numbers over any generic bag instructions.

Sources

1. USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, Federal Seed Act: Seed sold in the US must carry a label with species, percentage by weight, and germination/test date under the Federal Seed Act.
2. Oklahoma State University Extension, "Forage Sorghum and Sorghum-Sudangrass Hybrids" (PSS-2132): Sorghum and sorghum-sudangrass hybrids are used more for cover, erosion control, and soil improvement between plot rotations than as a primary deer attractant.
3. University of Georgia Extension, "Wildlife Food Plots" (Bulletin 1301): Planting windows for spring versus fall food plot species and general species-blend performance comparisons.
4. Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, "Estimating Seeding Rates" (Small Grains PM 1885): A bushel of oats weighs approximately 32 lbs, informing typical per-acre seeding rate calculations.
5. Clemson Cooperative Extension, "Soil Testing": A basic soil test typically costs $10 to $20 and provides pH and nutrient recommendations that should guide lime and fertilizer application.