Evolved harvest food plot seed: what actually works

Last updated 2026-07-25

what is evolved harvest food plot seed

Evolved Harvest is a hunting brand (part of the broader outdoor products space you'll see at Cabela's, Bass Pro, and rural farm stores) that sells pre-mixed food plot seed blends alongside attractants, minerals, and hunting gear. Their plot seed lineup typically includes clover blends, brassica/turnip mixes, cereal grain blends with oats or wheat, and sorghum or milo-based mixes marketed for screening and late-season food. None of this is exotic. The species inside an Evolved Harvest bag (red and white clover, purple top turnips, forage oats, grain sorghum) are the same plants sold in bulk at any farm co-op or by dedicated food plot seed companies. What you're paying a premium for is the blend ratio, the packaging, and marketing that promises specific deer behavior. That's not a knock on the product working; it's just useful to know what's actually in the bag before you decide if the price is worth it versus buying straight species seed and mixing your own. If you want a general primer on what a food plot is and why hunters plant them, see food plot whitetail for the basics before you pick a seed brand.

what is a food plot

A food plot is a planted patch of forage, usually somewhere between a quarter acre and several acres, established specifically to attract and hold deer or other wildlife on a property. Hunters plant food plots for two overlapping reasons: to supplement natural browse (especially in late summer and winter when native forage quality drops) and to create a predictable spot to hunt over. Food plots generally fall into two categories. Annual plots (brassicas, cereal grains, sorghum, some clovers) get planted fresh each year and often follow a spring/summer or late-summer planting window. Perennial plots (clover, chicory, alfalfa) get established once and can produce forage for 3 to 5 years with proper mowing and fertility maintenance, according to agronomic guidance from university extension programs ^[1]. A food plot is not a substitute for habitat work like timber stand improvement or native browse management, and it's not a guarantee of more or bigger deer. It's a tool. Soil testing, correct species selection for your region, and realistic acreage relative to your deer density matter more than any single seed brand choice. For a broader look at species options beyond any one brand, food plot seed covers the field.

do deer eat sorghum

Yes, deer eat sorghum, though it's more of a fall and winter standing-grain food source than a preferred summer forage. Grain sorghum (milo) produces a seed head deer will hit hard once it dries down and the plant matures, typically providing food into late fall and winter when the seed heads are still standing. It also works well as a screening or cover crop because it grows tall (4 to 7 feet) and thick. Extension forage agronomists note sorghum's main food plot value is less about deer preference and more about its drought tolerance and standing winter food supply after most soft forages have been grazed out or gone dormant ^[2]. Deer will browse young sorghum shoots some, but they generally prefer clover, soybeans, or brassica leaf tissue over sorghum foliage during the growing season. Its real strength shows up in November and December when the grain head is the last thing standing in a field of otherwise senesced plots. If your main goal is late-season standing forage rather than early-season attraction, sorghum blends (which is what many Evolved Harvest 'screening' or 'winter' mixes contain) make sense. If you want deer eating something the day you plant it, sorghum isn't your best bet; clover or brassica leaves will out-compete it for early attraction.

do deer eat clover, and do deer like clover

Deer eat clover readily and it's consistently one of the most preferred food plot forages across whitetail range. Clover offers 20 to 25% crude protein in vegetative growth stages, a range widely cited in university forage agronomy testing ^[3], which is well above what most native browse offers during summer. Deer like clover because it's a broadleaf legume, high in protein and relatively easy to digest, and it regrows quickly after grazing, meaning a plot can take repeated pressure through the growing season without dying out. White clovers (Ladino types) tend to be more shade and moisture tolerant, while red clovers handle heat and drier soils a bit better, a distinction extension forage variety trials commonly note ^[4]. The tradeoff: clover is a perennial that needs a properly limed and fertilized seedbed to persist, and it doesn't tolerate standing water or heavy shade well. A clover plot planted on soil with a pH below 6.0 without lime correction will struggle regardless of what brand of seed you used. This is the single most common failure point in food plots, and no seed blend, branded or generic, fixes a pH problem. Get a soil test before you plant clover of any kind; your local extension office soil lab is the authority here, not the seed bag.

when to plant food plots for deer

Deep South (Zone 8-9)	March-April	September-October
Mid-South / Transition (Zone 7)	April-May	August-September
Midwest / Upper South (Zone 6)	May	August
Northern tier (Zone 4-5)	Late May-June	Late July-August	These windows come from general USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map data combined with typical extension planting guidance; your local land-grant extension office publishes county-specific dates that are more precise than any national chart.

Timing splits into two windows: spring/early summer for warm-season annuals and perennials, and late summer/early fall for cool-season annuals like brassicas and cereal grains. Which window applies depends on the species and your USDA plant hardiness zone. Spring plantings (clover, soybeans, chicory, some sorghum) generally go in after the last frost date, which ranges from early April in the Deep South to late May or early June in the northern tier and Canada-adjacent states, per the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Fall plantings (brassicas, oats, wheat, winter peas) typically go in 60 to 90 days before your area's first hard frost, so the plants have time to establish before cold shuts down growth. Here's a rough planting window table by general US region. Always confirm against your specific county extension recommendations, since microclimates and elevation shift these dates significantly. | Region | Spring plot window | Fall plot window |

when to plant oats for deer

Oats are a cool-season annual, so they're planted in late summer to early fall in most of the whitetail's range, typically 6 to 8 weeks before your first expected frost. That usually lands in the August to early September window for the Midwest and mid-South, and September for northern states, based on cereal grain planting guidance from university extension agronomy departments ^[5]. Oats germinate fast (5 to 10 days in warm soil) and put out tender, palatable leaf growth that deer often hit within a couple weeks of emergence, especially in early fall when native browse is starting to toughen up and go dormant. Oats are cold-tolerant but not as winter-hardy as winter wheat or rye; a hard freeze below the mid-teens Fahrenheit will usually kill oat foliage, though the plant can still provide good early fall and pre-rut attraction before that happens. Some hunters in the South plant a second, later oat planting or overseed oats into an existing clover stand in early fall to add tonnage heading into hunting season. That works, but oats will fade fast once hard freezes hit, so don't count on them as a January food source outside the Deep South.

when to plant turnips for deer

Turnips, like other brassicas, get planted in late summer, generally 90 to 100 days before your first hard frost, so the plant has time to bulb out and the leaves reach peak tonnage before deer season and winter arrive. For most of the whitetail range this lands between mid-July and late August, per brassica planting guidance from extension forage specialists ^[5]. Turnips are a two-stage food source. Deer often ignore the leaves early on, then hit them hard in fall once a frost or two sweetens the plant tissue by converting starches to sugars. The bulbs themselves become a food source later, often into winter, once deer have worked through the leaf tops and soil has softened enough that digging isn't a big effort. A common mistake is planting turnips too late, chasing the idea that a later planting means fresher fall growth. Planted too late (say, mid-September in a zone that needs a mid-July start), turnips won't bulb properly and you'll get thin, stunted plants with little food value. Stick to the 90-to-100-day-before-frost rule and you'll be in reasonable shape most years. For a broader rundown of brassica and other cool-season options, deer food plot seed has more detail on blend choices.

what are deer's favorite foods

There's no single universal 'favorite' food across all deer populations, because preference shifts by season, region, and what's locally available, but agricultural crops and high-protein legumes consistently rank at the top in forage preference studies. Soybeans, clover, and alfalfa show up repeatedly as high-preference forages in whitetail diet research, largely because of their protein content and digestibility ^[3]. Acorns deserve a mention too. In fall, white oak acorns in particular are often preferred over planted food plots when they're available in quantity, because of their high fat content and lower tannin levels compared to red oak acorns, a pattern documented in wildlife nutrition research going back decades ^[6]. This is why food plots sometimes seem to go 'dead' in years with a heavy white oak acorn drop; deer aren't avoiding your plot, they're cashing in on a better calorie source nearby. Outside of ag crops and mast, deer show strong preference for tender new growth on browse species like honeysuckle, greenbrier, and various forbs, plus cultivated brassica leaves once sweetened by frost. Preference is really a moving target tied to protein, digestibility, and what's scarce versus abundant at that moment, not a fixed list.

do deer like honey

Deer don't eat honey itself in any meaningful way as a food source; they're herbivores and honey isn't part of natural browse or forage. What's actually going on with this question is likely confusion with 'Deer Co-Cain' or similar liquid deer attractant products, some of which use molasses, sweet feed, or sugar-based scent lures that hunters sometimes describe loosely as 'like honey' in smell or consistency. Some mineral and attractant products marketed by companies including Evolved Harvest do use sugar or molasses-based ingredients to increase palatability and scent draw, separate from actual food plot seed. These are attractants, not forage, and their use is regulated in many states the same way bait piles are. Check your state wildlife agency's regulations before using any attractant, mineral lick, or supplemental feed product, since baiting and feeding rules vary widely and some states prohibit these products entirely during hunting season or year-round in certain zones. Concerns over chronic wasting disease transmission at shared feed and mineral sites have pushed a number of state wildlife agencies to tighten or expand feeding and baiting bans in recent years ^[7].

does the evolved harvest brand actually matter for results

Short answer: the brand matters less than the fundamentals. Evolved Harvest, like most food plot seed companies, sells forage blends made of standard, well-studied species (clover, brassica, oats, sorghum). The germplasm inside these bags isn't proprietary in any way that changes how the plant grows; clover is clover, biologically speaking, once you account for variety differences like Ladino versus medium red. What actually drives whether a plot produces tonnage and holds deer comes down to three things extension agronomists emphasize repeatedly: soil pH corrected to the target range for your species (usually 6.0-7.0 for clover and brassicas), adequate phosphorus and potassium based on a real soil test, and planting at the right calendar window for your zone ^{[1] [4]}. A $30 soil test from your county extension office or a private ag lab will tell you more about your plot's potential yield than any seed company's marketing copy. That's not to say blend convenience has zero value. A pre-mixed bag saves you the math of ratio-blending species yourself, and for a hunter planting a half-acre plot on a weekend, that convenience is worth something. Just don't expect a branded bag to outperform a well-limed, well-fertilized plot of generic co-op seed planted at the right time. Soil chemistry beats marketing every time.

how do you build a planting plan instead of guessing

The reliable process looks like this: pull a soil sample (or several, if your plot has variable soil types), send it to a lab, get pH and nutrient recommendations back, apply lime months ahead of planting if needed (lime takes time to raise pH; it doesn't work instantly), then match species selection to your planting window and property goals. Lime application timing matters more than people think. Agricultural lime needs time to react with soil and shift pH, often several months depending on lime fineness, soil moisture, and how well it's incorporated, according to soil fertility guidance from land-grant extension soil science programs ^[8], so a fall soil test followed by spring liming followed by a spring planting is a reasonable cycle; trying to lime and plant in the same month rarely gets you the full pH correction you paid for. If you'd rather skip the spreadsheet work of matching species, acreage, and timing to your specific property and zone, PlotSeason's $99 one-time Custom Food Plot Plan builds a planting plan around your soil test results, region, and goals. It's general planning guidance built from your inputs, not site-specific agronomy from a licensed agronomist, and your soil test lab's recommendations are still the final word on lime and fertilizer rates. But it does the species-and-timing matching for you instead of you cross-referencing five different blend labels.

how much should you expect to spend on food plot seed

Straight species seed (clover, oats, brassica) from a farm co-op typically runs cheaper per acre than branded hunting-market blends, sometimes by a wide margin, though exact pricing swings a lot by region, seed variety, and year. Branded bags factor in packaging, marketing, and retail markup on top of the raw seed cost. As a rough planning number, expect perennial clover seed to run somewhere in the range of $4 to $8 per pound with a seeding rate around 6-8 lbs/acre for common white clover blends, in line with typical extension seeding rate tables ^[4], meaning seed cost alone often lands in the $30-60/acre range before lime, fertilizer, and equipment time. Brassica and cereal grain seed tends to be cheaper per pound but often gets seeded at higher rates (10-20+ lbs/acre for oats), so total cost per acre can end up similar. Lime is usually the bigger line-item people forget. Correcting a low pH soil can require 1 to 2 tons of ag lime per acre depending on your starting pH and soil buffer capacity, and that costs more delivered and spread than the seed itself in many cases. Budget for lime and fertilizer based on your actual soil test, not a guess.

which food plot type fits your property and goals

Different plot goals call for different species mixes, and this is really where the 'best' seed choice depends more on your hunting strategy than any brand loyalty. A few common goal-to-species pairings extension and wildlife management resources tend to agree on: Early season attraction plots (bow season openers, late summer/early fall hunts) do well with clover, soybeans, or cowpeas, since these are established, high-protein forages already producing tonnage when season opens. Late season food plots (post-rut, winter) lean on brassicas and standing grains like sorghum or corn, since these hold food value into the coldest months when native browse is thinnest. Screening and cover plots use tall species like sorghum, sunflowers, or sudangrass to break sightlines and create bedding-adjacent security cover, separate from their food value. A lot of hunters run a rotation: perennial clover as the backbone plot, plus one or two annual plots (brassica or cereal grain) rotated each year to fit stand locations and hunting pressure. For more on matching food plot type to hunting strategy, see deer food plots and domain food plot seed for another branded blend comparison, or deer for food for the bigger-picture strategy side.

Frequently asked questions

Do deer eat sorghum in food plots?

Yes. Deer eat grain sorghum, mainly as a standing fall and winter food source once the seed head dries down. They browse young shoots some, but sorghum's main value is late-season standing grain and screening cover, not early-season attraction like clover or brassica leaves offer.

Do deer like clover more than other food plot forages?

Clover consistently ranks among the most preferred food plot forages because of its high crude protein (20-25% in vegetative stages) and easy digestibility. Deer will hit a well-limed, well-fertilized clover plot hard through the growing season, though preference can shift toward acorns or ag crops when those are locally abundant.

When should you plant food plots for deer?

Timing depends on species and your USDA hardiness zone. Warm-season plots (clover, soybeans) go in spring after last frost; cool-season plots (brassicas, oats, wheat) go in late summer to early fall, generally 60-100 days before your area's first hard frost. Check your county extension office for exact local dates.

When do you plant oats for deer food plots?

Plant oats 6 to 8 weeks before your area's first expected frost, typically August to early September in the Midwest and mid-South, later in the Deep South. Oats germinate in 5-10 days and provide fast early fall forage, but they're not as winter-hardy as wheat or rye.

When should you plant turnips for deer?

Plant turnips 90 to 100 days before your first hard frost, generally mid-July through late August across most whitetail range. Turnips need that time to bulb properly; planting too late produces stunted plants. Deer often ignore the leaves until after frost sweetens the tissue.

What exactly is a food plot?

A food plot is a planted patch of forage, usually 0.25 to several acres, established to supplement native deer browse and create a predictable hunting location. Plots are either annual (replanted yearly) or perennial (lasting 3-5 years with maintenance). They're a supplemental tool, not a replacement for broader habitat management.

What are deer's favorite foods overall?

No single food ranks universally first, but soybeans, clover, alfalfa, and white oak acorns consistently show up as high-preference foods in whitetail research due to protein and fat content. Preference shifts seasonally and by region based on what's scarce versus locally abundant at any given time.

Do deer like honey or honey-based products?

Deer don't eat honey as forage; it's not part of their natural diet. The confusion usually comes from molasses or sugar-based liquid attractant products marketed for deer, which are scent lures, not food. Check your state's baiting and feeding regulations before using any attractant product.

Is Evolved Harvest food plot seed better than generic co-op seed?

Not necessarily. Evolved Harvest blends use standard forage species like clover, brassica, and oats, the same plants sold in bulk elsewhere. Plot success depends far more on corrected soil pH, fertility, and planting timing than on brand. Pre-mixed bags offer convenience, not a biological advantage.

How much lime do food plots typically need?

It depends entirely on your starting soil pH and buffer capacity, but many food plot soils need 1 to 2 tons of agricultural lime per acre to reach the 6.0-7.0 pH range most forages want. Lime takes months to fully react, so apply it well before planting.

What's the difference between a spring and fall food plot planting?

Spring plantings target warm-season species (clover, soybeans, some sorghum) planted after last frost. Fall plantings target cool-season annuals (brassicas, oats, wheat) planted 60-100 days before first hard frost, timed so plants establish before cold weather halts growth.

Can you plant food plot seed without a soil test?

You can, but it's a gamble. Without knowing your soil pH and nutrient levels, you can't know if lime or fertilizer is needed, and a pH mismatch (especially below 6.0 for clover) will tank yields regardless of seed quality or brand. A soil test costs $10-30 and removes most of the guesswork.

Sources

1. University of Missouri Extension, Food Plots for Deer: Perennial food plots like clover can persist multiple years with proper mowing and fertility maintenance
2. Oklahoma State University Extension, Food Plots for Deer and Turkey: Grain sorghum's food plot value is largely as drought-tolerant standing winter grain rather than preferred summer forage
3. Mississippi State University Extension Publication 2111, Nutrient Requirements of White-Tailed Deer: Clover provides high crude protein in vegetative growth stages and ranks among top preferred forages with soybeans and alfalfa
4. University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension, AGR-268, Establishing and Managing Wildlife Food Plots: White (Ladino) clover tolerates shade and moisture better than red clover, which handles heat and drier soils
5. Clemson Cooperative Extension, Establishing Wildlife Food Plots: Brassicas need roughly 90-100 days before first frost to establish, and cereal grains like oats are planted 6-8 weeks before frost
6. USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, General Technical Report SRS-247, White Oak Ecology and Management: White oak acorns are a high-value fall wildlife food source due to fat content and lower tannin levels relative to red oak group acorns
7. USGS National Wildlife Health Center, Chronic Wasting Disease Distribution and Management: Concerns over chronic wasting disease transmission have led wildlife agencies to reconsider feeding and baiting practices
8. University of Missouri Extension, Soil Acidity and Liming, Publication G9101: Agricultural lime takes time to react with soil and raise pH after application, depending on fineness and incorporation