Tecomate ultra forage: what's in the blend, and does it work

Last updated 2026-07-25

what is tecomate ultra forage food plot seed

Tecomate Ultra Forage is a branded, multi-species food plot seed blend sold by Tecomate Wildlife Systems, a company started by outdoor writer and deer nutrition consultant David Morris. The exact seed tag varies by bag and by year, but the Ultra Forage line is generally built around a base of chicory and perennial clovers (ladino and red clover are common components in Tecomate's perennial mixes), sometimes rounded out with brassica or small grain seed depending on the specific product in the lineup. Like most branded blends (Whitetail Institute's Imperial line, BioLogic, and others), Tecomate does not publish a single fixed formula across all regions and years. What you get is a mix optimized for tonnage, protein content, and season-long or multi-season attraction rather than a single-species planting. That's the whole pitch: one bag, multiple growth stages, less bare dirt between plantings. If you want to know exactly what's in your bag, read the seed tag. Federal and state seed law requires every bag sold in the U.S. to carry a label listing the actual species, percentage by weight, germination rate, and origin, per the Federal Seed Act ^[1]. That label is the only document that tells you, with certainty, what you're planting. Marketing copy on the bag front is not a substitute for the tag on the back or side. For a broader look at how blends like this stack up against straight single-species plantings, see our comparison of food plot seed options and our breakdown of deer food plot seed types.

what's actually in the bag, and why blend multiple species

Multi-species blends exist because no single plant does everything a deer herd needs across 12 months. Chicory is deep-rooted, drought-tolerant, and holds up under repeated grazing pressure once established. Extension forage research on chicory (Cichorium intybus) documents its deep taproot system and its tolerance of close, repeated grazing compared to many other perennial forbs ^[2]. Clover fixes nitrogen, feeds soil biology, and produces protein-rich forage in spring and fall. Brassicas (turnip, radish, rape) grow fast, tolerate cold, and become highly attractive after a hard frost converts starches to sugars. A blend spreads risk. If a dry August stunts the clover, chicory's taproot keeps pulling moisture from deeper in the soil profile. If deer hammer the plot early and mow it to dirt, the perennial components (clover, chicory) can recover from the crown, while an annual brassica planted alone would just be gone. The tradeoff is management complexity. A pure clover plot has one mowing height, one weed control window, one soil pH target. A five-species blend means you're managing for the lowest common denominator on some things (herbicide options get narrower when you've got broadleaf clover and broadleaf brassica in the same dirt, since a broadleaf herbicide that kills weeds will also kill your clover and turnips).

when to plant food plots for deer

Timing depends entirely on your zone and on whether you're planting a perennial (clover, chicory) or an annual (brassica, cereal grain, sorghum). There is no single national planting date, and any calendar that gives you one is guessing. As a rule, perennial clover and chicory blends go in spring (April to May in the North) or late summer to early fall (August to September) so seedlings establish before summer heat or winter cold stresses them. Brassicas and cereal grains are typically planted 60 to 90 days before your first hard frost, timed so tubers bulb up and greens mature right as hunting season opens. USDA's plant hardiness zone map is the standard reference for matching planting windows to your specific location and average frost dates. In the Deep South, the calendar flips. Cool-season annuals (oats, wheat, clover, brassica) go in from September through November once soil temperatures drop and summer heat breaks, because planting into 90-degree August soil in the Southeast just cooks the seed or invites disease. Bottom line: match the planting window to your USDA plant hardiness zone and your first frost date, not to a generic bag label. Check your local extension office's frost date tables before you buy seed.

when to plant oats for deer

Oats are a fall annual in most of the whitetail range, planted 6 to 8 weeks before your average first frost date so they establish a leafy canopy before cold slows growth. In the Midwest and Upper South, that generally means late August through mid-September. In the Deep South, oats often go in during October, since summer heat lingers longer and fall temperatures arrive later. Oats are one of the most cold-tolerant cereal grains available for food plots, and unlike wheat or rye, oats will winterkill in harder freezes (below roughly 5 to 10 degrees F, oats typically die back, while wheat and rye can survive colder). That makes oats a strong choice where you want fall and early winter attraction but don't need spring regrowth. If you want a plant that comes back green in March, wheat, rye, or triticale holds up better through a hard winter. Oats also germinate fast, often in 5 to 7 days under decent soil moisture, which matters if you're planting close to season and want green groceries up before opening weekend.

when to plant turnips for deer

Turnips are a brassica, planted in mid to late summer so the bulb has time to size up before the first hard frost, which is also what triggers deer to start eating them heavily. In the North (zones 3-5), that generally means late July through mid-August. In the transition zone and Upper South, early August through early September works. In the Deep South, turnips usually go in September. Here's the part a lot of first-time planters get wrong: deer often ignore turnip tops and bulbs almost entirely until after a hard frost. Before frost, turnip foliage is bitter with glucosinolates. After a freeze converts starches into sugars, palatability jumps, and deer will often switch onto a turnip plot hard, sometimes overnight. If your plot gets hit late in the season and not before, that's normal, not a failure. Turnips need loose, well-drained soil to bulb properly and generally do best with soil pH in the 6.0 to 7.0 range, consistent with general brassica crop guidance from land-grant extension programs ^[3]. In heavy clay or compacted dirt, turnips will still grow tops but the bulb won't size up much.

what is a food plot, and how does tecomate ultra forage fit in

A food plot is a planted area, usually a fraction of an acre up to several acres, seeded with forage species specifically to feed and hold deer (and often turkey, and sometimes cattle-grade forage for other wildlife) on a piece of hunting ground. Food plots aren't a wildlife feeding program in the legal sense in most states; they're an agricultural planting, which is why they're generally legal in places where baiting with piled corn or mineral is not. But rules vary by state, so check your state wildlife agency's baiting and feeding regulations before you plant near a stand or assume a plot is treated the same as bait under your state's law. Within that broader category, plots break down into a few types: annual plots (brassica, cereal grain, buckwheat, sorghum) replanted every year, and perennial plots (clover, chicory, alfalfa) that persist for 3 to 5 years with mowing and occasional overseeding. Ultra Forage falls into the perennial-leaning blend category, similar in concept to Whitetail Institute's Imperial Whitetail Clover or BioLogic's Clover Plus, though the exact species mix differs by brand and year. For a fuller rundown of plot categories and how to choose between them for your property, see our guide to deer food plots and food plot whitetail strategy.

do deer like clover, and do they eat it as much as marketing suggests

Yes. Clover is one of the most consistently preferred whitetail forages across published studies and extension research, and it's a foundational component in most perennial food plot blends, including Ultra Forage. Clover offers crude protein commonly in the 20 to 30 percent range in vegetative growth stages, which matters most in spring and summer when does are lactating and bucks are growing antlers. Deer forage preference work going back to classic whitetail nutrition research (Jones and others, and summarized in state deer management guides) consistently places clover among the top-selected food plot forages because of its digestibility and protein content relative to native browse. That said, clover isn't magic. Deer will still hit acorns, browse, soybeans, and ag crops hard when those are available and clover isn't the only thing on the landscape; food plot forage supplements the diet, it doesn't replace the native food base. Clover does best on soils with pH 6.0 to 6.5. Below pH 6.0, nitrogen fixation by clover's root nodule (rhizobia) bacteria drops off sharply, which is why soil testing and lime correction matter more for clover than for many other forages ^[4]. Clover also needs full or close to full sun. Shade under 60 percent of full sun will thin clover out within a couple of seasons regardless of what blend you planted.

do deer eat sorghum, and does it belong in a fall plot

Yes, deer eat sorghum grain heads and, to a lesser extent, the leaves, particularly in fall and winter when the seed heads mature and dry down. Grain sorghum (milo) is more commonly planted as a standalone screening or supplemental grain crop than as a primary attractant species, and it's less consistently preferred than corn, soybeans, or brassica tops in side-by-side studies. Sorghum's real value on a lot of properties is structural, not nutritional. It grows tall (4 to 7 feet), stands through winter better than corn in some conditions, and works well as a screen strip along a plot edge or a standing grain source that holds up into late season when soft mast and other annuals are gone. Sorghum is also more drought-tolerant than corn, which matters in the southern Plains and parts of the Southeast where summer dry spells are common. Sorghum isn't typically a headline component in blends like Ultra Forage, which lean more toward clover, chicory, and brassica. If you want a grain component for late-season standing forage, that's usually a separate planting or a strip alongside your perennial plot, not part of the same bag.

what are deer's favorite foods, ranked by what the data shows

Soybeans (forage stage)	25-30%	Summer	High preference where legal to plant, heavy deer pressure can wipe young plants fast
Clover	20-30%	Spring-fall	Most consistent perennial draw, needs pH 6.0-6.5
Chicory	15-25%	Summer-fall	Drought-tolerant, handles grazing pressure well
Brassica tops/bulbs	15-20% (tops)	Post-frost	Palatability jumps sharply after hard frost
Acorns (white oak group)	4-8%, high fat	Fall	Preferred over red oak group; low protein but high energy
Standing corn/grain	8-10%	Late season	Energy source, not a protein source	Crude protein figures above are general ranges compiled from published forage composition data and vary by growth stage, soil fertility, and cutting; treat them as ballpark, not lab-certified numbers for your specific field. The consistent theme: deer prioritize protein and digestibility in spring and summer (clover, soybeans, chicory) and shift toward energy-dense food (acorns, corn, brassica bulbs, standing grain) once cold weather and the rut increase caloric demand.

There's no single universal ranking, because preference shifts by region, season, and what's available on the landscape at the time. But across food plot studies and browse surveys, a few patterns hold up consistently. | Forage type | Typical crude protein | Seasonal draw | Notes |

do deer like honey, and is honeysuckle worth planting

If the question is about honeysuckle (Lonicera species) rather than literal honey, the answer is yes, deer readily browse the leaves and tender shoots of Japanese honeysuckle and several native honeysuckle species, and it's a documented component of whitetail diets in the Southeast. It's not something you'd plant in a food plot seed blend, though. Japanese honeysuckle is classified as an invasive species across much of the eastern U.S. and is actively managed against, not cultivated, by many state forestry and natural resource agencies because of how aggressively it spreads and smothers native understory ^[5]. If you're seeing deer hit honeysuckle hard on your property, that's a sign of browse pressure on a widely available, high-tannin winter green, not a reason to plant more of it. Deer do not eat honey (the substance) in any meaningful dietary sense; that's not a real food plot or forage question in practice, just a common search mix-up with honeysuckle or with clover ('honey clover' is sometimes a colloquial or regional name).

how does tecomate ultra forage compare to other branded blends

Branded multi-species blends (Tecomate Ultra Forage, Whitetail Institute's Imperial Whitetail Clover and No-Plow, BioLogic's Clover Plus and Maximum, Antler King's various mixes) compete on similar ground: convenience, multi-species coverage, and marketing claims about tonnage and attraction that are difficult to verify independently because none of these companies publish third-party replicated yield trials the way a university extension variety trial does. What you can verify is the seed tag. Compare bags on: percent by weight of each species, germination rate, and whether the mix leans perennial (clover, chicory, alfalfa base) or annual (brassica, cereal grain base). A blend heavy on annual ryegrass or filler grass species by weight is a cheaper product dressed up with a premium label; a blend where the named species (chicory, clover) make up the bulk of the weight is closer to what the marketing implies. Price per acre matters more than price per bag. Coverage rates vary widely by blend, roughly 2 to 4 pounds per acre for small-seeded clover and chicory blends up to 10 to 15 pounds per acre for brassica-heavy mixes, based on typical seeding rate ranges for these species used across extension planting guides. Do the math on cost per planted acre before assuming a $60 bag is more expensive than a $35 bag. We run a general side-by-side on blend types in our comparisons coverage, and if you're deciding between a branded blend and building your own mix from straight species, our deer for food guide walks through that tradeoff in more detail.

soil prep and fertility: what your soil test actually tells you

None of this works without matching soil chemistry to what the blend needs. Clover and chicory want pH 6.0 to 6.5 and will underperform or fail outright below pH 5.5, largely because nutrient availability (particularly phosphorus) drops and, for clover, nitrogen-fixing rhizobia bacteria activity falls off in acidic soil ^[4]. Brassicas tolerate a slightly wider range but still do best in the 6.0 to 7.0 window ^[3]. A soil test, not a bag label, tells you what your specific field needs in terms of lime and fertilizer. Your soil test lab's recommendation is the authority here; a food plot plan or seed bag can tell you the ideal range for the species, but only your lab result tells you how much lime and fertilizer your dirt actually needs to get there. Most extension soil labs charge $10 to $20 per sample and turn results in 1 to 2 weeks (check your state land-grant university's soil testing lab page for exact pricing and turnaround, since it varies by state). Lime takes months to fully react in soil, so if your test comes back needing 2 tons per acre of lime to correct pH, get it applied as far ahead of planting as your schedule allows, ideally the prior fall for a spring planting. If you're mid-season with no lime applied yet, plant anyway; a slightly acidic clover plot still grows, just not at its full potential, and you can topdress lime for next year. If you want help translating a soil test into an actual seeding and fertilizer plan for your property, that's the kind of thing worth paying a small amount for rather than guessing. Tecomate and other brands sell seed; building a plan specific to your acreage, soil test numbers, and region is a separate step. PlotSeason's $99 one-time Custom Food Plot Plan is built for exactly that gap, turning your soil test and property details into a species and fertilizer plan, though your soil lab's specific lime and fertilizer recommendation always overrides general guidance.

planting checklist for a multi-species blend like ultra forage

Run the soil test first, at least 60 to 90 days before your planting window if you expect to need lime. Don't skip this step because the bag says the blend is 'easy' or 'forgiving.' Every blend still lives or dies on soil chemistry. Kill existing vegetation with glyphosate 2 to 3 weeks before planting if you're working an established field or converting from sod, per standard extension weed control timing for food plot establishment. Drill or broadcast at the seeding rate on the tag, not a rate you're guessing at; multi-species blends are rate-sensitive because oversized seeding of the fast-germinating component (often brassica or cereal grain) can shade out slower perennial seedlings like clover and chicory before they establish. Cultipack or drag lightly after broadcasting small-seeded clover and chicory; these need good seed-to-soil contact and shallow planting depth (1/4 inch or less), while brassica and cereal grain can handle slightly deeper coverage. Mow perennial blends at 6 to 8 inches through the first growing season to control weed competition without stressing the clover and chicory crowns, standard perennial food plot maintenance recommended across most land-grant extension food plot guides.

Frequently asked questions

Do deer eat sorghum?

Yes, deer eat sorghum grain heads and some leaf material, especially in fall and winter as seed heads mature. It's less consistently preferred than corn, soybeans, or clover in most studies and is more often planted as a tall screening or standing late-season grain crop than as a primary attractant.

Do deer like clover?

Yes, clover is one of the most consistently preferred whitetail forages in extension research, offering 20 to 30 percent crude protein in vegetative growth. It's a foundational species in most perennial food plot blends, including Tecomate Ultra Forage, and does best at soil pH 6.0 to 6.5.

When should I plant food plots for deer?

It depends on species and zone. Perennials like clover and chicory go in spring (April-May) or late summer (August-September). Annuals like brassica and cereal grains are typically planted 60 to 90 days before first frost. Check your zone's frost dates and your state extension's local calendar before buying seed.

When should I plant oats for deer?

Plant oats 6 to 8 weeks before your average first frost date, generally late August through mid-September in the Midwest and Upper South, and into October in the Deep South. Oats germinate fast (5-7 days) but typically winterkill in hard freezes below roughly 5-10°F.

When should I plant turnips for deer?

Plant turnips mid to late summer, generally late July through mid-August in the North and September in the Deep South, so bulbs size up before the first hard frost. Deer often ignore turnips until after frost converts starches to sugars, sometimes hitting the plot hard almost overnight afterward.

What is a food plot?

A food plot is a planted area seeded with forage species to feed and hold deer and other wildlife on hunting ground. It's an agricultural planting, generally treated differently under state law than piled bait, though baiting and feeding rules vary by state and should be checked before hunting near a plot.

What are deer's favorite foods?

Preference shifts by season. In spring and summer, deer favor high-protein forage like soybeans, clover, and chicory (20-30 percent crude protein). In fall and winter, they shift toward energy-dense foods like acorns, standing corn, and frost-sweetened brassica bulbs and tops.

Do deer like honey?

Deer don't eat honey the substance in any meaningful dietary way. This question usually means honeysuckle, which deer do browse readily, especially Japanese honeysuckle. That species is invasive across much of the eastern U.S. and is managed against by state agencies, not something to plant intentionally.

What's actually in Tecomate Ultra Forage seed?

The exact formula varies by bag and year, generally built around chicory and perennial clovers, sometimes with brassica or cereal grain components. The seed tag on your specific bag, required by the Federal Seed Act, is the only reliable source for exact species and percentage by weight.

How is Tecomate Ultra Forage different from Whitetail Institute or BioLogic blends?

All are branded multi-species blends competing on convenience and attraction claims that aren't independently tested through published trials. The real differences show up on the seed tag: species percentage by weight, germination rate, and whether the mix leans perennial (clover/chicory) or annual (brassica/grain).

What soil pH does a clover and chicory blend need?

Clover and chicory perform best at soil pH 6.0 to 6.5. Below pH 5.5, nutrient availability drops and clover's nitrogen-fixing bacteria activity declines sharply. A soil test tells you exactly how much lime your specific field needs to reach that range.

How much seed do I need per acre for a multi-species blend?

Rates vary by blend composition, roughly 2 to 4 pounds per acre for small-seeded clover and chicory mixes, up to 10 to 15 pounds per acre for brassica-heavy blends. Always use the seeding rate printed on your specific bag's tag rather than a general estimate.

Can I plant a perennial blend like Ultra Forage in the same plot every year?

Yes, that's the point of a perennial blend. Clover and chicory typically persist 3 to 5 years with regular mowing (keep it around 6-8 inches) and occasional overseeding to fill thin spots, rather than requiring a full replant each season like an annual brassica plot.

Sources

1. USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, Federal Seed Act: Seed bags sold in the U.S. must carry a label listing species, percentage by weight, germination rate, and origin
2. USDA NRCS Plant Guide, Chicory (Cichorium intybus): Chicory has a deep taproot and tolerates repeated, close grazing better than many other perennial forbs
3. USDA NRCS Plant Guide, Turnip (Brassica rapa): Brassica turnips need well-drained soil and a near-neutral pH to bulb properly
4. USDA NRCS Plant Guide, White Clover (Trifolium repens): Clover nitrogen fixation depends on rhizobia bacteria activity, which declines in acidic soil, making pH correction important for establishment
5. USDA Forest Service, Fire Effects Information System, Lonicera japonica species review: Japanese honeysuckle is classified as invasive in much of the eastern U.S. and is managed against by land agencies