What to plant for deer food plots in fall

Last updated 2026-07-26

What is a food plot, exactly?

A food plot is a planted area, usually somewhere between a quarter acre and several acres, established specifically to grow forage that attracts and feeds deer or other wildlife. It's more than a mowed field. It's a managed planting, usually with soil prep, lime and fertilizer based on a soil test, and a seed mix chosen for the season and the deer's nutritional needs. Most hunters run two kinds of plots. A hunting plot sits tight to a stand or blind and is often small, sometimes a quarter acre or less, meant to pull deer into range during shooting light. A destination or nutrition plot is bigger, half an acre to several acres, planted to feed deer through a stretch of the year rather than just get eyes on them for an evening sit. State wildlife agencies generally treat food plots differently from bait piles. Planted, standing crops are legal in nearly every state, but pouring corn, minerals, or other feed on the ground is regulated or banned in a lot of places. Michigan, for example, restricts baiting and feeding of deer across most of the state under its Wildlife Conservation Order provisions tied to chronic wasting disease management ^[1]. Check your state wildlife agency's regulations before you do anything beyond planting a crop in the ground.

When to plant food plots for deer in fall?

Deep South (LA, MS, S. AL/GA)	Mid-Nov to early Dec	Late Sept to mid-Oct	Mid to late Oct
Mid-South / Transition (TN, KY, AR)	Mid to late Oct	Late Aug to mid-Sept	Mid-Sept
Upper Midwest / Northeast (WI, MN, MI, NY, PA)	Mid to late Sept	Early to mid-Aug	Late Aug to early Sept
Southern Plains / Texas	Late Nov to early Dec	Mid to late Sept	Early Oct	If you only remember one rule, remember this: brassicas need roughly 90 days from seed to a full bulb, so back-planting from your frost date matters more for turnips than for anything else you'll plant this fall.

The short answer: cereal grains and brassicas go in 60 to 90 days before your area's average first hard frost, and clover overseeding happens 4 to 6 weeks before that same frost date. In most of the whitetail's range that lands somewhere between mid-August and mid-September, but it shifts by a month or more from the Deep South to the northern Midwest. Your local NOAA first-frost date is the anchor for everything. NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information publishes U.S. Climate Normals, including average first and last freeze dates by station, and county extension offices often translate that into a planting calendar for row crops and forage that works fine for food plots too ^[2]. Here's a rough planting window by region. Treat these as starting points, not gospel, because elevation, soil type, and a wet or dry year all push dates around. | Region | Typical first frost | Plant cereal grains/brassicas | Plant/overseed clover |

What are the best fall food plot options?

Three categories cover almost every good fall plot: cereal grains, brassicas, and clover. Most experienced plotters plant a blend rather than a monoculture, because a mix spreads risk across weather, soil, and deer preference. Cereal grains (oats, winter wheat, winter rye, triticale) germinate fast, tolerate cold, and give deer green, high-carbohydrate forage right when acorns are dropping and does are pushing into the rut. They're also cheap, often $15 to $30 per acre in seed cost depending on the grain and your seeding rate, per land-grant extension forage guides on small grain seeding rates and costs. Brassicas (turnips, radishes, rape, kale) grow a leafy top deer hit in early fall and a bulb or root deer often ignore until after a hard freeze converts starches to sugars, making the plant sweeter and more attractive. Purdue University's extension publication on brassicas for deer food plots notes they need a full growing season of 80 to 90 days and respond heavily to nitrogen, so a soil test matters more here than almost anywhere else in your plot plan ^[3]. Clover, mostly perennial white clovers like Ladino or red clover, is really a multi-season plant. You plant or overseed it in fall so it establishes roots before winter, then it becomes your spring and summer workhorse. It won't outproduce brassicas or grains for tonnage in October and November, but it's the plant that keeps feeding deer (and rebuilding soil nitrogen) for two to four years if you maintain it. For a deeper look at where clover fits across the whole season, see food plot whitetail.

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

Yes, and it's one of the most consistently preferred forages across whitetail research. Deer eat clover heavily through spring, summer, and fall, and it's a foundational plant in most food plot programs because of that season-long draw. University forage and wildlife research repeatedly ranks clover among the top preferred food plot species for whitetail deer, largely because of its high crude protein content, often 25 to 30% in well-fertilized stands, which supports antler growth in bucks and lactation in does ^[4]. It's also more digestible than many warm-season grasses and most brassica foliage. The catch with clover in a fall-planting article is timing and patience. Clover planted in August or September won't feed deer much before frost; its real payoff comes the following spring. So if your goal is tonnage on the ground this November, clover alone is the wrong call. Pair it with a cereal grain nurse crop, which shades new clover seedlings, suppresses weeds, and gives deer something to eat immediately while the clover establishes underneath. This is a standard practice recommended in university forage guides for establishing legume stands.

When to plant oats for deer?

Plant oats 60 to 90 days before your first expected hard frost, which for most of the whitetail's range means late August through mid-September. Oats are one of the fastest-germinating cereal grains, often showing green shoots within 5 to 10 days of a good rain, and deer will hit young oats hard within a couple weeks of emergence. Oats have one real weakness: cold tolerance. Straight oats generally die back once temperatures drop into the low 20s (Fahrenheit) for a sustained period, unlike winter wheat, winter rye, or triticale, which survive much colder winters and can regrow in spring. That's fine if your goal is an October-through-December plot in the Mid-South or further south. In the northern tier, oats alone often get killed off by December, so a lot of northern plotters blend oats with winter rye or wheat, letting the oats provide fast early growth while the rye carries the plot through winter. Seeding rate for oats in a food plot context is typically 100 to 130 pounds per acre when drilled, or up to 150 pounds broadcast, according to state extension small-grain forage guides. Oats also do best with a starter dose of nitrogen, something in the 30 to 50 pound per acre range, because they're not nitrogen-fixers like clover.

When to plant turnips (and other brassicas) for deer?

Plant turnips and other brassicas 75 to 90 days before your area's first hard frost. Because brassicas need that full runway to bulb out, this is the crop where getting the calendar wrong costs you the most. Plant too late and you get leafy tops with no bulb, which deer will still eat, but you lose the late-season high-carb draw that bulbs provide. For most of the whitetail range that means a planting window of late July through early September, with the earlier end of that window for northern states and the later end for the Mid-South. Purdue's extension publication on brassica forages for deer specifically calls out the 80 to 90 day maturity window and recommends against planting much past early September in the Midwest ^[3]. Brassicas are heavy nitrogen feeders. A soil test is genuinely worth doing here rather than guessing, because brassica yield and protein content respond directly to nitrogen availability, and under-fertilized brassica plots often disappoint growers who assume the crop is a low-input option. Typical recommendations run 40 to 60 pounds of actual nitrogen per acre, split between planting and a topdress a few weeks later, per that same Purdue publication ^[3]. Your soil test lab's specific lime and fertilizer numbers should override any general rate here since soil pH and existing nutrient levels vary a lot by field.

Do deer eat sorghum?

Yes, deer eat grain sorghum, both the standing seed heads and, to a lesser extent, the foliage, but it's more of a fall-into-winter standing grain crop than a primary fall food plot planting most hunters choose deliberately. Sorghum is more commonly used as a cover and screening crop, or as a late-season grain source when corn isn't practical. Sorghum is planted in late spring to early summer, not fall, since it needs warm soil (generally above 60°F) to germinate and a full summer growing season to mature grain heads by autumn. So if you're asking about fall planting specifically, sorghum isn't a fall-seeded crop. What you're really doing with sorghum is planting it in May or June so it's standing and mature by hunting season, then letting deer work the grain heads through fall and winter, similar to how deer use standing corn. If your goal is a true fall-planted crop, sorghum isn't the tool. Cereal grains and brassicas, planted from August into September depending on region, are the right call for new fall plantings.

What is deer's favorite food, and does it change in fall?

There's no single universal favorite; deer preference shifts by season, region, and what's locally available, but acorns are consistently one of the most preferred fall foods where oaks are present, followed closely by soft mast, agricultural crops like soybeans and corn, and then food plot forages. Research on whitetail food habits, including long-running work summarized by university extension wildlife programs, shows deer will often bypass planted forage for a good acorn drop ^[5]. That's actually useful information for plot planning, not a discouraging one. It means your food plot doesn't need to out-compete oaks; it needs to fill the gaps before, after, and around a mast year. In a poor acorn year, food plots become dramatically more important, and deer pressure on plots spikes. In a heavy mast year, the same plot might sit untouched through October and only get hit hard once acorns run out in December and January. Within planted food plot species specifically, brassicas and clover tend to top preference studies for fall and winter forage, with brassica bulbs becoming highly preferred after the first hard freeze converts starches to sugar, a well-documented phenomenon in Purdue's extension brassica literature ^[3]. Cereal grains rank a bit below that in pure preference but are the most reliable early-fall tonnage producer because they establish so fast.

Do deer like honey, or is that a myth for food plots?

There's no research or agronomic basis for deer having a meaningful attraction to honey, and it's not a food plot input at all. This question sometimes comes up because of commercial deer attractant products with names that reference sweetness (honey, molasses, sugar beets), which do use sugar or molasses-based liquid or granular attractants sprayed on the ground or on existing forage. Those are a scent and taste lure category, not a planted crop. Deer do respond to sugar and carbohydrate cues, which is part of why brassica bulbs get more attractive after a freeze converts starch to sugar, and why deer favor high-sugar mast like apples and persimmons in fall. But that's a different mechanism than pouring or spraying honey, and it's not something extension or wildlife agency guidance treats as a legitimate food plot practice. More relevant: many states regulate or ban placing any supplemental attractant, mineral, or feed product in the field, treating it the same as baiting. Michigan's baiting and feeding restrictions, for instance, cover scent, mineral, and feed products placed to attract deer across most of the state ^[1]. Before using any liquid or granular attractant near a plot, check your state wildlife agency's current baiting and feeding regulations, since they change often and vary a lot state to state.

How do you choose between grains, brassicas, and clover for your plot?

Think about it in terms of when you need the food, more than what deer will eat. If your priority is early bow season through the rut, lean on cereal grains for fast, reliable tonnage. If your priority is late season, post-rut, and hard-freeze conditions, brassicas are built for exactly that window. If your priority is spring green-up and a plot that improves your soil over multiple years, clover is the long-term investment. Most serious plotters don't pick one. A common, well-tested approach is a blend: a cereal grain (oats or winter rye) plus a brassica (turnip or radish) plus a clover, all drilled or broadcast together in late summer. The grain comes up fast and feeds deer within weeks, the brassica bulbs out and peaks after frost, and the clover, protected under the canopy of the taller grain, quietly establishes roots for next year. This is standard practice recommended across university forage and food plot extension publications, not a gimmick ^[3]. Soil testing changes the math on all three. A soil test tells you your actual pH and nutrient levels, and your soil test lab's recommendations on lime and fertilizer should be the final word for your specific field, since general seeding guides can't account for your dirt. If you want a starting point tailored to your region, frost dates, and soil test results, PlotSeason's $99 Custom Food Plot Plan builds a planting calendar and seed mix recommendation around your actual numbers instead of a one-size-fits-all bag mix. For more on picking species by strategy rather than just by season, see species and strategy resources like deer food plot seed and food plot seed.

What does a basic fall food plot budget and timeline look like?

For a half-acre to one-acre plot, budget roughly $150 to $400 total depending on whether you already own equipment, according to typical seed and input pricing referenced in extension small-grain and forage cost guides. Seed for a cereal grain/brassica/clover blend usually runs $40 to $100 per acre, lime (if your soil test calls for it) can run $20 to $40 per ton delivered and spread, and fertilizer adds another $30 to $80 per acre depending on your soil test recommendations. Timeline-wise, here's a simple fall sequence that works across most regions once you know your local frost date: 1. Pull a soil test 6 to 12 months ahead if you haven't in the last 2 to 3 years. 2. Spray or till out existing vegetation 2 to 3 weeks before planting. 3. Apply lime per your soil test at least a few weeks before planting if possible, since lime takes months to fully adjust pH. 4. Broadcast or drill seed 60 to 90 days before your first hard frost for grains and brassicas. 5. Apply starter fertilizer at planting, then a nitrogen topdress 3 to 4 weeks later for brassicas and cereal grains. 6. Overseed clover into the same plot 4 to 6 weeks before frost if it's not already part of your blend. For more on matching equipment to plot size, from ATV broadcast seeders to a small drill, check deer food plots and domain food plot seed.

Frequently asked questions

Do deer eat sorghum?

Yes, deer eat grain sorghum heads and some foliage, but sorghum is a warm-season crop planted in late spring, not a fall planting. It's mostly used as a standing late-season grain source or screening cover rather than a dedicated fall food plot crop.

Do deer eat clover?

Yes, clover is one of the most consistently preferred whitetail forages, with crude protein often reaching 25 to 30% in well-fertilized stands. Deer eat it heavily spring through fall, though fall-planted clover mostly pays off the following spring rather than immediately.

When to plant deer food plots?

Plant fall cereal grains and brassicas 60 to 90 days before your area's average first hard frost, and overseed clover 4 to 6 weeks before that frost. In most of the whitetail range this lands between mid-August and mid-September, shifting later in the Deep South.

Do deer like clover?

Yes, university forage research consistently ranks clover among the top preferred food plot species, largely due to its high protein content and digestibility. It supports antler growth in bucks and lactation in does, making it a season-long staple rather than just a fall crop.

When to plant oats for deer?

Plant oats 60 to 90 days before your first expected hard frost, usually late August through mid-September in most whitetail range. Oats germinate fast but die back in sustained cold below the low 20s Fahrenheit, so many hunters blend them with winter-hardy rye or wheat.

When to plant food plots for deer?

Fall plot planting generally happens 60 to 90 days ahead of your local first hard frost date for grains and brassicas, and 4 to 6 weeks ahead for clover overseeding. Check your county extension or NOAA's average frost date data to pin down your exact window.

When to plant turnips for deer?

Plant turnips 75 to 90 days before your first hard frost, since they need that full window to develop a bulb rather than just leafy top growth. That's roughly late July through early September depending on your region, earlier in northern states.

What is a food plot?

A food plot is a planted, managed area, typically a quarter acre to several acres, established to grow forage that feeds and attracts deer. It involves soil testing, lime and fertilizer, and seed selection, distinct from unregulated bait piles which many states restrict or ban.

What are deer's favorite foods?

Acorns are one of the most consistently preferred fall foods where oak trees are present, followed by soft mast, row crops like soybeans and corn, and then planted food plot forages such as brassicas and clover. Preference shifts a lot by season and local food availability.

Do deer like honey?

There's no research showing deer have a real attraction to honey specifically. Some commercial attractant products use sugar or molasses-based scents with sweet names, but honey itself isn't a food plot input, and many states regulate placing any supplemental attractant in the field similar to baiting.

What's the difference between a hunting plot and a destination plot?

A hunting plot is small, often a quarter acre or less, placed tight to a stand to draw deer into range during shooting light. A destination or nutrition plot is larger, feeding deer through a season and often set farther from stands to reduce pressure on core bedding areas.

Do I need a soil test before planting a fall food plot?

It's strongly recommended, especially for brassicas which are heavy nitrogen feeders and respond directly to soil fertility. Your soil test lab's specific lime and fertilizer recommendations should override general seeding guides, since pH and nutrient levels vary a lot field to field.

Can I plant clover and brassicas together in the same fall plot?

Yes, this is a common and well-tested blend. A cereal grain like oats or winter rye acts as a nurse crop, feeding deer fast and shading new clover seedlings, while the brassica bulbs out later and the clover establishes roots for next year's growth.

Sources

1. Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Conservation Order, Baiting and Feeding of Deer and Elk: Michigan restricts baiting and feeding of deer across most of the state under its Wildlife Conservation Order provisions tied to chronic wasting disease management
2. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals: Average first and last frost dates by station are published and used to time fall plantings
3. Purdue University Extension, FNR-228-W, Brassicas: A Farmer's Guide to Whitetail Food Plots: Brassicas need 80 to 90 days to mature and require nitrogen fertility for bulb and yield
4. USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Plant Guide: White Clover (Trifolium repens): Clover crude protein content and its value as forage for wildlife
5. University of Georgia Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, White-tailed Deer Food Habits: Acorns rank among the most preferred fall whitetail foods where available, above planted forages