Deer Food Plots Tip 7

Are you having trouble with weeds in your deer food plot?

Have you considered the effect that weeds are having on your precious whitetail food plot effort? All the money in the world spent on seed and fertilizer won’t save you from weeds. Could weeds be sucking the cash out of your food plots?

The silent killer, weeds compete for nutrients, light and water. Some weeds even have a regional chemical impact on plants beside them. These effects can decrease your yields and make plants less palatable for deer. Some weeds are poisonous and deer may avoid the plot if it contains these weeds.

An important thing to remember is weed seeds are brought up whenever you disturb the ground by grazing, erosion, cultivation etc

Steps to dealing with weeds

Step 1: PREVENT them from establishing and don’t bring them in.

• don’t use contaminated deer food plot seed (use only plant certified crop seed) which means it is certified to be free of weeds
• use clean equipment
• proper weed control prior to seed set
• don’t drag vegetative parts of perennial weeds

Step 2: UNDERSTAND the environment:

• Different systems promote different weeds.
• Tilled row crops discourage perennials and encourage annuals.
• Established perennial crops like alfalfa may compete with annual weeds but perennials may get going because of lack of tillage.
• Some weeds grown in rangeland and others in cropland.

Step 3: ID or at least start with is it a grass or a broadleaf and know the lifecycle.

• Does it need controlling
• What types of methods can be used to control it
• Can you maintain the effort and what are to costs

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