Brassicas are a good choice for deer food plots. Brassicas includes an entire family of fast-growing leafy-green forage annuals that include turnips, beets, rapes and kales. In addition to their highly palatable and digestible tops, some such as turnips and beets also produce root crops that are attractive to whitetail. Cool-season brassicas remain green and upright throughout the winter, and are sought out by whitetail in the areas where they are planted.
Brassicas offer an important late-season food and their cold-season hardiness, sweetness and high protein content make them an ideal choice for deer hunting plots. And the colder it gets, the better brassicas food plots work. The sugar level/sweetness of the plants actually increases with colder temperatures.
Brassicas Food Plots for Deer
Evolved Harvest, one of the industry seed mix and food plot leaders, offers hunters and professional wildlife managers a variety of high-performance forage-grade Brassica seed mixes. New for 2017, Evolved introduces Shot Plot, an exceptionally fast-growing, high protein forage turnip / forage rape blend that’s ideal for late-season hunting plots, while providing loads of critical nutrition for white-tailed deer during the winter hardship period.
When properly planted and managed, each 10-lb. bag of Shot Plot seed is capable of producing an astounding 16 tons of forage. Now, that’s a lot of deer-attracting power that will keep deer on your property and offer some excellent deer hunting opportunities!
Turnips Super-Charge a Brassicas Mix
The forage-grade turnips contained in Shot Plot provide deer with a double-dose of attraction and nutrition. Like most brassicas, the leafy turnip tops progressively convert their starches into sugars as they grow and mature – becoming especially sweet after the first few frosts. They’ll remain sweet, palatable and highly digestible in your winter food plot long into winter when other food sources become much more scarce, ensuring they’ll be hit hard by deer.
The second form of forage in this brassica comes from the taproot (turnip) just below the ground’s surface. Whitetail know these energy bombs are there, and will eagerly dig them up – even when covered by deep snow – providing a solid source of late-winter deer nutrition that’s available when they really need it.
Shot Plot’s Brassicas Plots for Deer
Brassicas are a great choice for deer hunters and land managers. Shot Plot’s high-yield rapes are simple to grow, producing tons of leafy nutrition that deer simply can not resist. This food plot mix can reach heights up to 24 inches in height only 45 days after planting! Add in the fact that this fast-growing high-quality food plot only gets sweeter with age and you can ensure that your winter deer plot reaches its peak attraction during the hunting season.
In closing, the Evolved Harvest Shot Plot consists of fast-growing, high protein annual brassicas that includes a forage turnip and forage rape blend. The plot mix provides sweet forage that grows up to 24″ tall in just 45 days and cold weather increases foliage sugar content. This substantially increases palatability and attracts bucks and does from the surrounding area. The blend is enough to plant up to 2 acres and rings in at wallet-pleasing $39.99.
Deer hunters who have planted or hunted over brassicas food plots before know how effective these sweet, late-season forage cultivars are at attracting whitetail. A fast-growing, high-yield blend of turnips and rapes will attract deer for hunting while providing the critical nutrition they need during late fall and winter. Brassicas easy to grow following basic food plot procedures. Plant them during late summer to early fall for attraction during the deer hunting season.