Who plants Whitetail Inst. Seed on their food plots and what are your thoughts?
I know that are above quality seed, but their cost is extremely high. If you have several acres to plant or several green fields, the cost of these seeds makes you take a second thought. A lot of great seed blends out there at a much less cost.

I did a side by side test between their forage oats and bob oats last year. The WI oats came up real dang quick. Like holy crap quick. The Bobs were slower buy about 3 days. After 3-4 weeks I could no longer tell the two apart and had to refer back to notes to which was which. I saw no preference by deer. I think they are designed to come up quick because that makes the average guy think they are better from then on but the reality is if you give it a week or 3 it all evens out at half the price. Just my experience in a small hand hand sewn plot close to the house.

I just can't see where they are worth the cost. Again, a lot of good seed blends out there that will do the same for deer at half the cost.

I planted a half acre Imperial Whitetail clover plot last fall right beside my house. Once the clover became established, the deer can't stay out of it. They are still in it every afternoon. There are deer in it right now and it's 95 degrees out there. It has held up to the continuous pressure. I am definitely planting it in some additional spots this fall. It's dependent on soil type and ph but I have been amazed and I've been food plotting for about 40 years. We've got durana plots on our lease, the deer use them but nothing like WTI plot. Your mileage may vary!

Best plots I ever had were WI Fusion. It’s really important to seed exactly by the PLS and germ rate with that seed

ronfromramer, dadgum if you dont just about have me talked into it

I wish I had soil suitable for summer clover.

I have used the WTI clover before with great results. Sorta got away from it, works great but it needs constant maintenance. Need to keep a tractor and spray rig on the property. Like said earlier, the deer basically lived in the plots.

I think the success is very dependent on being in the right spot, soil that holds moisture, ph, etc. I planted 2 half acre plots. One couldn't have done better, the other didn't do squat. The successful one, I put about 900 lbs of pellet lime when I planted, the other 1, I didn't lime. The soils are similar but the good plot is in a bottom and the other one is on higher ground. I can see the successful plot out of my den window, so I see the activity every day. For most of the summer there have been 10-20 deer in the plot almost every afternoon. Pretty. cheap entertainment

I can add…we planted whit inst. no plow in front of our camp…didn’t do any ph testing etc and honestly didn’t seed it very much/needed more. That said, the deer hammered it. They loved it. Will be planting it more in the future

I planted it for years. They use a mix of clovers for your area if you order from them. It’s a quality product that I usually planted advantage clover with it. Imperial is designed to have the different clovers to peak thruout the year.

I am a huge fan of their clover, fusion, and powerplant.

The biggest problem with fusion is broadleaf weed control. The deer wear out their clover and fusion though. Sometimes you can find powerplant on sale in the mid $50's a bag, and thats a steal. 25 pounds does an acre.

Like Ron said, you need soil that holds moisture. I have some bigger fields I have in clover, some durana, some whitetail and I think the deer prefer whitetail clover. These hot dry summers are hard on it too.

Here is a tip. If you buy directly from them, they send you their magazine, which has specials, and also they will email sometimes. I just ordered 2 of their 18 pound bags of clover and got 2 pounds of beets and greens and 1 pound of chic magnet for free, and it was $209 plus shipping. That's enough to plant 4.5 acres of clover. Their regular sale price on that would have been $249. I had to mail in the coupon, and it took a day to get there and 2 days after I had my shipment.

I attribute my buck improvements to the whitetail clover, I have been using it for a few years. Plant the clover and fusion in the fall, and then hit it in the spring with some 0-20-20.

Sometimes you can find it on sale on amazon too.

I agree but some dont mind paying the extra for the cnvienece part of it.
Im gonna buy a couple different seeds in 50 lb bags so i will have enough to replant for several years to come. More cost effective that way in the long run!

No question quality is there, but other seeds have quality to compare at less than half the cost. If you have a small area, it might be worth the extra cost, but if you don;t, it takes a little thinking.

Looking in the back and seeing percentage of which clovers there is in the bag. Berseem was one of the main clover in the bags I used to get. A few others etc… and then a ladino clover. That’s why I added advantage ladino in the mix.
I was what was called a field tester so I got discounted pricing and free shipping in order enough for 20-30 fields for a few years

The biggest thing I could tell was ease of use and their golden jump start nitrogen seed coating. Helped get the clovers out of the ground quicker or so it seemed.

About how much per acre to plant. I got about 3 acres or so to plant on my lease. Most of the land is hayfields and timber. I'm planting power lines.

I edited this to say the planting rate is 8 lbs, not 4 lbs/acre. I mixed it with the fertilizer and pellet lime to fill up my spreader. Mixed ithe clover in and stirred it as I added the other bags

Hey look, I don't have a dog in this hunt, but I will happily tell you what I have done.

I have planted both whitetail, durana, and the stuff at TS, plotspike I think it is. Last year I also planted crimson, arrowleaf and balansa. I do think the really cold weather in December hurt my forage base, so everything I planted last fall suffered.. We shall see this fall if the annual clovers come back. I ordered another 50 pounds of arrowleaf and crimson to plant again this fall.

I can tell you what I have seen with Whitetail clover. The deer get in it, multiple times a day, and stay, often for an hour or more. When its thick, if you look at it, it doesn't seem like they are eating it, but if you mow it, you see alot of stems with no leafs on it. I have one field that is pure durana, and I don't see the same evidence deer eat it from looking at the field closely, and I don't have a camera on it, so there is that.

But I can tell you without question, man to man, hunter to hunter, no BS, deer eat the crap out of whitetail clover. You get a good stand of Fusion, and its the same. And turkeys will be in it too. Multiple times a day. I haven't tried to plant some coop white or ladino clover, so I can't say how they do or don't do.

But I will also say, that my bucks are getting better. I saw more young 8pts with nice racks last year than I have ever seen, and I am about 4 years into converting alot of my small plots over to whitetail clover. It's harder on big ones that get alot of direct sun, and will probably have to go back to a bean/pea/buckwheat blend there. I think its important to lime where you plant it too. If the soil retains some moisture and has some times of the day its shaded, then even better.

You’d probably want to try regal ladino clover. From what I understand it was the base in whitetail ins clover for the longest. They’ve done fudging with the recipe since regal hit big in order to keep price down. I can attest to regal, which I saw similar to what your seeing.

I tried durana. It works and is super persistent. Deer did not keep at it like they did the regal.