This is my first year to plant food plots myself and the seed store told me to put 300 lbs per acre. Seems like a lot and it adds up to a lot of money. What does it take?
Thanks.

there are a lot of types of fertilizer and they are definitely not equal. You've got time to get soil tests done and then you'll know exactly what you need.
Soil tests will save you a bunch of money by allowing you to use what you need. One size does not fit all!

How much is needed is dependent on your soil conditions, as well as the amount of nutrients in the fertilizer. You should get soil tests done, and it will tell you exactly how much fertilizer you need. In fact, doing it this way will probably save you money by ensuring that you get maximum growth out of the minimum amount of fertilizer.

It depends on what you are planting and what's already in your soil. If you are primarily planting wheat and oats, they both need a lot of nitrogen. Wheat will be happy with 30 to 120 lbs of nitrogen per acre. The more nitrogen you use, the faster your wheat will grow and the more protein will be available. If you are putting down 13-13-13, you will need 300 lbs per acre to put down 39 lbs of nitrogen. For untested soil, the seed store was probably right. 300 lbs will probably give you a beautiful green field (assuming your pH is right so the wheat can upload the nitrogen). If you have a low pH, you will much more nitrogen. Food plots are getting very expensive.

Man, my plots looked great every year and I always used 200 lbs triple 13 per acre then 100 lbs of AN around Dec.
Its too late to worry about lime for this season. It should be spread in summer for the fall plots to benefit.

sorry to throw this in here but was wondering if you can use miracle grow on small food plots once they have grown some?

never mind, I found the answer to that question, so is there a good liquid fertilizer that I can use, due to the lack of rain where I hunt I'm afraid that if I use the granulated fertilizer that it will burn my food plot unless I take some sprayers out there and water it prior to putting the fertilizer out.

Don't worry about the burn. The fertilizer you put at plant isn't going to burn it anyways it is when you top dress it. If you do burn it it will be ok once it rains. If it doesn't rain the grass is going to die anyways. Using liquid for top dress will burn it more than dry anyways