Does anyone have any suggestions on how to keep deer of my summer food plots during the initial growing season without having to sink a bunch of money into electric fences ? I have planted about 16 out of my 21 fields in either soybean, chuffa, corn, and peas .

You shouldn't have to worry about the chufas and corn assuming you didn't plant all that stuff together. Even if you did deer don't usually eat chufas or corn while it is growing. Chufas need to be planted by themselves anyway, they don't like competition

Buy some plot saver or another deer repellant and spray directly
on plants as soon as the emerge. It will last over a month and give the plants a chance before grazing starts. I did this over 3 yrs and it worked fine. It's not toxic.

Milorganite

Try this and report back on the results:
Plotsaver Barrier System

NOW is when you want the deer eating your plots.Because they are putting there antlers on now, and july and august the fawms will begin to be born.they need all the food they can get.There should be some big bucks killed this year.I already have seen some pictures of bucks with good horns starting to grow .

This is what we use as well. Works great.

You don't want deer nipping the plants when they just come out of the ground. What he's trying to do is keep them off the plot until there's enought mast established to keep up with the browse pressure.

Milorganite x 3

We tried both the plot saver and milorganite. Neither worked well enough for us. The deer still mowed down the soybeans and they never got more than 4-6 inches tall. The electric fence works great but it is a pain to install.

This is what I did last spring and it worked very well. Just a double perimeter fence with tposts at one height and plastic step-in post at a lower height set about 3 feet apart. Used flagging tape and just kept it tight. Didn't spend more than $40-$50. But seeing that you're doing that many fields it would be up to you.

Are you guys just putting the fence up or do you actually put juice to it?

No juice or anything added to it, just regular flagging tape from tractor supply. $1.99/300 ft roll.

Farmer I know here local melts down and sprays his fields with Irish springs soap. They reapply after every rain though

I did that too except i just rubbed some of the bar on the tpost and set the rest of the bar around the outside of the plot. Good idea to melt it down though.

Thank you to everyone that has responded . I appreciate the info . Let's see if I can keep these Baldwin county deer at bay for a while !

Just mix in dawn dishwashing Liquid into your spray tank