Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum How many food plots is too many?

I have a lease that is timber company land that about 1/3 has been recently thinned. The lease is 500 acres and currently has 11 food plots on it. These food plots are small, the largest being just over 3/4 acre. Some are plots that have been in for years and are in mature pines and hardwood edges and the rest are on loading decks that we cleaned up after the thinning.
A couple of my members want to put in more plots by plowing up some of the lanes that were created by the thinning. Now, were not talking about summer food plots for feeding deer basically they would just be green spots for hunting season.
I am not seeing the need in it, but I am open to be talked into it. Their reasoning is the more green available during the hunting season, the more the deer will move between them thereby offering more chances at seeing deer. I think the more that is planted in the fall for only hunting over will decrease deer sightings because it will scatter them out more with opportunities for them to walk 50 yards, eat then bed down again.
The way I see it, doe groups have plots that they go to on a regular basis. Bucks will feed in the ones they feel comfortable around and during the rut they will travel to the bedding areas and food plots that the does groups frequent. I say if you want to see more deer especially bucks get off the field and set up between existing fields and catch them coming and going.
What do you deer slayers think and give me your reasons.
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RULE OF THUMB I BELIEVE IS 1 PER 100 ACRES

Not really correct.

The rule of thumb, based on QDMA, is roughly 10% of the total acreage. So 10 acre plot for 100 acres of land.

To the OP, we have a similar situation and the biologist recommended planting every open space we can find. We have somewhat low densities and our plots are hammered by the end of the season. I wish we could double our plot acreage.

Depends on your goals and habitat. I believe in planting every available spot on your land. Off the top of my head I think we have around 60 plots on our lease. I may have hunted 3 of them, I just font get a kick out of watching a food plot.

I have a similar situation. We have 40 plots on 3,000 acres and a recent thinning left us the opportunity to plant a few more. Some of our members want to turn them into greenfields like all of our others. While I agree that the deer can always use the nutrition, I too think you can reach a point of diminishing returns. If the point of a food plot is to kill deer there, you don't necessarily want them spread out even more.

My suggestion was to plant them in different crops. This will give the deer something different as a food option. The observant hunter might recognize them hitting a particular food source harder at times and key in on those plots. I think planting every plot on the lease in the same crop only serves to spread them out instead of helping your hunting.

It may be more beneficial to the deer to make some clover plots if you already have all the plots you need. They will defiantly provide hunting opportunities however would offer more nutrition on into the spring and early summer. And don't have to replant every year just mow on memorial day and 4th of July and spray for grass 1-2 weeks after memorial day cutting.

Problem is a person can only sit on so many plots at one time (1). With 500 acres, I'm assuming you only have a few members. The more plots, the more spread out your deer will be. You'd hate to have 3 people hunting one evening, and at deer thirty everyone be wondering what's happening on the other 11 plots.

To me 11 plots on 500 acres is plenty. I don't know about your plots, but I would invest in lime and maybe a few feeding troughs especially if baiting is legalized. Multiple shooting houses or stands on the fields for different wind if possible also. Pressure on 500 acres if you have more than 4 members is the biggest problem, but I don't know how many members or the guest rule.

I don't see how adding a couple of food plots is going to hurt anything. It depends on how many acres you are looking to add. 1or 2 acres in new plots shouldn't have any effect on your sightings. They will help to reduce the amount of pressure on your other established plots.

First thing i would do, would be to determine if any existing plots were in bad spots, such as bottoms with swirling winds. Make sure they have good access to get into and out of without detection. You might find that a couple are not i9n good spots and find other area's better. 11 is plenty for hunting on 500 acres. With plots that small your really not making a difference in the health of the deer, so i would only add some, it were replacing others. With that in mind, planting strips in pines, to me, is not a plot. Its just a way to make a deer pause long enough for a shot.

If it is already cleared, you might as well plant it if the time, funds, and equipment are available.

All of the other plots are planted in perennial clover or rotated between summer (peas/buckweat) and winter (clover, wheat, oats and winter peas). All the other plots draw deer and most have multiple stands for wind diree and access.
The new plots would only be for during hunting season not for year round benefit.
One of my issues with adding green in the thinned pines is it would only be a strip one row of trees wide. When they thinned the took every 3rd row and a few here and there. So basically your not going to get anything beneficial to grow on a narrow strip in the shade.
There are only four of us on this place and all of us have other properties to hunt so it doesn't get a ton of pressure accept in the rut.

I would keep it the way it is if you don't have much pressure on the property. That is more of a factor in seeing deer than more food plots. You seem to have plenty of those so far.

I've got two big fields and four small plots on 160 acres. Most of the time by the end of deer season my fields are ate down. My thoughts though on a small piece of land I wanna do as much as I can to hold deer on my property. Since we picked this land up and all the improvements most all the bucks I start getting on camera in July we still have them in march if we didn't shoot them. Granted some come and go but for the most part they stay.

We plant 90 acres of our 1100 acres. We have 10 plots and each gets about 6 acres of corn and soybeans planted together, then we plant about 3-4 acres of wheat, clover, oats, cereal rye around the outside.

We try to give the deer a mix of what ever they might want. It also helps if we have a crop failure (corn died a few years ago and we just planted more "green stuff" where it had been).

I'm currently dealing with this problem, my grandad had 18 greenfields on 315 acres. There was another one everytime you went around the corner. I am now doing the planting and we did 4 this year.

We have 40 +/- on 2300 acres- probably more acreage than the 10% guidelines I have always heard about. Most in same spot for last 20+years. I think we need to rotate them , and subsoil the ones we don't plant so that over time we break the hardpan/ compaction in all. Probably 20 of those we plant did not get hunted. I realize part of the reason we plant is to hold/feed deer, but i think you can mow and fertilize the plots you don't plant and still have an opening with new green coming up ( sort of like a like a throw and mow scenario). Would save some time and tractor work , plus decrease costs to a degree. 40 feels like too many when you have limited time/ help to plant them.

Those that feed the most, manage the best. Not really, but food is KEY. I personally plant to feed and I let the hunting take care of itself. I believe in having MANY food plots. If you have the money and time to lime and get the soil pH right, plant all you can afford and have time for!

Have heard loading zones make poor food plots, compacted poor soil and such