Food plots are more than just trying to attract deer to your tree stand. Sure, a food plot will help and there is nothing wrong with trying to get that big whitetail buck within bow range during your hunting season. But planting a food plot should be as much about increasing the nutritional value of feed available to deer generally.

I have been adding various nutritional supplements for deer for three or four years now. We have planted oak trees, which will not be producing acorns for some years yet, but will in the long run. We have apples on our property that always attract deer in the fall. This year we planted about seven acres of field corn, a good chunk of which we will leave standing throughout the winter to add some additional carbohydrates for deer. And we have planned two smaller food plots, one with perennial forage, and the other primarily annual forage.

The product we tried for the perennial was Evolved Harvest ProGraze. This is forage that provides Brassicas(rape and turnip varieties), Chicory and Clover. Frankly I expected didn’t this food plot to do as well as the plot where we planted alfalfa and clover, but boy was I surprised. The two food plots were only a few hundred yards apart, but the food plot with ProGraze was getting a lot more attention.

The ProGraze forage came up fast and furious and it didn’t take the deer long to find the food. We planted the plot in mid April and within a week we could see plant growth on the prepared plot. Despite a very dry summer and heavy deer feeding the plot has continued to produce quality forage and continues to attract deer even into mid August. We have trail camera pictures of deer on the food plot almost every night since early May.
I was a bit disappointed in the amount of clover that came up. The packaging claimed almost twenty percent of the seed was clover, that I expected would continue to produce forage even into next year. However, we really didn’t see much clover come up in mix of the rape and turnips. But given the results of the rest of the mix, I am not complaining.

This forage mixture can be planted in spring or fall. It has been so successful for our plot this spring and summer, we have decided to replant for this fall. We have even mixed some ProGraze into our Annual food plot. We are looking forward to more pictures, and better deer forage into the fall.

Evolve Harvest ProGraze is a great addition to any attempt to provide better nutrition to a local deer herd. If you would like more information about Evolved Harvest or ProGraze you can get more information from their website, www.evolved.com