How big does a clover food plot need to be in a heavy deer populated area to stay thick all the way through summer and into the deer season ?
Depends on what other food sources are available. They do like fresh clover a lot so if there is nothing else it won't take many deer to destroy a plot.
I have a two and a half acre clover plot that was seeded last year, so im hoping for a full stand this year. We are in a very intensive deer area so I will be able to tell you how that goes. The nice thing about clover is it can withstand browse pressure better than most other foodplot crops and perennials can last years! I would say you can almost never go wrong with a clover planting, so no matter your size I would give it a try! I get my seed through green cover seed but I know welters seed is another good source.
Like others said depends on several variables. The quality of the soil, deer density and mother nature. But I have had good luck with plot that was 1/4 acre in size. I planted it in the fall and overseed it again in February. It located on the edge a field where it gets shaded part of the day so the hot summers don't burn it. Also if its blazing hot don't mow it low, it'll burn. It does well usually with grazing pressure and you can get by on a 1/4 acre plot just have to give it some TLC to keep it healthy. Good luck.
I run about quarter acre plots, couple of them they are fine all summer because there is so much other food available. I fence them off around labor day to let the plots maximize. Once I pull the fence the end of october they withstand about 3 weeks of grazing.
You can plant in March/April here in NC. I usually wait till about September to plant and to start the plot I plant with a cover crop. The last plot I did I added soybeans and it worked out decently. Then in Feb I overseeded it to help it thicken up. After that ever year I do a light overseeding in Feb to keep things going.
I planted our 2 acre clover in the spring with a barley cover. I also frost seed clover in the spring into our existing plots that are barren.
I generally let mine bloom out and go to seed and then clip the top out so it reseeds itself via the mower. That also sets any weeds back and I hit it with clethodim to knock back any grass. I'll clip it again a couple weeks before bow season if needed. I like to have fresh growth in the top of it at bow season if it's cooling down and we have moisture. If it's super hot and dry then I stay off of it.
Are you worried about losing a ton of protein when you allow your clover to bloom and seed out? By doing your method, how long do you clover plots last before they need to be re done?
No, I never worry about it for several reasons: 1. I have bees working the blooms. 2. Nutrients are all recycled eventually. 3. It's still a higher quality food source than anything else around when the deer need it. 4. Cheap seed. By allowing it to reseed, I allow it to build a soil seed bank. Clovers generally produce some long lived hard seed that can survive for years in the soil. It's a nice surprise if something happens and I can't get to a plot to redo it, to come into it later in the year and find that it produced some decent food naturally on it's own from the soil seed bank. It's not super reliable and not predictable so it's a safety net for when things go poorly and I don't have time or weather keeps me from getting everything done. I have never sent in tissue samples from a clover plot to monitor it's nutrition levels but I suppose it'd be interesting to know. I just never really cared enough to look into it considering the benefits I got from maintaining it like that. I've never let one go until it petered out so I don't know how long they would last at a maximum. I usually rotate them every three years anyway. The clover builds the soil to a point I can get a year or two of decent food plot behind it and not really do much for fertilizer and it generally doesn't take much to rotate it back into clover.
I just remember from helping at my ex's father's dairy farm that he always tried to cut his hay before it goes into bloom because that is when there is a peak amount of protein in the hay, and once they bloom the nutritional value really goes down the tank... I assumed the same is true for clovers
I apologize for partially de-railing your thread! I would suggest that you plant as many acres into foodplots as you have time and resources for! I just got back from a shed hunt in SD and saw the benefits of having a surplus of food all winter long - 500 to 1000 deer in each no till corn field!
Yeah it probably holds true for clovers as well but deer aren't cattle and we aren't dairy producers, lol. Deer take considerably less protein than dairy cattle and a low protein clover field is still a vast improvement over natural forage in most areas of the country. Besides the way white clovers bloom, I'm not sure you could cut it enough to prevent it from blooming anyway. My yard is full of it and I can mow it off and it seems like it's bloomed back out by the next day, lol.
