How to Make a Winter Wheat Food Plot for Deer

This instructable is how to make a basic deer food plot using wheat seed. I wanted to share my knowledge with this simple farming technique that can make your hunting 10x better in the fall hunting season. Winter wheat, or wheat, is planted anytime between Oct 10-22 and is expected to grow 2-5 inches before winter, dormant in winter, 3-6 feet in the spring, and dry out in mid summer. Winter wheat is a profitable crop intended for farmers to grow, but its also a very inexpensive crop to grow for deer or any other animal. Winter wheat is the only plant that stays green during the winter months which makes great nutrition that deer that deer crave for. You will see more deer than usual planting this crop and will also produce bigger bucks with the additional nutrition to their diets. Below i will describe how to make a winter wheat food plot with either a four wheeler or tractor.

Step 1: Materials Needed:

* 75 pounds of wheat per acre
* 80 pounds of 20 20 20 fertilizer per acre
* Tiller
* Four wheeler or tractor
* ATV seed spreader
* Drag

Step 2: Till Your Field

I would highly recommend first mowing your field down as much as possible, kill all the vegetation with grass killer, and wait 1 week before planting. This way only your wheat seed grows and not your weeds. But if you don't have the tools to do that, attach the tiller to your four wheeler or tractor and till your field. Tilling it will do most of the work even if you don't mow it down first. You want to till the field as much as possible until the ground is very loose and fertile. You shouldn't see much grass after this process but standing grass is fine. This step may take a couple of runs depending how dry the earth is but it is important to get the dirt loose so that your seed grows. 

Step 3: Spread Fertilizer and Seed

It doesn't matter if you spread the fertilizer or seed first but i recommend adjusting the amount of seed coming out of the spreader (shooting out) to be as low as possible. Shooting out the seed as slow as possible gets the most even spread of winter wheat in your field and shooting out the seed too fast increases your chances of running out of seed before finishing the entire field. So take your time here and let the seed and fertilizer out slowly of your spreader.

Step 4: Drag in Seed and Fertilizer

Once you have all of your seed and fertilizer evenly spread across your field, attach your drag to your four wheeler. I typically do 2-3 laps around my field to make sure the seed is completely in the ground. You will notice a difference before and after you drag it how little seed you will then see. This is important because wheat wont grow if its not in the ground.

Step 5: Other Notes

Typically what i do is plant my wheat a day or two before it rains. This way the seed wont get rotten if it doesn't rain for days. Above is a grid of the growth cycles for spring and winter wheat. Winter wheat goes dormant at stage 1b and continues cycle in the spring. Winter wheat will remain "green" in the winter and deer will start eating it the minute it starts growing. Also, as you can see in the pictures i put cardboard between the four wheeler and seed spreader. I did this because the 20 20 20 fertilizer and the nitrogen they put on the wheat seed to help stimulate the growing process is a very strong chemical compound and will rust out any metal within a few short months even if you clean it thoroughly. Other than that i hope these tips will help you in this next deer season and reply for any questions or comments below!