Archery season opens in a matter of weeks. If you’re a Louisiana hunter with a lease or private land, you already know what that means. It’s food plot season.
And if you’re being honest with yourself, you also know the difference between the years your plot came in right and the years it didn’t. The years it came in right, you had deer on it before Thanksgiving. The years it didn’t, you spent the season watching an empty field from the stand and wondering what went wrong.
Most of the time, what went wrong happened before the seed ever hit the ground.
The biggest mistake Louisiana hunters make with food plots
Planting too early. It’s the most common mistake, and it happens every year.
Bow hunters want green in front of their stand by opening day in early October. So they rush out in early September, throw seed down, and hope for the best. The problem is that south Louisiana is still hot in September. Cool season forages like oats, wheat, ryegrass, and clover don’t grow well in that heat. The seed germinates, sits there, and either gets cooked by the sun or choked out by native grasses that are still growing strong.
The earliest you should be planting cool season forages in south Louisiana is mid-September for oats and late September through mid-October for wheat, cereal rye, and ryegrass. Clovers do best planted October through mid-November. If you’re planting before those windows, you’re fighting the weather instead of working with it.
What to plant and when
The three crops that consistently produce for Louisiana deer hunters are winter wheat, oats, and clover. Each one fills a different role.
Oats are the earliest option and the most heat-tolerant of the cool season grasses. They’ll give you the best shot at having something green by late October. Wheat provides better nutrition than ryegrass and holds up well through the winter months. And clover, especially white clover and crimson clover, adds high-protein forage that deer will hit hard from fall through spring.
The smart play is to mix them. A blend of oats and clover planted in late September gives you a plot that produces forage across the entire hunting season instead of peaking early and dying off. Ryegrass is easy to grow and fills in gaps, but it’s lower in nutrition than wheat or oats.
Regardless of what you plant, your soil needs to be ready first. That means taking a soil sample, liming if the pH is off, fertilizing based on results, and preparing a clean seedbed. You can broadcast seed, but it establishes better on worked ground where it has good soil contact.
The equipment side of food plots
This is where a lot of hunters hit a wall. You know what to plant. You know when to plant it. But breaking up a half-acre or two-acre plot on a hunting lease isn’t something you do with a four-wheeler and a hand spreader. At least not well.
To prep a food plot the right way, you need a tractor with enough power to run a disc or a tiller through the soil, a way to spread seed and fertilizer, and ideally a drag or cultipacker to press the seed into the ground for good germination. In Louisiana’s heavy clay soil, that means a tractor with enough weight and PTO horsepower to actually cut through the ground, not just bounce across the top of it.
New Holland’s compact tractor lineup is built for exactly this kind of work. The Workmaster 25S handles smaller plots on tighter properties. The Boomer 35 and Boomer 55 give you more power for running a disc, a broadcast spreader, and a drag across bigger food plots. These are machines that are just as useful mowing your property, maintaining roads on a lease, and managing your land the rest of the year as they are during food plot season.
Crawler Supply Company on Airline Highway in Baton Rouge carries the full New Holland compact tractor lineup along with the implements you’d need to get your plots in the ground. Vice President Daniel Cloy and his team can walk you through which tractor and attachments make sense for your acreage and your food plot plans. You can check out what’s available on their new equipment or used equipment pages, or call them directly.
Don’t wait until it’s too late
The planting window in south Louisiana runs from mid-September through mid-October for most cool season forages. That window is open right now, but it won’t be for long. And the hunters who have their soil prepped, their seed ready, and their equipment lined up before that window opens are the ones who’ll have deer on their plots come November.
If you’ve been thinking about getting a compact tractor for your property or lease, this is the time of year when the investment starts making sense. Stop by Crawler Supply or call Daniel’s team at (225) 357-7515. They’ve been helping Louisiana landowners find the right equipment since 1971.
To browse available New Holland tractors and implements, visit crawlersupply.com or reach their parts and service team directly. If you need a specific part or attachment, you can submit a request through their website.
This is sponsored content presented by Crawler Supply Company. Located at 6413 Airline Hwy, Baton Rouge, LA 70805. Open Monday through Friday, 7:00 AM to 4:30 PM. Phone: (225) 357-7515. Toll-free: (888) 772-9505. Visit crawlersupply.com for equipment availability and to contact their team.
