It’s safe to say that many of us dedicated whitetail hunters including myself, who plant food plots for whitetail deer or other wildlife species are basically wannabe farmers in some way or another. There’s just a satisfaction a person feels when it comes to stirring up a little dirt with your own atv food plot disc, planting the seed with your specially designed food plot planter, and watching your plants grow and turn into a high-protein producing clover or soybean food plot is just something that gets in your blood and turns into a year round passion for most all whitetail deer enthusiasts. Many times while late-season hunting in mid December, I commonly find myself thinking back on last spring’s deer food plot plantings and strategizing what worked well, what didn’t, and how to improve not only the attractiveness of my food plots, but also the efficiency and heavy duty appearance of our food plot planters, atv disks, and cultipackers. For any deer hunters that participate in online forum discussions about how to plant food plots, you will notice that many of the forum users list their total acreage size that they manage for whitetail deer along with their toys. By toys I mean their food plot planting arsenal which usually includes an atv, utv, or small acreage tractor to pull food plot implements. Atv mounted sprayers are usually included in the lineup and are popular for keeping weeds under control and also aiding in the application of foliar fertilizers to your food plot. I personally use a fimco brand boom type atv sprayer for a large portion of my work when spraying food plots and it is definitely a workhorse and a lifesaver when it comes to maintaining food plots in tight quarters. With a few modifications and a new set of stainless steel sprayer tips to replace to cheap plastic factory ones, I have a high-quality food plot sprayer that literally sprays over a hundred acres per year. A food plot disc or tiller is also included in the lineup to aid in working the ground in your deer food plots, and a cultipacker that is either homemade or commercially purchased is a solid investment also. I would like to point out that there are pros and cons whether using either a disc or tiller when preparing food plots. I currently use both because every food plot planting situation is different. In most cases, a disc whether it be an atv disc or a larger disc pulled with a tractor is much faster in preparing the soil when planting food plots vs a tiller. With a large percentage of food plots being planted next to or in heavy timber, you never know what may be hiding in the soil that you might cross paths with. Large sticks, stumps, rocks, old iron, and even rusty barbed wire can wreak havoc with your rotary tiller. From experience, it’s not much fun spending hours cutting barbed wire wrapped up on your tiller blades. I highly recommend on first-time food plots to use a disc if possible to expose hidden obstructions before putting your tiller to use. The downside to discs is using them in heavy sod conditions coupled with tall standing grasses generally takes several passes to get the sod broke up and the residue chopped into smaller pieces. The frustrations I hear about with atv discs is their inability to effectively cut. The best results I have found when using an atv disc in heavy sod and grassy conditions is to do a complete burn-down first. A burn-down is done by first spraying a heavy application of herbicide such as round-up or another generic glyphosate product to the vegetation to first kill it off than following the spraying, I will usually return in a couple weeks to disc the food plot with much better results. Mowing is also a good alternative that is effectively used also before tillage work begins with your atv disc. Over the years, I have tested out numerous atv food plot discs, while some have performed considerably well, the majority of atv discs just don’t have enough weight to do a good job of preparing the soil. If you commonly find yourself piling bricks, and like doing tight figure eight circles throughout your food plots just to get the atv disc to cut carry on. However, if your time is limited as it is for many weekend food plotters, I would recommend trying the Sodbuster disc from Antler King. Though it may be small, it still has a place in my food plot planting tools for those smaller secluded spots that are either to steep, to wet, and otherwise inaccessible with my tractor and 3-point food plot equipment. A good 3-point rotary tiller is also an excellent weapon to have when planting your deer food plots. It is one of my favorite tools that I use for custom food plots because it does a wonderful job of creating a perfectly smooth seedbed. My tiller is actually 2 machines in one. As mentioned previously in other articles, a tiller does a great job of working the soil up in your food plot, but also makes the soil very light and fluffy which rapidly speeds up moisture loss. To help combat soil moisture loss, while also firming the soil, I often pull a specially designed cultipacker right behind my tiller. This unique cultipacker setup has a uniquely designed gooseneck style hitch that couples to a ball style hookup that is mounted on the top of my tiller. This style of hitch setup for my food plot planting allows tight corners and sharp turns to be made easier without worrying about possible jackknives that can occur with other style hookups. So the benefit of cultipacking shortly after tilling or discing will help in firming up the seedbed and greatly reducing soil dry out. One of the last basic food plot tools that is usually included and is very important is a good quality spreader of some sort. Spreaders come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and models. Basic hand crank models will get you by on smaller acreages, but larger atv mounted, or atv pull-type spreaders will greatly assist spreading large amounts of lime, fertilizer, and seed faster. When spreading seed or fertilizer with my atv, I prefer a pull-type spreader over a spreader that is mounted to either the front or rear rack of my atv. With the rear rack of my atv reserved almost exclusively for my sprayer and while I have never really cared for front mounted spreaders, this just leaves the two-wheeled pull behind spreader which I prefer. Atv pull behind spreaders can easily hold 200lbs of fertilizer which is perfect for smaller to medium sized food plot plantings. These food plot implements listed above will generally be a good starting point to producing wildlife food plots on your property. However, if you’ve been fortunate enough in life to make a few dollars, or plan to plant a large quantity of food plots, an atv planter, 3-point planter, or a fancy drill should be at the top of every deer managers wish list. While planting secluded food plots years before I ever built my first atv planter, I always thought to myself there had to be an easier way to utilize my atv and make it do what a tractor would without getting stuck all of the time, or constantly trying to maneuver over, around, and through tight places and obstacles, while trying to reach some of these honey hole spots that I had picked out for turning into a whitetail deer food plot. Well, after a discussion with one of my good friends, we drew up the plans on the shop floor with a piece of soap stone chalk and the rest is history. After 3 nights of fabricating our atv planter, we were ready to put it in the dirt. As usual, a few tweaks had to be made here and there but the basic frame design remained the same. No expensive AutoCad program or engineers were needed. At many of the outdoor shows that I attend, many people are just amazed at the beefed up appearance that our atv planters possess, hence the name BruteBuster II HD. Our toolbars and hitch components are constructed out of the same size materials and thicknesses that are commonly used on 3-point tractor implements used for commercial farming operations. Some of the benefits of using an atv planter include: Since most all outdoorsman and deer hunters own or have access to an atv or utv, investing in an expensive tractor in order to plant food plots in a row crop style fashion is eliminated. Our atv planters are built solid and stable, yet still easily fit on a regular sized flatbed trailer for transport. Atv planters take the guesswork out of food plot seeding problems such as proper seeding depth which can be a common problem. There are many all in one food plot planters on the market that claim to be able to effectively plant larger seeds such as corn or soybeans at the correct depth but most fail to do so. Food plots such as those that are planted with corn or soybeans are much easier to maintain when row cropped vs food plots that are planted by broadcasting. Do you ever see farmers broadcast there corn or soybean seed? A lot more seed is wasted when broadcasted vs rowcrop planted because seed that is covered too deep may germinate, but will not have enough energy to successfully push through the soil , and the shallower planted seed either lays exposed on the soil surface or just under leaving easy pickings for turkeys and other scavenging birds. Broadcasting larger seed can be done but there is a bigger chance of error vs using an atv planter or similar planting device. Also general maintenance of your food plots such as multiple sprayings of herbicide or jolt foliar fertilizer per season will destroy a lot of your plants that were broadcasted vs having a wheel track to drive down without worrying about knocking down plants. 3-point food plot planters designed especially for your smaller utility tractors are also a very popular option today for planting wildlife food plots. Many 3-point food plot planters come in various sizes with 2-row, 3-row, and 4-row planters being the most common and easiest to maneuver around on your property when planting your food plot. I personally prefer a 3-row planter unit for my choice of food plot equipment for my tractor not only because of easy maneuverability, but also ease of transport on my flatbed trailer. A 3-row food plot planter still complies with legal road widths when transporting down the highway vs. a 4-row planter unit that will exceed widths. The majority of the 3-point food plot planters commercially built today, are either built using the very popular flex 71 planter row units, or the John Deere 7000 series row units. I might add to buy with caution when looking to purchase a used 3-point food plot planter. Many individual will claim to have thoroughly gone through each row unit replacing worn out parts while in reality just adding a fresh coat of paint. Paint is just a temporary fix to covering up hidden mechanical problems that will show up usually when you are in the middle of planting. A good thorough inspection of your future food plot planter should include:
-general seed hopper appearance and condition, Are the hoppers cracked? Are the lids damaged or missing?
-Drive chain and sprocket inspection, Are the drive chains in good working order or are they rusted up and stiff from non-use? Check for sprocket wear.
-Disk openers, these wear out eventually and have to be replaced. Check to make sure that they still function properly
-Drive gears, make sure they still rotate freely and were properly greased. It’s a true fact that some people don’t know what a grease gun is or how to operate one.
- If the deal sounds too good too be true it probably is. Old rusted out planting equipment that has set idle for decades exposed to the elements is usually too far gone to refurbish for food plot planting equipment. Purchasing food plot equipment can be expensive at times, but most investments in food plot equipment should be a lifetime purchase. On a lot of my food plot equipment sales consisting of atv planters, 3-point planters, atv discs, and cultipackers, many times individuals find it useful to team up with their buddies and invest in their food plot planting equipment together to be shared by all to help defray initial costs. In other instances I have had individuals purchase atv planters and other food plot planting equipment from me and than rent them out by the day to their friends or other people wanting to plant food plots on their property. In closing I would like to say that planting food plots and watching them develop and attract wildlife to your property can be one of the most rewarding things to witness. If you’re currently not planting food plots for deer, I would highly recommend that you give it a try because generally, if your not, somebody else nearby is planting food plots and they are at a distinct advantage over you.
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