Winter Peas Plus: You Make the Call

By William Cousins

Put simply, Winter Peas Plus is different from other “pea” food plot products for fall and winter — very different. In this article, I’ll explain why, but I’m not going to suggest that you try Winter Peas Plus based solely on what you’ll read here. That’s because if you know what to look for, you’ll reach that decision on your own. Check Out Other Fall/Winter “Pea” Products


Most hunters know that winter peas generally grow quickly and start attracting deer as soon as they sprout, and that some keep doing so through winter. That’s why there are so many products on the market with “winter peas” on the package. Have you ever considered, however, what percentage of those products is actually represented by peas? Winter Peas Plus is more than 80 percent peas. When you’re choosing a “winter pea” food plot product to try next fall, keep in mind the old saying, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” Nowhere is it more true than with fall/winter “pea” products for deer. Believe it or not, some such products actually contain less than 10 percent peas. And to make matters even worse, some make up the difference with lower-quality forage components that don’t add much to the plot in the way of attraction. The good news for consumers is that federal law requires that all food plot seed products carry an ingredient tag on the package. That’s the first thing you should look at to make sure the product really is what its name implies.

What’s in Winter Peas Plus? The peas.

There are two pea varieties in Winter Peas Plus. Both varieties are sugar rich, high protein and cold tolerant. In side-by-side cafeteria tests across North America, these varieties consistently proved themselves many times more attractive to deer than any other variety the Whitetail Institute tested. Even so, the Whitetail Institute continued research and testing of the pea varieties it selected in combination with other, complementary forages to ensure the new product would produce up to the Whitetail Institute’s relentless expectations. One reason the Whitetail Institute researches blends so heavily is that it’s rare for one type of forage plant to provide optimum performance in all the categories for which the Whitetail Institute tests. That’s why most Institute forage products are blends of multiple forage components, which are painstakingly selected and then combined in optimum ratios as shown by Whitetail Institute testing. The pea varieties the Whitetail Institute selected for Winter Peas Plus are so highly attractive — attracting deer to them as soon as they sprout out of the ground — that they can suffer from early overgrazing when planted alone. Accordingly, the Whitetail Institute added the Plus components to act as a cover crop for the peas to help reduce the likelihood of overgrazing and add even more early- and late-season attraction.

The Plus components

In addition to the pea varieties, Winter Peas Plus contains small amounts of three other forages: Whitetail Oats, a winter lettuce and a specially selected radish. Whitetail Oats are included to increase fall attraction even further and to act as a cover crop for the peas. Whitetail Oats establish very quickly and, like the pea varieties in Winter Peas Plus, are cold tolerant and have proven themselves extremely attractive to deer. The two other Plus components in Winter Peas Plus, a winter lettuce and radish, also act as cover crops to help protect the peas from early overgrazing, and they provide additional forage for deer later into the cold months. Each Plus component has been carefully selected and combined in optimum ratios with the other forages in Winter Peas Plus to maximize the initial and long-lasting performance of the stand as a deer forage.

Other Performance Considerations


As mentioned, Winter Peas Plus contains more than 80 percent peas, consisting of two highly attractive pea varieties, Plus Whitetail Oats, a winter lettuce and radish that act as cover crops for the peas and add forage variety and attraction. Even though that’s likely enough information to convince you to try Winter Peas Plus, don’t forget that when you’re talking about Whitetail Institute forage products, what’s on the bag is as important as what’s in the bag: specifically the Whitetail Institute’s name. The Whitetail Institute has been providing folks like you with industry- leading forage products for a quarter century and relies on repeat business. That’s why we put maximum effort into research, development and testing to make sure that every Whitetail Institute forage product is the very best the Institute can make so that customers get the results they expect. That includes using only those forage components that outperform all others tested by the Whitetail Institute in a wide range of categories. The most important are attractiveness to deer, nutritional quality and sustained palatability. Other performance categories include how rapidly the stand establishes and grows, tolerance of heat, cold and drought, resistance to disease and other factors. That’s true of all Whitetail Institute products, including Winter Peas Plus. Winter Peas Plus is available in 11-pound bags that plant 1/4-acre. If you’d like more information about new Winter Peas Plus, call the Whitetail Institute’s in-house consultants at (800) 688-3030.