Hunting season is right around the corner. When
you’re deciding which Whitetail Institute forage to plant in each of your
sites, don’t overlook No-Plow and Secret Spot.
These two extremely versatile
food plot products can perform a wide variety of roles in your fall/winter food
plot system. Most Whitetail Institute customers already know that No-Plow and
Secret Spot can be planted with minimal ground tillage. That’s one reason
they’re so versatile. But don’t forget that’s only a small part of the picture.
Keep in mind that they are products of the same exhaustive research,
development and testing process that all Whitetail Institute forages go through.
That means that they’re not only versatile, they’re also top performers.
First,
we’ll look more closely at each product. Then, stay tuned because we’ll discuss
some ways you may have never thought of to use them this fall.
GENERAL
DESCRIPTION
No-Plow and
Secret Spot are “annual” forage products, meaning that they’re designed to last
up to one year after planting, and both can be planted either in a fully
prepared seedbed or with minimal ground tillage. They’re also designed to
establish and grow extremely quickly—it’s not unusual to see them growing above
ground even just a few days after planting, and they also begin attracting deer
right away.
No-Plow is ideal for planting in the late summer or fall. Packaged
for areas one-half acre and larger, No-Plow consists of specially selected forage
grains and grasses, annual clovers and brassica. Secret Spot, which is
specifically designed for fall planting in smaller, remote hunting plots,
contains very similar components plus small amounts of other cool-season grains
and WINA chicory. Secret Spot is packaged in two sizes: Secret Spot (4-lbs.
covers up to 4,500 square feet), and Secret Spot XL (10-lbs. covers up to
1/4-acre).
Like most other Whitetail Institute forage products, No-Plow and
Secret Spot are blends of multiple plant varieties. One reason most Whitetail
Institute forage products are blends is that professional blends of different
plant varieties in the right ratios can almost always outperform single plant
varieties in food plots.
No-Plow and Secret Spot are designed to attract deer
throughout the fall and winter but they also keep performing even after winter.
When designing No-Plow and Secret Spot, the Whitetail Institute also kept in
mind how important it can be to provide deer with highly nutritious food
sources during the period from late winter into early spring. This is a time
when nutrient requirements in deer are very high as they try to recover their
winter health losses. However, it’s also a time when natural food sources can
be extremely scarce or exhausted, and when what little food may remain is
usually low in nutrients and unpalatable. It’s at this critical time that the
annual clovers in No-Plow and Secret Spot can continue to shine, providing deer
with a highly nutritious food source.
IDEAS FOR USING
NO-PLOW & SECRET SPOT
As we’ve
already mentioned, No-Plow and Secret Spot are perfect for areas where you can’t
fully work up the seedbed before planting. Below, I’ll give you some ways that
this can be a huge benefit in the fall, as well as some additional ideas for
taking advantage of the performance potential of No-Plow and Secret Spot. The
following certainly isn’t an exclusive list. When it comes to finding new ways
to use No- Plow and Secret Spot in your fall food plot program, you’re limited
only by your imagination.
HIGHLY
ATTRACTIVE FOOD PLOT
When it comes
to fall/winter attraction, No- Plow and Secret Spot don’t take a back seat to anything.
Like all Whitetail Institute forages, No-Plow and Secret Spot are extremely
attractive to deer, so remember that they can be good options virtually
anywhere you want to establish a highly attractive food plot, even in places where
you can work up the seedbed.
LOW SOIL PH
Most
high-quality forage products for deer grow best in soils with a soil pH of 6.5
or higher. Most fallow soils, though, have a lower (“acidic”) soil pH, which
should be corrected by incorporating lime into the soil prior to planting. When
soil pH is low, the lime needed to raise it should be incorporated well in
advance of planting if possible to give the lime additional time to work. In
some situations, you can have an extensive amount of time to wait for soil pH
to come up. One example is if soil pH is extremely low, meaning that the lime
must raise soil pH a long way. Another is if the forage you plan to plant is highly
dependent on soil pH being 6.5 or higher at planting, for instance Alfa-Rack
Plus and forage products that contain alfalfa. In such cases, it can be a good
idea to go ahead and lime the soil, and then skip a planting season before planting
the perennial. While you wait, though, the plot can still be fully productive.
No-Plow and Secret Spot can tolerate lower pH soils better than many other
forages, making them great options for keeping a site attractive and nutritious
during the fall and winter while you’re waiting for soil pH to rise.
OLDER PERENNIAL
STANDS
Let’s say that
fall is approaching, an Imperial perennial you’ve had growing in a site for
years is reaching the end of its useful life, and you plan to work the seedbed
up next year for a new perennial planting. Overseeding the existing forage with
No-Plow or Secret Spot this fall can be a great way to add new, attractive
growth to the plot and keep it performing at a high level through the coming
fall and winter.
SOIL STRUCTURE
ISSUES
While most
soils are suitable for tillage, that’s not always the case. Although it’s
uncommon, some soils should not be tilled under any circumstances. An example
is a soil structure we’ve seen in Central Florida — one inch of top soil above
several feet of nothing but sand. In that situation, that one inch of top soil
was all that would sustain a forage planting, and tilling it would have mixed
the thin topsoil with the sand beneath it, virtually destroying the soil. Planting
No-Plow or Secret Spot without ground tillage is ideal for such a situation. The
same holds true for soils that wouldn’t be harmed by tillage, but that you
don’t want to till for other reasons. Examples are skidder roads and ATV trails
in soils that are difficult to stabilize. Skidder roads, ATV paths and the like
often make excellent food plot areas, but disking an established roadbed in
such soil would render it virtually impassible as soon as it rains. With No- Plow
and Secret Spot, you can establish highly productive fall/winter food plots
without compromising the road beds.
LEASING HAY
FIELDS
If you’ve ever
leased property from a farmer who makes his living producing hay in the spring
and summer, you already know the first demand they often make on their
leaseholders. It usually goes something like, “I don’t care what you plant for
hunting season, as long as my hay comes back full strength next spring!” Here again,
No-Plow and Secret Spot are excellent choices. Once the farmer has taken his
final hay cutting for the year, wait until the grass starts to go dormant.
Then, mow the grass stubble as low as possible, and Plant No-Plow or Secret Spot
according to the no-till instructions. Remember that the seeds must make
contact with the soil, so drag something over the field after you spread the
seeds to help achieve better seed-to-soil contact.
A SNEAKY (AND
DEADLY!) USE FOR NO-PLOW AND SECRET SPOT IN POWERPLANT SITES
By now, most
folks know that PowerPlant, a spring/summer annual, is a prolific producer. Stands
often reach 5-6 feet in height, and it’s so thick that deer readily use the
mass of vegetation PowerPlant produces for bedding cover as well as a forage
source. PowerPlant spends its life during the spring and summer producing maximum
tonnage of high-protein forage, and once frost arrives it starts to die.
There’s a great way, though, that you can maximize PowerPlant as a hunting plot
in the early season and even keep the site attracting deer throughout the hunting
season.
Step 1. Check
your fall planting dates for No- Plow and Secret Spot.
Step 2. Most
areas of the country have a most commonly prevailing wind direction during hunting
season. About a month before your fall No-Plow and Secret Spot planting dates, locate
a stand site on a corner or edge of your PowerPlant site that’s most commonly
downwind during hunting season.
Step 3. A
few weeks before your fall planting dates for No-Plow and Secret Spot, mow
narrow lanes (ballpark 6-10 feet wide) through the standing PowerPlant so that
you can look down the lanes from the stand site.
Step 4. During
your fall planting dates, plant the lanes in No-Plow or Secret Spot. This can
be a great way to hunt all day long, as deer bedded in the PowerPlant often
step in and out of the narrow No-Plow or Secret Spot lanes all throughout the
day.
CONCLUSION
I hope this
article has helped you see just how versatile No-Plow and Secret Spot can be in
your food plot arsenal. Just like all other Whitetail Institute forage
products, No-Plow and Secret Spot are top performers—and the fact that they can
perform well with minimum seedbed preparation is just icing on the cake. Whether
you use them in all your plots or to fill specific roles in a few, you can’t go
wrong with fall plantings of No-Plow and Secret Spot. For more information
about No-Plow or Secret Spot or to order, call the Whitetail Institute’s
in-house consultants at (800) 688- 3030.
