All
Whitetail Institute forage products come with planting dates and planting
instructions on the package. Those are also available at whitetailinstitute.com.
The planting instructions are short and designed to be easy to follow. That
means, though, that you should follow the instructions step-by-step and not cut
corners if you expect to get the best results. Of all the factors that
influence food plot success, other than using high-quality seed, none are more
important than making sure soil pH is neutral (6.5 to 7.5) by adding lime to
the soil if soil pH is low, and that any low levels of important nutrients in
the soil, such as phosphorous and potassium, are brought up with fertilizer.
As
you’ll see from the real-world example that follows, it pays to test your soil
with a laboratory soil test kit any time you’re considering buying lime or
fertilizer. The Whitetail Institute soil test kit offers the precision that
only a qualified soil testing laboratory can provide, which lets you make sure
your forage plants have access to all the nutrients they need to thrive — and
make sure that you don’t waste money on excess lime and fertilizer purchases.
“Our
family’s farm was purchased back in the late 1990s,” Charlie said. “About half
the property is in timber, and the rest is open areas that had been leased for
farming. After we got the property, we continued to lease some of the fields to
a local farmer to bring in some income. A few years later, we also started
taking an active approach in managing the timbered areas to help bring in some
extra money and to sustain them.
“It
wasn’t until about six or seven years ago, though, that we started experimenting
with the idea of planting food plots. When I look back on where we started, I
can tell you that our level of knowledge today is way beyond what it was in
those early days. Back then, we really struggled because we didn’t understand
some basic things that can make a huge difference — things that are so
important that they can determine whether you will have a great food plot or
not, and in some cases whether what you plant will even survive or not. The
most important things we learned are how crucial it is to make sure your soil pH
is in optimum range before you plant, and that the best way to make sure you do
that is with a laboratory soil test kit.
“Before
we started planting food plots, we noticed that folks who were hunting the
farms around ours seemed to be harvesting more deer and bucks with bigger
antlers. The only thing we could tell that they were doing that we weren’t was
planting high-quality food plots specifically for the deer. So, we set aside a
few spots for food plots near the woods in some of the hay fields and areas the
farmer had been planting in crops such as corn, sorghum and beans. We disked up
the ground, put down some fertilizer and planted. The results weren’t what we
had hoped they’d be. The forage plants came up, but they didn’t seem to grow
very quickly, and the plots never really got thick and lush. We did see a few more
deer, but we had hoped for a better result all around than we got. “One day, I
was telling one of our neighbors about the marginal results we’d gotten with
our food plots, and he suggested that we call the Whitetail Institute for
advice. He said the Whitetail Institute had consultants who really know their
stuff and who will help folks over the phone for free. We called the Whitetail
Institute’s consultants to figure out what might be going wrong. When I told
the consultant how we’d planted and described the problems we’d seen, I was surprised
that his first question was, ‘Did you do a laboratory soil test before you
planted?’ I told him that we had not because we figured that since the farmer’s
hay and crops had done fine in those areas, we assumed the forage we’d planted
would too, especially since we’d fertilized before we planted. “The consultant
said that when he helps customers diagnose food plot problems, he almost always
starts with a laboratory soil test —by reviewing the report if the customer did
do a soil test before planting, or by having them perform a laboratory soil
test if they didn’t. He said, “That way, we can determine exactly what your
soil pH and soil fertility levels are, and that will either eliminate those as
causes or point the finger at them.”
To
understand why that’s important, you need to know two things. First, plants can
freely uptake nutrients from the soil only when soil pH is within a certain
range. Otherwise, nutrients are bound up in the soil in a way that inhibits the
plant from freely accessing them. Second, the soil pH range in which plants can
freely uptake nutrients from the soil isn’t the same for all kinds of plants.
The
optimum soil pH range for most high-quality forage plantings for deer is
neutral soil pH, or a soil pH between 6.5 to 7.5. When such forages are planted
in soils with soil pH below 6.5 (acidic soil), nutrients are bound up in the
soil so the forage plants cannot freely access them, and the lower the soil pH
is, the more the forage plants will struggle. Many farm crops, vegetables and
other kinds of plants, though, are able to freely uptake nutrients even when
soil pH is slightly acidic.
“That,”
Charlie said, "was a real eye-opener. We followed the consultant’s advice
and had the Whitetail Institute test our soil for us, and when we got the
report back, I called the Whitetail Institute to go over it. Again, the
consultant started with soil pH, which the reports showed was around 5.5 for
all of our plots. He explained that just because crops and hay grass grow well
in an area doesn’t mean that food plots automatically will too, and that our
case was a perfect example. Soil pH of 5.5 is fine for hay grass and the crops
the farmer had grown, but it is too low for high-quality forage plants. “The
soil test report called for about two tons of lime per acre. We added the
recommended amount of lime to each food plot and disked it in during the spring
and then replanted the next fall. We also stuck to the laboratory’s fertilizer
recommendations, and we found that we didn’t really need as much fertilizer as
we had used the first year. That year, our food plots were way, way better.
They looked great and were even greener than we expected. The forage plants
grew quickly, and they stayed real thick even after the deer started grazing
them hard. Some of our Imperial Whitetail Clover plots are now going on their fifth
year since we last planted them, and they still look as good and are still
attracting deer as much as ever.”
Why
Have a Qualified Soil Testing Lab Test Your Soil?
That
can be answered generally with one word: precision. First, only a qualified
soil testing laboratory can accurately determine what soil pH and soil
fertility (levels of crucial nutrients in your soil) are. Second, soils differ
widely in capacity to hold lime activity and fertilizer, and only a lab can
scientifically analyze your soil’s characteristics accurately enough to develop
very precise recommendations concerning lime and/or fertilizer that you’ll need
to add to the soil if levels are low. Most cheap probes, slurries and other
such do-it-yourself soil test kits simply cannot provide the level of accuracy
necessary to precisely tell you those things.
And
precision isn’t just important for making sure you buy the lime and/or
fertilizer that is needed to bring the soil into optimum growing conditions.
The precision of laboratory soil testing also lets you make sure that you don’t
waste money buying lime and/or fertilizer you really don’t need. All Whitetail
Institute forage products come with de-fault lime and fertilizer
recommendations on the back of the product bags for situations in which a
laboratory soil test isn’t available. Frankly, though, that’s rarely if ever
the case, because high-quality laboratory soil tests are widely available. You
can get them online at whitetailinstitute.com, through many of the retailers
that carry Whitetail Institute products, and from most major agricultural
universities.
Also,
consider that the default recommendations are designed to cover as many
planting situations as possible. That being the case, the default
recommendations will rarely be exactly what’s actually needed, and if they are
spot on, it is only by pure chance. In most situations, the default
recommendations might be too much lime and/or fertilizer or too little.
The
bottom line is that only a laboratory soil test will allow you to make sure
your forage plants have access to all the nutrients they need to grow
vigorously and provide you with a lush, healthy, highly attractive and
nutritious forage stand — and save you money at the same time.
The
Whitetail Institute soil test kit is designed with food plotters in mind. It
provides all the precision of a laboratory soil test, and the report is
designed to be easy to understand. It even provides suggestions for commonly
available bagged fertilizers that will meet the report’s recommendations. If
you have your soil tested through Whitetail Institute or a lab other than the
Whitetail Institute’s and have trouble understanding the report, call the
Whitetail Institute for assistance. As Charlie says, “The phone call I made to
the Whitetail Institute and the advice they gave me about soil testing is the
best advice I’ve ever received about food plotting, and our hunting continues
to improve because of it.”
