I’m a writer, not a businessman, so I know just enough about developing and marketing a product to be dangerous. However, I know enough successful company owners to realize that one of the toughest things to resist is bringing products to market before they’ve been tested and proven. Many companies have experienced an initial rash of success with a killer product but then succumbed to consumer pressure for more and newer gizmos like the first. If the follow-ups aren’t at least as good as the first one, the company’s reputation suffers, and long-term success can be compromised.
As the originator of whitetail food plot seeds in the United States, the Whitetail Institute recognizes that temptation well. After introducing the wildly popular Imperial Whitetail Clover, the pressure to produce a latest-and-greatest follow-up had to be intense. The company has resisted, only offering a new product after an extensive period of development and testing. In short, when something new comes out from the Whitetail Institute, serious hunters and managers pay attention. I know I did when I learned about Ambush, a new product introduced last summer from the Whitetail Institute that proved so popular it sold out before many people even had a chance to order.
I was one of the lucky ones to get some Ambush, and like every Whitetail Institute product I’ve used, the new kid on the block was impressive. I talked to William Cousins, product manager at the Whitetail Institute, about the development of this exciting seed blend. “Ambush is unique in that it’s the only food plot product in the United States featuring sweet lupine,” Cousins said. “Lupines are not widely known about in the U.S. There are hundreds of varieties of lupine, but only a handful that whitetail deer are really attracted to. We’ve been experimenting with them for years but obviously wouldn’t introduce them into a blend until we knew we had the most attractive and hardy variety.”
According to Cousins, the sweet lupine in Ambush is a legume that aids in nitrogen fixation on a plot. “They’re a perfect complement to the high-sugar and winter-hardy oats (also found in Ambush) because of that nitrogen-fixing capability,” he said. “Deer are immediately attracted to the oats, and the nitrogen boost the soil receives from the lupines make the oats even more tolerant of grazing. Like most new plants in a blend, it can take deer a few visits to a plot to figure out what the lupine is and that it’s something good to eat. But when they do, they’ll start hammering them. We’ve also put our sugar beets and clover into the mix to provide attraction throughout the hunting season.” “Ambush should be planted in late summer or fall and does best in medium- to well-drained soils,” he said. “Sites with wet, heavy soils are not the best for this product, as the lupine will not perform to its potential.
We have found that Ambush is a little more forgiving on pH than some products. Obviously, the closer to 7.0 the pH is, the better. But we’ve seen it perform very well in soil with just over 6.0 pH.” Newt Norton, a veteran food plotter and deer manager from central Alabama, planted two 2-acre plots with Ambush last season. “We plant close to 50 acres of food plots on the 3,000 acres we manage each year and we wanted to test Ambush,” he said. “Our deer have always had a strong preference for Whitetail Oats Plus, and as great as it has performed for us over the past few years, the Ambush we planted this past year was as good and maybe even better. Both of the plots we planted Ambush in were hammered by the deer. I have baskets (exclusion cages) on each plot, and the plants inside the baskets are 8 to 10 inches tall, while the plots outside are mowed down to less than two inches.” Norton said the soil in his two Ambush plots differ greatly. “One is sandy loam that requires constant maintenance; I have to lime it every other year,” he said. “The other is heavier clay and easier to maintain. I fertilize both plots with 300 pounds of triple-17, plus 100 pounds of nitrate. My procedure is pretty simple. I do a rough disc over the plots, fine-disc the fertilizer in and then cultipack before and after seeding. The cultipacking has made a big difference in ensuring seed-to-soil contact and better germination.” Norton’s management plan and attention to detail has paid big dividends. “Until last fall, we’d only killed a couple of bucks that weighed more than 200 pounds in 16 years on this lease,” he said. “Last season, we killed seven heavier than 200 pounds, and five of those bucks were shot over those Ambush plots.” My home in Minnesota is several hundred miles north of Norton, but the two plots I planted with Ambush also performed very well. But one plot really caught my attention. I call it the Rocky Plot, and it’s been kind of a challenge. On the plus side, the Rocky Plot is situated tight to a creek, which naturally attracts and funnels whitetails. Another food plot is just 75 yards away, and it’s a favorite feeding spot for area deer, so many bucks visiting the nice plot eventually drift to the Rocky Plot and spend some time there. Finally, I’d started a mock scrape on one edge of the Rocky Plot several years ago, and for reasons known only to the deer, that scrape has been a hub of activity from mid-October through the end of the rut. So, for a generally underachieving plot, Rocky did OK. But the place had challenges. For a plot near a creek, the soil was surprisingly thin and, of course, rocky. Things got worse a few years back when a huge rainstorm (as in, 16 inches in 24 hours) created a massive flood that blew material from the creek bank into the Rocky Plot. In one season, a ho-hum plot had turned into a real problem. So much of a problem, that there were times I’d seriously considered just giving up on the Rocky Plot. Still, I hate quitting. So I decided to roll up my sleeves and do what I could for the place. Starting in July, I started hauling cow manure to the Rocky Plot in the back of a pickup truck and shoveling it out on the plot. Sure, a tractor and manure spreader would have been easier, but I lived 35 miles from the farm, so the truck was just easier and quicker. After five loads, I had a nice layer of nature’s best fertilizer on a quarter-acre plot, which went a long way toward building some much-needed organic matter. I disked the manure into the plot, and gave it a few weeks, figuring weeds would enjoy the cow poop too. Then, I nuked the plot with Roundup®, gave it another week, and disked and fertilized the plot before planting Ambush.
The results were pretty amazing, even for the Rocky Plot. With the much-needed shot of fertilizer, the Ambush seeds flourished in the richer soil. Although I don’t hunt the plot much during bow season — the landowner is a bowhunter and enjoys sitting on the plots, so I defer to him on those stands — deer sightings spiked on the Rocky Plot. Even more interesting to me was the clear preference of whitetails for the Rocky Plot over the neighboring plot, which had been their favorite feeding place for many seasons. And during the November gun season, the landowner’s guests shot a pair of 3-1/2-year-old bucks that were trolling through the Rocky Plot, seeking does. But the clearest recommendation whitetails gave for the Ambush plot occurred during the rut. Although the mock scrape I create each fall next to the Rocky Plot always gets hammered by bucks, this past fall was exceptional. My camera there revealed an increase in the overall number of bucks and also their size and maturity. This was certainly no scientific study, and the spike in mature buck numbers could have been explained by other factors. But in my experience, big bucks spend the most time where the most does are hanging out. And because the Rocky Plot was the preferred feeding area for does, it didn’t take much deductive reasoning to figure out why my cameras lit up over that mock scrape. John Bowen from Pennsylvania had this to say about Ambush. “We have planted many different food plot products and NONE have been as successful with attracting game. Ambush is the best product we have found.” The takeaway? Whitetail Institute has clearly come up with another winner in Ambush, and I intend to get my order for this fall’s seed in early.
