Are
you the objective, science-driven, just-the-facts type? Or are you more of an
intuitive, go-with-your-gut person who forms outlooks and beliefs based on
personal experience, hunch and intuition? I
would wager that many people — probably most of us — blend both approaches in
developing outlooks and drawing conclusions. I place myself in the middle of
that spectrum.
That became clear as I started organizing notes to tackle this
topic for Whitetail News. As I began analyzing why Imperial Whitetail Clover
is my favorite food plot seed, I realized there was an almost equal mixture of
intuitive, subjective reasons born of personal experience but also plenty of
scientific, evidence-driven ones. My initial list was
even longer, but here are 16 reasons why I love Imperial Whitetail Clover. Some
are based on personal experience, some on hard, proven facts. If you’re a
veteran food plotter who has grown this fabulous clover, you’ll likely nod your
head in agreement. If you’re new to this wonderful hobby, these reasons will
give you plenty of justification for making this clover the backbone of your
wildlife food plot program.
1 It’s
the first food plot seed I ever planted. After moving into a small cedar cabin our family owned on the
Shenandoah River after college, I plunged full-time into the world of
free-lance outdoor writing. I did plenty of traveling, gathering fishing and
hunting stories. But the cabin I took over (and eventually bought) sat on four
acres, and about one of those was tillable. So one of the first things I spent
my checks on after selling a few articles was wildlife seed. If I was going to
live in the woods and write about hunting, by golly, I wanted to see some
animals. And deer were at the top of the list. That was about the time Ray
Scott revolutionized the world of food plots with the unveiling of Imperial
Whitetail Clover. Using a small garden tiller and Roundup, I carved out a
primitive little plot of that new clover mixture. The thriving plot of Imperial
Whitetail Clover became a deer magnet. And it never stopped attracting them. It’s
difficult to forget your first successful food plot.
2 It tolerates drought and brutally hot
weather. With checks coming
in sporadically during those early writing years, I decided to skimp and save a
few bucks on seed when I expanded my plantings. That’s when one of the major
advantages of Imperial Whitetail Clover became obvious. It was the first of
what would be many brutally hot years with almost record-low rainfalls. While
my cheap co-op clover withered in the sun that July, the Imperial Clover continued
to thrive. Eventually, when I moved, bought more land and planted more forages,
I turned to the Whitetail Institute’s clover-chicory mix (now called Fusion)
for the driest areas. But the Imperial Whitetail Clover still performs
incredibly well in drought even when planted by itself. And the Rainbond
coating on each seed helps get new plantings established even in times of
pathetic rainfall.
3 It thrives in less-than-perfect soils. You can do a lot to improve your soils by
soil-testing, adding lime and fertilizer, eradicating weeds and tilling to
create a smooth, fine-textured seed bed. But let’s face it. Some of us are
stuck with growing plots on just mediocre dirt. After I moved to a bigger
parcel, in the western part of Shenandoah County, Virginia, I found that to be
the case for some of my plots. I had more ground, and it’s a beautiful tract of
land. But the soil, with a few exceptions, is mostly mediocre. Yet with enough
fertilizer and lime applications, the ground churns out impressive stands of
Imperial Whitetail Clover that last three to five years before I plow them under
and plant an annual such as PowerPlant or Winter-Greens for a year or two. Sure,
heavy, rich bottomland soil will produce the ultimate clover plots. But most of
us can do pretty well with just average soil if we put in the effort, adding
the lime and nutrients the soil needs.
4 Deer love it. Since my first bumbling attempts at
scratching out food plots in the 1980s, I’ve experimented with about every type
of forage that’s come out for deer and wildlife. A few have turned out to be
pretty good (mostly Whitetail Institute products). And deer are attracted to
almost all of them. But the plant that gets hammered? Imperial Whitetail Clover.
5 It spreads naturally. It’s a battler. Maybe sometimes you don’t
get a perfect, even spread of seeds when you plant a plot. Or a sudden downpour
washes out one area before the plants take root. With some forages, those areas
would remain barren or soon fill in with unwanted weeds from seeds blowing in
or buried in the sub-soil. With my clover plots, those strong growing legumes
typically expand and fill those areas on their own before many weeds take hold.
They do it by stolon growth. Those are above-ground plant stems or runners that
spread horizontally and then take root, creating new plants in open areas.
6 I killed my first buck heading toward an
Imperial Whitetail Clover plot. Do you remember your first buck? I doubt any hunter will forget
that important day in their development as a sportsman. I shot my first buck
with a .35-caliber lever-action as it angled down the knife-sharp slopes of the
Massanutten Mountain toward a plot of Imperial Whitetail Clover I had planted
many years ago. Acorns were scarce that year, and most farm crops were already plowed
under that cold November day. The buck knew where he wanted to go — the only
nutritious green plot around. And by luck, I had taken a stand on a fallen oak
along the switch-backing route he took down the mountain to reach it. That deer
was not only a milestone in my development as a hunter, but the story of taking
it also inspired my first contribution to the prestigious Gray’s Sporting
Journal magazine.
7 It’s high in protein. At up to 35 percent, Imperial Clover has one
of the highest protein levels of any major deer forage. That’s vital for
growing muscle mass, bone structure and, when a deer’s body needs are met,
bigger antlers. It’s also crucial for lactating does. Although deer only
require 16 to 20 percent protein, the clover’s higher protein levels help
balance out the lower percentage of many natural forbs and twigs the animals
also feed on.
8 I killed my heaviest-antlered buck ever
on my land as it moved between two clover plots. This was not the highestscoring buck I’ve
seen on my 117 acres, but his mass was awesome. And I knew from watching him
multiple seasons that he was older than five. I caught him right before dusk
making one last check of an Imperial Whitetail Clover plot tucked in a small
valley between two cedar-choked knolls. I watched him drink from the adjoining pond,
and then squeezed the .30/06 trigger when he stepped onto higher ground. His
bases measured more than six inches. I can’t document it scientifically, but I’ve
noticed that the more Imperial Whitetail Clover plots I plant, the more antler
mass seems to increase. And no measurement of a rack intrigues me like mass,
which almost always corresponds directly with age until a buck reaches its peak
at seven or eight years.
9 I killed my biggest bucks in Iowa,
Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Maryland and West Virginia as they fed on or moved
toward Imperial Whitetail Clover plots outfitters had planted. I’ve been fortunate to travel widely as an
outdoor writer, and I’ve seen this product planted on thousands of acres. There’s
a reason — rather, three reasons — for that. It attracts deer. It grows
healthier, bigger animals. And it produces happy clients — like I was on those
hunts.
10 It doesn’t need protection. If you’ve planted a field of soybeans, cowpeas
or lablab and had it almost obliterated overnight by hungry, overabundant
whitetails, you’ll appreciate that characteristic. Unless you plant just one
tiny plot in an area heavily overpopulated with animals, you should never have
to worry about deer overbrowsing your crop of clover. The more they eat, the
more Imperial Whitetail Clover comes back with new, more palatable growth.
11 It benefits from mowing. Regarding reason No. 10, deer usually can’t
even keep clover eaten down sufficiently in most plots. In that case, the
forage can benefit from mowing. Of all food plot activities, this is one of my
favorites. Trim down the plot when blossoms start to become abundant or weeds
and grasses grow several inches taller than the clover. By just clipping the
tops of the weeds and most flowers, you can invigorate a plot and produce more
tender, lush growth by mowing — one of the greatest ways I know to spend a
sunny summer day.
12 Weeds and grasses can be easily
controlled. Mowing will go
a long way toward controlling unwanted weeds and grasses, but treatment with
the herbicides Slay, for broadleaf weeds, and Arrest Max, for grasses, is
simple. It will let you keep your plot almost free of unwanted competition with
one or two applications per year. Not only will your plots look better, but
they’ll provide more and higher-quality forage without weeds and grasses
competing for nutrients, sunlight and moisture.
13 It lasts many years and persists
throughout the seasons. Sure,
I love the excitement of planting and watching annuals such as Tall Tine Tubers
or PowerPlant almost shoot up from the ground. But there’s also something to be
said for a forage that lasts three to five years and doesn’t require much work
every year. That’s typical for Imperial Whitetail Clover. I stretched that to
six years in one memorable case. This product has a long life and also produces
forage almost 12 months per year. In many regions, deer actually feed
year-round on Imperial Whitetail Clover. For more northern climates, 10 months
is typical, with a brief dormant period in January and February.
14 It was created specifically for deer and
is continuously being improved. Dr. Wiley Johnson spent more than seven years developing Insight,
the first genetically new species of clover invented for deer, and included in
Imperial Whitetail Clover. Following in his footsteps, Dr. Wayne Hanna, current
director of forage research, has improved and developed still more new varieties
by selecting the hardiest plants that offered the best benefits for deer after extensive
testing, cross-breeding and culling. More than 30,000 plants were studied in
recent tests, finally being narrowed down to 50. Eventually, a small fraction
of those will go into Imperial Whitetail Clover.
15 It’s aesthetically attractive. This one might not matter to everyone. But
I look out from my office at food plots every day, and the beauty of clover
shimmering in shafts of golden morning sunlight or sparkling with silver dew
after a rain offers a joy I’ll never tire of. I don’t know a lot about art, but
looking at a field of clover provides the kind of aesthetics I can appreciate.
Backlit by sunlight, the clover sometimes seems to glow with an inner light and
vibrant green hue that no oils or watercolors can ever match.
16 It creates hubs of rutting activity
during breeding season. Throughout
much of the year, does typically claim the best forage a parcel offers and bed
in nearby brushy or grassy areas. Bucks cede that choice habitat to the ladies
and choose more remote, isolated spots with thicker cover. That changes when
the rut kicks in. Bucks abandon their summer core hideouts at this time and
gravitate to areas with doe concentrations. I’ve found that one of the most
consistent places they visit to locate does is an Imperial Whitetail Clover
plot or, better, a cluster of several such plots with brushy cover between
them. These areas become hubs of breeding activity as mature bucks search for
concentrations of does near prime feeding spots. And they become killer
locations for an all-day sit when November arrives. Sure, we hunting writers
come up with all kinds of complicated formulas and detailed advice for hunting
the rut and dealing with lockdown. But you can do far worse than setting up and
watching a brushy edge or funnel of cover between a brace of Imperial Whitetail
Clover plots.
It’s a simple formula. Simple, but
deadly.
