Whitetail Oats Plus Is This the Most Versatile Whitetail Institute Annual Ever?

  

By William Cousins

Attracting deer during hunting season — that’s the No. 1 reason folks plant fall food plots. There’s no question that Imperial Whitetail Oats Plus is outstanding at that because of its high sugar content. Consider, though, that Whitetail Oats Plus offers a wide range of potential benefits beyond just attracting deer. These tips will help you take advantage of its versatility.

   Whitetail Oats Plus Attracts and Holds Deer   The backbone of Whitetail Oats Plus is Whitetail Oats. The Plus component is a small amount of triticale and winter wheat, which have been included to boost attraction by offering deer multiple food options within the same plot and further boost winter hardiness.  Whitetail Oats is an oat variety the Whitetail Institute first heard about several years ago from one of its worldwide agriculture contacts— a university that was conducting research comparing how well var­ious oat varieties performed as grain producers. According to the Whitetail Institute’s source, the university researchers had to remove the oat variety from the grain production tests because deer were browsing it so heavily. Although the university researchers viewed the oat variety’s incred­ible attractiveness to deer as a problem in their grain production trials, the Whitetail Institute was, for obvious reasons, interested in explor­ing the variety’s potential as a whitetail forage. The Institute’s initial tests included evaluating the variety’s attractiveness to deer, how well it grew in various climates and other performance characteristics re­lated to use in food plots. Those tests confirmed what the Institute’s contact had said: The oat variety was high in sugar and extremely at­tractive to whitetails. The tests also showed the variety is well suited to a broad range of climates, and that it’s winter hardy — another ex­cellent characteristic for any plant being considered for use in food plots.  Because of the oat variety’s stellar performance during Whitetail Institute testing, the Institute purchased the rights to the variety and named it Whitetail Oats. It’s the most attractive oat variety the Insti­tute has tested, and it’s only available in Whitetail Institute products.    

The Broad Versatility of Whitetail Oats Plus   

Whitetail Oats Plus is one of the Whitetail Institute’s most popular fall annuals to attract deer during fall. As more Whitetail Institute customers are discovering, though, Whitetail Oats Plus can provide a variety of other benefits.  

Fastest green-up possible: All Whitetail Institute food plot seed components are evaluated for rapid emergence and seedling vigor. Whitetail Oats Plus germinates and emerges extremely quickly, and when planted as a nurse crop with a perennial in fall, it can help your fall-planted perennial food plot green up quickly and start attracting deer as soon after planting as possible.   

Additional drought protection: Planting a nurse crop of Whitetail Oats Plus with perennials in fall is a great way to hedge your bets against the chance that Mother Nature will turn off the rain in late summer or early fall. To understand why that’s true, you need to know the purpose of Whitetail Institute Rain bond seed coating and how it works. Perennials are at their most vulnerable to fluctuations in soil mois­ture when their roots are still tiny, right after they germinate. The Whitetail Institute coats its perennial seeds to maximize seedling sur­vivability by keeping the seeds from germinating on comparatively small amounts of moisture (in some cases, even just with heavy dew) when there isn’t sufficient moisture in the soil to sustain the seedling. When it rains and the soil holds sufficient moisture, the moisture pen­etrates the seed coating, the seed germinates, and the seedling starts to grow. Because Whitetail Oats Plus can germinate and survive with substantially less soil moisture than perennials, planting them as a nurse crop with fall-planted perennials can ensure that you’ll have a robust, highly attractive food plot right away, even if weather condi­tions are unusually dry.   Sustained attraction: Whitetail Oats Plus doesn’t just provide ben­efits during the first month or two after planting them with a perennial in fall. They continue to boost attraction by adding variety to the stand, and as we’ll discuss next, they can also be used to benefit turkeys and other wildlife the next spring.  

Creating a “soft edge” of Whitetail Oats Plus around your perennial food plots: So far, we’ve been discussing planting Whitetail Oats Plus as a nurse crop in a seedbed with a fall-planted perennial. Let’s discuss an additional use for Whitetail Oats Plus that shows its exceptional versatility. Through the years, I’ve found that planting a soft edge of Whitetail Oats Plus just outside the border of my fall perennial plots provides a huge benefit to a host of wildlife as a food source and cover. The soft edge creates excellent nesting habitat for turkeys and other upland birds, as well as a great hiding place for fawns and turkey outspanning a soft edge with Whitetail Oats Plus has been great for the wildlife that live near and use my food plots. I believe it has signifi­cantly improved the quantity and quality of animals in the area. I’m confident you will experience the same kind of results by including a soft edge around your food plots. Planting a soft edge of Whitetail Oats Plus around a food plot differs from planting it as a nurse crop in a seedbed with a fall-planted peren­nial in three ways:  First, like any solo planting of Whitetail Oats Plus, use the full seed­ing rate of 90 pounds per acre when planting the soft edge instead of the 25 to 40 pounds per acre you’d use when planting the oats as a nurse crop.  Second, if possible, fertilize the soft edge again about 30 to 45 days after planting with 100 pounds of 34-0-0 or equivalent high-nitrogen fertilizer per acre, as suggested in the planting instructions for White­tail Oats Plus on the back of the bags. This follow-up fertilization is not needed when Whitetail Oats Plus is planted as a nurse crop with Whitetail Institute perennial legumes because the legumes will pro­duce enough nitrogen for themselves and the nurse crop.  Third, let the soft edge continue to grow around the food plot through late spring and early summer to provide cover and nesting opportunities around the food plot. However, be sure you follow the Whitetail Institute’s recommended maintenance guidelines for the food plot itself. A nurse crop of Whitetail Oats Plus should be removed as part of normal spring maintenance of the perennial with which it was planted by mowing in late spring and, if necessary, to control weeds and grass by spraying. (Note: Don’t mow when conditions are excessively hot or droughty. You can find the forage maintenance in­structions for each Whitetail Institute perennial on the back of the product bags and at whitetailinstitute.com.)  As with all Whitetail Institute forage products, the components and their ratios in Whitetail Oats Plus have been developed and tested dur­ing real-world conditions across the United States to ensure that Whitetail Oats Plus is the best the Institute could make it. Whitetail Oats Plus is high in sugar and exceptionally attractive to deer. It’s also winter-hardy, easy to plant, establishes quickly and begins attracting deer right away. Its cold tolerance lets it continue to attract deer longer into winter.  Whitetail Oats Plus is designed to thrive in a wide range of soil types, from slightly sandy to heavy bottomland. One 45-pound bag of Whitetail Oats Plus will plant up to ½ acre.  For more information about Whitetail Oats Plus or to order, visitwhitetailinstitute.com, or call the Whitetail Institute at (800) 688-3030. ­

 

 

How to Plant A Nurse Crop of Whitetail Oats Plus with Fall-Planted Perennials

Each Whitetail Institute food plot product comes with seedbed-preparation and planting instructions on the bag. You can also find them at whitetailinstitute.com. Here’s how to adjust the instruc­tions if you’ll be using Whitetail Oats Plus as a nurse crop with your fall-planted perennials:  

Step 1: Have your soil tested by the Whitetail Institute’s soil-testing laboratory or other qualified soil-testing lab. Have the lab test the soil for establishment of the perennial you’ll be planting, not Whitetail Oats Plus. Add any lime recommended in your soil-test report (or follow the general lime recommendations on the back of the bags). Disk or till the lime thoroughly into the top few inches of the seedbed.  

Step 2: When your fall planting dates arrive, start the planting process by disking or tilling the seedbed.

Step 3: When the seedbed has been disked or tilled, add fertil­izer and Whitetail Oats Plus seed as follows: Add the fertilizer rec­ommended in the soil-test report (or, if you didn’t do a laboratory soil test, the default fertilizer recommendations shown on the back of the perennial product bag). Broadcast the Whitetail Oats Plus seed at a rate of 25 to 40 pounds per acre (less than half the rec­ommended rate for planting Whitetail Oats Plus by itself).

Step 4: After you have added the fertilizer and Whitetail Oats Plus to the seedbed, drag the plot to lightly cover the fertilizer and Whitetail Oats Plus seed no more than one inch deep. Do not discord till the Whitetail Oats Plus seed into the soil.

Step 5: When you have lightly covered the fertilizer and White­tail Oats Plus seed, broadcast the perennial seed at the full seed ingrate shown on the front of the bag. Do not drag the plot after put­ting out the perennial seed. The perennial seed should stay on top of the seedbed.