how is winter wheat to hunt by?

[lastofthebreed]

hey,
the farmer next door did not plant nothing next to us all year, he got the corn out real late last year.
but it looks like we might have a couple of winter wheat fields going in right now....they have been out there the last few days....

thats the only thing i can think of,that they might be planting this late?

never had it so close to where i hunt,how is it to hunt by?

good......no good?

[rossman40]

They will forage on the young plants in the fall and winter if there isn't better forage. Then in the late spring they strip the grain heads off the wheat. Farmers sometimes plant winter oats also, specially dairy farmers who cut it in the spring for silage. Deer love winter oats!

A lot of farmers are banking the price of wheat will be rising due to the Russian crops burning up from drought and they will not export this year. Someone said the price of US wheat will go up and of course the price of everything that uses wheat by 10% easy.

[ozark]

We have had good luck with winter wheat food plots. Winter oats, clover, and most lagumes are good also. Deer like a variety of foods. We have discovered that bushogging brush plots in September there are plenty of tender shoots for the deer during the winter. Acorn are good but the best of all wildlife feed is persommons. Its deer candy and they seldom miss a day that they don't pass under a tree to pick up what has dropped. May be a southern tree, I don't know. Ben

[rossman40]

I do not think you can go north of Chicago or the higher altitudes out west with persimmons, about 0° is the limit during the winter for them for long periods. You'll have deer, raccoons and possums camped out underneath them when the fruit starts dropping. I have a apple/peach orchard near me. When the white oak acorns drop the deer will leave the orchard and munch acorns till they are gone.

You have to remember deer do not bite off grass, they basicly pull/strip it off. If you look at a clover or alfalfa plant a deer fed on the stem will still be there but all the leaves are gone. Cows, goats and sheep come in like lawn mowers. That is why the deer like tender young shoots and they strip bushes like honeysuckle. At the early stages winter wheat is basicly like grass. When it gets halfway to knee high it is pretty tough.

[ozark]

I read somewhere where kale is a deer favorite. I don't know much about it other than that it makes good table fare if you like cooked greens. Part of a square dance call I heard a few times:
Possum up a simmon bush, raccoon on the ground. Raccoon said to the possum, throw some simmons down, Swing your partner. lol

[rossman40]

There is a American persimmon and Oriental persimmons. The American persimmon is only sweet when ripe. Eating one even slightly green will tear you up. Also if you eat a lot of them they will constipate you. You have to watch horses eating them cause the will gorge themselves. I have only seen a couple of Oriental persimmons in the wild, some of those varieties are somewhat sweet even green. I think Southern Indiana is the persimmon capital of the US. We stopped at one place when I was a kid and they had a persimmon festival, they had jellies, pies, candies and everything else that could be made from persimmons. Worldwide persimmons are a big favorite in Japan, China, Korea even Vietnam.

Down at the cabin we have a pear tree back in the woods that is pretty heavy with fruit this year.

[wilmsmeyer]

Deer are opportunistic as well as survivalists. So the best thing I can say about the winter wheat is that if there isn't anything else around to eat, it could be a huge magnet. If there are choices to be had, especially this time of year, deer will pick the most convenient, easy to find and most nutritious feed available. Winter is coming and they need body weight.

If snow cover is light, a winter wheat feild will bring deer after it gets real cold. IMO, nothing beats a combined corn feild.

[rossman40]

Ozark, Kale is a form of Brassica like lettuce, collard greens and even turnips which are prime deer food. If you look at most of the super food plot seed mixes they have some brassica in them. A friend of mine put out several food plots and what he planted in a high percentage of this fancy hybrid kale that he got from a farmer that grows oriental vegtables, the deer were on it like lawn mowers and pretty much killed the plot by the time fall came around. There is a variety that starts out bitter and then after the first frost turns sweet so the plot has time to get established before they munch it.

I have to agree with Wilmsmeyer that deer seem to always go for the most nutritious food. But around my house they do not hit the corn fields heavy. But I have some serious alfalfa/clover hay fields, a christmas tree farm that has this prime mowed grass around the trees, a good stand of oaks and a 100 acre apple/peach orchard all within a mile of me. You will see them foraging as they go thru but you do not see them hitting them hard until late winter especially if weather has been real bad. Now down around the cabin it is different, on off years of the white oaks I have seen snow on the few cornfields look like it was plowed from the deer foraging for corn left in the fields.

[10ga]

For small grains deer seem to favor oats and rye over the others. Wheat seems to rate over barley but under the rye and oats. One of our favorite hunting stands is called "the collard patch" where the farmer grows a variety of brassicas for late fall/early winter harvest. After the snap beans, sweet potatoes, soyabeans are harvested that becomes the favored feed spot until spring. They even paw the snow away toget to the collard/kale buds and leaves. 10

[rossman40]

Right now is the prime time for them to munch on winter wheat. It is nice and tender shoots at this stage. Once a frost hits it a couple of times the wheat will go dormant so no more tender shoots. Once the soil warms up in the spring it will resume growing. As it gets taller it gets tougher but that will not be till the spring.

[falcon]

"Deer love winter oats!"

Indeed they do. i plant 12-15 acres of game plots twice a year. In the spring we plant iron clay peas mixed with milo. The fall planting was oats and wheat in adjacent plots: Our deer always prefered the oats. Now we plant Chilocco oats almost exclusively.