At the Ranch – Whitetail: Food Plotting Gear

I’m currently standing in a new food plot that I just planted this year on a Wisconsin property, so I wanted to go over the basic gear that you would need to plant food plots like this. Now, it’s all going to depend on what you have available to you and what your budget is like, but there’s a variety of staple gear that you’re going to need to plant a basic food plot.

First, we’re going to talk about mowing because you will need to get your food plots mowed. Typically this is to make it easier to spray and kill your plot, so we like to mow it beforehand and we normally use a brush hog. You can have any kind of pull-behind brush hog for a four wheeler or a tractor. Some food plots you might even be able to mow while riding a lawnmower.

Next, you need some type of sprayer to be able to spray herbicide to kill the weeds before you actually do anything else. We like to use a sprayer that goes on a four wheeler, but some people can use a backpack sprayer or another kind of sprayer to kill the weeds.

After you spray and kill the food plot, next you will need to be able to till it up. We use a tiller behind a tractor. Once again, it’s either going to be a tiller that you’re gonna use behind a tractor or you might use something like a disk or something else behind a four wheeler. Really what you need to do is get the ground turned up a little bit, so that way you can have a seed bed ready to plant.

Another piece of gear you’re going to need is a seed spreader. Typically, I just like to use a hand spreader that you just walk around and spread and seed.

Lastly, you’re going to need some type of drag that you bring over the soil once you’ve already set the seed to kind of get some coverage with dirt over the seed. Beyond these basic pieces of gear for food plotting, you will of course need seed, fertilizer, and lime. A lot goes into food plots and it seems simple, but it’s a lot of work and hopefully this will help to get you started.