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Managing Supplemental Plantings
by Joe Koloski, Senior Regional Biologist NWTF
Certified Wildlife Biologist
 Most people who manage land for wildlife in the southeast incorporate supplemental plantings, or food plots, into their management scheme. Although food plots can be an important component of an overall wildlife habitat management plan, they are not the "silver bullet" that will automatically ensure that game will flock to your property, grow to trophy proportions, and stay there.
In order to get the most bang for your buck when it comes to food plots, it is very important to base decisions on where and how food plots are planted on the existing habitat conditions of your property. Specifically, planting food plots that will increase the availability of a lacking habitat component to wildlife will help ensure that you achieve the desired result of planting food plots.
Throughout the southeastern United States, brood-rearing habitat is the most limiting habitat component for wild turkeys. Low growing, herbaceous vegetation consisting of grasses and forbs provides areas for hens and poults to forage for insects, seeds, and green vegetation. With this in mind, food plots intended to provide brood-rearing habitat should be in close proximity to nesting habitat and escape cover and should be planted with seed varieties that will attract insects and produce a large quantity of small seed.
Clovers and clover mixes (NWTF's Strut and Rut Perennial Concentrate) are a great choice for fall plantings, and with a little maintenance will provide year-round benefit for wild turkeys and deer for several years without replanting. Spring plantings can also be very important to wild turkeys by providing late-summer bugging areas and providing seed from late summer through early winter. Although there are numerous choices available, NWTF's Strut and Rut Spring Mix (contains several millet varieties, cowpeas, buckwheat, and sunflower) is a good choice for both wild turkey and deer. Chufa can also be an important spring planting for wild turkeys. Chufa produces an underground tuber that matures in the fall, and in areas where over-winter food sources (such as hard mast and agricultural waste grains) are lacking, chufa can certainly fill this gap and help hold wild turkeys on a property.
The next time you are ready to plant food plots for wildlife, take the extra time to identify the lacking habitat components you are trying to supplement and use this as the basis for your planting decisions. The end result will be more effective food plots, and ultimately, more wildlife on your property.
Joe Koloski
Senior Regional Biologist
National Wild Turkey Federation
414 Brenmar St.
Brandon, MS 39042
601-454-4455
jkoloskinwtf@yahoo.com
For more information about the National Wild Turkey Federation and its conservation efforts, please visit their website at www.nwtf.org.
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