Photo: Keith Engstrand

Planting a food plot can be a helpful tool in creating deer dependency on your property, but they don’t have to take up half of your land to be effective. You can have just as much success with a small, mini food plot as a large one. Review the benefits of planting a mini food plot below.

Focus on the Necessities

A mini food plot means limited space, but that doesn’t have to mean limited nutrition. Choose one or two types of plants and plant them in your mini plot. Though you won’t offer the deer a smorgasbord of options, you’ll be able to offer them very specific nutrition that they can associate with your property. Make sure you’re choosing your seeds wisely. Make sure you’re planting food that can’t be found anywhere else in the area. Make your one or two plants count. If the deer herd can’t get what your property offers anywhere else, they’ll frequent your food plot all summer and into the hunting season. Clover consistently makes the list of successful deer attractants, so that might be a good place to start.

Choose the Location Wisely

Just as you should choose your plants wisely, you should choose the location of your food plot wisely. Avoid planting your food plot right up next to a prime bedding area. You want to think ahead and make sure you’re creating space between the deer herd’s food source and their bedding area. If you plant the mini food plot too close to the bedding area, the deer will go right from eating at the food plot to bedding down for the night, leaving you no room in between for a clear hunting area. A mini food plot will give you more flexibility because you’ll be able to tuck it away in corners of your property you might not have otherwise thought of because you needed more room for a large food plot.

Complement it with a Feedbank Gravity Feeder

Since you won’t have as many options in your food plot as you normally would, it would be a good idea to set up a Feedbank Gravity Deer Feeder alongside your plot, as well. The feeder will give you another vessel for distributing nutrition and you’ll be able to offer the deer something that’s not in your food plot. So, they will be getting an array of nutrition without the plot and feeder taking up a lot of space on your property. Our feeders are easily moved by pulling up the single post. If you see that your feeder might be needed elsewhere on your property, you can pick and up and move it easily.

Set Your Stump Blind Nearby

You can choose to plant your mini food plot next to your existing Stump blind or place your Stump blind next to your existing mini plot. Either way, our blinds like the Stump 4 ‘Scout’ are versatile and can blend into the landscape wherever they are on your property. It will settle into a clearing, or among the bushes and trees, wherever you decide to put it. Just make sure you’re leaving a travel path between your blind and the food source so that the deer don’t feel pressured while they’re eating.

Food plots are a great way to attract deer to your property. Offering a variety of different plants is very helpful, but you can still see success even if you only choose one or two types of seeds. If what your mini food plot offers is unique to your property, it will bring deer to your land.

Have you ever tried a mini food plot? Have you had success with them? Let us know in the comments below!

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