OUTDOOR CORNER: WINTER WHEAT PROVIDES HAVEN FOR DEER

If you want more deer on your farm, the formula is not too difficult. Mix heavy cover with a year around supply of food. Be careful to not over-harvest the female deer. Protect them from running dogs and poachers. Watch the results.

The best and easiest source of food is acorns, agricultural row crops, well-managed legume pastures and well-managed forests. If food is lacking, you should try to provide. The unanimous top choice of food plots among professional deer managers is winter wheat.

Winter wheat, planted in early September and located in the right spot, will consistently attract and hold more deer than any other food plot, bar none.

The advantages of wheat are many:

* Deer love to browse the tender growth of young wheat plants. They will come to it and eat it even in years of surplus grain and heavy acorn crops.

* Wheat grows well on even the poorest of soils.

* Wheat grows during the time of year when moisture is normally plentiful.

* It does not take a lot of equipment or farming knowledge to plant and grow wheat.

* It is inexpensive.

* Wheat attracts deer in November.

Here are some planting tips:

* Select a secluded location for the plot, if you want the deer to use it in daylight hours.

* Plant the food plot in early September. Remember that you are growing the young wheat for pasture, not grain. Grain farmers wait until late September and October to plant.

* Plow or disc the area to plant in August, after a rain, if the area is grass or wheat covered. Disc again at planting time. Do not worry about loose weeds and grass on top of the ground.

* Sow one bushel of wheat per acre and fertilize at the same time with 200 to 300 pounds per acre of 12-12-12 fertilizer. Cover the seed lightly.

* Plant the plot even if it's very dry and dusty. The wheat will come up after the first rain.

* Overseed the wheat with 3 pounds per acre of ladino clover in early April. (Ladino clover appears to me to be nearly identical to the new "Whitetail Clovers" I have tried, except in price.)

If you are serious about increasing your deer herd, some wheat should be planted every year. If the clover you sow in the spring establishes well, allow it to grow as many years as it will (keep the weeds clipped). Move your wheat plot to a new location. If the wheat does not take, replant the same spot to wheat.

Remember that the best management can be quickly defeated by harvesting too many females, and that the only way to grow big bucks is to allow some of the young ones to grow up.

Mike Anderson is an assistant district forester with the Missouri Department of Conservation.