Alfalfa vs Clover Food Plot | Whitetail Deer Nutrition | Grandpa Ray Outdoors

Grandpa Ray Outdoor Owner John O’Brion talks about alfalfa vs clover food plots.

Grandpa Ray Outdoors specializes in providing the best nutrition for the whitetail deer on your property starting with the soil. We do this by offering a full line of high quality food plot seed, plant foods and minerals. We go the extra mile by helping you understand the best way to use our products with our consulting services.

Your bucks will grow larger racks but your does and fawns will also grow strong and healthy which helps winter survival as well as handling year-round stresses. Together, we can help you achieve the next level in whitetail deer management.

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Video transcript:
I'm John with Grandpa Ray Outdoors.
I'm in a spot here with Brad Jones with Scrapeline Hunters
where you can see I've got alfalfa over here in a strip.
It's been in for three years.
You got clover here.
It's ladino clover which was also overseeded with some intermediate clover.
I'm not going to talk too much about the differences in clover today, but
yet, we got two different types of clover.
As you can see here,
we got about 12 inches of growth on the clovers,
we've got about double the height there on the alfalfa.
It's not quite blossomed out yet but
just about ready it's late
vegetation and that.
And so,
I love how we've got this here with the scrape line.
We've got the clovers,
we've got the high amount of protein,
but so many people overlook alfalfa
and alfalfa, you're gonna be looking at,
you know, with some of these new varieties,
up to 8 to 10 ton of dry matter per acre
versus your clovers are probably going to give you about
two and a half
two, two and a half ton of dry matter.
They both have similar protein levels,
they both have similar energy levels,
they both have similar mineral levels
and so,
you know, you won't be able to see this here but,
you can see where the alfalfa's been eaten here.
Generally, in the grazing community,
we like them to graze about half the height
and if you got plenty of feed,
that's generally what will happen.
You won't be able to focus in on there but
they basically have taken the tops of the alfalfa off.
There's also some areas where I can see
where they've taken off the clover
and you can see,
got a good amount of the height there
but they took the tops off.
So, a little tip there is
for those of you that don't clip,
you want to clip to keep the
nutrition level as high as you can.
You do not want to clip too low.
We want to take half, leave half
so we don't slow the roots uptake
nutrient uptakes,
and on alfalfa, you might have to clip
three to four times a year.
If you do focus more on alfalfa,
versus the clovers,
you're looking at 2 to 3
depending on the weather and location,
so on and so forth,
but I love alfalfa
I like clover,
and you can just kind of see the difference on yield here so
if you have an area with a lot of deer
you're going to get
more yield here with the alfalfa
also, when the clovers,
kind of, shut down earlier in the fall,
these alfalfas will
really be a magnet for the deer
when you get to be
November, December, snow on the ground up north,
you know, in January, February, those deer
there's more stockpile forage with the alfalfa
than there would be with the clover.
So, maybe a little bit of teaching tool but
we've got side by side alfalfa and clover.