7 Best Brassica Blends for Fall Food Plots
Discover the 7 best brassica blends for Southern fall food plots. This guide ranks top mixes for high tonnage, nutrition, and late-season deer attraction.
Planting a fall food plot in the South is a game of beating the heat and timing the rain. Brassicas are the undisputed kings of late-season attraction, but not all blends are created equal under the Southern sun. Choosing the right mix is the difference between a lush, deer-filled plot and a patch of sun-scorched dirt.
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Southern Success: Key Brassica Blend Traits
When you’re planting in the South, you’re often putting seed in the ground in late August or September when it’s still hot and can be bone dry. The first trait you need is heat and drought tolerance. Some brassica varieties will bolt or wither in the heat, so look for blends specifically formulated for warmer climates or with components like forage radishes that can handle stress.
The goal isn’t just to grow something; it’s to provide food when deer need it most. This means you need a blend with staggered maturity. You want some plants, like certain types of rape, to be palatable early in the bow season. Then you need the turnips and radishes to sweeten up after the first light frost, providing a critical food source through December and January when native browse is gone.
Whitetail Institute Winter-Greens for Late Season
If your main goal is to hold deer on your property during the late season, Winter-Greens is tough to beat. This isn’t a blend you plant for opening day of bow season. Its real power is unleashed after the weather turns cold.
The key is how the plants react to frost. The cold temperatures trigger a biological process that converts starches into sugars, making the foliage incredibly sweet and desirable to deer. In the South, where our frosts come late, this blend provides a high-energy food source right when deer are worn down from the rut and need to pack on weight for the winter. It’s a true late-season magnet.
Antler King Honey Hole for High Sugar Content
Honey Hole is aptly named. It’s designed to create a small, intensely attractive plot that deer simply can’t walk past without taking a bite. The blend focuses heavily on specific varieties of turnips and rape that are naturally high in sugar, making them palatable even before a hard frost.
This makes it a fantastic choice for a kill plot tucked into the woods or on the edge of a travel corridor. Because it’s so attractive, you don’t need a huge acreage to pull deer in. Think of it as a strategic tool. Plant a quarter-acre of this near your best stand, and you’ve created a destination that can change deer movement patterns in your favor.
Frigid Forage Big-N-Beasty for High Tonnage
Sometimes, the mission is simple: produce the maximum amount of food possible. If you have high deer density or are trying to improve the overall nutrition on your property, Big-N-Beasty is a workhorse. This blend is all about biomass, both above and below the ground.
It combines highly productive forage radishes, turnips, and rape. The leafy greens provide tons of early forage, but the real magic is in the massive taproots the radishes and turnips produce. Deer will paw and dig for these energy-packed bulbs all winter long, long after the tops have been eaten. Just know this blend is a heavy feeder; it needs good soil and fertilizer to reach its full, impressive potential.
BioLogic Maximum for All-Season Attraction
For the land manager who wants a single plot that does it all, Maximum is a classic for a reason. It’s a well-rounded mix that offers something for every part of the hunting season. It typically includes brassicas along with grains like oats and wheat.
This combination is a smart strategy. The grains germinate quickly, providing an immediate draw for the early season while the brassicas establish themselves. As the season progresses and the grains get grazed down, the brassicas come into their own, especially after a frost. It’s a reliable, time-tested approach that provides continuous attraction from September through January.
Evolved Harvest Trophy Forage for Diversity
The Trophy Forage blend is built on the principle of diversity. Instead of relying on just one or two types of brassicas, it throws a buffet at the deer, often including several varieties of turnips, radishes, rape, and kale. This is a savvy way to hedge your bets.
Different deer have different preferences, and those preferences can change throughout the season. By offering a variety, you increase the odds that something in your plot will be highly desirable at any given time. This diversity also provides a bit of insurance. If a particular pest or disease hits one variety, the others can still thrive, ensuring your plot doesn’t fail completely.
Domain Outdoor The Big Sexy for Peak Attraction
This blend is engineered for one primary purpose: peak attraction during the hunting season. The Big Sexy uses a mix of proprietary forage rape, radishes, and turnips selected for extreme palatability and rapid growth. It’s designed to get big, get sweet, and get eaten.
The idea here is to create a plot so irresistible that it pulls deer from surrounding areas, especially during the pre-rut and rut when bucks are on the move. The combination of leafy greens for immediate consumption and bulbs for later in the season gives it staying power. If you’re in a competitive area and want your plot to be the neighborhood hotspot, this is a strong contender.
Pennington Rackmaster Fall Deluxe for Variety
Rackmaster Fall Deluxe takes the concept of a food plot blend a step further by incorporating more than just brassicas and grains. This mix often includes winter peas and clovers, creating a complex and highly nutritious food source that also benefits your soil.
The inclusion of legumes like clover and peas is a smart long-term play. They fix nitrogen in the soil, which helps feed the nutrient-hungry brassicas and improves your plot’s fertility for years to come. For the deer, it offers a wider range of tastes and textures, keeping them coming back. This is an excellent choice for someone looking to hunt over a plot while simultaneously building better soil.
Ultimately, the best brassica blend depends on your specific goals, soil, and deer density. Whether you need massive tonnage for a large herd or a small, irresistible kill plot for bow season, matching the blend to your property is the final step in creating a fall plot deer can’t resist. Don’t be afraid to experiment with a couple of different options to see what your local deer prefer.
