Frost Seeding Enhances Perennial Performance and Longevity
hitetail Institute perennials are designed to last for three to five years or more from one planting. The best way to ensure that you get maximum attraction and longevity out of them is to follow the Whitetail Institute’s seedbed-preparation, planting and forage-maintenance instructions for the product you select. Although it’s not a required maintenance step for Whitetail Institute perennials, frost seeding can help extend the performance and longevity of an existing perennial planting in several ways — for example, by helping you recover portions of the food plot that are thin because of intense browsing or adverse weather. Frost seeding can also help with weed control and can even extend the life of the planting for a few more growing seasons. In short, although frost seeding isn’t required, it’s an additional tool that can yield a wide range of benefits. What is frost seeding? Frost seeding is a long-standing agricultural practice used by farmers to help rejuvenate or extend the life of a field or pasture. It’s accomplished by broadcasting small, hard seeds such as clover and chicory into existing fields or pastures in the late winter/early spring, when ground that has been thoroughly frozen begins a cycle of thawing during the day and refreezing at night. As the cycle continues, the soil heaves (surface ice expands upward, carrying soil
with it), which brings the seeds and soil into optimum contact. Are some food plot locations better candidates for frost seeding than others? Yes. As a general rule, the best locations for frost seeding are plots that present the lowest chance that rain and runoff from melting snow will wash the seed away. Slightly sloped plots, for example, are better candidates than valleys with highly sloped sides and low places that channel water. That’s not to say that frost seeding a food plot in a valley won’t be successful, it’s just that you don’t know what Mother Nature will throw at you, and sites that aren’t naturally subjected to heavy surface water movement are less problematic for frost seeding than those that are. That’s just one example of the many variables that can affect how successful frost seeding is in a situation, and why it’s impossible to list a set of specific conditions during which frost seeding will always be successful. Benefits of frost seeding: Frost seeding can be a great way to fill in areas of a perennial food plot that are thin because of excessive browsing pressure or adverse weather, get a jump on spring grass and weed competition, and extend the life of older perennial plantings for another year or two. Remember, though, that frost seeding can’t be used to extend the life of a perennial food plot indefinitely. Eventually, any food plot site will need a break from even the best food plot planting if it’s been growing continuously at that site for many years. Most often, the need for a crop rotation to help clean out the soil becomes evident from a noticeable decline in the general quality of the stand. When you see that happening, it will be time to bite the bullet, work the seedbed up from scratch and plant a rotational crop to freshen the soil by conducting this critical rotation. Seed selection and seeding rates: Clover and chicory are among the most highly preferred seeds for frost seeding. Of these, clover is arguably the best choice because, unlike chicory, it tends to germinate at a temperature lower than that required for most native grass and weed seeds to germinate. That can give it a jump on the competition and help crowd out weeds, an especially beneficial characteristic in perennial plots that are thin at the end of winter. The normal seeding rate for Imperial Whitetail Clover is 8 pounds per acre. It’s 3 pounds per acre for Chic Magnet perennial forage chicory. (You can find the recommended seeding rate for each Whitetail Institute food plot product on the front of the product bag.) Also, follow these seeding rates when frost seeding. ^
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Vol. 28, No. 3 /
WHITETAIL NEWS 41
Charles J. Alsheimer
Here, a land manager frostseeds a plot in late March.