Buck Gro Food Plot Fertilizer 

It seems like there are several stages to becoming an addicted food plotter. Your first time, you might try a small hunting plot just to cut your teeth. Then you might scale up and try out some new varieties of plants. Beyond that, you might get better food plot equipment to improve your efficiency. But at some point, you start to really realize how important fertilizer is when growing food plots. Without it, you’re honestly losing out on many of the benefits and not seeing the plot’s true potential. With Buck Gro® fertilizer, there’s an easy way for you to prepare and nourish your plants so that they get as nutritious and attractive as possible. Ultimately, that means good things are coming your way once hunting season opens again.

Importance of Fertilizer for Food Plots

So what’s the big deal with fertilizing food plots? Is it really even necessary? Depending on where you are in the country and how your food plot site has been used previously, your fertilizer needs will change. For example, think of a historic prairie field in the Midwest that has been moderately farmed – the soils should be great compared to a heavily farmed ridge-top field in Virginia. But in general, soil tests for food plots will usually show a deficiency somewhere, meaning your plants won’t grow as well as they could. When you consider the time and effort of preparing and planting a food plot with the intention to feed deer throughout the season, it’s a little foolish to not give it everything it needs to thrive.

Food plot fertilizer obviously feeds plants the essential nutrients they need to grow well and increase the total yield/biomass – that’s one of the main reasons we use it. While fertilized fields may look lush and green, unfertilized fields may look spindly and yellow. But fertilizer also makes the plants better able to withstand harsh conditions (e.g., drought, browse pressure, etc.) because they are healthier, to begin with. Additionally, deer plot fertilizer makes plants more nutritious (which translates into higher protein levels) and thus attractive to deer. Maybe it makes the plants taste better or deer can just smell the higher nutritional value, but deer definitely respond more to fertilized food plots vs. unfertilized plots. Higher protein and nutrition ultimately means you are fueling the deer on your property with everything they need to grow bigger bodies, healthier fawns, and larger racks too.

Not Your Ordinary Fertilizer

Many people assume they could just run to the local farm and feed store to pick up some bags of 10-10-10 or Triple 13 fertilizer to spread on their food plots. That’s definitely better than nothing, but it really only provides the three main nutrients: Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P), and Potassium (K). In many soils, that also leaves the plant lacking in several other areas, which means it can’t grow to its true potential.

The Advantage of a Liquid Fertilizer vs Granular Fertilizer

Buck Gro is a different kind of product to help with your deer nutrition program. Most people don’t think of liquid fertilizer for food plots, but a food plot spray can be more beneficial than granulated fertilizer in many respects. First, it’s ease of handling, application, and blending. Secondly, Buck Gro fertilizer provides a good dose of the valuable N-P-K that plants need, while also offering other micronutrients, minerals, carbon sources, and several other nutritional elements that most people neglect (e.g., amino acids, proteins, enzymes, etc.). This combination drastically helps improve the quality of the plant to produce a more palatable and attractive meal for deer on your property. Also, spraying a food plot requires water – in that regard, you get a little bit of an irrigation bump to kick start your seeds. But this applies mostly to small seeds (e.g., clover, brassicas, etc.) on the soil surface since you won’t be applying enough water to affect deeply-planted corn or soybeans. Other advantages of liquid fertilizer are its uniformity of application, its ability to blend with crop protection products, and its ability for in-season application.

Buck Gro Fertilizer Options

If this sounds like a better alternative to you, you have two options to choose from to begin using Buck Gro on your food plots. There is a soil formula and a foliar formula, both of which come as a concentrate that is mixed into a water tank and sprayed onto your plot or plants.

Soil Formula

The Buck Gro® Soil Formula (BGS) is a slow-release formula that feeds the necessary macro- and micronutrients and minerals (including Calcium, one of the most important minerals for antler growth) to your plot over an extended time period. It contains 21% Nitrogen (derived from ammonium nitrate and urea), 1% Potassium, 2% Calcium, and kelp extract (to provide other trace minerals). After you plant your food plot, simply go back over and spray it with the soil fertilizer – BGS can be applied by any kind of sprayer (e.g., backpack sprayers for small plots, tractor sprayers for big fields) by spraying the ground surface at the time of planting. This liquid fertilizer will slowly release the nutrients, minerals, and other components to your growing plants to give them the best start.

Foliar Formula

The Buck Gro® Foliar Formula (BGF) is also a slow-release diluted fertilizer that will continually feed the plant over a 4 to 6 week period. However, it is used by spraying it right onto the leaves after they’ve been growing for a while, which is called foliar feeding. Basically, the plants absorb the fertilizer formula through the leaf surface instead of the roots. It contains 14% Nitrogen (derived from urea), as well as kelp extract/sea minerals (for additional trace minerals), Carbon, and humic acids – all of which help your plants put on tremendous growth. A 5-gallon case also covers up to 3 ¾ acres for larger plots or multiple sprayings throughout the summer growing season.

You can spray your plots more often than the 4 to 6 week period for additional fertilization, but spraying more than once a week would probably be overkill. Ideally, spray long-term summer plots at least once a month to keep up the nutrition levels. You will likely only have to spray a fall hunting plot once after the plants have started to grow. Since you’re just spraying the leaves, this could also be a great way to enhance a small bow hunting kill plot. On a small food plot or on the corner/edge of a larger ag field, you could spray ¼ acre with this foliar formula to enhance and make it more attractive, which should bring the deer in closer for a shot. The 24 oz Ready To Use Spray bottle of Buck Gro Foliar is handy for hitting the vegetation near your favorite treestand or hunting location.

We do believe Buck Gro is the best liquid fertilizer for deer food plots, and we encourage you to try some yourself this season.