Clucking in Clover

Land managers benefits from turkey food plots

 By Jim Casada

 An old timer of my acquaintance is fond of muttering:  “I ain’t waitin’ at no chufa patch.”  The basic thrust of his sentiments should be obvious.  To him, endless hours spent beside a chufa patch waiting for a turkey to come along came too close to a baited ambush for his personal comfort zone.  There’s logic to his outlook that I personally find persuasive, although my viewpoint comes at least as much from a turkey hunting mindset that demands a proactive approach to the sport as it does to real problems with a chufa patch.

Indeed, properly planned and planted food plots, although not necessarily those sown in chufa (see sidebar for more details on this matter) make perfectly good sense. They give turkeys precisely the sort of food they need during key periods of the year. They provide gobblers with an attractive strutting ground. When situated properly, with good nesting habitat nearby, they are ideal for nesting hens and, a few weeks later, that hen and her brood. Then too, the versatility of a fine food plot, with all its offerings for a multitude of wildlife, should not be overlooked.

The Versatility Of Clover

Turkeys are our subject here, and I’d be less than honest if I didn’t acknowledge that the big birds have a firm hold on a corner of my soul. Yet the same food plot that draws turkeys can be important for countless other types of wildlife. Deer are the most obvious beneficiary of a fine patch of Imperial Whitetail Clover, but that’s only the beginning. Rabbits and clover go together like bacon and eggs or biscuits and jelly. All sorts of songbirds benefit, either directly or indirectly, from a clover patch and the opportunities it provides for “bugging” (dining on grasshoppers and other protein-rich insects). Quail, for example, thrive on grasshoppers in much the same way turkeys (especially poults) do. Songbirds such as bluebirds, mockingbirds and fly catchers love the opportunity food plots provide them to catch flying insects. Also, you can almost bet that anywhere you have a nice food plot you will see cardinals with some regularity.

Turkeys In Imperial Clover

Several years ago a friend who is a deer-hunting fanatic planted a two- or three- acre food plot, adjacent to where he was establishing a stand of sawtooth oaks, with Imperial Whitetail Clover. He did everything right – testing the soil, providing lime and fertilizer in the recommended amounts, and working the ground up thoroughly prior to seeding. Mother Nature, in turn, did right by him. A good, soft “farmer’s rain” fell shortly after he completed the planting, and then adequate moisture fell in the key growing period when the clover was establishing its root system.

On two different occasions my buddy called me to brag on how good the food plot looked. Then, shortly before the whitetail season opened, I visited him to have a personal look-see. Certainly he had a model food plot, but while we walked around looking at it I pointed out something to him that he had not previously noticed. There were turkey droppings everywhere. 

“ Roy ,” I said, “you may have planted this with deer in mind, but it’s obvious you’ve created a magnet for turkeys.” 

Sure enough, come the opening day of deer season a couple of weeks later, he called, quite excited, to give me a report on his first day of hunting. 

“I shot a fat doe,” he said, “and saw a number of other deer. But you just wouldn’t believe the turkeys that were around. They were in and out of the food plot all morning, and at one point there was a flock of 13 birds at one end of the patch and a bachelor group of five longbeards at the other.”

This really came as no surprise to me, because turkeys absolutely love clover. There are several reasons this is the case. For starters, anyone who ever examined the craw of a turkey, whether it was a gobbler killed during the spring season or a bird taken in those locations where fall hunting is permitted, likely found greenery of some type present. The birds will eat most anything, but they show a distinct preference for certain types of food. For example, when nuts start falling in autumn, there are brief periods when turkeys zero in on a mast crop such as beech nuts or acorns. Most of the time though, greenery looms large in the diet of turkeys.

In that regard there’s nothing they like better than Imperial Clover, and if you know a bit about turkey nutrition the explanation for this is obvious. Like deer, turkeys have an innate sense of what is good for them, and Imperial Clover is jam-packed with nutrients. Moreover, in the greening-up time of spring, when foodstuffs are most scarce (fall’s mast is long gone and insect life is scarce thanks to the lean, mean months of winter cold), Imperial Clover becomes particularly important for turkeys. 

It is among the first plants to show appreciable growth as days lengthen and the sun strengthens. That’s one of the reasons turkey hunters know that their quarry will be drawn to Imperial Clover. The rich legume begins a growth spurt and becomes available at precisely the point when the birds are looking for protein- and vitamin-rich greenery for their diets. In a way it reminds me of prevalent folklore in the heart of the Appalachian high country of North Carolina where I grew up. It was commonly (and rightly) believed that one of the best ways to shake off the winter doldrums was with a spring “tonic.” That tonic always involved eating some of the first plants to come along with returning spring – dandelions, poke salad, lamb’s quarters, branch lettuce, ramps, and the like. Imperial Whitetail Clover is the turkey’s spring tonic.

Of course, the appeal and usefulness of clover does not, by any means, end there. As spring with all her beauty proceeds through increasingly long and warm days toward summer, insects become more active. Grasshoppers, in particular, show up in clover patches, and they are like candy for turkeys. Insects become plentiful just about the time hens hatch their young, and a clover patch presents a mother hen with the perfect training ground for her poults. They can get around in Imperial Clover (unlike taller grasses such as winter wheat or rye) quite readily, pecking and chasing bugs to their heart’s content.  Indeed, a diet rich in Imperial Clover and supplemented by just the sort of insects likely to be found in food plots seems to be just the ticket for promoting growth in young turkeys.

On more than one occasion in May or June, after another spring hunting season has come and gone, I’ve spent some time hidden at the edge of a field and watched a hen and her young working their way through clover. They peck away at the rich vegetation with a will, eat Imperial Clover blooms as well, and chase every insect that shows itself with seeming glee. It’s the time when a new generation of turkeys, the hens that will produce broods in the future and the jakes that will become longbeards in their second year, are getting their start. Imperial Clover food plots give them an optimum chance to start right.

Clover isn’t, to be sure, the “be all, end all” of turkey management. But if you want to choose one thing that will do the greatest good when it comes to managing for America ’s big game bird, Imperial Whitetail Clover is the answer over much of the country. Take matters a step or two further, perhaps with some sawtooth oaks, Chinese chestnuts, autumn olives, or other food-producing plants, and you can turn a carefully maintained program of Imperial Clover food plots into a bonanza for turkeys. That, in turn, translates into first-rate turkey hunting. Or, to put matters another way, plant Imperial Clover for turkeys in areas where the birds are already present, and rest assured they will come to the food plots and utilize them to full advantage.

The Advantages Of Clover Versus Other Plantings

Imperial Whitetail Clover offers a number of distinct, and sometimes overlooked, advantages when it comes to food plots. Chufas have been all the rage in the turkey hunting fraternity, and there’s not doubt whatsoever that turkeys love the tubers. Yet chufas have a number of significant disadvantages. For starters, they are quite picky about soil type, thriving in sandy soils in warmer climates but being hard to raise in clay or other heavy soils. Chufas cannot be grown with any real expectations of success in colder regions. Imperial Clover can be grown over a much wider area of the country. Then too, chufas are basically a one-shot deal, requiring replanting after each season, whereas a well-maintained clover patch should last you several years. Likewise, chufas offer food for a relatively brief portion of the year, whereas Imperial Clover has its most lush growth at precisely those times when turkeys and other wildlife need it most.

            Some of the same issues are encountered with other types of food plot plantings. Wheat, oats, winter rye and the like are all one-time, one-season offerings. Fescue is a perennial, but it should never, ever be planted. It is the host plant for an endophyte than can cause lactation problems and abortions in everything from deer to rabbits. The message is really pretty clear. When it comes to overall effectiveness, longevity, more bang for the buck, and versatility, Imperial Whitetail Clover food plots are the way to go.

Creating Food Plots For Turkeys

Turkeys will utilize a food plot, or for that matter almost any type of field or opening, no matter what its size. But the ideal food plot situation for turkeys is to create small plots of one to three acres. Several of these, distributed at strategic locations can make a piece of land a turkey paradise. Keep these factors in mind when you select food plot sites. (1) Turkeys have a real affinity for water, loving to roost over it and regularly using branches, creeks, and rivers as travel paths. (2) A food plot situated immediately adjacent to large trees means they are likely to be utilized for roosting. (3) Food plots with dense undergrowth nearby lend themselves to that thicket being used for nesting. (4) Food plots atop hills or on ridge lines appeal to gobblers, because they like to strut where they get maximum exposure. (5) Nearby dusting areas, such as a sandy spot, an old sawdust pile, or an old logging road, nicely complement a food plot.