Chicory Plus – for the “Deer Days” of Summer

By Jon Cooner

“The Deer Days of Summer?” You might ask, “Don’t you mean the Dog Days?” We’ve all heard of the Dog Days of Summer, but most folks don’t know where the term came from.  According to what I’ve read, the term “Dog Days” describes an ancient belief that the position of Sirius, the “dog star”, close to the sun added to the sun’s heat.  With the fairly recent onset of late-summer and early-fall droughts in most parts of the country in recent years, though, perhaps it’s time to modernize the term.

Often, new research projects at The Whitetail Institute are prompted by a new or recurring customer need.  One problem faced by Field Testers across the country over the past few years has been a pattern of unusually hot, droughty weather during late summer and early fall.  During such excessively stressful periods, even the best forages can exhibit slowed growth, nutrition and attraction.  Unfortunately, these same months are also one of the key stress periods during which deer need access to high-quality forages the most.

To meet this need, the Whitetail Institute now offers an even more drought-resistant option for customers who have come to rely on Imperial Whitetail Clover as a superior, year-around food source for deer.  Imperial Whitetail Clover is extremely drought-tolerant, and Chicory Plus is even more so. 

It is often said in these pages and elsewhere that when it comes to perennial forages, only those offered by The Whitetail Institute were actually created for deer.  To be clear, “created” does not mean just buying seeds somewhere and blending them into a product.  It means doing research, development and testing with a goal in mind.  It means identifying traits that you want a plant to exhibit, searching for existing varieties likely to possess some of those traits, and then painstakingly cross-breading those varieties to create a single, new variety that contains all the best traits.  That was the process performed by renowned plant geneticist Dr. Wiley Johnson when he bred The Whitetail Institute’s first proprietary clover, Advantage Ladino Clover, over seven breeding cycles years ago.  This same effort is continually put into all Whitetail Institute products and led to the creation of Insight Ladino Clover last year.  The Institute’s continued focus on developing new plant varieties and blends specifically for whitetails it is one of the reasons The Whitetail Institute continues to be the industry leader. 

Chicory Plus contains the same proprietary perennial clovers as those found in Imperial Whitetail Clover, plus WINA-Brand 100 Chicory, the only chicory designed specifically for deer.  WINA-Brand 100 Chicory is less waxy, more tender and vastly more attractive than chicory varieties traditionally planted for deer.  The combination of WINA-100 Brand Chicory with the same perennial clovers found in Imperial Whitetail Clover provides the year-around nutrition and attraction our customers have come to expect of Imperial Whitetail Clover with an even higher level of drought tolerance.

Like many Whitetail Institute customers, Myron Warren of Mississippi has relied upon Imperial Whitetail Clover for many years.  “I have had great success with Imperial Whitetail Clover and decided to plant Chicory Plus last spring.  It has been very dry this spring, though, and most of my plots are slowing down.  The Chicory Plus is growing well, though, even without a lot of rain, and the deer are in it every evening.”

Jim Lenker of New York planted Chicory Plus in the spring to give his deer some additional variety.  “The Chicory Plus we planted in the early spring established very quickly, and the deer are eating the chicory as fast as they do the clover.  The difference between the height of the Chicory Plus inside and outside our forage-exclusion cages is amazing.” 

 So, if you are among the many of us who have experienced unusually hot, dry weather during the late summer and early spring, consider planting Chicory Plus.  It combines the proven year-around nutrition and attraction of Imperial Whitetail Clover with a specially designed chicory to provide your deer with a highly attractive and nutritious food source, even during the Deer Days of Summer.