Soybean
Continuing with our recognition that we serve a good number of traveling deer hunters that will not have first hand home state experience with our central mid-west deer food sources some of the discussions on these pages while informative to some traveling hunters will be obvious information for local hunters.
Soybean is planted at two different times and described locally as early and late beans.
Early beans are those planted as early as spring weather will allow. Late beans are those that are planted after a June harvest (optimum) of winter wheat. The impact on deer-soybean food source attraction is that soybeans are most grazed on by deer after pod formation (late July) and before hard frost (mid-October). Early beans will gain and loose their deer attracting food characteristic earlier than late beans as early beans will begin to "yellow" in early September and late beans in late September to early October. Yellow means the soybean plant has reach maturity and its moisture content as well as deer attraction begins to fade. Soybean fields are preferred deer forage during early muzzleloader and archery season.
Acreage of MAHA's Iowa, Missouri and Kansas deer lease land region planted to soybeans, darker the color the increased amount of acreage.
Soybean yields per acre as indictor of recurring planting on any soybean field from year to year.
Paired with soybean land use is sorghum that within our central mid-west region is largely milo that like soybean is more of an early season deer attracting food source than later season corn and wheat.
Acreage planted to sorghum.
Sorghum yield per acre.
This map shows the extent to which any one deer food source may influence deer behavior the most and hunter selection of where and when to hunt.
From first hard frost until all milo is consumed deer will forage milo heads as a preferred early deer season food. This may help narrow down when an early archery season hunter that prefers early rut may select mid-October or later to plan his hunt and during that time any milo field standing or cut would be a must scout and potential hunt location. All the more so if that ideal, and unreasonable to expect to find all other deer attracting elements in one small location, of year round water source, wooded drainage, tall grass bedding, out of direct observation of routine human encroachment along with a green wheat field all adjoining that milo field.
Both soybeans, the beans themselves, and milo waste grain suffer the effects of fall and winter precipitation degrading their availability by being buried in mud and snow and loss of wholesomeness through molding before that of corn.