During late-summer 2024 in western Wisconsin, my family and I planted three food plot blends from Evolved. Specifically, we field tested offerings called Hold 'Em, Throw & Grow X-Treme With Radish and Countdown. You can click here to read my story detailing our results.
I was impressed with the results of that field test, especially given the challenging growing conditions (lack of rain during fall 2024), so I was excited to try the products again during fall 2025.
First a little background on the company before I reveal our field test results. Evolved has been producing food plot seed since 1992, and the seeds are backed by science and rigorously tested to ensure that whitetails — bucks, does and fawns — receive the nutrients needed for long-term health.
The Evolved website currently shows 22 food plot seed offerings. In this article, I’ll discuss two annuals.
Countdown: This annual blend contains a balance of three parts rape, two parts turnip, and one part radish. Whitetails love the taste of rape, turnip and radish, and they really target food plots planted with these nutritious offerings when temperatures drop during late fall. On the land I bowhunt in western Wisconsin, the local whitetails have a surplus of food during summer and early fall, but it becomes scarce during late fall and winter. Through decades of experience on our land, my family has learned that a cold-hardy, late-season forage such as this one is key to decent hunting during November and December. Countdown comes in a 3-pound bag to plant a .25-acre; our group planted two bags on a half-acre of prepared soil.
Turnip Pro: Whitetails love turnips. They’ll eat the lush green tops during October and November, then turn their attention to the bulbs after the greens have been consumed. Thankfully for food plotters across the whitetail's range, turnips are adaptive to a wide range of soil types and weather conditions. This Turnip Pro offering features a ProGro Biostimulant seed coating, which results in stronger, taller and healthier plants and more forage per acre. Turnip Pro isn’t a blend; the bag contains 99-plus percent Barkant turnip. The 2.5-pound bag plants a half-acre; our group planted two bags on 1 acre of prepared soil. Note: Food plotters can plant it solo in a food plot, like we did in our field test, or they can add it to other blends.
It pains me to write this: The challenging weather conditions we experienced in 2025 mirrored those we faced the previous year. In 2024 we received decent rain throughout August after planting in late July, but then didn’t get any rain in September. In fact, during 2024 we didn’t receive a drop again until the third week of October. By then the 2024 growing season was largely done.
As I said, 2025 was a repeat of 2024. This past year we planted on August 8 and received decent rains shortly after broadcasting seed, and we continued to receive moisture for until August 24. But that’s when Mother Nature turned off the spigot.
We didn’t receive any measurable rain in September AND October. As a result, our food plots didn’t produce anywhere near the tonnage we had hoped for. Our 1.5-acre field planted with Evolved Countdown and Turnip Pro (separate sections) grew to about 6 inches and then put on the brakes when the rain stopped.
I know from experience that with timely rainfall our 1.5-acre test plot would have produced at least twice as much food, and most likely three times as much. Dang!
As our hunting group witnessed in 2024, even with the lack of moisture, our local whitetails were regular visitors to our Evolved food plot during fall 2025. To be honest, I wish the deer hadn’t liked it so much because they ate our 1.5-acre field to the dirt by mid-November.
Food plots planted with rape, turnip and radish are typically outstanding during late season — what I call mid-November through December — but due to lack of moisture, which meant lack of growth, our Evolved plots not only didn’t produce a massive quantity of green tops, they also didn’t produce much for bulbs. Double dang!!
Even with the challenging growing season during fall 2024, our family (six hunters, primarily) had a great deer season, killing 15 deer on our land plus some surrounding permission properties. We did even better in 2025, killing 19 deer. Note: The vast majority are antlerless deer — i.e. we are filling the freezer with healthy venison.
There’s no doubt that having green food plots contributed to our success during the past two deer seasons. It’s my hope that Mother Nature cooperates a bit more with us this upcoming late summer and fall so our food plots can produce more food for our local whitetails. Our late-season deer hunting will be crazy-good if we receive timely rains resulting in rape, turnip and radish plants that are knee high with softball-sized bulbs!
