During late summer 2024 in western Wisconsin, the author planted three food plot blends from Evolved. How did they grow, and did the local whitetails target these green fields?
As an avid life-long whitetail hunter with bow and gun, I began experimenting with food plots in the late 1980s. Along the way, I’ve had the opportunity to field test seed blends from just about every major food plot company you can think of, and I’ve also planted plenty of small fields to the generic seeds you’d buy from a local coop.
During late summer 2024 in western Wisconsin, my dad and I field tested three blends from Evolved. Before I get to the specifics about what we tested and the results, let me step back for just a second and talk about the why.
In simplest terms, growing top-notch food plots provides whitetails with access to high-volume, nutritious food sources year-round. Of course, this assumes that the hunter/landowner follows the correct procedures when preparing the soil, or at least killing weeds, prior to broadcasting seed, then Mother Nature has to cooperate with timely rains.
That final statement regarding moisture is critically important. Food plot blends won’t grow without timely rains, even though it seems that weeds don’t ever have a problem growing, no matter the severity of a drought.
Assuming you do your part in the soil prep and weed control, and assuming you don’t encounter a drought during the growing season, the deer will benefit from high-quality food plots. But let’s pump the brakes just a little. You will not, in my opinion, immediately notice that all the local whitetails are bigger/healthier than ever before, and bucks suddenly reach their maximum antler potential simply because of your efforts. These changes take time, but planting top-notch food plots is certainly a step in the right direction.
Evolved has been producing food plot blends since 1992, and I’ve tested previous blends from them a few times in my food plot career with good results. Evolved seed blends are backed by science and rigorously tested to ensure that whitetails — bucks, does and fawns — receive the nutrients needed for long-term health.
When you visit the Evolved website at the time of this writing, you’ll see nearly two dozen seed offerings. In this article, I’ll discuss two that are new to the company’s lineup, and one existing blend that received a significant recipe improvement in 2024.
Hold 'Em: This new perennial/annual blend delivers Evolved’s classic mix of clover and chicory varieties, including RegalGraze ladino, Osceola ladino, arrowleaf clover, and freedom MR! red clover, as well as chicory. The greens provided from this blend are highly palatable, easy to digest and nutritious.
In choosing Hold ‘Em, I was looking for a year-round, nutrient-rich food source for whitetails. One of the reasons I picked this specific blend is the website said it performs well in a variety of soil types, so long as the ground has been tilled before planting. My dad has a compact tractor with options to pull a disk or attach a tiller, so working the soil wouldn’t be a problem.
Hold ‘Em is offered in a 4-pound bag to plant .5 acre, and I planted four bags, which equates to 2 acres. It’s also available in a 2-pound bag that plants .25 acre.
Countdown: This new 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 hunt in western Wisconsin, the 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 .5 acre, and I planted two bags, which equates to 1 acre.
Throw & Grow X-Treme With Radish: This is an easy-to-establish annual blend containing a fast-growing mixture of Tetraploid annual ryegrass, radish and rape. This product offering isn’t new to the lineup, but starting in 2024, it now contains four times the traditional amount of forage rape, and more than twice the radish.
Because no tilling is required to plant this blend, my dad and I used it on a remote food plot where it’s difficult to access with our compact tractor. We prepped the field by killing existing weeds with glyphosate (think Roundup), then after the weeds turned brown, we simply broadcasted Throw & Grow X-Treme With Radish onto the exposed soil. Note: We also tested it on a larger field where we could work the soil with a tractor beforehand.
Throw & Grow X-Treme With Radish comes in a 5-pound bag to plant .25 acre, and we planted four bags, which equates to 1 acre.
I’d love to tell you that my dad and I grew the best food plots of our lives during fall 2024, and we both shot Booner bucks as a result. Sadly, while our area of western Wisconsin received a surplus of rain during spring and early summer, those months were followed by a fall with no rain.
We planted on July 30 because rain was in the forecast, and thankfully we received it. And we were blessed with a couple more rainfalls throughout August, so our plots got off to a great start. However, it didn’t rain a drop during September, which set an all-time record. In fact, we didn’t receive a drop until the third week of October, but by then the growing season was largely done. Dang!
Because our fall growing season was cut from 2.5 months to 1 month, our fields didn’t produce anywhere close to the amount of food we’d hoped. Example: Our forages grew to about 6 inches and then put on the brakes when the rain stopped. With normal rainfall, or even a bit less, our green fields would have produced at least twice as much food. It’s frustrating and sad to watch this happen to your food plots, but that’s part of playing this deer farming game. That said, as you'll see in these photos, our fields still drew some huge bucks!
Even with the lack of moisture, our local whitetails were regular visitors to our Evolved plots. All three blends were targeted by whitetails. Those small fields or sections of our largest field that contained the Countdown blend — rape/turnip/radish — were especially popular during late season. Similarly, the Throw & Grow X-Treme With Radish blend — ryegrass/radish/rape — continued to lure whitetails throughout the fall, even when air temps dropped to well below zero.
Hold ‘Em, because it contains primarily clovers, puts most of its energy into root growth before producing much green above ground. This took place during the good rains of August, but when the plants should have begun to flourish above ground, the drought hit. So our Hold ‘Em plots were fairly sparse, but they did draw some whitetails. The good news, however, assuming we receive a decent amount of snow matched with timely spring rains, is these fields will burst to life in spring 2025, providing nutritious food to whitetails and other wildlife for all of the year.
Check out the photos throughout this article and read the captions to see how our western Wisconsin food plots looked at different times of the year. I was very pleased with the performance of these three Evolved blends, especially considering the horrible growing season we experienced during the fall.
Note: In our county of Wisconsin, it is illegal to place minerals for whitetails (DNR rule related to CWD). Basically, the Wisconsin DNR considers minerals to be bait, and baiting is illegal in our county. If minerals are legal in your area, I highly recommend them, and Evolvedoffers a variety of good options in block, powder and liquid formulas.
In the end, our family had a great 2024 deer season, and certainly having green food plots contributed to our success. We are careful to not overhunt the plots, and try to intercept deer as they travel to and from the plots, rather than hunt directly over them. In total, we have eight hunters in our group (some live on the property and hunt far more than others), and we killed 15 deer on our land plus some surrounding permission properties, and nearby public lands. And based on trail cam pics, we killed only two of several mature bucks that were regular visitors to our food plots. I’m excited for the 2025 whitetail season!
