The Ultimate Year-Round Food Plot for Deer
Defining the Y-Shaped Green Field
 Editor’s Note: If you understand the Y design of green field planting, you not only can see and take more bucks, but you'll have a hunting site for both bow and gun season. The Y-shaped green field enables the hunter to provide a smorgasbord of highly-nutritious, very-palatable food for the deer all year. You need to see and understand the components that make the Y-shaped green field the best design with the best plantings for hunting deer during bow and gun seasons.
The type of terrain on the property you hunt dictates the size and the shape of your green fields. However, according to Robert Pitman, the owner ofWhite Oak Plantation in Tuskegee, Alabama, "If I can build green fields the way I want to build green fields without having to be concerned about the timber on the property and/or the terrain, I'll build Y-shaped green fields. The Y-shaped green field allows a hunter to take bucks throughout bow and gun season and under almost any wind condition. Pitman's Y-shaped green fields differ from other Y-shaped green fields because of the forethought and the planning that Pitman puts into designing the Y green fields before they're actually constructed.
The Y green field works best on: freshly clearcut property; areas where a tornado has b lown down all the trees, and the landowner has removed the trees; sites that have burned; and/or regions with little or no timber production on them. In the center of the Y and on either side of the apex of the Y, Pitman recommends planting fruit trees. On the outside edge of each fork of the Y, Pitman plants either strawberry bushes and/or Japanese honeysuckle. He plants an annual, like clover, in the center green field. Pitman  plants each one of the forks of the Y in crops that mature at various times during bow and gun season. Then the deer always have a young tender crop inside the boundaries of the Y on which to feed. "I'll have the open end of my Y facing north, and the bottom end of my Y facing south," Pitman says. "The prevailing wind in my area during gun-deer season comes from the northwest. During the winter months, we rarely, if ever, have a south wind. With my green field positioned this way, and because of the different combinations of deer foods that I have readily available for the deer, I not only have a great place to consistently take bucks. I also can provide food for my deer and hold them in this section all year long."
Tomorrow: Shrubs and Fruits That Attract and Feed Deer in the Summer and the Fall
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