Sweet potatoes as deer food by accident

[Hideaway Acres]

I had a small fenced in garden near my pole barn on my hunting property. Grew mostly cucumbers in the summer and turnips and mustard greens in winter. Early this summer I tried three or four 30 foot rows of sweet potatoes, more for weed suppression than anything else. Well, this Sept we took down the fence and moved the garden to a sunnier location. About a week later I noticed the deer had eaten every single sweet potato leaf leaving just the stems showing. Has anyone tried them on food plots? It would be a labor intensive endeavor for sure and I'm guessing they'd destroy them as soon as the plant produced a decent amount of leaves...

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

There is a produce farmer near me that grows them. They ended up getting bailed out by the tax payers in the form of a 10 foot fence around the field to keep the deer out because they kept eating all of the sweet potatoes.


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[No-Tox]

You need the vine and leaves for sweet potato production.

 

[BenAllgood]

In Louisiana, it's illegal to bait with them because there is a sweet potato weevil that they don't want to spread. Also, it's been linked to heart issues in deer if they get moldy. If you plant them, you'd probably need to fence them until established and ready to hunt. They're my favorite bait for trapping nutria and muskrats though.

 

[SwampCat]

No way would I plant an acre food plot in sweet taters. Not only would the cost be prohibitive, the deer would immediately eat the vines - and in my experience, they wont grow back. I know a few folks who buy the cull sweet potatoes by the truckloads to use as bait and do ok with them

 

[Barndog56]

My neighbor grows 30 acres of sweet potatoes, sells the good looking ones to grocery store, uses the others in his dog treat business. Had to fence off the whole thing to keep the deer out.

 

[TreeDaddy]

I had similar results in a small 1/8 acre pumpkin plot experiment

Beautiful flowers on vine that were devoured

bill

 

[Catscratch]

I gave it real serious thought for a couple of yrs. I plant large/diverse mixes (oftentimes more than 10 varieties). Thought SP would be a great addition but didn't come up with a reasonable way to do it.

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