Do you plant winter wheat in Sept or before so it is up in Sept?
I plant some areas that I'm going to be hunting with wheat in the first week of sept. It comes up in days, and is high enough that the deer will start to use it before archery season starts.
As long as there is fresh browse in the woods, they will stay there mostly and come to the wheat for something else to eat. Freeze comes and the browse goes dormant, they live on the wheat.
I've planted every thing on the face of the earth that the "experts" say to plant, side by side, and nothing is any better than wheat. The rapes, and brassicas, have to have a mild freeze before they become palatable to deer. In Ok that may come late in gun season, so these plants are not good for OK.
Seems most of the stuff they sell is designed for the NE and Northern parts of the country.
Oats will freeze out, but there is a variety that will make most of the winter that has been developed. I planted it side by side with Wheat, and it wasn't any better. Wheat was 1/4 of the price.
Grains like corn or milo work well if planted around the first of June.
Problem is, when the deer walk into the corn or milo they disappear.
I put in 17 acres of milo one year, and by the end of gun season, they had stripped all the heads. If I had been putting that in for crop, it would have been a bust season. Granted, we do have a doe problem that we are addressing.
I've kind of wondered about trying milo or corn, and mowing it down before season, scattering the grains so that the upland birds and deer both can benefit. Maybe pulling the grain drill through it to get some wheat started? I don't know. I try new stuff every year.
For those with no equipment, I'm thinking some of the NO Plow stuff might be ok.
This much I know, if you hunt in the woods, my buddy did a little work and cleared out a lane 100 yds or so on either side of a tree stand that was no more than 6' wide. He cut saplings, used a rototiller to break up the dirt, plan ted wheat, and has killed some monster deer from it in Osage county. Wheat is a grass and will germinate anywhere. The trees lose their leaves and the sunlight filtered thru the trees enough to let it grow even after the deer had ate it. Just another observation.
Sorry to be so long winded.