Trad Gang

Main Boards => PowWow => Topic started by: Paul/KS on July 08, 2015, 10:27:00 AM

Title: Sunflowers..?
Post by: Paul/KS on July 08, 2015, 10:27:00 AM
It's been so wet here this spring/summer that I have sunflowers sprouting under one of the songbird feeders. That got me wondering if deer ever show any interest in sunflowers, either just the seeds or the plants ?
Anybody..?    :confused:
Title: Re: Sunflowers..?
Post by: David M. Mathis on July 08, 2015, 10:32:00 AM
They love eating the tops of sunflowers. It's hard to plant a field of sunflowers with a high deer population.
Title: Re: Sunflowers..?
Post by: hedgetree on July 08, 2015, 10:40:00 AM
Yep, what David said. Some of the best hunting Ive had has been over sunflower fields.
Title: Re: Sunflowers..?
Post by: Pat B on July 08, 2015, 10:53:00 AM
I knew a guy that would bait with sunflowers. He said they didn't show up like corn but attracted the deer like crazy.
Title: Re: Sunflowers..?
Post by: Rollie on July 08, 2015, 06:44:00 PM
They never let mine get more than 3 or 4 inches tall then wipe them out in one night!
Title: Re: Sunflowers..?
Post by: 58WINTERS on July 10, 2015, 01:01:00 PM
The deer rob my hanging bird feeders of black oil sunflower seeds on weekly basis. Had a beautiful 5x5 buck destroy a feeder 2 yrs ago with his rack. The feeder company replaced it for free.
58
Title: Re: Sunflowers..?
Post by: Paul/KS on July 10, 2015, 01:29:00 PM
Well they are growing pretty well and one has flowered so I'll see what happens with the plants. Been such a wet summer that the deer have plenty of plants to browse on around here.
Title: Re: Sunflowers..?
Post by: Cootling on July 11, 2015, 08:49:00 PM
Sunflowers were a major agricultural crop here in the late 1970s and 1980s.  The oil seed fields were a magnet for deer, foxes and coyotes, tree squirrels, and upland birds.  I even watched a badger carrying heads down a burrow one nice winter day.  Confectionary seeds, not so much.

Seeds are rare, now.  Blight and blackbirds.  They are more common further west.
Title: Re: Sunflowers..?
Post by: Recurve7 on July 11, 2015, 09:11:00 PM
I sowed about a 1/4 acre with Sunflower seeds, the deer won't let them grow.