Food Plot Clearing in Michigan: How to Turn Overgrown Ground Into a Plantable Deer Plot
The Gibson Environmental Services crew
More than 10 years clearing land, cutting trails, and running forestry equipment in Southeast Michigan.
Most food plots in Michigan fail before the seed ever goes in. The spot is the wrong one, the ground is full of stumps and root balls, or the brush that was pushed to the edge grows straight back into the plot. Clearing is the step that decides whether you get a plot or a weed patch, and it is worth doing right the first time.
Gibson Environmental Services opens food plots on hunting and farm ground across Southeast Michigan with a tracked forestry mulcher, and with a brush hog where the ground is already open. This guide covers where to put the plot, how the clearing method changes what you can plant and when, and what to do the week after the machine leaves.
Where to Put the Plot
- Sun. Brassicas, clover, and cereal grains all want at least four to six hours of direct sun. A plot under a closed canopy grows moss.
- Soil. The sandy ground common in Lapeer County and northern Oakland drains fast and runs acidic; the clay in Macomb and St. Clair holds water. Both grow plots, but they need different lime and seed choices, so test before you plant.
- Deer traffic. Put a kill plot between bedding and the food they already use, on the side you can reach with the wind in your favor.
- Equipment access. The mulcher, and later a tractor or ATV with a disc and spreader, has to get in. A plot you cannot reach with a spreader does not get limed.
- Dry ground. Keep the plot out of the low spots that flood in April. We route around wet ground, not through it.
- Edges. Leave a screen of cover on the side you approach from and open the far side, so deer feel safe stepping out in daylight.
Mulching vs. Dozing vs. Brush Hogging for a Plot
Forestry mulching
Grinds saplings, brush, and stumps in place. Keeps the topsoil where it is and leaves a chip layer that has to be managed before planting. The right method for wooded or brushy ground.
Dozing
Pushes everything, topsoil included, into piles you then have to burn or bury, and leaves root balls and holes across the plot. Fast, but you plant into subsoil.
Brush hogging
Mows grass and light brush on ground that is already open. Cannot handle saplings, and leaves the roots to come right back.
For a plot cut out of woods or a brush field, forestry mulching is the method that leaves you with plantable dirt instead of a construction site. The one trade-off is the mulch itself, and that is a timing question.
The Mulch Layer: What It Means for Planting
When a mulcher grinds an acre of saplings, it leaves a layer of wood chips over the soil. A light layer, an inch or so from thin brush, can be disced in and planted the same season. A heavy layer from dense sapling ground takes a year to break down and pulls nitrogen out of the soil while it does, which starves a brassica planting.
Three ways to handle it:
- Plant through it. Frost-seed clover or throw-and-mow cereal rye into a thin chip layer; both establish through mulch.
- Push it to the edge. Rake or blade the heavy chips off the plot and let them become the screening edge.
- Give it a season. Clear this fall, let the chips settle over winter, lime in spring, and plant the following August.
Clearing in September?
You are setting up next year's plot. Let the chips settle, pull a soil test this fall, lime over winter or in early spring, frost-seed clover in March, or plant brassicas and cereal grains next August.
Timing the Clearing to the Planting
Fall plots (brassicas, oats, winter wheat, cereal rye) go in from late July to mid-September in Southeast Michigan, which means the ground needs to be cleared and worked by June or July.
Spring plots (clover, chicory, alfalfa) are frost-seeded in February and March or planted in April and May. Clear the previous fall or winter, when the leaves are down and frozen ground lets the machine work wet edges.
Right now, late summer and fall clearing is the most common request we get, because it is when people are on the property and thinking about deer. It is the right time to open the ground for a spring plot and to get the trails to it cut in the same visit. See our guide to hunting trail clearing for the trail side of the job.
The Week After the Machine Leaves
- Soil test. MSU Extension sells a mail-in soil test; it tells you the lime and fertilizer the plot actually needs instead of guessing.
- Lime. Much of the sandy ground in the region runs acidic, and lime takes months to work, so it goes on first.
- Deal with the chips. Disc in a thin layer, push a heavy one to the edge, or plan to plant through it.
- Seedbed. Disc or till once the chips are handled, then cultipack or drag so seed has soil contact.
- Fence a cage. A small wire cage in the plot shows you how much the deer are eating versus how much is growing.
- Edge control. Buckthorn and autumn olive will try to walk back in from the edge. Mowing the edge twice a season keeps them out; see our buckthorn and autumn olive guide.
What Food Plot Clearing Costs
We quote a plot as a fixed project price based on acreage and how dense the growth is, so there is no hourly meter running while stumps get ground. A half-acre to one-acre plot in typical brush is usually a one-day job. Light brush is the quick end of the work and a plot cut out of dense sapling ground takes longer; our pricing guide explains what moves the number. Trails and shooting lanes cleared on the same visit are priced as one project, which is the cheapest way to get all of it done.
Want the plot ground cleared and ready for your disc?
Our food plot site prep page covers how a plot site is mulched to a plantable chip layer, shaped the way you want it and timed for a fall or spring planting.
Common Questions
How big should a food plot be?
A kill plot next to a stand can be a quarter to half an acre. A destination plot that actually feeds deer through the fall is usually one to three acres. Most first plots on a 40 are a half acre to an acre, and it is easier to open more ground next year than to plant more than you can maintain.
Can I plant right after mulching?
If the growth was light and the chip layer is thin, you can disc it in and plant the same season. Heavy sapling ground leaves a thicker layer of chips that ties up nitrogen while it breaks down; plan on raking or pushing the heavy chips to the edge, or give it a season and frost-seed clover into it the following spring.
What about the stumps?
Forestry mulching grinds saplings and small stumps down to ground level, so there is nothing to catch a disc or a drill. Large stumps from mature trees are ground as low as the head allows and worked around, which is all a food plot needs.
Can you clear the plot and the trails to it in the same visit?
Yes, and it is the cheapest way to do both, because the machine is already on site. Most plot-and-trail jobs on a 40 are done in a day, and the plot, the approach trail, and the shooting lanes get quoted as one project price.
Where We Do This Work
The work in this guide is done across eight Southeast Michigan counties from our base in Royal Oak. Every county page lists the townships we work in most, with a page for each.
Ready to Open Up a Plot?
Send a few photos and the address, tell us what you want to plant, and we will quote the clearing and tell you what to do with the mulch before you ever put seed down.