by Brian Haynes
The pictures below show our new Deer Blind Mix next to 2120 Forage Sorghum and Egyptian Wheat.
Midwestern Wildlife Zone Deer Blind Mix
Our Midwestern Wildlife Zone Deer Blind is an annual screen mix that can get as high as 15-18 feet tall. Hunters and wildlife enthusiasts use it to screen a food plot from the road or the neighbors - or to make a safe alley to get to their hunting stand, all the while being unnoticed by the wildlife. It is a mix of:
What’s in Deer Blind Mix?
Egyptian Wheat - a type of sorghum that can grow as high as 15-18 feet. However, you will see from the picture that it is thin-stalked and tends to blow over and lie flat!
2120 Forage Sorghum - a stout forage sorghum that grows up to 10-12 feet tall. It has sugarcane parentage, which allows it to stand long into the winter, and is harder to freeze.
I’ve formulated this to be 50% of the mix, so that it will help hold up the Egyptian Wheat.
CISCO SS340 Sorghum Sudangrass - a sorghum sudangrass cross that can grow 6-8 feet tall. It has a sturdy stalk to stand up strong.
Wilder Grain Sorghum - a grain sorghum that will get about 4 feet tall and has a very strong stalk.
Sunn Hemp - a quick-growing and fast-dying legume. I put this in the mix to help feed all these grasses some nitrogen and make a little color with their yellow flowers!
The Goal of this mix
All of these seeds together make an incredibly dense screen from the ground to the top.
There is some thought in the industry that grain sorghum and sunn hemp are food sources and that deer will knock the screen down.
However, my research shows that there is not enough in the mix to cause any issues. I have never had it get knocked down at all. You can plant this mix with confidence.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions on any of the Midwestern Wildlife Zone products.
What do the plots look like after a long, hard winter?
From the ground to the top, the heights were as follows:
New Deer Blind Mix - 4 ft 4 in
2120 Forage Sorghum - 2 ft 6 in
Old Deer Blind Mix - 2 ft
Egyptian Wheat - 10 in
In season heights were:
New Deer Blind Mix - 10-12 ft
2120 Forage Sorghum - 10 ft
Egyptian Wheat - 14-16 ft - but fell flat in early December
Old Deer Blind Mix - 10-12 ft - but really sparse