7 Grasses and Forbs You Need on Your Property

Doug Little, NWTF director of conservation operations (East), says plants that attract pollinators also benefit wild turkeys. The insects they attract support poults which subsist almost entirely on insects for their first two weeks after hatching.

Hannah Plumpton, upland bird coordinator for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, manages one of the more prosperous wild turkey populations in the Southeast. She says that incorporating a mixture of forbs, grasses and shrubs into a grassland environment creates a food and cover mosaic that facilitates reproduction and recruitment of turkey poults.

Here is a look at seven excellent options to consider if you want more turkeys on your property.

Native bush clovers like slender lespedeza and roundhead lespedeza attract pollinators that provide food for wild turkey poults. Their seeds are also nutritious for turkeys, but Plumpton strongly recommends native varieties. “The important thing is to not plant sericea lespedeza,” Plumpton said. “It’s highly invasive. It produces lot of seeds, but they tend be low in nutritional value. Basically, it’s a lot of junk food.”

“Goldenrods are always useful ones to have in a field,” Plumpton said. “They provide good structure and they are extremely attractive to pollinators, which are attractive for turkeys and young poults. Goldenrods bloom in mid to late summer, helping to attract insects after many flowers have stopped blooming.”

Big and little bluestem are great for wild turkeys, but again, Plumpton recommends avoiding invasive, exotic strains like Eurasian bluestem. “Big and little Bluestem are fairly common across the Southeast,” Plumpton said. “Those are what we call native bunch grasses. They grow in clumps, with bare dirt between the clumps. That lets turkey poults, with their little legs, walk through thick grass and have shelter.”

Partridge pea is always a classic standby, Plumpton said. “It is a big seed producer that’s often highly desirable for turkeys to eat. It also blooms throughout the summer, making it attractive to turkeys and pollinators.”

Though not a grass or forb, blackberry provides excellent nesting cover, Plumpton said. The flowers attract pollinators, which is appealing for poults in the early summer, and turkeys eat the berries throughout the summer. The cover blackberry provides makes it a desirable species for turkeys year-round.

Synonymous with the Monarch butterfly and a host of other pollinators that rely on its nectar, milkweed is like a grocery store for wild turkeys, especially for poults. A broad-leaved plant, milkweed often grows in pockets of sparse vegetation within fields where poults can easily traverse.

“Ragweed is a great seed producer in the fall, and it’s great for wildlife,” Plumpton said. “In the summer months, it’s really thin at the base, but it’s leafy at the top to provide protective cover for broods to walk underneath while foraging for bugs and concealing them from predators above. It’s great from late summer through fall.”

Ragweed is also a source of late-season forage because its seeds persist on the plant into the winter. Its oil-rich seeds are important calorie sources.

“Just having a mixture of options for wild turkeys and having a lot of structure is the most important consideration,” Plumpton said. “It’s important to have cover that provides the ability for poults to move and travel at ground level. Food plots don’t help turkeys as much as leaving a field fallow. Ugly, weedy fields that make everybody twitch and sneeze are great for turkeys!”

"Structure refers to plant height, but also the form of the plant (bushy vs. single stem). You want enough variety of height in plants that provide cover, like goldenrod and ragweed, but also those open enough at ground level to allow turkeys (particularly poults) to be able to move and access food. Hayfields, for example, have the height to provide cover but are so dense at ground level that they limit adults and are mostly unusable to turkey poults. A field of ragweed and goldenrod has the height to provide cover and is open enough at ground level."

— Hannah Plumpton, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission