Lots of small seed on open, bare ground birds can walk and feed on.
A dove field is all about producing abundant small seed on bare, walkable ground. Doves feed on the ground and won't work heavy cover, so the goal is a seed crop you can manipulate — mow or disk strips — to drop seed onto open dirt ahead of the season.
Sunflowers are the number-one dove planting, backed by browntop and proso millet, grain sorghum (milo), and wheat. Stagger plantings so seed matures on a schedule that lines up with your hunting dates.
Plan your plot
Pick one of the best dove crops and enter your plot size for the exact seed, bags, and lime you need.
Seed needed · Sunflowers
23lbs
23 lbs/acre · broadcast · 1 acre
Lime estimate
Enter your soil pH to estimate lime. No test yet? A ~$15 soil test is the best first step before you lime or fertilize.
Where to buy Sunflowers seed — affiliate link, no extra cost to you.
Best plantings
Sunflowers, Browntop Millet, White Proso Millet, Sesame, Pearl Millet are all solid picks — compare bag sizes and prices online, then size your plot with the calculator below.
Some links are Amazon affiliate links — a purchase may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
More crops
Planting something not listed here? The full food plot calculator covers every crop, and the crop directory has a page for each.
Other species