6 Best Food Plot Herbicides For Weed Control That Spare Your Clover

You’ve done everything right—soil test, lime, fertilizer, and careful planting—only to watch your lush clover plot get overrun by a jungle of thistle and foxtail. A thriving food plot is a magnet for deer, but a weedy one is a waste of time, money, and sweat. Choosing the right herbicide is the critical step that protects your investment and ensures your clover, not the weeds, is what fills the field.

Disclosure: This site earns commissions from listed merchants at no cost to you. Thank you!

Grass vs. Broadleaf: Know Your Clover Weeds

Before you even think about spraying, you have to play detective. Walk your plot and identify your enemy. Weeds fall into two major categories: grasses and broadleaves. This distinction is everything.

Grassy weeds, like fescue, crabgrass, and foxtail, have long, narrow leaves with parallel veins. Think of a blade of lawn grass. Broadleaf weeds, on the other hand, have wider leaves with a network of branching veins. This group includes culprits like ragweed, pigweed, thistle, and plantain.

Here’s the critical part: clover itself is a broadleaf. This means if you spray a general-purpose broadleaf killer, you’ll wipe out your clover along with the weeds. The secret to a clean plot is using selective herbicides that target one type of plant while leaving the other unharmed.

Whitetail Institute Arrest Max for Grasses

When your plot looks more like a hayfield than a clover patch, you need a dedicated grass killer. Whitetail Institute Arrest Max is a go-to solution specifically formulated for food plots. It’s a selective, post-emergent herbicide, which means it kills existing grasses without harming your established clover or other legumes.

The active ingredient in Arrest Max is Clethodim, a powerhouse against annual and perennial grasses. It works systemically, absorbing through the leaves and moving down to the roots to kill the entire plant. For best results, spray when grasses are young and actively growing, usually when they are 3-6 inches tall. While it’s a premium-priced product, its food-plot-specific formulation and trusted brand name provide peace of mind for land managers who want a proven, straightforward solution.

Clethodim 2E: A Versatile Grass Herbicide

If you manage multiple plots or larger acreage, cost becomes a major factor. Clethodim 2E is the generic equivalent of Arrest Max, containing the same grass-killing active ingredient. It offers the same effective control over invasive grasses in clover, alfalfa, and even soybean plots, often at a significantly lower price per acre.

This is a classic tradeoff: you save money in exchange for a little more homework. Generic clethodim products are concentrates that must be mixed with a surfactant or crop oil concentrate to be effective. Without this additive, the herbicide won’t stick to the waxy surface of grass blades and will simply roll off, wasting your time and money.

Clethodim 2E is the workhorse choice for the budget-conscious manager who doesn’t mind reading the label and mixing their own tank. It delivers professional-grade results, allowing you to cover more ground without breaking the bank. Just remember that the surfactant isn’t optional; it’s essential.

Whitetail Institute Slay for Broadleaf Weeds

Once the grasses are gone, you can focus on the broadleaf invaders. Whitetail Institute Slay is formulated to target and eliminate a wide range of common broadleaf weeds that compete with clover and alfalfa. It’s the perfect counterpart to Arrest Max for a complete weed management system.

Slay’s active ingredient, Imazethapyr, is effective on stubborn weeds like pigweed, ragweed, and lamb’s-quarter. It’s important to apply it when weeds are small and not drought-stressed. One thing to know is that Slay can sometimes cause a temporary yellowing or slight stunting of your clover. Don’t panic; this is normal, and the clover typically bounces back stronger than ever once the competition is gone.

Butyrac 200: Classic Broadleaf Management

For decades, Butyrac 200 has been a staple for managing broadleaf weeds in legume plots. Its active ingredient is 2,4-DB, which is a crucial distinction. It is not the same as the common 2,4-D, which is highly toxic to clover. The 2,4-DB formulation is metabolized differently by legumes, allowing them to survive while it kills many target weeds.

Butyrac 200 is particularly effective on weeds like cocklebur and morning glory. It’s a cost-effective tool, but timing is everything. Applying it during hot, dry weather can put significant stress on your clover.

For the best outcome, spray on a cooler day when your plot isn’t moisture-stressed and the weeds are young. Butyrac 200 represents a reliable, old-school option that, when used correctly, keeps broadleaf weeds in check without the higher price tag of some newer chemistries.

IMOX Herbicide for Grass and Broadleaf Weeds

What if you could tackle both grasses and broadleaves with a single spray? That’s the promise of IMOX Herbicide. Its active ingredient, Imazamox, has activity on a variety of both weed types, making it a powerful tool for cleaning up a messy plot in one pass.

This convenience is a huge advantage for anyone short on time. It’s effective on many of the same broadleaf weeds as Slay and Pursuit but also suppresses or controls certain annual grasses. This makes it a great choice for a newly seeded plot (after the clover has a few true leaves) that’s facing pressure from all sides.

The tradeoff is that it may not be as potent on tough, established perennial grasses as a dedicated grass killer like Clethodim. Think of IMOX as an excellent generalist. It’s perfect for plots with mixed weed problems but might need to be supplemented with a grass-specific herbicide for severe infestations of species like fescue.

Pursuit Herbicide for Pre- or Post-Emergence

Pursuit is another powerful broadleaf herbicide that offers a unique and significant advantage: residual soil activity. Like Slay, its active ingredient is Imazethapyr, which is excellent for killing existing broadleaf weeds (post-emergence). But Pursuit also binds with the soil to prevent new weed seeds from germinating for several weeks after application (pre-emergence).

This dual-action control makes it an incredibly efficient choice for long-term plot maintenance. You can spray it over your established clover to kill the weeds you see and prevent the next wave from ever starting. This is especially useful in the spring to give your clover a clean, competitive head start for the entire growing season.

Using Pursuit means less time on the sprayer and more time enjoying a clean, productive food plot. It’s a strategic choice for the land manager who thinks a season ahead, not just about the weeds currently visible.

Adjuvants and Surfactants: Boosting Efficacy

You can buy the best herbicide in the world, but it won’t work if it can’t get inside the plant. This is where adjuvants and surfactants come in. These are additives mixed into your spray tank that help the herbicide perform better, and for many products, they are not optional.

A surfactant (short for "surface acting agent") is essentially a wetting agent. It breaks the surface tension of the water in your spray mix, allowing the droplets to spread out across a weed’s leaf instead of beading up and rolling off. A crop oil concentrate (COC) is a surfactant blended with petroleum or vegetable-based oil, which helps penetrate the waxy cuticle of tough-to-kill weeds.

Always read the herbicide label. It will tell you exactly what type of adjuvant is required—whether a non-ionic surfactant (NIS) or a crop oil concentrate (COC)—and at what rate. Skipping this step is the single most common reason for herbicide failure. Think of it as the primer for your paint; it’s the small, cheap step that ensures the expensive part actually works.

A weed-free clover plot is more than just a pretty green field; it’s a high-protein buffet that will hold deer on your property all season long. Don’t let your hard work get choked out by competition. By understanding your weeds and choosing the right tool for the job, you can ensure your plot thrives, putting you one step closer to a successful season. Now, get out there and grow.