Need for serious help

[gatiger]

As a retiree, I have almost all the resources needed to make the almost perfect hunting property (meaning lots of time, no-till drill, firminator, dozer, etc.). What I don't have is proper knowledge....so, my plea is where did you guys learn all this food plot stuff? My local feed & seed contact tells me how much chemical to spray, and sells it to me, then I chicken out and don't spray a pre-emerge (Prowl) 'cause I'm afraid the seeds I plant won't make it up any better than the grasses and weeds I'm attempting to control. About all I've learned in two-three years trying this is to burn a plot down with gly, burn a woody bush down with Remedy and hope for the best. I've planted over two hundred trees and wound up killing some with chemicals. I've got roughly 15 acres in food plots that I work on alone, and I am becoming convinced some people just can't get it.

Two of the plots (bout 4 acres) are very sandy. County agent told me to build soil through bio-mass rotations, etc. ( re no-till drill), and I've poured heart and soul into it...still sucks!!! Where do I go to get educated?

 

[Triple C]

gatiger...Lots of reading and lots of trial and error and I'm still in the learning phase. I'd offer a couple of suggestions - Read the sticky at the top of this section, "Fall Food (for thought) Plot Thread 2". It's got great info in it. Then I'd suggest you google search "Paul Knox Getting Started Thread". He passed away a few years ago but was an inspiration and food plot guru. A lot of his posts are still available on line and his "Getting Started" thread is as good as any book I've ever read on food plotting.

I've been at it for 8 years and early on, planted bout everything you can imagine and tried to do both spring and fall plots. These days I've narrowed it down to only fall plots using grains and brassicas along with perennial clover for almost year round food source. No more summer plots for me. Assuming you have your ph balance where it needs to be, here's the process that works really well for me:

1. Late August or early September, bush hog your plot and wait a few days for regrowth to begin.
2. Spray plot with gly and let it completely die. Wait a week and spot spray areas you might have missed.
3. Bout the end of September or early October, broadcast 250 to 300 lbs of 19.19.19 fertilizer.
4. Use Firmanator or drill and plant grains (oats, wheat, rye) and brassicas (daikon radish, purple top turnip).
5. In big plots more than a couple acres in size, broadcast the perimeter in perennial clover (durana, regal graze ladino, Patriot). Then use the firminator to plat wheat or rye over the clover as a nurse crop. The cultipacker on the firminator will create good soil contact for the clover.

I've gotten a little anal with mine and rotate the brassicas and grains in different parts of the plots each year. There's folks on here that know a lot more than me that I'm sure will weigh in with great advice. Best of luck to you in your plotting adventures!

 

[Buckfever]

As TripleC said there's quite a few on here that give a lot of great information. TP, Canuck5, Crakajak, and TripleC and a few more give solid advise. The main thing is make sure your pH is correct then experiment with different plantings to see what to he deer prefer in your area. Good luck!

 

[Mexican Squealer]

It's all pretty easy and you can find "directions" for anything you want to do(on the www) I do no till on many acres of duck deer dove plots....follow the directions and tweak here and there. Nature is forgiving and resilient should you blow it.

 

[fountain]

I will add that if you have plots of decent size...3 acres+ or so...try some eagle.beans planted in the spring.
*** you will need a fence or some way to keep the deer out for a while***
You can plant the beans in late april..given good soil moisture..and have the fence up and going the date of planting. We typically get them up good and then plow them and drop fertilizer at the same time. We then give it a little while and hit the whole place with roundup to kill out the weeds. They will typically begin to shade the ground good and weed control slows a lot. Once they get knee high or so you can let the fence down in one or two spots...think about where you want to let them enter the field in relation to stand placement and wind direction. They should flower in September and put on beans that the deer can forage on during the late fall. We will also come back over the beans later on...around late October or November..and broadcast rye for winter broswe

 

[fountain]

Typically, planting fall plots is the nigget bang for the buck. You can do spring/summer plots, but typically with most of them, keeping deer out a little while is required. Spring/summer plots get expensive fast, especially combined with fall planting.
Another idea is to plant one plot, or even half of a larger plot, in whitetail clover or an equivalent. Prepare the soil and plant the clover with the firminator....lean it back to where mainly the cultipacker is running over the seed. Tend the clover every year by mowing once thr seed has fallen from the head and then control the weeds with spray such as slay/a rest. Overseed in the fall as needed to thicken. This will be good to have for summer forage in the future

 

[gatiger]

I've read these treads faithfully for past couple of years, and feel like I've been schooled a lot already. For instance, after reading here about benefits of sub-soiling, I promptly destroyed two tractor supply implements in the red Georgia clay. Purchased a heavy duty unit (more than 4X's TSupply) and summarily worked up the heavy clay areas. Problem...had to then disc/harrow all sub-soiled plots simply to level out for planter, disturbing the soil and releasing weed & grass seeds. Although I planted with a no-till drill, I did not put out any herbicides 'cause I don't understand how a soy bean, iron & clay pea or sunflower can break thru and come up when the idea is to suppress germination and growth of weeds and grass. I don't understand how to apply the chemicals and still get a stand of intended crops. At this point, I'm hoping the race is on where the soy beans, sunflowers and peas while grow faster than undesirables and will shade them out. If not, I'll use the weeds for bio-mass this fall!

 

[gatiger]

An additional question...I've planted sun hemp, iron/clay peas and teosinte in prior years for purposes of improving the soil in the heavy sand plots. Past winter I put in cereal grain rye, wheat and cosaque black seeded oats and wheat for purposes of soil improvement thru grain rye depth attributes and cosaque oats having superior bio-mass characteristics. Crops were great early on but when mature, left gaps in bio-mass expectations. Where would one find an optimum cover crop menu that would enhance very sandy soil?

 

[fountain]

I think you're overthinking all of this. I do the same..especially on the chemicals. Planting isnt all that hard. Harrow up a spot really good and plant ahead of or behind some rain with more rain in the forecast and sit back.

For the chemicals, get someone to help calibrate your sprayer. Once you do that and know how much water is used on one acre, then you can use that info to figure how much spray is needed. For example on our 150 gallon tank, we use a 2.5 gallon jug of roundup per tank. We will also mix in a 2.5 gallon jug of 2-4d along with crop oil and that will clear out anything in the plots prior to planting. With you having a no-til, this would be the best option prior to planting.

For breaking your hard soil, you may want to look into a chisel plow. That will break the ground well. You can then go behind that and harrow/drag...or use the firminator to harrow and the cultipacker will firm the ground back up and be ready to plant afterwards.

 

[fountain]

There are specific pre-emergant sprays for planting. I used treflan before planting sunflowers this spring. I'm sure there are some for soy beans as well. Simply google if you ever are curious or ask here. Dont be afraid to do that. I do it all the time...that's what this and other forums are for!
Typically we may do a burn down of natural growth, harrow, then plant. It's that simple...time consuming, but a simple process. Can be costly as well...

 

[Canuck5]

When you're sub soiling in heavy clay, do it when it's moderately dry, this time of year. Leave it alone and let the rains, from now till the fall enter the soil and it will do more work for you.

Start simple. Let's just focus on 41% glyphosate (generic RoundUP) for now. You can spray it directly over seeds and it won't stop them from growing. It will only kill something that is actively growing, so that the herbicide can move down from a leaf into it's root system, to kill the plant. Unless the seeds have already germinated, it will do no harm to them. You can spray prior to no-tilling or immediately after with no ill effects on your crop.

Glyphosate, when it hits bare soil, it eventually goes inert (pretty quickly) and will not work any more. It's done. So, this fall, spray glyphosate a week or 2 in advance and no-till away. It doesn't mean that you won't get some more weeds later on, but with a good "stand" of cereal grains and clover, it will keep weeds at bay. It works!

BTW, you will always have some sort of weed issue .... just something we all have to get over and accept .... always! There are hundreds of generations of weed seeds sitting in your soil right now and nothing, but some good planning can help control them. Planting in early October will help you a lot as well. You'll spray, your seeds will germinate and you'll get some weed seeds that will sprout as well. The good news, is that most of those weeds will likely be killed off at your first frost, so they will die.

I don't own a no-till drill and I work up my annual food plots every fall. I try to get a good stand and then only use a weed wiper in the spring to kill off grass and big weeds.

When you mix different types of seeds like soybeans and sunflower, etc., it does complicate the types of herbicides you can use.

Improving the soil (building organic matter) will take years ..... years ...... You're doing the right thing with a no-till planter, but maybe in 10 years you'll look back and pat yourself on the back, for the good job you did. Enjoy the plotting process along the way. you've got a good start!

George Shu is near the coast and most of his food plots are in sandy soil. He's using 3 different types of clover, cereal grains, radishes and maybe a few other items, with success. Where are your plots located and how many acres do you have?

Both he and I use a variation of the Cadillac Combo, below, with success for an almost year round plot. The picture below, is of that general mix, with the wheat/oats killed off this spring. Deer are using it every day.

I'm assuming you had a soil test done? You can also consider planting a couple of plots or the perimeter of a few with a perennial clover, once your soil is right.

 

[gatiger]

Farm is in southern Randolph County. Size is 365 acres, two hundred of which was clear cut in 2015. Plot acreage is bout 15 total, but four are extremely sandy. Don't think sandy areas will grow clover yet, but may try this fall. Have followed soil samples, turned fields originally with bottom plow and subsequently did the sub-soiling. Couple of IWT clover plots doing great, but the spring/summer efforts get overtaken with weeds, etc. Frustrating, but lots of fun so far.

 

[fountain]

Focus on fall/winter plots and implement a protein feed program if you want to do something for spring/summer.
As mentioned, the eagle soy beans will be about the best bet for a plot that time of year. Go ahead and plan for a 2 stage fence system and you should be fine. You can spray them with roundup for weed control and they are relatively easy to grow. Do a god8chemical burn down first, then no til plant. You can tape up every other spout for a wider spacing if you want to, so that you dont run over any rows when spraying.

 

[fountain]

Find others in the area that have success with plots and get them to help you out. If I wasnt so far, i would be glad to help out.

 

[Crakajak]

You are between Griffin and Randolph CO. Canuck5 and I are in Talbot around the City Of Woodland. I would be happy to sit down with you one afternoon or evening to discuss food plots, etc....

 

[Trigabby]

To build OM, I would suggest planting Sorghum after your last frost date. I've done this for a couple of years on several of my plots that had little to no OM and his helped quite a bit.

I normally will plant May 1st or so and then mow when ever it reaches above my knee. I now mow 3, 4 or even 5 times before my fall planting.

 

[Triton Mike]

Go to whitetailinstitute.com and order their soil sample kit and follow it to the letter. Send it in and they tell you exactly what you need to do with each plot. No guessing. They are very good at answering any questions about their products and any questions having to do with planting and maintenance.

 

[mature buck]

gatiger go see Jason in cuthbert. He is your county agent and will be able to do soil samples for you.

 

[mature buck]

what kind of trees have you planted ? Hard to grow summer food plots unless they are RR. I have joined group of growing cool weather plots with lots of clover.

 

[shdw633]

Farm is in southern Randolph County. Size is 365 acres, two hundred of which was clear cut in 2015. Plot acreage is bout 15 total, but four are extremely sandy. Don't think sandy areas will grow clover yet, but may try this fall. Have followed soil samples, turned fields originally with bottom plow and subsequently did the sub-soiling. Couple of IWT clover plots doing great, but the spring/summer efforts get overtaken with weeds, etc. Frustrating, but lots of fun so far.

We have very sandy soil where I am at and have spent 8 years trying to get the soil built up and the right combination to satisfy what we are trying to accomplish. We finally found a combination that worked wonderfully for us for our summer food plots and that was a millet/sunn hemp/alyce clover blend; however, they were not all planted at once. The millet was planted and allowed to get up and then the hemp and clover were broadcast in a couple of weeks later. After another couple of weeks we hit the plots with some nitrogen just before a good rain and everything popped from there!! The millet protected the young hemp and alyce clover and allowed them to grow amongst it while also stopping much of the weed growth we usually see during our summer months. When planting the seeds all together the hemp would come up first and the deer would decimate them before the millet even got high enough to protect them. The overall point of this is that it has taken us 8 years to get the planets to align and give us what we have always been looking for and now not only the deer are happy but so are we!! Now all that will be tillered in and become green manure for the fall plots and we will start it all over again next summer KNOWING what to do, instead of guessing what to do. Hang in there and enjoy the journey, it's frustrating at times but always enjoyable.