Amoo's Food Plot Adventure

Mini-update:

If you guys look at some of my pictures and remember back to some things I have said, my hunting land was timbered for pines last year. As you can see there are still plenty of pines left and part of that reason is because the ground was too wet last year. Well two days ago they showed up to finish the job and in my opinions, it's perfect timing.

I had really good hunting last year after they finished cutting and they said they should only be here at most through the end of next week. I'll take a picture of my new backdrop in the next day or so, but this should really open things up a bit beyond where I have my food plots and all of the new cutting led to good results last year. Time will tell, but I'm not seeing this as a bad thing.

Amoo said:

Mini-update:

If you guys look at some of my pictures and remember back to some things I have said, my hunting land was timbered for pines last year. As you can see there are still plenty of pines left and part of that reason is because the ground was too wet last year. Well two days ago they showed up to finish the job and in my opinions, it's perfect timing.

I had really good hunting last year after they finished cutting and they said they should only be here at most through the end of next week. I'll take a picture of my new backdrop in the next day or so, but this should really open things up a bit beyond where I have my food plots and all of the new cutting led to good results last year. Time will tell, but I'm not seeing this as a bad thing.

Click to expand...

If they have a dozier with a front bucket with teeth you could talk them into running it over your food plots to loosen up the root mat.

Two and a Half inches of rain yesterday. Let me repeat that in case you missed it. TWO AND A HALF INCHES OF RAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's more then our total rainfall for at least the last 60 days for sure, possibly longer.

I went out this morning and ran the rake through the soil a few times, then decided to go spread my last "ton" of lime. As usual, nothing goes smoothly. My bags of lime got partially wet from the rain. I dumped them all in the spreader and crossed my fingers hoping it would work. Nope, had to spread it all by hand. I guess the good news is I know none got wasted outside the plot.

Basically I'm done until it's time to seed and fertilize. The rest of my time will be spent working on my stand trying to get it ready in time. The timber trucks have another two days according to one of the guys, so once they get out of there I'll get some pics, but overall I can't complain about what I think I have.

Almost forgot, gotta spend time with this thing as well:

The roots are a multi-year process. Every time you run your discs over them you're doing good. Next year you might run a subsoiler through the plot several times. That will help loosen up those stubborn roots that go deep.

Ask me how I know this.

Another inch of rain in the forecast with more on the way. Sooo tempting to plant early.

So the work is done for now. We'll see if there are any other surprises in store this season. Back to the plotting and stand work.

As I went out two days ago I discovered a surprise left for me by the guys who did the clearing. I spent a lot of time last year and this year out bsing with them, bringing them cold drinks from the house...etc. I had talked to them about my food plot work and how I was planning to expand things next year. When I got out there after they had left I found some new areas they cleared for me (including root mat) and setup as food plot areas. Karma. Here's an overview of what thing look like followed by pictures of the areas.



Light Green coming off trail:


Light Green wrapping around to original plots:


Mess I will utilize next year:


Stand progress from yesterday before putting second two legs in concrete:


Ok so I know better but I couldn't help myself. I had all this unexpected perfectly good plot area just dropped in my lap so I figured I would be silly not to use it. I dropped 100# of lime on it and threw down some seed. I used my 5# of I&C Peas I had originally bought for the first light green area and I used my bag of shot plot for the wrap around light green area.

I'm still going to be holding off a few weeks on getting my two original plots planted, but I figured I already had the supplies, and it didn't cost me anything to try things out, knowing going in that my success rate in that area probably won't be too good.

Today I'm headed to Lowes to grab some more wood to work on the stand some more, hoping to finish things up by the end of next week at the latest.

We've had about 8.5" of rain this week. Going to be checking the forecast and planting at hint of first rain next week. I'll be putting the floor in my stand tomorrow, I'll take a picture of that. In the meantime, found this guy today.



That's my neighbor holding him up. He freezes them and gives them to a guy that wraps archery type stuff in snake skin. I don't do snakes and if you can tell, he's missing about 4-6" where his neck and head would be. 12 Gauge with bird shot from about 10 yards was responsible for that. Doesn't help that I may have actually shot him 4 times... He was somewhere around 4-4.5' before the "incident". 14 rattles.

Forecasts are telling me next week is our best chance of rain for the next few weeks. Looking like I may put my seed down this weekend.

Ok let's see, first things first, stand update:



Forestry was out this week to cut a new firebreak. Guy brought with him a dosser and a 3000lb harrow. Of coarse I took advantage of this situation and asked the guy if he wouldn't mind running the harrow over my plots and clearing the new area for me (Pink Above Photo). Below are some shots of how things look from standing on top of the stand.





New lane in the below picture is the lane the loggers cut me (Light Green Above Photo). View is actually a little better than it looks on camera.


Below is a closeup shot of the area harrowed out by the forestry guy.


Looked at my forecast and it told me rain for the next 3-4 days. I took advantage of this and after I got some stand bracing done today I spread seed in my plots. My timing couldn't have been better as it was raining on me as I was driving out of the woods. In total we only got 3/10ths, but we've got more in the forecast.

So rundown is as follows:


- Pink Area only got 5 way + I&C Peas
- Yellow Area got recommended Lime and Fert plus 5 way + I&C Pease
- Green Area got a few bags of lime and sparse fert plus shot plot mix + original I&C Peas
- New Lane where white line is between yellow and pink only got 5 way + I&C Peas.

I still have over half a bag of both types of seed left so I don't feel I was wasting my time putting things down in the new areas. It either comes up or it doesn't. It will certainly be interesting to see the difference between the areas I followed recommendations vs area with a little help vs fresh area with just seed.

Keep us posted with pics! You're on your way!

Got the first wall up. Was going to work on a little bit more, but thunder was rolling in and I decided I didn't want to be on top of an uncovered stand with battery powered tools in the rain. Also ran out of 2.5" decking screws so I need to go get some more, but won't have an opportunity until Wednesday.



Also took a look over my seed I planted on Friday and everything is starting to sprout. I'll take a picture of the progress at the 1 week point this coming Friday.

Really enjoy reading your post and seeing your pics good work keep me coming

Continuing to enjoy the ride-along Amoo! Good luck getting that stand completed.

Amoo... see if you can find one of these "type" plows to borrow ... a two disc helped us to clear up over a 100 acres of new ground ... it will cut the roots up and make it easier to rake up the roots...



We used one just like the top photo Ferguson #64 http://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cgi-bin/viewit.cgi?bd=ferg&th=100319

Thank you for the words of encouragement guys. It's really nice to pop on every few days and find encouraging comments. Especially when it's 90 some degrees out and you know you need to go get some work done.

Gadestroyer74 I'm sorry I didn't welcome you to the thread the first time you popped in. I believe I got caught up in the discussion and simply didn't realize a new combatant had arrived on the battlefield So on that note, welcome.

Briarpatch welcome to my madhouse. I greatly appreciate the suggestion. I believe that is simply called a two disc plow. My farmer neighbor originally informed me that it would be the best option if I could find somebody that had one, but I was unable to so I had to do without. Basically he said it would roll the root mat to the side and I would have to just keep going over it in the same direction gradually moving more and more over.

Sadly I have no update as of yet today as I just got back from the Taxi and the store picking up more screws. Fear not though as I do have some good news to report. Since I've started working on this project and more and more of my neighbors find out about what I'm doing, my list of available equipment keeps growing and growing. So far I've been able to locate a box blade, a seeder/cultipacker and a cultivator that has the spade shaped tines on it like the one I was considering building.

It's obviously too late this year to use these things as I have all of my plots prepped and planted, but come spring it's game on.

QUESTION FOR YOU GUYS:

Okay so year 1 review, soil sample taken, plots limed and fert, seed planted.

So What's Next?

I know hunt and kill deer etc etc, but I mean beyond that. I want to get a few of these plots planted with perennial clover this spring I guess? I also need a plan for my "annual plots" for what I will be growing throughout the year. Any advice you guys can give to get me headed in the right direction for planning ahead would be much appreciated.

You can still over seed your clover now for your perennials . Clover mainly puts on roots now with vary little top,growth. They really come in the spring. All you need to do is seed it before a rain no need in doing anything else the rain will take care of that.

You will need to plan on what to plant for the spring/summer as perennial clovers tend to do better if planted in the fall in S Ga..
Weed control is always a big part of food plots.
If you own the land I would plan on which fruit trees/ hardmast trees to plant for the wildlife.
I am always looking for a better/easier/more cost effective way to do food plots. I hate wasting money on something that I don't need to.

Gadestroyer74 said:

You can still over seed your clover now for your perennials . Clover mainly puts on roots now with vary little top,growth. They really come in the spring. All you need to do is seed it before a rain no need in doing anything else the rain will take care of that.

Click to expand...

This sounds like a great plan of action for next season, but I'm about 90% confident my soil pH isn't to the point it needs to be to start trying to establish my clover plots yet and I'm about out of play funds to put any more into it until.

I was thinking something along the lines of:

- Run soil sample again in the spring to see where I'm at.
- Add lime to areas I didn't lime this year plus top off areas I did.
- Plant something I can let grow and will help the soil as it dies (peanuts maybe?).
- Prep fall plots
- Soil Sample
- Plant Fall plots and add perennial clover to plots I plan on having it?

Crakajak said:

You will need to plan on what to plant for the spring/summer as perennial clovers tend to do better if planted in the fall in S Ga..
Weed control is always a big part of food plots.
If you own the land I would plan on which fruit trees/ hardmast trees to plant for the wildlife.
I am always looking for a better/easier/more cost effective way to do food plots. I hate wasting money on something that I don't need to.

Click to expand...

Sadly I do not own the land so outside of maybe 4 trees (will need permission even for those) I don't have a ton of options.