Why is it

Possum said:

I planted before hurricane, got 3". Everything came up great and looked perfect. Now it's been 10 days of no rain and nothing in forecast for next couple weeks. Hope that we get a stray pop up shower sometime soon.
I saved a bag of red clover that I will overseed next time good rain is in forecast just in case some of what germinated dries up and dies.

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Canuck5 said:

I'm going to hunt at Elfiii's this year.

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Ihunt said:

Yes, October is historically the driest month but it's usually a lot cooler and the soil moisture will last longer.

Also, if that is why you plant early, wouldn't you need to also worry about your young plants burning up in October?

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Canuck5 said:

LOL, I just assumed since you gave the deer a break last year, that venison would be abundant!

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Core Lokt said:

I used to plant in Sept. but not for the last 4-5 yrs plant the last weekend in Oct. I changed for a couple reasons. 1- by the time the deer really started using them the plots were too high and not palatable for them. 2- When rifle season starts there is still way too much natural food in the woods....

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deers2ward said:

Yep

I also think that for early planters, the difference is priorities/reasons people are planting. To hunt over is usually #1...whether that is because they don't have mast bearing trees, or because that is their strategy.

Having the vast majority of my land in 75+ yr old red and white oaks, my #1 is to bridge the gap between acorns and spring green up. #2 is in hopes that it will increase the amount of time deer spend on my land instead of the neighbors. To hunt over is a side effect, but not why I do it.

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DMCox said:

My reason for planting early is so that I can spend the time in the woods hunting later in the season when it's more enjoyable to be in the tree stand. I get limited trips to my property and would rather spend a weekend in September planting than a weekend in October or November. Our deer start using our plots the moment they pop up whether there are acorns/muscadines/persimmons or not. Usage does decrease while acorns are consistently dropping, but they are still in the plots daily. I plant my plots to hopefully hold deer longer on my small piece of property and get a chance at deer staging before heading out to larger ag fields. Ideally I would have a tractor and be able to plant in a couple hours, but I don't have the funds for that so I plant with an old sears garden tractor. It takes me 7-8 hours to get our 5 plots done. I'd love to go no till, but again timing on getting to the property to spray and come back and spread and mow just doesn't work. So every year I'm just left praying for rain along with what seems to be a pretty good amount of other people.

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