Hard fought 1/2 acre (or so)...

[Jim Boyd]

I continue to work for more tillable ground.

Cut in about 1/2 acre today and put 1800 lbs lime on it (loaded by shovel).

I am a little short on lime but that is all I had.

I am wiped out physically but it feels good.

I will knock out the grass with some glyphosate and be ready to put in oats and crimson clover come 1 October.

Gotta love it...

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[grady white]

nice ! good looking dirt too.

 

[Keith Karr]

Good days work Jim !

Looks great.

 

[NUTT]

Beast mode only for you Mr Jim! Nice job

 

[glynr329]

Jim,
I need you to hunt with me. You are a hard working man and do a lot to help the deer heard. It takes a reel man to load 1800 lbs of lime hope you had 4 or 5 guys helping.

 

[Jim Boyd]

Glynr

No help. The bucket was not on the tractor and the lime pile was down to the last scraps so I just used a shovel to fill the spreader. Filled it two times and we are pretty sure the minimum it holds when full is 900-1000 lbs. This is based on how many times we can fill it when we get 10 tons delivered.

There was some dirt mixed in with the lime (less than 2%) so I just called it 1800 lbs.

It was not bad - heck, I am 61 so any young man could do it easily!

Thanks for the kind comments guys!

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[Joe Brandon]

It looks gorgeous!

 

[bullgator]

 

[blood on the ground]

I love them narrow but long plots hidden away like that! Looks like one of those places that will stay on your mind causing you to lose sleep at night!

 

[Jim Boyd]

Two Fingers is what we call this area.

Two long planted lanes that form a shallow V.

600’ x 15’ and I need to do some brush trimming along the edges to open up the sunlight.

I have a 21’ Millenium in the V, about 35 yards from where the lanes come together.

I have mowed multiple lanes into the area from the surrounding heavy vegetation.

Also started a good mineral lick in the V.

We will see if it works!!!

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[davidhelmly]

It looks great as always Jim, I love those planted lanes in the pines!!
Cindy and I will be at our lease working this long weekend, if you aren’t busy and want to lend a hand come on down... ?

 

[Thunder Head]

Looks good Jim,
I'm dying to get back to the club and get all the lime out on our new plots. Going to do some weed control too.

 

[ChanceHill]

Looking good! Those pictures make me want to get in the woods so bad. But I can't seem to get there. Maybe next weekend.

 

[BassHunter25]

After tilling how long before you spray glypho?
We had big plans this weekend. We have two tractors. The linkage broke on one. Then the belt broke on the bunch hog of the other.
My plan is to till under all the old grass on plots then come back a week or so later and spray everything that’s popping up.

 

[BornToHuntAndFish]

Way to go JB!

Job well done, Sir.

 

[Jim Boyd]

Thanks guys, for all the kind comments.


BassHunter,

Weed control has always been my nemesis and weak point.

I will tell you this – you are not gonna kill much at all with tillage. In fact, as I learn – the less you till the soil, the better you are.

If you have specific food plot questions, there are some genuine experts over in the food plot forum.

These new areas had more briers and dog fennel in them than anything. I mowed them as closely as I could and then came back with the disc – as there was a pretty solid layer of pine needles and leaves, along with sticks, pine cones, etc.

As I am sure you know, the pH is gonna be way off. I typically start with 2 tons per acre in areas that were not worked before and if I have the totals figured correctly, it is .52 acres so I needed 2080 lbs of lime, when in fact, I only had 1800 lbs to work with. I estimate that this ground will test at about 6.2 to 6.5 pH when we test next year.

2 tons per acre usually gets me to 6.5 to 6.7 at the first test and the pH fades after that.

Once I have the areas established, I try to keep them mowed and a few weeks before I plant, I burn the field (or plot area) with RoundUp. Let the weeds die and come back with the drill and plant.

My drill is not a NO-TILL drill but I even toyed with the idea of putting more tension on the seed cutters (if the field really burned down well) and putting the oats and wheat down in a NO-TILL fashion. What worries me about this is the fact that we come back after the oats or wheat goes down and broadcast the tiny clover seed. I worry that with no freshly turned dirt, our germination rate for the clover will go way down.

I have a small cultipacker at home (5’) that is a tow behind and I need to get it on the trailer and bring it down to the farm and start using it. Problem is you have to tow it everywhere you go or perhaps pick it up with the bucket and move it from plot to plot.

That probably needs to be my next project – a 3 point packer about 6’ wide. The build would be easy but the materials expensive (about $500 – 700, wild guess).

Hope that helps.

Jim

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