ChattBuck
Senior Member
. . greatly appreciate all the advice I've gotten here so far. Been a great resource going back and reading a ton of posts the past few weeks. Had a lot of questions answered by you kind folks and I appreciate it. As the kids say, I'm a noob to this but I'm having a ball learning.
I'm up in severe NW GA, 3 miles from TN border. Bought a 38 acre place a couple of years ago fulfilling a lifelong dream to finally own a place that would require me to purchase a tractor. Have about a 15 acre hay field in the front of the property which is relatively flat. Rest of property is wooded along on the side of White Oak Mtn, the tornado here in April 2011 went over the mountain at my farm and I have a LOT of deadfall still scattered through the woods.
Had a local cattle farmer already paying for the hay. But some friends of mine really wanted a dove field so I agreed to give it a shot last year. Wanted to try and do something we could shoot over but that would help with the deer as well.
We tried a small two acre field. Fortunately you learn a lot from your mistakes and we made plenty. But we managed a decent stand of sunflowers and millet and had a few good shoots over it. I then decided to expand the planting and last fall put in 5 acres of winter wheat. It did great and kept the deer happy as they were all over that field all winter.
In late march I sprayed roundup on the edge of the 5 acres of wheat in the field and put strips through middle of it as well. Once that wheat died I tilled it up and we put in 8 rows of corn around field periphery (bought a two row deere 7000 planter last year, 30 inch rows). Did six rows of sunflowers in each of the strips in the middle of the field. Did all that third week of April. Had some setbacks immediately.
1. I had no idea the rabbits, squirrels (primarily), and turkeys would just decimate my corn rows going along and digging them out of the ground in the days following planting.
2. We had two torrential downpours each followed by hot sunny days in the 4-5 days after planting. It formed a "crust" and the sunflowers couldn't come up through it. Bet we didn't get two dozen in the whole field.
Sooooo, two weeks after the original planting I had to replant portions of the corn and all the sunflowers. I put out 250lbs of feed corn around the field edge and it worked. All the wildlife ate it and left the planted stuff alone.
Now my corn is about 12 inches tall and doing pretty good. Sunflowers have started really going good and are all at 6 leaves and about 4-6 inches tall. Sprayed the corn with atrazine three days ago to try and clean it up and the sunflowers (clearfield) got Beyond on them at same time. Finally should quit raining today and get 4-5 days of warm sunshine. Expect things to really shoot up over this week.
Last weekend I cut more strips in the wheat sections, spraying them this weekend with roundup, then tilling and putting in millet in them next weekend.
Probably doing WAYYYYY more work than needed to get some birds but I'm having a whole lot of fun doing it. I've read in several threads others stating the field work is better than the hunting. I think I agree.
At the end of the first session of dove hunting in late Sept I'm going to till it all up but the corn on the periphery, fertilize, lime, and put in radish/brassica/and a little wheat mix for my fall/winter plot. Didn't want to do all wheat two years in a row. Going to to try and rotate what is going in where every year. Hoping to get a good plot that will have the deer coming in good even after the corn is all gone.
Pics are from right after first planting. Buddy I do the field with has a kid with a drone. Going to try and get more shots this weekend and every few weeks going forward.
I'm up in severe NW GA, 3 miles from TN border. Bought a 38 acre place a couple of years ago fulfilling a lifelong dream to finally own a place that would require me to purchase a tractor. Have about a 15 acre hay field in the front of the property which is relatively flat. Rest of property is wooded along on the side of White Oak Mtn, the tornado here in April 2011 went over the mountain at my farm and I have a LOT of deadfall still scattered through the woods.
Had a local cattle farmer already paying for the hay. But some friends of mine really wanted a dove field so I agreed to give it a shot last year. Wanted to try and do something we could shoot over but that would help with the deer as well.
We tried a small two acre field. Fortunately you learn a lot from your mistakes and we made plenty. But we managed a decent stand of sunflowers and millet and had a few good shoots over it. I then decided to expand the planting and last fall put in 5 acres of winter wheat. It did great and kept the deer happy as they were all over that field all winter.
In late march I sprayed roundup on the edge of the 5 acres of wheat in the field and put strips through middle of it as well. Once that wheat died I tilled it up and we put in 8 rows of corn around field periphery (bought a two row deere 7000 planter last year, 30 inch rows). Did six rows of sunflowers in each of the strips in the middle of the field. Did all that third week of April. Had some setbacks immediately.
1. I had no idea the rabbits, squirrels (primarily), and turkeys would just decimate my corn rows going along and digging them out of the ground in the days following planting.
2. We had two torrential downpours each followed by hot sunny days in the 4-5 days after planting. It formed a "crust" and the sunflowers couldn't come up through it. Bet we didn't get two dozen in the whole field.
Sooooo, two weeks after the original planting I had to replant portions of the corn and all the sunflowers. I put out 250lbs of feed corn around the field edge and it worked. All the wildlife ate it and left the planted stuff alone.
Now my corn is about 12 inches tall and doing pretty good. Sunflowers have started really going good and are all at 6 leaves and about 4-6 inches tall. Sprayed the corn with atrazine three days ago to try and clean it up and the sunflowers (clearfield) got Beyond on them at same time. Finally should quit raining today and get 4-5 days of warm sunshine. Expect things to really shoot up over this week.
Last weekend I cut more strips in the wheat sections, spraying them this weekend with roundup, then tilling and putting in millet in them next weekend.
Probably doing WAYYYYY more work than needed to get some birds but I'm having a whole lot of fun doing it. I've read in several threads others stating the field work is better than the hunting. I think I agree.
At the end of the first session of dove hunting in late Sept I'm going to till it all up but the corn on the periphery, fertilize, lime, and put in radish/brassica/and a little wheat mix for my fall/winter plot. Didn't want to do all wheat two years in a row. Going to to try and rotate what is going in where every year. Hoping to get a good plot that will have the deer coming in good even after the corn is all gone.
Pics are from right after first planting. Buddy I do the field with has a kid with a drone. Going to try and get more shots this weekend and every few weeks going forward.
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