ddgarcia
Mr Non-Libertaw Got To Be Done My Way
Sooooo.........this property (Greene Co) has been in my wife's family for many years and was leased to a group of hunters for most of those same many years. My wife inherited it a couple years ago and it was time to get to work. Didn't think to get "before" photos so had to improvise. The edge of the plot is in the foreground of the first and the second is just off another edge to give some idea of what I started with.
This is an area where I THINK the older generation of leasees had a plot a long time ago but am not really sure. It's a hardwood bottom with a couple persimmons trees and a few oaks. Started with the chainsaw and Kubota cutting anything under about 12" and draging some of it off. Once I realized just how long that was going to take, and I'd STILL have to do something abut the stumps, I hired a guy with a stump puller and forestry mulcher to come in and finish the job. He wasn't cheap but did excellent work and I'll likely call him again when I get set to do my next one.
After some clean up, a couple rounds of Glyphosphate and a couple tillings to kill weeds I had it looking like this in June.
That's the southern about 1/3 of the plot. It's about 1.75ac total, about 300ydsx40yds, minus basal area at a guess.
So about 5 weeks ago I spread 3 tons of lime and on the 14th I spread 1000lbs of 19-19-19 all based on the soil report. I was going to plant on the 22nd but got too much rain that night and it was too muddy to prep the bed. It was dry for a couple days and with MORE rain in the forecast I took half a day off on the 19th prepped, planted and cultipacked. Thankfully I have a VERY easygoing boss, even for a non-hunter, and said "Knock yourself out" the afternoon of the 18th.
Took me about 4hrs by myself to till, plant and cultipack.
Ultimately I plan on this being a clover plot but started this year with a 100lbs of a blend of clover (crimson in this mix), peas (IC and AWP), buckwheat, oats, barley, radishes (Diakon), turnips (Purple Top) and Rape. Now this blend was not in my plan. A friend that was helping me with another project on this property and that I had shown this to and talked with about it calls me one afternoon and says he found THE seed blend that I wanted to plant and had got me 2 bags (50lb) based on what the guy at the store recommended for the acreage. My original plan was for Durana, ICP and buckwheat but didn't want to hurt his feelings when he showed up at my house with it and I saw what ELSE was in it.
To this mix I added another 50lbs of ICP and will overseed with Durana maybe someplace around mid Oct. Will play that by ear depending on how the growth is looking once the animals discover it. I know they are "in the area" as I have already killed two deer here, seen several more and the first year I hunted this area in front of me had many rubs and a couple scrapes in it when I scouted it.
I went down Sunday to do some more work and low and behold what did I find?
The ICP's were sprouting like crazy and there was some of the clover and buckwheat as well coming in. This was just my observations from the edge as I didn't want to walk in and crush sprouts just to admire it.
Now I had several people try to dissuade me from planting this early as well as all the threads in the forum here discouraging it but I wanted this ready for bow season and am hopeful that as the weather has been relatively mild and the fact that this plot is shady, with very little of it exposed to direct sunlight for an extended period of time during the day, that it will thrive and be lush come Sept 12th.
I will say that reading the Army Worm thread 30min ago was NOT encouraging
, but what am I going to do now?
If this does turn out successful I will be doing similar in a couple more areas on the property in the near(?) future.
Will update as I see progress and hopefully there will be a pic or two of some nice bucks, dead hopefully, in it soon. It's only about 35min from my home or work to the property so I am there fairly regular and count myself EXTREMELY fortunate for that.
This is an area where I THINK the older generation of leasees had a plot a long time ago but am not really sure. It's a hardwood bottom with a couple persimmons trees and a few oaks. Started with the chainsaw and Kubota cutting anything under about 12" and draging some of it off. Once I realized just how long that was going to take, and I'd STILL have to do something abut the stumps, I hired a guy with a stump puller and forestry mulcher to come in and finish the job. He wasn't cheap but did excellent work and I'll likely call him again when I get set to do my next one.
After some clean up, a couple rounds of Glyphosphate and a couple tillings to kill weeds I had it looking like this in June.
That's the southern about 1/3 of the plot. It's about 1.75ac total, about 300ydsx40yds, minus basal area at a guess.
So about 5 weeks ago I spread 3 tons of lime and on the 14th I spread 1000lbs of 19-19-19 all based on the soil report. I was going to plant on the 22nd but got too much rain that night and it was too muddy to prep the bed. It was dry for a couple days and with MORE rain in the forecast I took half a day off on the 19th prepped, planted and cultipacked. Thankfully I have a VERY easygoing boss, even for a non-hunter, and said "Knock yourself out" the afternoon of the 18th.
Took me about 4hrs by myself to till, plant and cultipack.
Ultimately I plan on this being a clover plot but started this year with a 100lbs of a blend of clover (crimson in this mix), peas (IC and AWP), buckwheat, oats, barley, radishes (Diakon), turnips (Purple Top) and Rape. Now this blend was not in my plan. A friend that was helping me with another project on this property and that I had shown this to and talked with about it calls me one afternoon and says he found THE seed blend that I wanted to plant and had got me 2 bags (50lb) based on what the guy at the store recommended for the acreage. My original plan was for Durana, ICP and buckwheat but didn't want to hurt his feelings when he showed up at my house with it and I saw what ELSE was in it.
To this mix I added another 50lbs of ICP and will overseed with Durana maybe someplace around mid Oct. Will play that by ear depending on how the growth is looking once the animals discover it. I know they are "in the area" as I have already killed two deer here, seen several more and the first year I hunted this area in front of me had many rubs and a couple scrapes in it when I scouted it.
I went down Sunday to do some more work and low and behold what did I find?
The ICP's were sprouting like crazy and there was some of the clover and buckwheat as well coming in. This was just my observations from the edge as I didn't want to walk in and crush sprouts just to admire it.
Now I had several people try to dissuade me from planting this early as well as all the threads in the forum here discouraging it but I wanted this ready for bow season and am hopeful that as the weather has been relatively mild and the fact that this plot is shady, with very little of it exposed to direct sunlight for an extended period of time during the day, that it will thrive and be lush come Sept 12th.
I will say that reading the Army Worm thread 30min ago was NOT encouraging
, but what am I going to do now?If this does turn out successful I will be doing similar in a couple more areas on the property in the near(?) future.
Will update as I see progress and hopefully there will be a pic or two of some nice bucks, dead hopefully, in it soon. It's only about 35min from my home or work to the property so I am there fairly regular and count myself EXTREMELY fortunate for that.
