Spring / Summer Food Plots

[Gadestroyer74]

That’s fantastic ! Nice for you to share

 

[buckpasser]

I’m all about cowpeas for desirability and feed quality during the warm months. That said, some of the areas I plant are too populated to make a stand. In those sections I mix the cowpeas with Sunn Hemp and drill them. The hemp grows ultra fast and it distracts the deer while at least some of the peas make mature plants. Next, once it reaches about waste deep, rotary mow it about half way down and voila! You have an awesome Hemp/pea patch that the deer can’t fully destroy, assuming we keep getting rain or you have irrigation.

 

[buckpasser]

The corn on the left had been mature too long and was getting a little weedy, but this is one of my favorite setups. The mix I mentioned on the left. Probably 7’ tall at the beginning of gun season. Mostly cow peas climbing on hemp stalks. The first sit produced sixteen deer sighted. That’s really strong for my area. I’ll continue to setup my plots like this, slowly converting the peas to winter mix as the season progresses. Never leaving the deer without a green option at any time.

 

[Gadestroyer74]

Beautiful set up! That’s the way I like to setup some of my plots the deer feel safe and protected in that stuff and have a heap of food to eat

 

[buckpasser]

Beautiful set up! That’s the way I like to setup some of my plots the deer feel safe and protected in that stuff and have a heap of food to eat

Yessir. I don’t mow the lanes all the way out and that seems to be a help as well. At this point that plot is about 60% mowed and consumed and will be slowly mowed all the way until March and then replanted. The lanes and perimeter (30’ wide or so) are now about 18” deep in oats/clover. If only I had the time and resources to make my hunting spots this nice! Haha

 

[rshunter]

Passer, How big is that plot?

 

[buckpasser]

Passer, How big is that plot?

It’s right at 3.5 acres of open ground, but I plant the winter mix out under the trees on the perimeter too, so call it 4. It would be a touch more, but I have a grove of sawtooth oaks planted on the far left edge of the photo to square things up some for spraying.

 

[Gadestroyer74]

It’s right at 3.5 acres of open ground, but I plant the winter mix out under the trees on the perimeter too, so call it 4. It would be a touch more, but I have a grove of sawtooth oaks planted on the far left edge of the photo to square things up some for spraying.

That’s a heckuva setup. I had one very similar ona piece of ground I hunted. It has sawtooth oaks also. I had soybeans surrounded by corn saw tooth on the left edge then planted wheat oats and rye grain around the edge of that and under sawtooths. To the right in a small plot through the woods opening was a clover plot.. heck with what you got there no need to leave that to go to the woods ! Lol

 

[CarolinaDawg]

I think the key to small bean plots is to plant them in the spring in April and at production ag seeding rates. Corn seed is expensive but so is clover seed but clover has more benefits. The nice thing about soybeans are that they are cheap enough to plant and if the deer wipe them out your out very little in seed costs.

You can’t plant beans until the soil temp remains in the low 60s. April is too early. Little to no germination

 

[Gadestroyer74]

You can’t plant beans until the soil temp remains in the low 60s. April is too early. Little to no germination

I usually plant my beans and corn end of may

 

[buckpasser]

I always try to make myself wait later than normal on corn. I usually can’t stand it and plant too early anyway. Over the past three summers we’ve had eight, then six, then seven weeks consecutively without rain in the summer staring late May or June. If you don’t make a nice stand of corn in the early, cool, moist time you’re in trouble. I need to just absolutely make myself wait until we hit the summer rain pattern and then plant. Otherwise, weeds go bananas in August and September with the sunlight breaking through the mature corn plants to the ground. With my irritated plots I can go anytime, but the dry land ones are tough.

 

[Gadestroyer74]

I always try to make myself wait later than normal on corn. I usually can’t stand it and plant too early anyway. Over the past three summers we’ve had eight, then six, then seven weeks consecutively without rain in the summer staring late May or June. If you don’t make a nice stand of corn in the early, cool, moist time you’re in trouble. I need to just absolutely make myself wait until we hit the summer rain pattern and then plant. Otherwise, weeds go bananas in August and September with the sunlight breaking through the mature corn plants to the ground. With my irritated plots I can go anytime, but the dry land ones are tough.

I planted this corn in northern ga. It was round up ready and I sprayed it with gly after it was up 8 to 10 inches. Didn’t have no weed problem. If you plant corn to late depending on the area it can not fully mature

 

[Ihunt]

I always try to make myself wait later than normal on corn. I usually can’t stand it and plant too early anyway. Over the past three summers we’ve had eight, then six, then seven weeks consecutively without rain in the summer staring late May or June. If you don’t make a nice stand of corn in the early, cool, moist time you’re in trouble. I need to just absolutely make myself wait until we hit the summer rain pattern and then plant. Otherwise, weeds go bananas in August and September with the sunlight breaking through the mature corn plants to the ground. With my irritated plots I can go anytime, but the dry land ones are tough.

Corn does not pollinate as well when it’s hot. That and spring rains are why farmers plant the beginning of March here in middle Georgia.

Good luck with whatever route you choose.

 

[doomtrpr_z71]

You can’t plant beans until the soil temp remains in the low 60s. April is too early. Little to no germination

April is not too early unless you are up in the mountains, they will germinate at a soil temperature of 55F, they will even start germinating with 50f soil temps but take 3 weeks to come up. If you can't get soybeans up in April it's because the seed is of poor quality.

 

[CarolinaDawg]

April is not too early unless you are up in the mountains, they will germinate at a soil temperature of 55F, they will even start germinating with 50f soil temps but take 3 weeks to come up. If you can't get soybeans up in April it's because the seed is of poor quality.[/QUOTE

Certainly don’t want to argue about something as trivial as planting seeds, but it’s a proven fact that soybean germination is poor with cool soil temps. My number one priority with planting is rain, but for spring/summer planting, soil temps are next. In a perfect world, the soil is warm and wet, so my beans come blasting out of the ground and canopy quickly to shade out weeds and hopefully outgrow early browse pressure.

If you planted in 50 degree soil temp in April and it took 3 weeks to get them out of the ground, they sat there and didn’t germinate until the soil temp increased.

 

[doomtrpr_z71]

Certainly don’t want to argue about something as trivial as planting seeds, but it’s a proven fact that soybean germination is poor with cool soil temps. My number one priority with planting is rain, but for spring/summer planting, soil temps are next. In a perfect world, the soil is warm and wet, so my beans come blasting out of the ground and canopy quickly to shade out weeds and hopefully outgrow early browse pressure.

If you planted in 50 degree soil temp in April and it took 3 weeks to get them out of the ground, they sat there and didn’t germinate until the soil temp increased.

Where do you live that the soil temp is 50F in April? Because even above the fall line in Fort Valley the average soil temp is well above 50 even in March. Even cotton as small seeded can be planted in April and its far more temperature sensitive than soybeans. A soybean can actually tolerate soil temps down to 35F if its after it has imbibed its water for germination.



They plant Soybeans in Nebraska in April, you'll be fine in Georgia
Planting early would actually help the soybeans out compete pigweed due to the limitations of C4 photosynthesis under cooler conditions.