All Things Habitat - Lets talk.....
This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
Eagle Beans, Real World, vs other forage soybeans ... Thoughts? Experience?
- Thread starter Tree Spud
- Start date
My experience - Definitely can withstand more browsing. They are also fairly drought resistant. I cant get any kind of regular ag beans to make it through the summer. At worst, eagle seed are eaten down 18” tall. At best, five foot tall. They dont make as many pods as ag beans - but do OK. Twice as expensive as ag beans. I plant three plots, totaling 16 acres.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
There are lots of threads on here with detailed experiences. In general, Eagle beans are a great fit where the major stress period is summer. The real comparison is really Forage beans to Ag beans. While Eagle makes all kinds of benefits for their varieties, the overshadowing benefit is the RR gene they license. There are few options for RR forage beans. One can use Tyrone forage beans that are not RR but weed control is more difficult. RR forage beans are a great fit for heavy browse pressure situations. When I had heavy browse pressure, deer would kill ag beans before they would establish. They would get one bite per plant. With Forage beans, even with I only planted 3 acres, the deer kept my beans naked all summer so they never canopied but they could not kill them. I protected an acre one year with a Gallagher-style e-fence and once they hit the tipping point deer could not keep up with them and the beans were so tall and think, I had to bushhog lanes through them to surface broadcast a cover crop. Forage beans are indeterminate and stay green and attractive into our first 2 weeks of archery season in early October. The downside is that by the time they turn yellow, it is a bit late for surface broadcasting a traditional cover crop. The seed cost for these is high compared to ag beans but not as high as it first seems. The recommended planting rate for Eagle beans is less than ag beans, so, while more expensive, the cost per acre is not that much.
When I first started with soybeans, my browsing pressure was high enough I had to plant about 7 acres of Eagle beans (without protection) before they would canopy. As browse pressure diminished through doe harvest over the years, I was able to switch to ag beans and save some money for a few years.
Due to a recent pine thinning, we got an infestation of marestail. This was not a developed resistance due to use of gly, but this particular weed has a natural resistance. It got into our fields from the pines. So, this year I plan to focus on marestail control and won't be using soybeans. One key to successful beans in my area is planting time. If I plant to early and the soil is cold and wet, germination rates are low and the beans are slow. If I wait too long, Does have dropped their fawns and are bring them to the fields so pre-establishment pressure increases. If I get the timing right, does are still recluse in cover while the beans are establishing but this is a pretty small planting window that can quickly be closed by weather. 24D which controls marestail has soil residual effects on soybeans which further tightens the window. It can also germinate in the spring and fall and can grow from previous year's root systems. So, I will be planting buckwheat as a summer crop this year because of the wide planting window and its smother effect.
Our deer populations are starting to rebound and our habitat improvement has increased the BCC. So, once the marestail is under control, I'll probably go back to Eagle beans.
The pods are small on ag beans. In my area, deer only use the pods if we have a mast crop failure but turkey hammer them all fall and winter. If winter is your major stress period, I'd probably opt for ag beans as long as you can get them to establish.
Thanks,
Jack
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
SC ... do you fertilize? Did you use Glysophate for weed control?
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
Jack ... I didn't get my beans in until early June last year so my results were limited. We also have marestail so this year I will let the marestail emerge along with other weeds and spray with gly. Are you saying the 24D if sprayed before planting beans will stunt their growth?
Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
I tried Eagle Forage beans a couple of years ago. I drilled 3 small (1/2 acre) plots with Eagle Forage beans at 200,000 seeds/acre on June 14th - here in the U.P. of Michigan. I planted one 3 acre field of RR Ag beans I got via NWTF also on June 14th - also at 200,000 seeds per acre. A picture tells 1,000 words I guess so here are the results:
July 19 - Ag beans:
July 19 - Eagle beans:
July 26 - Ag beans:
July 26 - Eagle beans:
August 15 - Ag beans:
August 15 - Eagle beans:
September 9 - Ag beans. I didn't take any more photos of the Eagle beans after the Aug 15th photos because the deer had hammered them so badly, I just drilled cereal grains and clover over top of them to save something to have a fall plot.
October 16 - Ag beans:
December 5 - Ag beans:
By mid-December or so the deer had pretty much cleaned up the Ag beans but as I said - the Eagle Forage beans pretty much failed to appear at all.
There are no Eagle bean dealers nearby so I paid $130/bag to have them shipped here from Wisconsin. I paid $15/bag for the RR Ag beans through NWTF.
I know I could have E-Fenced both plots for a comparison of how well they would do minus the deer browse pressure but the reason I paid $130 a bag for the Eagle beans was to see how well they would hold up to browse pressure. I can fence $15 Ag beans just as easily and get the same results.
I have no bone to pick with Eagle beans but from the experience I had, I see no need to buy them again.
YMMV
I guess to be fair I should post a photo of what the other plots of Eagle beans looked like on Aug 15th so you know why i gave up on them. I have a photo of the 2nd plot here. The 3rd one was even more heavily browsed than this one so I didn't even bother taking a photo of that one:
July 19 - Ag beans:
July 19 - Eagle beans:
July 26 - Ag beans:
July 26 - Eagle beans:
August 15 - Ag beans:
August 15 - Eagle beans:
September 9 - Ag beans. I didn't take any more photos of the Eagle beans after the Aug 15th photos because the deer had hammered them so badly, I just drilled cereal grains and clover over top of them to save something to have a fall plot.
October 16 - Ag beans:
December 5 - Ag beans:
By mid-December or so the deer had pretty much cleaned up the Ag beans but as I said - the Eagle Forage beans pretty much failed to appear at all.
There are no Eagle bean dealers nearby so I paid $130/bag to have them shipped here from Wisconsin. I paid $15/bag for the RR Ag beans through NWTF.
I know I could have E-Fenced both plots for a comparison of how well they would do minus the deer browse pressure but the reason I paid $130 a bag for the Eagle beans was to see how well they would hold up to browse pressure. I can fence $15 Ag beans just as easily and get the same results.
I have no bone to pick with Eagle beans but from the experience I had, I see no need to buy them again.
YMMV
I guess to be fair I should post a photo of what the other plots of Eagle beans looked like on Aug 15th so you know why i gave up on them. I have a photo of the 2nd plot here. The 3rd one was even more heavily browsed than this one so I didn't even bother taking a photo of that one:
Last edited:
Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
All 4 plots were fertilized per soil test results and all 4 have pH of around 7.0. All plots were sprayed with Glyphosate at least once. Not sure if any were sprayed twice or not.
I plant on three different plots. Two are bottomland and one is upland blackland prairie - which is a high ph soil 7.5. I glyphosate the field a month before planting if I can. If too wet then, I just disk the field an extra time or two before planting. 200 lbs 13-13-13 per acre at time of planting. Broadcast the beans and lightly disk. The blackland priaire plot I have to apply 30 lbs nitrogen per acre about two months after planting to keep them from yellowing - but that would be unnecessary on almost every other ground in the country. I will spray glyphosate once - maybe twice during the summer. It all depends upon how big and fast the beans grow. If there is a lot of browsing early, keeping the beans beat down, more weeds grow. If it is a wet spring and early summer and the deer have plenty of other things to eat - the beans might get five feet tall and nothing grows in that. Pic is of beans on my upland plot in late summer - you can still see a little yellowing. They dont look like that on decent soil.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Spraying gly on marestail is like watering it! It actually promotes the marestail by suppressing its competition. That is why I'm not planting beans this year. You can use 24D to control marestail before planting soybeans, but you need to follow the directions carefully. There are restrictions on planting soybeans following 24D and it depends on the formulation (amine, ester, etc.). With the formulation I used, I needed to wait 2 weeks after spraying and could only no-till the beans according to my label. I got about 60%-70% control of the marestail. The ag soybeans I planted last year did not seem to be affected by the 24D but were hurt by increased browsing pressure.
So, this will be my marestail control year. I don't plan to use gly. I plan to let things green up and hit the marestail hard when it is young. Keep in mind I'm in 7A. After a week or two I plan to do very light tillage, just the top inch with a tiller to break up any crusting on my clay. I'll let the field sit for over a month to allow soil residual effects to dissipate. I will then plant buckwheat. I don't plan to use gly. I'll let the buckwheat's fast take off smother weeds the best it can. I'll let whatever weeds can survive the buckwheat do so. In late summer, I'll evaluate the field. If I see marestail, I will spray the buckwheat with 24D again. I'll wait a month or more again and surface broadcast a cover crop. I'm hoping that this will get my marestail under control.
Next year I'm hoping to plant RR beans again and given our deer population bounce back, I'll probably opt for Eagle.
Eagle beans are not close to double the cost of ag beans in my area. On a per acre basis, they are probably 20% more expensive. When I look at amount of summer browse produced under heavy browse conditions compared to ag beans it is not a close call. However, pod availability for winter is not a concern for me. So in general, you need to evaluate your needs for summer forage compared to winter pods and assess the amount of acreage and the impacts of browse pressure in your situation to decide if they make sense for you .
Thanks,
Jack
Here is another pic of a different plot - a bottomland plot that experienced heavy browsing early. This pic is probably June. These beans were browsed all summer and probably only got about 15” tall. And as bad as they look, I absolutely can not grow regular ag beans in this field. They will kill them two weeks after they emerge. I wish I had a picture from this same field from the year before - the only thing you could see on my 28 hp jd 790 was the roll bar when I had it in this field. Every year is a new year. I planted ag beans two years in a row on two different sites and never had a bean live past the end of june.
Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
There is no question that a lot of the challenge comes from browse pressure. I will definitely have to E-Fence more of my beans this year....and also reduce the doe population.
These are the $15 RR Ag beans when fenced - July 29:
August 21:
These are the $15 RR Ag beans when fenced - July 29:
August 21:
Why would you want to keep deer out of beans during the growing season - I typically don't hunt my beans - maybe in December if they made a good crop of seed - I WANT my deer to eat my beans during May, June, and July when the does are lactating and the bucks are growing antler. If I was only wanting something to hunt, I wouldn't be planting beans. Our hunting plots are wheat and clover.
Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
Did you see the photos above of my Eagle Forage beans planted in small food plots? I have a pretty high deer density here and small plots of beans just don't ever amount to much. I have 16 acres of food plots so I grow a variety of different crops. We don't even plant beans here until June when our soil temps get up to 60 degrees. Do you see the clover rings around my food plots. I have those around every one of my food plots so they have high protein legumes until they go dormant in winter. We don't have summer stress on our plots like you folks down south. Summer is a time of plenty.
According go Jeff Sturgis, in the northern deer range, there is already 5 times more food available to deer than what they can use during summer - without ever planting a food plot. Our limiting factor here is winter and early spring. While I do provide some summer forage, my goal is to grow enough groceries to feed the deer as far into winter as I can. I also grow cereal grains, brassicas, sugar beets and I have grown plenty of corn as well. They don't need more summer forage from soybean leaves here but the bean pods can provide a much needed boost during late fall and winter...if I can get the bean plants to make it beyond summer.
Last edited:
More proof that everywhere is different. While our southern deer have plenty to eat year round, without any food plots - I do believe providing a high protein food source just before and after fawning season makes it easier on the does. Whether it actually adds an inch of growth to antlers, I don't know - but I would like to think the high protein values in the beans help that a little. But, I also want every deer in the area to make my property home - and providing them an easily available summer feed source helps keep them on my land. I always have big bachelor herds of bucks in my beans. I feel like the more time deer spend on my place, the more time they will spend here during season, also. I would not attempt a bean plot on my ground any smaller than 3 or 4 acres. I don't plant beans with the anticipation of hunting deer in them.
I will say this about eagle seed beans on my place - while they are the only bean I have ever planted that will make it through summer deer browsing, they have been inconsistent seed producers - for me. I have had soybeans five foot tall with pods that were empty of seed or only small disk shaped seeds. I have had years when they produced a bumper crop of seed. Eagle seed tells me that is a result of excessive browsing on the forage and all the plant's energy goes into forage production instead of seed production. I am a little skeptical about that when your beans are taller than your tractor. I understand that if they are 15" tall and heavily browsed. I top seed wheat into my beans at leaf drop in mid October. The deer we shoot in Dec - Feb are eating green - not beans - for the most part.
What does it cost to fence a five acre plot?
Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
Here is an interesting video produced by Jeff Sturgis where he talks about reducing deer numbers on your property if you have essentially "created a Doe Factory". This is the situation we find ourselves in here after 24 years of managing our property to produce as much quality forage and deer as we can. Even in spite of recent very harsh winters where we lost a lot of our U.P. deer herd, our property has been a magnet in attracting more and more deer. The fawn recruitment has been excellent as well with most does having 2 fawns and some even producing 3 fawns the past few years. I am actually trying to reduce summer forage this year in hopes that maybe some of our doe population will go away.
https://www.whitetailhabitatsolutions.com/blog/an-easy-way-to-raise-or-reduce-deer-numbers - 10 minutes.
I very much agree with you that a high protein diet promotes a healthy deer herd. This is something we have always tried to accomplish to give our deer the best of the best. Unfortunately, sometimes if you build it they will come.....and come....and just keep on coming, until you reach a point where the deer are their own worst enemies and they cause extensive damage to not only the planted forage - but the native habitat as well. We do what we can to control deer numbers but we do not have unlimited doe permits and those that have been available recently have been very limited. It is a two-edged sword. We are hoping to get more doe permits for this coming season but we will do what we can to discourage any more deer from calling our place home for the near future.
We also have the dilemma here of having way too many does and fawns and maybe not enough bucks. The bucks do show up during the rut but once the breeding season is over and the groceries are gone, our bucks go elsewhere. Jeff Sturgis says you can create a doe factory where you have so many antlerless deer that there just isn't any room for the bucks....and frankly, I don't think the bucks like being around all of these does and fawns anyway, until the breeding season gets here.
I've never E-Fenced a 5 acre plot. Up until now I have only fenced smallish (1/2 acre or so plots). I have 3 solar fence chargers already but I will have to buy more stakes and wire this year for sure. Our 2 largest plots are 3.5 acres each.
Forgot to mention - I will also be broadcasting cereal grains into my beans in late-August to early Sept when the leaves start dropping/turning yellow.
Last edited:
I plant RR Northern managers mix Eagle beans and RR ag beans. My total acreage is about 12 acres, 10 ag and 2 Eagle. I want the deer to eat the Eagle beans to keep the pressure off the ag beans. The primary purpose of the ag beans is to produce an over winter food source for the deer. Even with the Eagles, the ag beans still get browsed, just not as heavily. So they produce more bean pods which is my goal for the ag beans. My Eagle beans got 12 to 16 inches tall with the browsing pressure. Each time the deer ate a stem and leaf, another stem seemed to replace it. The Eagle beans lasted until the first hard frost, which was quite late last season. This season I am increasing the amount of Eagle beans I am going to plant to 3 acres.
Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
Are you planting at 140 K seeds per acre JFK or more than that?
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
Are you mixing the Eagle & Ag so the the taller eagle gets browsed first or each in separate plots?
I have the opposite of a doe factory. My buck to doe ratio is almost 2 bucks to 1 doe. My fawn recruitment numbers are .5 fawns per doe. The reason I have a good number of deer on my place is because I do everything year round in my power to attract every deer within miles to my property. We have killed one doe in five years. I do have some deer on my property - but only because I provide a readily available, ample, high protien food source. I actually believe my summer plots to be more important than my fall and winter plots. I want the does to fawn on my property. Good fawning cover and easy, high protien food will do that. I have found through experience, in my area - reducing deer numbers is a cake walk - increasing deer numbers - in some instances - can be almost impossible.
