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Fall plant blown!

yoderjac

5 year old buck +
Well, no matter how long you've been doing it, there is always something new that can go wrong. I did a lot of throw and grow this fall. I planted about 8 acres. When I was broadcasting seed on my next to last plot, something just didn't seem right. I couldn't tell what but I just had an intuition something wasn't right. The seed was going though the broadcast spreader at about the rate I expected. The agitator was keeping the seed well mixed, but something seemed odd. I decided to stop and check things out. I turned off the pto and got out of the tractor to look in detail. Everything looked ok at first but then I noticed there was seed sitting in the spinner. I had never seen that before so I took a closer look. The spinner was broken off and just sitting there. The PTO was turning the agitator and shaft but the spinner that throws the seed was just sitting.

I pulled out my chest mount solo and seeded the last field by hand. Later I went back and look at some of the fields I had done the previous week. Sure enough you could see strips of green stunted plants about 18" wide right where I drove the tractor. The spinner evidently broke off early during the plant and I never noticed it.

Well, we got what we got this fall....

Thanks,

Jack
 
Sorry for the bad luck Jack. Not enough time to get more seed?


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Not enough money, time, or energy! Youth day is this Saturday and archery season starts Oct 6th. I still have trees to plant and I need to focus on hunting!
 
Don't feel bad Jack with 20 inches of rain in July and the first part of August and another 20 plus during last week during Florence, I'm not sure we are even going to plant. We planted some brassicas about 2 weeks ago and they looked good before Florence but I'm betting they ALL drown. Haven't been to our lease to see. Just cleaning up debris, taking care of water damage and helping neighbors with storm damage. My Heart isn't into food plots or hunting this year yet. Been here 45 years and this is the worst storm damage I've seen. Good Luck to All with their seasons, priorities have definitely changed here in Eastern NC.
 
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Thats a shame Jack to put in all the work and expense, I feel for you. On a lighter note can I send you some nuisance bears? I have a sow with triplets, another sow with twins, two small boars, and a couple of days ago a monster boar. They are hard on my sorghum.
 
Thats a shame Jack to put in all the work and expense, I feel for you. On a lighter note can I send you some nuisance bears? I have a sow with triplets, another sow with twins, two small boars, and a couple of days ago a monster boar. They are hard on my sorghum.

I had a bear come through our place last summer and eat every pear on our pear trees. None showed up this year and our pears fruited heavily. I thought we were in shape this year, but they all ripened and fell and were consumed by deer and other critters early this month. There are none left for bow season.

The primarily reason that I post my failures like this is so new folks get some perspective. While we are trying to even out nature a bit, we are not always successful. Whether this is your first year, or you've been doing it for 20 years, things like this happen. It does give me a new respect for farmers whose livelihoods are at stake.

Thanks,

Jack
 
Don't feel bad Jack with 20 inches of rain in July and the first part of August and another 20 plus during last week during Florence, I'm not sure we are even going to plant. We planted some brassicas about 2 weeks ago and they looked good before Florence but I'm betting they ALL drown. Haven't been to our lease to see. Just cleaning up debris, taking care of water damage and helping neighbors with storm damage. My Heart isn't into food plots or hunting this year yet. Been here 45 years and this is the worst storm damage I've seen. Good Luck to All with their seasons, priorities have definitely changed here in Eastern NC.
I'm praying for all of you that are dealing with the floods.
 
Jack that stinks. Lots of things can derail us that we don't foresee. Mechanical failure, animals eating everything, etc.

I just planted an acre plot for the 4th time this year. Spring planted clover and oats as nurse crop. I knew it was a reach but didn't expect a complete loss. Tried buckwheat and it looked really sorry. Killed that and went with turnips. Then as they do the cocklebur's showed up late season. Just killed that for rye.

New plot on leased land. The owner/farmer said I could take it over. Just found out his sprayer guy didn't get the word and sprayed my clover , then the buckwheat off with the rest of the crops.

If this was easy everyone would do it!........:emoji_slight_smile:
 
I have planted foodplots for forty years - did it for 34 years as part of my job. This is the worst year I every had. 18 acres of eagle seed beans didnt produce a plant between the hogs eating the seed right after planting combined with not a drop of rain for six weeks in May and June. Planted ten acres of sunflowers - during the drought - they didnt make it. Replanted that with ten acres of browntop millet. Because of the drought, it germinated to late for dove season. Five acres of golden millet in the duck hole was eaten by army worms. Spent three days pumping down a 14 acre duck hole - got it planted, and three days later it rained five inches in two days and filled it back up. I had nine acres of one year old durana in four different plots wiped out during spring flooding. The only thing i have up is a five acre tecomate lablab plus plot where I replanted in a bean plot. I have two tons of wheat seed and 100 lbs of durana arriving Friday. We have had six inches of rain in the past five days and it may be a couple of weeks before It dries out enough to plant. If not one thing - it is something else.
 
I think I would have to put more rye out if nothing else. Sucks for sure and I've never heard of that happening before. How old is the spreader?

Were you expecting your pears to hang longer?

Bears SUCK!! Glad I'm not having to deal with them anymore....
 
I think I would have to put more rye out if nothing else. Sucks for sure and I've never heard of that happening before. How old is the spreader?

Were you expecting your pears to hang longer?

Bears SUCK!! Glad I'm not having to deal with them anymore....

The spreader is probably 10 years old. It is a Frontier. As for the pears, not really. My partner bought and planted them as Keiffer but they are not. I'm not really sure what they are. He bought them planning to bowhunt over them. That's probably not going to happen. He certainly expected them to drop later.

We seem to get young males moving through during the summer but rarely do they stick around into archery season. At least we don't have hogs here yet!

Thanks,

Jack
 
Well it was as expected. Went to our lease today and Florence has pretty much devastated the plots we put in 3 weeks ago. Brassicas have drown, WR is almost none existant but the durana is doing OK with the 20 inches of rain we had. We had a lot of trees down and debris but we have that under control after a good half day of work. Going back tomorrow to put down some WR and oats. Since the soil is still moist, we should have it germinated and up in 4-5 days and a good crop by our gun opener on the 13th. Hope everyone's plots are doing well. Enjoy your hunting this season.
 
It is tough when mother nature doesn't cooperate. It reminds us we can only do so much when bending nature.
 
It is tough when mother nature doesn't cooperate. It reminds us we can only do so much when bending nature.
Farmers deal with this every year and your right Jack, we need to be reminded that we can do everything right but if we get too much rain or not enough our efforts are in vain. We seeded our plots in WR and oats today. With a little luck we should have a good crop in two weeks.
 
........Army worms.......'nuff said........

bill
 
I had army worms in a 1/4 acre brassica plot a couple of years ago. I caught them early so I lightly dusted the entire 1/4 acre with dipel dust, added a little nitrogen and they recovered very nicely. Checked them two days after applying the dust and the worms were laying dead every where under the leaves.
 
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