First time with sunflowers

[Dukslayr]

First off, thank you to everyone who has helped answer my non stop questions about sunflowers and various herbicides. I finally have the space to plant a sunflower patch for a dove field (or so I hope). I got between 5-6 acres of sunflowers planted and it’s been a roller coaster ride. Long story short the weather killed my ability to get the sunflowers planted in May when I would have liked. Ended up no-till drilling them straight into an old mowed field that’s likely never been tilled in June 6th. We sprayed about a week later (pre emergence) with gly but I held off on the dual since we were so close to emergence by the time of spraying. Needless the say the first few weeks I wasn’t too excited about the results. Last weekend I noticed they were starting to do a little better with the warm weather we have been having. This weekend I was really happy with the leap they made from last week to this week. I’ve now got Imox and Nitro Surf ready for the spray rig and hoping on round of spray with knock back back the grass and weeds and let the sunflowers take over. I’m glad to see that they’re mostly staying ahead of the deer so far...which was a main concern of mine with our relatively high deer density.

This picture was either a week or week and a half ago.


This picture was from yesterday. A huge leap from around a week or week and a half ago. Just need a spraying and a little timely rain now.

 

[scott44]

Looks good! I've added sunflowers to various mixes and my deer don't let them get over 6-8" once they find them.

 

[Tree Spud]

I like sunflowers, so do the deer

 

[Dukslayr]

Looks good! I've added sunflowers to various mixes and my deer don't let them get over 6-8" once they find them.

I was certainly worried about the deer myself and curious if I would stay ahead of them with as many as I was planting. Hopefully they get through to a stage where deer don’t prefer them...I’m excited about them now so hope the deer don’t ruin my dove season

 

[SwampCat]

Five acres of sunflowers isnt enough to get past my deer

 

[Dukslayr]

Five acres of sunflowers isnt enough to get past my deer

Yeah I guess we will see...fortunately I have 10 acres of beans on me and hundreds of acres of good CRP browse and lots of Ag fields all around me. I figured the only way to find out was the try!

 

[SwampCat]

I agree. Deer didnt eat my sunflowers for the first few years. I have five acres of bean right next to them. But, about the third year they started sampling them pretty good and the fourth year - they wiped them out. They also wiped out five acres of eagle seed forage beans before they got six inches tall. It is a double edged sword - I worked hard to increase the deer density - and now that I have - they destroy a lot of plantings.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

The deer just found my sunflowers, and I am lucky to find many plants at all in my plot. But my plot is only 3/4 acre, and I planted it for a quick early summer draw. But now the weeds are taking over, and I am not planning on planting my clover, and winter rye until late summer, so now I have to fight weeds for over a month.

 

[Tap]

I agree. Deer didnt eat my sunflowers for the first few years. I have five acres of bean right next to them. But, about the third year they started sampling them pretty good and the fourth year - they wiped them out. They also wiped out five acres of eagle seed forage beans before they got six inches tall. It is a double edged sword - I worked hard to increase the deer density - and now that I have - they destroy a lot of plantings.

This^^^
And deer aren't the only ones that eat them young.
Rabbits are hard on them, too.

 

[Dukslayr]

Well we sprayed the sunflowers with Imox and Nitro Surf about a week ago. That sure helped knock things back and didn’t seem to bother the sunflowers at all (they are Clearfield sunflowers). I’m happy with the Imox, particularly given the price vs Beyond. About 1/3 of the field is lagging behind got some reason but I’m guessing I’ll get a good stand...hopefully enough for a good dove shoot for my buddies and I.

 

[Dukslayr]

Here’s an update. Sunflowers are doing great! The ckearfield hybrid and Imox combo seems to be a nice win for the competition I had in the field. They’ve really put on some growth and now building out heads. I’ll get them fertilizer next year and looking forward to seeing the difference it makes. Should have done nice dove shoots mid September if they all put on seeds.

 

[SWIFFY]

Beautiful!

 

[Telemark]

Looks great! If you are planting a dove field, consider millet. The mourning doves fields I hunted in Ohio had sunflowers and millet, and the doves couldn't stay away no matter how pressured they were.

 

[Dukslayr]

Looks great! If you are planting a dove field, consider millet. The mourning doves fields I hunted in Ohio had sunflowers and millet, and the doves couldn't stay away no matter how pressured they were.

I actually planted an acre or proso millet next to the sunflowers. I am planning to rotate these sunflowers with millet. I did a lot of reading on millet and it sounds like it would be great for my pheasants and quail too. Glad to hear you had success hunting over it.

 

[SwampCat]

I replaced my flowers with browntop millet because the deer wouldnt allow the sunflowers to grow. I have a lot of doves on my millet right now - and the good thing about it - I planted millet last year - but I didnt this year - and the millet field was just as good volunteer. Johnson grass is a problem. May have to get a weed wiper for the bucket on the tractor to keep it beat back next year.

 

[Dukslayr]

I replaced my flowers with browntop millet because the deer wouldnt allow the sunflowers to grow. I have a lot of doves on my millet right now - and the good thing about it - I planted millet last year - but I didnt this year - and the millet field was just as good volunteer. Johnson grass is a problem. May have to get a weed wiper for the bucket on the tractor to keep it beat back next year.

Planning to do millet when I need to rotate out sunflowers. Fortunately the deer left mine alone this year for the most part. We will see next year...

 

[Dukslayr]

I’m guessing my sunflowers are still a couple weeks away from being fully dried down and ready for mowing. The heads seem to have set good seeds but are still green. In MO our season opened yesterday, but my field won’t be ready till probably the 3rd week of September (hoping that some doves hang around for a bit).

For those of you who have setup a dove forks before, how far ahead of your hunt did you mow? I know many folks gradually mow more of the field, just curious if you try to do it a day before or more like a week before you’re planning to hunt?

Also, I know doves love bare ground, so I’m curious what the best way to prep the fields is. I have a 12’ pill disc, 8 ft brush cutter, 8’ tiller and my Woods PSS84 that could options. Am I crazy to consider hooking up the tiller and running the tiller through the field, set very shallow, and use it to “mow” my strips? Seems like it would be perfect assuming that the tiller could chop up the dried down stalks. Thoughts?

 

[Catscratch]

I would experiment with your different ideas (discing, tilling, etc). Do a strip of each and watch where the birds want to go. I've hunted standing sunflowers with great success. They land on them upside down and pluck seed out like a parrot. Your field looks great by the way! Besides being a good experiment, strips would leave some standing cover to hunt out of.

Our dove field (wheat) gets swathed and baled, then burned so it's bare ground with lots of seed.

 

[Dukslayr]

I would experiment with your different ideas (discing, tilling, etc). Do a strip of each and watch where the birds want to go. I've hunted standing sunflowers with great success. They land on them upside down and pluck seed out like a parrot. Your field looks great by the way! Besides being a good experiment, strips would leave some standing cover to hunt out of.

Our dove field (wheat) gets swathed and baled, then burned so it's bare ground with lots of seed.

I definitely don’t plan to mow the whole thing, maybe 50% of it. I’d like to leave some standing for cover but also for the quail and pheasants to get out in as well...presuming quail and pheasants like sunflowers.

I would like to experiment with all those different methods but hooking up those implements solo could prove to take more time/frustration than the actual mowing/tilling/discing it’s self!

 

[Tap]

I definitely don’t plan to mow the whole thing, maybe 50% of it. I’d like to leave some standing for cover but also for the quail and pheasants to get out in as well...presuming quail and pheasants like sunflowers.

I would like to experiment with all those different methods but hooking up those implements solo could prove to take more time/frustration than the actual mowing/tilling/discing it’s self!

I always planted them for deer mostly and I never mowed them. It was pretty amazing how much of the plant that the deer ate. The obviously ate the seeds, but they also ate every single leaf, and a good portion of the heads themselves were eaten. I even watched deer picking at fibers on the stocks during the winter.
And on more than one occasion, I watched young bucks rubbing dry, stiff stocks (I've seen them do that with pokeweed, too).
I left my plants standing until late winter when there was nothing left on the plant for deer to utilize. I didn't want to mow the stuff if there was anything that deer would still use. I figured that if I chopped it all up, I would be wasting some tonnage.