yoderjac
5 year old buck +
You can get just as much by mixing and simply planting more acreage. Some folks are acreage limited and others are not.
How to prep for fall brassica
- Thread starter tbarile
- Start date
You can get just as much by mixing and simply planting more acreage. Some folks are acreage limited and others are not.
White Birch Farm
5 year old buck +
If acreage is limited, the first step is maximizing soil conditions, which includes optimizing fertilization levels. 95%+ of people are not doing that. If they did, a mixed planting would far out produce their strip plantings and be far better for their (whitetail/soil) management progam.
Having done a bunch of both, I would never plant a straight brassica strip/plot if I could avoid it.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I think a gallagher-style e-fence and applying good soil health principles are a more cost effective bet for limited acreage situations.
White Birch Farm
5 year old buck +
My response had nothing to do with cost. I don’t pretend to know how people value their tonnage.
However, common sense says that the more limited the acreage the more foolish it is to scrimp on inputs if there is insufficient forage available. That is especially true considering the incrementally cost on limited acreage is so low. Additionally, while fencing may help if the primary goal is just killing deer at any cost, it is not very cost effective, nor a good management strategy where herd density already exceeds the healthy carrying capacity of the land. In fact the herding effect it can cause after the fence comes down and the food gets wiped out, can result in more long term damage to the localized habitat than any benefits the little fenced plot may have provided in the short term.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Tonnage is generally overrated for deer management in all aspects. Most limited acreage objectives are for attraction because if you have limited acreage, you don't have the scale to have a measurable impact on the herd. For an attraction objective, if deer are attracted to the field during your target period, the objective is met. Simply protecting the field rather than using high input farming techniques provides effective attraction without the added cost and in a much more sustainable way for the long term. Both methods can help with attraction. Folks just need to figure out which meets their long term objectives. Personally, I find more benefit in longer term, more sustainable methods. I find the most success when we bend nature slightly. The more we bend it, the higher the cost and lower the marginal benefit, and the more unintended consequences we find.
Mixing plant types is a great approach as what is critical to one plant is not important to the next and the reverse. In fact, one plant my provide things the next needs if chosen wisely. When C & N type plans are balanced, along with no-till techniques, it promotes OM. The high use of commercial fertilizer, provides temporary benefits, increasing yield beyond what the underlying soil can support naturally. Fertilization recommendations are focused on farmers that require high yield and monocultures for harvest equipment to make the land economically feasible. Since we don't harvest and have a more natural nutrient cycling opportunity as deer droppings and dying plants return the nutrients to the soil, smart soil health techniques allow us to achieve good yields, especially if we are weed tolerant and consider weeds as part of our yield.
Thanks,
Jack
Tbarile: I have sandy soil. I guess I have been growing turnips with this method for maybe twenty years or more.
I spray the plot with glyphosate in mid-May, again in early June, and again in early July. Around mid to late July, I broadcast 300 pounds of 44-0-0 polymer coated urea over the top. Then I use an ATV to pull a three foot wide section of spring tooth through it, set to till about 1-1/2" deep. After that, I broadcast six pounds of seed per acre. Then I drag chain link fence over the top to level it. Next I broadcast phosphorus and potassium per the recommendation of my soil test. Lastly, I follow up with my cultipacker.
I spray the plot with glyphosate in mid-May, again in early June, and again in early July. Around mid to late July, I broadcast 300 pounds of 44-0-0 polymer coated urea over the top. Then I use an ATV to pull a three foot wide section of spring tooth through it, set to till about 1-1/2" deep. After that, I broadcast six pounds of seed per acre. Then I drag chain link fence over the top to level it. Next I broadcast phosphorus and potassium per the recommendation of my soil test. Lastly, I follow up with my cultipacker.
White Birch Farm
5 year old buck +
Oh...Ok Jack.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
That works, but if you plant a mix with legumes and rotate smartly, you can get great turnips and build OM without the urea. An inch or so tillage with a spring tooth is pretty minimal tillage which is good. Rotating and mixing with legumes is a great way to provide N without urea. Having a mix of N-seeking and N-producing crops lowers N requirements for the field.
Thanks,
Jack
Jack: Any suggestions as to types of legumes that will establish themselves on sand concurrent with fall planted turnips? When I plant clover in late summer, it is hard to even notice the plants before snowfall covers them. They get only about 1/2" tall. The turnips get 6-12" tall. I plant turnips thick enough to shade out all competition.
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swat1018
5 year old buck +
Yea, the expert from the south has spoken.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
You've got to adapt the approach to your situation. You might want to consider planting the clover earlier and trying an annual like berseem. I use crimson in my area but berseem may be a better fit in the north. I usually use a cereal grain in the mix WR works well. It has low fertility requirements and I try to keep the PTT rates to around 2 lbs/ac in a mix. I use a summer rotation of sunn hemp and buckwheat down here. Sunn hemp can fix a lot of N. You can terminate them at any time. Another option is to use an annual clover, cowpeas, or even soybeans planted in the spring. A favorite technique is to plant and early maturing soybean in the spring and surface broadcast a cover crop including 2 lbs/ac of PTT into it as the leaves yellow.
I like the combination of both mixing and rotating. The specific crops and technique will be different with the short growing season in the north, but the principles of soil health hold. I've never claimed to have the specific answer for other regions. I find turnips are kind of like buckwheat in the sense that when used in a mix the rates need to be kept low.
One more thing to note is that most of the N fix by a legume doesn't become available to other plants until that legume dies. With perennial clover individual plants are dying all the time as the field ages and over time you can see the field become more attractive to grasses. So, when you are mixing clover with brassica and a cereal grain like WR, several things happen.
1) the field generally becomes attractive over a longer period as the plants peak at different times.
2) The lower rate of PTT means fewer plants/sq foot allowing light and resources for other plants in the mix.
3) The lower fertility rate of the WR and the N fixing capability of the clover reduces the overall N needs of the field.
4) N fixed by the clover that year becomes available to the next crop you plant when the annual clover dies.
Thanks,
Jack
SD51555
5 year old buck +
Bingo.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Long-term vs short term. All depends on your objectives.
White Birch Farm
5 year old buck +
Taken yesterday. June planted Purple Top drilled into standing clover along with Rutabaga, Ethiopian Cabbage, Winfred, etc.
As I developed my habitat plan from the ground up to provide adequate tonnage, deer here have plenty to eat 365 days a year.
Things will start greening up here a lot more again this weekend with 60-70 degree weather. So in addition to providing ground cover all year, all these leftover and decaying clovers and brassicas will once again return their fertility to this year’s crop.
This is the results of well designed long-term planning...a fenced micro-plot, while fine for killing deer, would by definition provide none of these long term benefits and instead is a short-term solution to a long-term problem, which is inadequate tonnage.
As I developed my habitat plan from the ground up to provide adequate tonnage, deer here have plenty to eat 365 days a year.
Things will start greening up here a lot more again this weekend with 60-70 degree weather. So in addition to providing ground cover all year, all these leftover and decaying clovers and brassicas will once again return their fertility to this year’s crop.
This is the results of well designed long-term planning...a fenced micro-plot, while fine for killing deer, would by definition provide none of these long term benefits and instead is a short-term solution to a long-term problem, which is inadequate tonnage.
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S.T.Fanatic
5 year old buck +
By the size of the plot i'd say your problem lies in your deer numbers and not tonnage.
White Birch Farm
5 year old buck +
That is more a reflection of your perception about habitat management than it is about the deer numbers.
Only about 8% of my land is in what most would call “food plots”, which is probably toward the lower end of what most professional whitetail habitat managers might recommend. I can do that and still achieve far above average natural oak regeneration for my area and have plenty of food 365 because of the improvements I have done on the remaining 92%.
I realize most people don't have the time or resources to dedicate to a property like that, but that is not the deer’s fault.
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Bassattackr
5 year old buck +
Here's a pick of my strips, clover on the bottom then cereal gains then brassicas and out back is ceral grains. I rotate the cereal grains and brassicas every year and rotate the clover into the mix when it's looking thin (about 3yrs). I'm always planting brassicas into cereal grains which usually has the most thatch and in the spring I'll plant clover and oats into last years brassicas because it is usually dirt just broadcast and cultipack.
Scott,
Do you find that the spring oats help keep the weeds and grasses out of the clover? I'm frost seeding RWW clover/chicory this year and considering adding some oats in after a few more weeks for this reason. We have a lot of foxtail, etc that comes on strong around June 1 (I'm in Central Missouri). I plan to mow the clover/chic blend monthly to keep weeds/grasses at bay. OR if I utilize oats, I can just clip in Aug/Sept and either keep the clover/chic and lets some oats volunteer or TnM some brassicas into it as well. Never tried a "spring nurse crop" though :)
Long term I would like to keep this mowed or short(er) for fall hunting anyway. I have blocks of cover on either side.
Thoughts? Thanks!
scott44
5 year old buck +
When I just broadcast the clover and oats and cultipack it seems to help keep the weeds down but if I disturb the soil by discing or tilling it helps some but not much.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I think the problem is that the weed seeds are competing on an even footing and those that sprout from established root system have an advantage. Fall planting with WR lets the clover germinate in the fall giving it an advantage, The WR is well established in the spring and in addition to taking up space and resources from weeds, it has an allopathic effect on germination of many weed seeds. Planting cereal in the spring with clover is going to have significantly less impact on weeds.
You are spot on when it comes to bringing weed seed into the germination layer of the soil. If you can T&M, you don't stir up the seed bank in the soil.
Thanks,
Jack
