WTNUT
5 year old buck +
Long post warning:
Okay, I admit up front for years - I mean years this has been a quest of mine that has always been a epic fail. I absolutely love a newly planted fall plot that has a mixture of clover, brassica and yes even a bit of cereal grain with rye being my fan favorite.
It is super easy to let your grain go to seed the next year and mow for the first time after it goes to seed. In my experience this always gives you a good germination of cereal grain in your clover plot starting late August along the zone 5 - 6 line. But, how does one get brassica’s in the plot on year two.
For the last several years many of your fellow plotters have been super kind and gracious giving me ideas. Some spray a light dose of gly then broadcast. Some simply mow tight and then broadcast. I have tried those as well as spray and no-till in and mow tight and drill. And, those people have success - I now publicly tip my hat to each of those persons and say “you da man and you da woman”! I suck at this technique.
Last year, I went with mow tight and broad cast. First, when I mowed the last plot which was more like a scalping than a mowing the medium duty Bushog I was using literally fell into pieces. But, who cares I was going to spread some seed. It did germinate, although not great even though I put out around 8-10 lbs per acre. But, it just didn’t work after that. I don’t really know if the deer gobble up all the young plants or it the clover crowds out the new plants. Last year was very dry so that did not help.
Unless someone has a new idea, this year I am going to take one of the disc and set it to a very slight angle to scar the surface. I did this probably 15 years ago and it gave me better results than anything since. My hope is the disc exposes enough soil to get good germination, but doesn’t really harm the clover.
I have at least 30 acres of clover plots this year so I will probably try 10-15 acres. I don’t normally do a photo tour to follow a project, but if I can get the phots uploaded I will this year. Stay tuned for the stupid guy who can do darn near anything with plots other than this ha ha.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Okay, I admit up front for years - I mean years this has been a quest of mine that has always been a epic fail. I absolutely love a newly planted fall plot that has a mixture of clover, brassica and yes even a bit of cereal grain with rye being my fan favorite.
It is super easy to let your grain go to seed the next year and mow for the first time after it goes to seed. In my experience this always gives you a good germination of cereal grain in your clover plot starting late August along the zone 5 - 6 line. But, how does one get brassica’s in the plot on year two.
For the last several years many of your fellow plotters have been super kind and gracious giving me ideas. Some spray a light dose of gly then broadcast. Some simply mow tight and then broadcast. I have tried those as well as spray and no-till in and mow tight and drill. And, those people have success - I now publicly tip my hat to each of those persons and say “you da man and you da woman”! I suck at this technique.
Last year, I went with mow tight and broad cast. First, when I mowed the last plot which was more like a scalping than a mowing the medium duty Bushog I was using literally fell into pieces. But, who cares I was going to spread some seed. It did germinate, although not great even though I put out around 8-10 lbs per acre. But, it just didn’t work after that. I don’t really know if the deer gobble up all the young plants or it the clover crowds out the new plants. Last year was very dry so that did not help.
Unless someone has a new idea, this year I am going to take one of the disc and set it to a very slight angle to scar the surface. I did this probably 15 years ago and it gave me better results than anything since. My hope is the disc exposes enough soil to get good germination, but doesn’t really harm the clover.
I have at least 30 acres of clover plots this year so I will probably try 10-15 acres. I don’t normally do a photo tour to follow a project, but if I can get the phots uploaded I will this year. Stay tuned for the stupid guy who can do darn near anything with plots other than this ha ha.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk