New Plot question

[EarthySpirit]

See post #27 for the quick version. This stuff is almost fool proof. I didn't follow the fertilizer recommendations and still have a great foot plot being pounded by deer right now, even with an inch of snow on the ground.

Chuck

Boy, listening to you guys, shows me how far out of the loop I am. I don't know any of the lingo on here or even how to get to "post #27". Any advice about finding this post? I can't seem to locate it. Thanks again everyone for your patience with this newbe.

 

[chucker66]

Boy, listening to you guys, shows me how far out of the loop I am. I don't know any of the lingo on here or even how to get to "post #27". Any advice about finding this post? I can't seem to locate it. Thanks again everyone for your patience with this newbe.

Sorry Patrick. it does take a bit to catch up with the lingo. Here is the LC formula. Again you don't have to follow it to a T and you can add or subtract things. The bottom line is that Winter Rye is your main planting but not to do a monoculture (only one type of plant).
Plant ALL in one plot in strips or blocks

Alice, Kopu II, Durana (or comparable) white clover 10% of plot, sow at 6#'s per acre with the rye combination in the fall or in the spring with oats and berseem clover. Correct Ph and P&K with soil tests

Brassicas in 45% of plot

Purple Top Turnips 3#
Dwarf Essex Rape 2#
GroundHog Forage radish 5#

Plant in mid to late July in most Midwest states, or 60-90 days before your first killing frost, Use 200#'s of 46-0-0 urea and 400#'s of 6-28-28 per acre. Follow the dead brassicas with oats and berseem or crimson clover in mid spring at 60#'s oats and 12-15#'s berseem clover and/or crimson and/or 50#'s of chickling vetch)

Cereal Grain combo in 45% of plot...we use 50# each rye, oats and peas along with radish and clover seed all planted in half of each feeding area

Winter rye 50-80#'s per acre (56#'s = a bushel)
Spring oats 50-120#'s per acre (32#'s = a bushel)
Frostmaster Winter Peas or 4010/6040 Forage peas 20-80#'s per acre

Red Clover 8-12#'s per acre or white clover at 6#'s per acre (or 20-40 pounds hairy vetch and 20-30#'s crimson clover on sandy soils)
Groundhog Forage Radish 5#'s per acre

Plant in late August to early September, if following well fertilized brassicas use 100 - 200#'s of urea, if starting a new plot add 400#'s of 6-28-28 but for best results soil test and add only what is necessary.

Rotate the brassicas and rye combo each year

This is the recipe, good luck

 

[yoderjac]

A couple more questions. What is your location? How much acreage in total do you control? Why do you want to keep deer in the summer?

 

[cavey]

Its getting a bit late for fall spraying unless your way south of us... but,
One option not mentioned is if you have a pretty thick amount of cover on the fields with brush or other woody plants you could do a burn... If you are going to have the fields moldboard plowed getting all that thick grass and woody weeds burnt off or mowed down will help you come spring. Even better yet just biting the bullet and getting it killed off with chemical so that the root systems are rotted down by spring will make plowing and disking easier and much less time consuming with trying to break up all that green clumpy sod. With fallow fields I wouldn't skimp on spraying - in the long run I believe you will come out ahead... Also burning it off is a nice way to expose whatever is laying in wait for you out in those fields, fence posts, wire, drag sections old metal... new properties always have surprises.

Also I usually add a surfactant to my spray mixes - I believe roundup has surfactant added to it but the generics may not... add some 24D to the mix too it is cheap and you don't need much to help knock down some of those tougher and maybe roundup resistant broadleaf weeds.

 

[EarthySpirit]

A couple more questions. What is your location? How much acreage in total do you control? Why do you want to keep deer in the summer?

I have 52 acres in total. After I put in food plots, the total in plots will be about 3 acres. I want to keep deer in summer, because as much as possible, I'd like to control afternoon deer movement on my property. I realize this is probably too lofty a goal as my neighbors have lots of good bedding, but I want to try. I'm doing hinging on one side of property for bedding, and plots on the other side to draw them to food in afternoon with stands in between for morning and afternoon sits.

 

[yoderjac]

I looked back and found you are in KY. Given all you've said, here are my thoughts. First, to be realistic you won't control deer movements but you can have some influence on them. They are not static and change seasonally. So, deer movements in the summer can be quite different from fall or winter.

It is clear you are anxious to get started. I would start next spring by spraying with gly and doing very light tillage and planting buckwheat. It is a 60 to 90 day crop that is very competitive against weeds. Wait until your soil warms up before planting it. You want soil temps (not air temp. As measured with a soil thermometer between 8 and 9 am) to be at least 60 degrees. The optimal soil temp for buckwheat is 80 degrees so warmer is better. I'm in zone 7a and around here you can plant buckwheat up until the 4th of July with no problem. I'd probably target the 2nd half of June.

Next fall I'd use the throw and mow method and plant Durana clover with a Winter Rye nurse crop. Check out Crimson N Camo's threads for technique. The following spring, I would mow the field each time the WR hits about a foot or so back to 6". Thereafter maintain the field as a clover plot. This will give you the most months of deer food in your area for a reasonable cost with a high chance of success.

Thanks,


Jack

 

[EarthySpirit]

I looked back and found you are in KY. Given all you've said, here are my thoughts. First, to be realistic you won't control deer movements but you can have some influence on them. They are not static and change seasonally. So, deer movements in the summer can be quite different from fall or winter.

It is clear you are anxious to get started. I would start next spring by spraying with gly and doing very light tillage and planting buckwheat. It is a 60 to 90 day crop that is very competitive against weeds. Wait until your soil warms up before planting it. You want soil temps (not air temp. As measured with a soil thermometer between 8 and 9 am) to be at least 60 degrees. The optimal soil temp for buckwheat is 80 degrees so warmer is better. I'm in zone 7a and around here you can plant buckwheat up until the 4th of July with no problem. I'd probably target the 2nd half of June.

Next fall I'd use the throw and mow method and plant Durana clover with a Winter Rye nurse crop. Check out Crimson N Camo's threads for technique. The following spring, I would mow the field each time the WR hits about a foot or so back to 6". Thereafter maintain the field as a clover plot. This will give you the most months of deer food in your area for a reasonable cost with a high chance of success.

Thanks,


Jack

This is great advice, Jack. Thank you so much for taking the time to write this out to me!! I really appreciate it!

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Patrick - To clarify ........ Paul Knox was a great source of info to many folks on several forums, including this one. He was a farmer and food plotter that really knew his stuff. The " handles " he used on the forums were either "Doubletree" or "LickCreek" ( LC ) for short. Many of us use his advice with great success in our food plots. If you see a reference to LC or Doubletree in a thread, he is the one being referred to. He was a great guy who went out of his way to answer all questions and share what he learned with all of us food plotters.

There is a thread devoted to LC on here and the mixes he used and recommended. It's right below this "Foodplots" thread in the list of topics in the habitat section of this forum. It's titled "Lickcreek".

 

[yoderjac]

Patrick - To clarify ........ Paul Knox was a great source of info to many folks on several forums, including this one. He was a farmer and food plotter that really knew his stuff. The " handles " he used on the forums were either "Doubletree" or "LickCreek" ( LC ) for short. Many of us use his advice with great success in our food plots. If you see a reference to LC or Doubletree in a thread, he is the one being referred to. He was a great guy who went out of his way to answer all questions and share what he learned with all of us food plotters.

There is a thread devoted to LC on here and the mixes he used and recommended. It's right below this "Foodplots" thread in the list of topics in the habitat section of this forum. It's titled "Lickcreek".

Great addition for new folks! Paul was harassed from time to time on several forums by commercial interests trying to push products. He did a great job of ignoring all that and focusing on helping others. One thread of his that was an outstanding read was one that focused on the advantages of Winter Rye over other cereal grains. Paul's advice was great especially for folks living in his region, but like you will find in all habitat manipulation, what works great in one region under some conditions my be less effective in others. While folks in the south may have different challenges, the underlying principles that Paul advocated, both in his food plotting as well as life we well grounded!

Thanks,

Jack

 

[EarthySpirit]

Patrick - To clarify ........ Paul Knox was a great source of info to many folks on several forums, including this one. He was a farmer and food plotter that really knew his stuff. The " handles " he used on the forums were either "Doubletree" or "LickCreek" ( LC ) for short. Many of us use his advice with great success in our food plots. If you see a reference to LC or Doubletree in a thread, he is the one being referred to. He was a great guy who went out of his way to answer all questions and share what he learned with all of us food plotters.

There is a thread devoted to LC on here and the mixes he used and recommended. It's right below this "Foodplots" thread in the list of topics in the habitat section of this forum. It's titled "Lickcreek".

Ahh!!! I get it now. That makes total sense. Thanks for helping me understand, Bowsnbucks!! This will be a great source for a long time coming!!

 

[EarthySpirit]

Great addition for new folks! Paul was harassed from time to time on several forums by commercial interests trying to push products. He did a great job of ignoring all that and focusing on helping others. One thread of his that was an outstanding read was one that focused on the advantages of Winter Rye over other cereal grains. Paul's advice was great especially for folks living in his region, but like you will find in all habitat manipulation, what works great in one region under some conditions my be less effective in others. While folks in the south may have different challenges, the underlying principles that Paul advocated, both in his food plotting as well as life we well grounded!

Thanks,

Jack

Great! Thanks Jack!!!

 

[EarthySpirit]

Glyphosate is a non selective herbicide. It will kill all weeds and grasses. Saying that, some weeds and grasses are hardier and require a second application but not many. It won't kill woody plants. You normally spray when the weeds are young and actively growing. Don't disc after spraying, allow the glyphosate to burn down the weeds and grasses. I spray our plots in mid May, here in Eastern NC, which has some of the same weather as Northern Kentucky. This spraying will normally kill everything for 3 to 4 months. I don't disc until I plant (disking causes weed seeds in the soil to germinate and start growing) so hold off until you are ready to plant. Brassicas require 60 to 90 days to fully mature, so check your average first frost date of the fall and count back 90 days and plant. Clover needs a couple of months of cool temps before your first frost to germinate and put on some root growth so 30 to 45 days will be good. Add a cover crop of Winter wheat or Winter rye with the clover and you'll have a great food plot through the fall and winter and the clover will take over in spring. Clover and brassica seed is very small, so make sure you don't plant it deep. The best way is disc well, pack the soil down with a cultipacker, atv or tractor tires, sow the seed and pack again. Good luck and keep the questions coming.

If I plant clover and oats in the spring of 2018, and I want to plant brassicas for the fall, do I just overseed the clover and oats with brassicas, right in top of it?

 

[Bowsnbucks]

If I were planting white clover with oats as a nurse crop in the spring, I'd want the white clover to remain and thicken up so it was around for 7 or 8 years. White clovers last longer than red clovers as a general rule. So to get the most "bang-for-your-buck", I'd let the white clovers flourish after the oats get mowed or are left to die down on their own. But that's me. You may want to re-use that same piece of ground to make a fall plot if you don't have other plot areas available. I don't know if brassicas would take off if clover was already established in the same plot. I've never tried that combo. Any brassicas I've planted were into a prepared seedbed where nothing else was growing at the time.

Others may have experience seeding that combo you spoke of and can give good advice. My camp chose to make the big white clover plot a perennial " years-long" kind of plot from a money and labor time standpoint. If you don't have several plot areas to create a separate fall plot, you may have to re-work your clover plot. Good luck.

 

[EarthySpirit]

If I were planting white clover with oats as a nurse crop in the spring, I'd want the white clover to remain and thicken up so it was around for 7 or 8 years. White clovers last longer than red clovers as a general rule. So to get the most "bang-for-your-buck", I'd let the white clovers flourish after the oats get mowed or are left to die down on their own. But that's me. You may want to re-use that same piece of ground to make a fall plot if you don't have other plot areas available. I don't know if brassicas would take off if clover was already established in the same plot. I've never tried that combo. Any brassicas I've planted were into a prepared seedbed where nothing else was growing at the time.

Others may have experience seeding that combo you spoke of and can give good advice. My camp chose to make the big white clover plot a perennial " years-long" kind of plot from a money and labor time standpoint. If you don't have several plot areas to create a separate fall plot, you may have to re-work your clover plot. Good luck.

Thanks, Bowsnbucks

I will have a total of 4 plots each about 1/2 acre in size. So I do plan on putting one of them in Brassicas in the fall, but doing the other three in clover. Thanks for the tips.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

Not sure where you are located but for me in my area 3 clover plots would be overkill. I basically use clover as green manure before brassicas. Dont get me wrong they use it but I like it as a rotation to save on N and add organic matter. My future clover plantings will be much thinner on clover and much heavier on chicory. Not sure how much clover it will take to feed the chicory but chicory for me sees much more use.

 

[chucker66]

All of this is great advice but you have to get started and see what will happen in your area, Kentucky. You can definitely plant Brassicas into clover and they will do fine. Might have to spray it back but the clover will survive. Like others have said, spend a good amount of time reading up on what Paul Knox did. It really works and it's not that hard. Don't over think it, we are not planting harvestable crops, it's deer food. They eat just about anything under 4 feet just like the wild goats they are:)

Chuck

 

[EarthySpirit]

Not sure where you are located but for me in my area 3 clover plots would be overkill. I basically use clover as green manure before brassicas. Dont get me wrong they use it but I like it as a rotation to save on N and add organic matter. My future clover plantings will be much thinner on clover and much heavier on chicory. Not sure how much clover it will take to feed the chicory but chicory for me sees much more use.

Thanks S.T, does everyone agree with His perspective it is overkill to have 3 plots out of 4 in clover? If so, what are some other spring perenial options that last into the fall? I figure it would be a waste to plant soybeans based on others comments that the deer will devour what little amount I would plant in a short about of time, but I'm open to other ideas. thanks guys.

 

[EarthySpirit]

All of this is great advice but you have to get started and see what will happen in your area, Kentucky. You can definitely plant Brassicas into clover and they will do fine. Might have to spray it back but the clover will survive. Like others have said, spend a good amount of time reading up on what Paul Knox did. It really works and it's not that hard. Don't over think it, we are not planting harvestable crops, it's deer food. They eat just about anything under 4 feet just like the wild goats they are:)

Chuck

Thanks Chuck! I'll definitely be reading up on Paul Knox stuff.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

Thanks S.T, does everyone agree with His perspective it is overkill to have 3 plots out of 4 in clover? If so, what are some other spring perenial options that last into the fall? I figure it would be a waste to plant soybeans based on others comments that the deer will devour what little amount I would plant in a short about of time, but I'm open to other ideas. thanks guys.

On my land in Northern Wisconsin, I have about 3/4 acre in clover, and they only really use it in the late summer, other then that, I dont see much action on it. So for me, 3 clover plots would be a huge waste. That may not be the case by you, and they may eat clover much of the season, but I personally would rather plant 3-4 different things and see what they like, then adjust from there.

 

[yoderjac]

Thanks S.T, does everyone agree with His perspective it is overkill to have 3 plots out of 4 in clover? If so, what are some other spring perenial options that last into the fall? I figure it would be a waste to plant soybeans based on others comments that the deer will devour what little amount I would plant in a short about of time, but I'm open to other ideas. thanks guys.

First, I would not plant perennial clover plots in the spring. I'm in zone 7a and here, summer weeds competition with clover is an issue. If you want fields in perennial clover, the best practice is to plant them in the fall with a Winter Rye nurse crop. Winter Rye will be attractant in the fall and clover will germinate but not produce much. Perennial clover expends quite a bit of energy establishing a root system. If planted in the spring, weeds are on equal footing with clover. They establish faster than clover and will fair better during the summer. You will spend a lot more energy dealing with weeds (and I am weed tolerant) with spring planted clover. When planted in the fall, it gets a big head start on the weeds the next spring. The Winter Rye both takes up room to crowd out weeds and has a chemical effect on them. When the WR hits about a foot in the spring, you mow it back to 6" to 8" depending on the type of clover. This releases the clover but does not kill the WR. It continues to suppress weeds until the clover has established a root system.

If you want to plant clover in the spring with Oats and then brassica in the fall, I'd suggest an annual clover like Crimson. It is much faster to establish because it is an annual and doesn't invest in a root system as much as a perennial does up front. You should be able to spray it with gly and broadcast broadcast brassica into it.

Perennial clover is the anchor of a good food plot program. It will cover more months of deer of deer food per dollar than just about anything else. There is also value in diversity. Three of 4 plots in clover is not over kill. It all depends on your situation, time, and other resources.

Thanks,

jack