To mow or not to mow

[S.T.Fanatic]

scroll down to the bottom of the page in the link. Thoughts?
https://www.qdma.com/demystify-deer-with-9-more-scientific-insights-from-whitetail-research/

I mow twice a year. Memorial Day and Labor Day. I do not spray my perennials and the only reason I mow is to prevent weeds from taking over.

 

[trampledbyturtles]

I dont mow my clover, never have...
Mostly driven by the fact I dont have the equip to mow, ha.

I just let it go an reseed everyfall with a bit of rye and anything I feel like trying.

Broadleafs r there but they seem to rotate so I dont pay attention. My main problem is Canada thistle which is a pain.

 

[Barndog56]

I mow mine for three reasons.

1. My foodplot is also my orchard, and I can't walk through it to attend to my trees once everything is fully grown.

2. To prevent my knapweed from producing seed. Most broadleaf weeds don't bother me, but knapweed secretes a toxin that hinders nearby plants, so I'm trying to get rid of it.

3. To create mulch whenever I topseed the plot. This usually means in July for beans, sunflowers, or buckwheat, Augustif I'm adding brassicas, and September for winter rye.

 

[Baker]

Good stuff here in all the points including mowing clover. I don't mow my red clover till fall when I go to drill small grains and radishes to it. I will mow my durana in the summer if weeds start to overtake the field as its such a low growing clover but I mow high avoiding the clover and I wait until a good rain event is in the forecast. For ex. I mowed Durana before Barry the storm arrived and promptly got 2 1/2" on it. Want mow again till fall and time to drill fall cultivars into the clover.

 

[Boll Weevil]

I too mow clover twice a year. Never before Memorial Day to avoid turkey nests and poults and toward the end of the worst of the summer heat well after the 4th of July since that's when our fawns arrive.

Also the blurb about predicting CWD and Hardeman county...my farm is maybe 10 mi from ground zero and I killed one of the first 9 deer that tested positive last fall. Dang it.

 

[SD51555]

I too mow clover twice a year. Never before Memorial Day to avoid turkey nests and poults and toward the end of the worst of the summer heat well after the 4th of July since that's when our fawns arrive.

Also the blurb about predicting CWD and Hardeman county...my farm is maybe 10 mi from ground zero and I killed one of the first 9 deer that tested positive last fall. Dang it.

What is the state's plan going forward now that it's there?

 

[Boll Weevil]

In my opinion TWRA has responded pretty well ramping up testing in an expanded footprint, facilitating workshops, educating the public, and providing much needed guidance. There's now a CWD management zone with new rules on use of mineral sites, supplemental feeding, transportation of carcasses, some new hunting regs etc. The response have been solid and the hunting community is definitely taking it seriously as far as I can tell.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

In my opinion TWRA has responded pretty well ramping up testing in an expanded footprint, facilitating workshops, educating the public, and providing much needed guidance. There's now a CWD management zone with new rules on use of mineral sites, supplemental feeding, transportation of carcasses, some new hunting regs etc. The response have been solid and the hunting community is definitely taking it seriously as far as I can tell.

Until the sharp shooters come into you back yard.

 

[jsasker007]

I think they need to educate the deer. The powers that be are worried about the deer socializing around each other too much and getting too close to each other. Do they realize that these deer ARE having unprotected sex? Until they can stop that a little nose to nose doesn't seem to terrible. Go figure.

 

[cspot]

Not sure about that. My experience is deer prefer new tender growth. Mowing helps stimulate that. In my area deer don't eat all the biomass anyway in a plot so not sure what good that does and they typically don't use a food plot for cover. Like mentioned above, I always try to mow when rain is in the forecast.

 

[yoderjac]

scroll down to the bottom of the page in the link. Thoughts?
https://www.qdma.com/demystify-deer-with-9-more-scientific-insights-from-whitetail-research/

I mow twice a year. Memorial Day and Labor Day. I do not spray my perennials and the only reason I mow is to prevent weeds from taking over.

Well, I think there is a difference between mowing weeds and mowing clover. It sounds like his research was looking at the nutritional value of clover, not weed control. I always plant perennial clover (mostly Durana) in the fall with a nurse crop of WR. Durana is slow to establish and I mow the WR back to 6" for Durana each time it hits a foot or so that first spring. This releases the Durana from a sun perspective while keeping the WR alive to fend of weeds.

After that I become very weed tolerant. Sometimes I'll mow once in the spring but sometimes not. It depends on the particular weeds I'm dealing with. Just before our season starts in the fall I mow every year. It is amazing how fields that looked like they had little if any clover in the summer because of all the weeds bounce back when the weather turns.

Durana is a low growing clover, so when I mow, I'm largely mowing weeds. I've never thought mowing to increase nutritional value was worth it. Food plots are such a small part of a deer's diet. I don't the point is that mowing is bad. It is simply that it has little if any nutritional benefit and it has a cost. Like anything else, it is a question of whether the cost is worth any benefit. There can be benefit to mowing for weeds under some conditions. Mowing foxtail may have no value as it bounces back so fast and goes to seed. Mowing marestail can be helpful if you get the timing right and let the plant expend all its energy growing and then mow it right before it flowers and goes to seed. If you mow it too soon, it will have time to regenerate and go to seed anyway. In the case of marestail, mowing alone is not likely enough, but it can help.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

My experience with mowing for weed control is that the clover bounces back quickly and thickens up (maybe due to the release of new clover seeds if left to mature) making less room for weeds to compete. When I plant clover it is almost always planted in the fall (sometimes frost seeded into brassica plots) When fall planted I have some weeds the following year but after that second mowing (about two weeks before our archery season opens) it is hard to find a weed and it remains that way until the third or fourth summer.