Food plot pic

Nightvision

5 year old buck +
I don’t have a no till drill so I still use my tiller. May not be the best for soil health but it sure makes a plot look nice and pretty. This was planted in forage oats. 182E374A-E912-43E5-95B3-3BA490EA1544.jpeg
 
Come on rain…
 
Come on rain…
Yep. We got 6 days and 4.5” of it last week. I don’t like to plant too early down here as the oats will grow too fast, get too tall, and not be as attractive to the deer come November. Problem is now there is NO rain in the forecast. Oh well, I’m not a farmer so I will not starve if my plots fail.
 
I don’t have a no till drill so I still use my tiller. May not be the best for soil health but it sure makes a plot look nice and pretty. This was planted in forage oats. View attachment 37230

You can use a tiller for min-till and still preserve good soil health. I lift the tiller with the 3pt hitch so the tines barely touch the top inch of soil. From a distance, the plot looks very green when I'm done. The idea is just to break any crust and chop up the surface vegetation a bit. I then broadcast seed and spray. Kicking up a bit of soil into the vegetation helps the vegetation break down. I'm not tilling deep enough to impact the soil tilth or introduce O2 into the soil to consume a lot of OM.

When I first started food plotting, my fields looked like you pic with that fluffy pure dirt look. Crops grew well for a while, but after a few years, they required more and more commercial fertilizer ($$$) because of the lowered nutrient cycling. I haven't used fertilizer for about 5 years now. My fields are not as pretty because I've become more weed tolerant, but my smart selection of complementary crops with low fertility requirements are just as effective and deer relate to them as well or better than before. My cost has gone down dramatically allowing me to plant more acreage improving scale.

Thanks,

Jack
 
No one ever shows the follow up pics after a heavy down pour hits their fields........Only the nice neat ones in that moment in time right after they finish
 
Good point! My tiller went belly up a few years ago and I did not replace it. My OM had increased enough that crusting was becoming less of a problem for me and T&M techniques (actually T&C (throw and cultipack) for me) were working much better and min-till became less necessary. We needed a disc for firebreak maintenance so we got one of them instead of another cultipacker. If crusting becomes an issue on new fields, I could use it for very light disking to achieve a similar effect.

I wish I had taken some pictures after my min-till using a tiller so guys could see the field. Many folks new to this want to see a uniform field of exposed dirt. When I was done tilling, if you looked at the field from any distance, you would not even think it had been tilled.
 
Who cares about the methods. People have been farming for 2,000 years tilling the soil. Miraculously we're all still alive here..

Looks like a great plot in the making to me!
 
I'm always looking for better,cheaper or easier methods.
 
Who cares about the methods. People have been farming for 2,000 years tilling the soil. Miraculously we're all still alive here..

Looks like a great plot in the making to me!

If you recall, we started with slash and burn farming techniques. Folks would farm and area, deplete the soil (before commercial fertilizer was available), and slash and burn some more to get fertile ground. After commercial fertilizer became available the same land could be used longer. In our best, most fertile farming soils, abuse can take place for generations and the soil can rebound. Many of us managing for deer are not commercially farming and thus are on less expensive more marginal ground that can become unproductive quite quickly when abused by deep tillage.

Now, lets add to that the fact that we are not farming. Maximizing yield by high fertilization and planting monocultures so our harvest equipment can take food (along with nutrients) out of the ground to sell for our livelihoods is farming, not planting food plots for deer. Deer management takes a different mindset. We don't have the same issues that farmers have. And today, even farmers have recognized the benefits of soil health. Most have switch to large no-till drills and are planting cover crops. We can do things much less expensively and benefit deer more at a lower cost by being smart:

1) Minimize depth and frequency of tillage.
2) Plant mixes of grasses and legumes (all good deer food) with low fertility requirement that produce good OM over time and complement each other.
3) Rotate mixes as need, with soil health in mind, to cover major stress periods for your region.
4) Become weed tolerant. Many broadleaf weeds are as good or better for deer than what you plant. The can help with diversity and nutrient cycling.

Crimson n' Camo has a great T&M thread going that takes good soil health principles advocated by guys like "Ray the soil Guy" from NRCS for farmers, and shows how they can be applied with small equipment by food plotters.​


Save money, manage deer better, and leave the soil producing better than you found it when you stop food plotting. Hard to beat for a long-term approach.

Thanks,

Jack
 
If you recall, we started with slash and burn farming techniques.

I don't recall. I wasn't there.

Now, lets add to that the fact that we are not farming.

Blasphemy.

planting monocultures so our harvest equipment can take food (along with nutrients) out of the ground to sell for our livelihoods is farming, not planting food plots for deer.

I think the deer will like his monoculture of forage oats just fine.

And today, even farmers have recognized the benefits of soil health.

I think I get it.. Like now, even Democrats have recognized the benefits of police?

2) Plant mixes of grasses and legumes (all good deer food)

Hmm.. Deer never ate the fescue, orchard grass on our property. Now that they're gone, the legumes, cereal grains, soybeans and brassicas always got hammered! :emoji_wink:

stop food plotting.

I don't think I like your posts anymore on this forum.

- Dan
 
Humm.. Perhaps some basic education is in order ... :emoji_thinking:

What do you think your oats and small cereal grains are, along with corn and sorghum? They are all grasses as well as great deer food. They provide the carbon component in composting. Legumes, like soybeans, clovers, sunn hemp, and such fix nitrogen from the atmosphere that provides the N component in composting. When you mix and or rotate them, you provide the balance necessary for decomposition and the production of organic matter that is one of the keys to good nutrient cycling.

If you read my posting history, you will have a hard time finding one where I suggest fescue or orchard grass in food plots.

I'm glad you are having fun with this, but keep in mind that there are novices out there and some will take your posts seriously.
 
I don’t have a no till drill so I still use my tiller. May not be the best for soil health but it sure makes a plot look nice and pretty. This was planted in forage oats. View attachment 37230

Not judging you methods, it’s not my way or the highway. What works for me may not work for you. This is a picture of a Throw, crimp, spray plot if radish. Planted into 3 year old clover strip with zero fertilizer.

286b8cc0ee32a854d93f68a5c3b42f98.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Not judging you methods, it’s not my way or the highway. What works for me may not work for you. This is a picture of a Throw, crimp, spray plot if radish. Planted into 3 year old clover strip with zero fertilizer.

286b8cc0ee32a854d93f68a5c3b42f98.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Good point! We all have different objectives and different conditions. I hope the OP did not take my post as criticism of his methods. He did mention soil health and that he didn't have a no-till drill but did have a tiller. My intent was just to show how his tools can be used for min-till which helps preserve the soil health he mentioned.

Thanks,

jack
 
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