Lime discussion

It grows, the deer just don't seem to browse it much. I've had very good acorns the last two years which could play a part. There were days during bow season that it sounded like a rain shower because of the acorns falling and I know the deer will always go for those first. We killed a couple does out of the plot this year and during several sits I watched them walk right around the cereal rye and browse on the oats and brassicas.

Next question: What would you plant for a spring crop to help keep the weeds at bay, and give the deer and turkey something to feed on?

You might want to consider adding you location/usda zone to your profile. What works in one are may not work well in another. I'm in zone 7a. I had a problem with marestail after we had a controlled burn. It popped up in the seed bank in our pines and invaded our fields. I had been planting RR crops, but gly just encouraged the marestail by suppressing the competition. I ended up using multiple attack angles to control the marestail. I sprayed with the appropriate control chemicals and used a smother crop in the spring. I hit the field with 24D amine when the marestail was young in the spring and let other weeds grow. I used Sunn Hemp and Buckwheat in my area for the smother crop. I used a generic version of Liberty for burn down since it is effective on marestail. I waited until my soil was nice and warm to do it. I then broadcast the buckwehat and sunn hemp and cultipacked. Buckwehat and Sunn hemp germinate quickly in warm soil and out-compete most weeds. In the fall I did a T&M with my fall plant.

As for turkey, forget feeding the adults. They will eat anything that doesn't eat them. The keep is having good brooding ground near good nesting cover. About 90% of a poult's diet consists of insects. You want good bugging fields like perennial clover that green up early and attract insects. You want to have them next to vertical cover with good bare ground underneath. Canopied soybes work, I use bicolor lespedeza to break up large fields and make them feel smaller to encourage daytime deer use. I need to warn that Bicolor can be invasive under some conditions so study it before using it. It has worked well for me. It produces millions of tiny seeds for birds but grows about 8' tall and has good bare ground underneath. The idea is to protect poults from avian predators. Having it next to bugging makes for quick escape cover.

One last thought. A "weed" is a plant growing someplace you don't want it. For farmers, any plant other than their crop is a weed. They need to maximize yield to profit. It is high input/high output farming. Things are quite different for deer managers. We plant food plots either to attract deer for hunting or to supplement native foods. By far, most of a deer's diet is native foods. When we plant to supplement food, we target periods when native foods are scarce. We are trying to even out the dips that occur in nature. Yield typically is not important to a deer manager. Any food left after the stress period is excess from a deer management perspective. When planting for attraction, if deer use it during the time you are targeting, it was successful. Many of what farmers call "weeds" are better native deer food than what we plant. They are clearly some weeds that are problematic and don't benefit deer, and at times they need to be addressed.

A focus on soil health, reduces our input cost and can be just as effective from a deer management standpoint. You seem to be headed in a good direction getting away from tillage. I have not used commercial fertilizer for quite a few years now and my crops are as good or better than before. It took a long time to build OM and undo the damage I caused with a plow.

As for ag lime vs pelletized lime, I've seen soil science guys argue back and forth over speed vs duration. There really are a large number of factors that influence how quickly the chemical reactions take place. I would not get too wrapped around the axel over it. Lime will be slow and long-lasting in clay soils. I would focus on getting the pH in the right ball park and plant crops that do well in soil with low fertility and low pH in the mean time.

The reason I asked about the exclusion cage is the lost of folks think fields are not getting much deer use. After putting up and exclusion cage, they realize deer were using the field more than they thought. It is often a pressure issue and the fields are used after dark.

Thanks,

Jack
 
Yes, that is another consideration. I'm heading out there tomorrow to take down stands and do a little saw work and plan on getting another sample to have analyzed.

One reason that I was thinking about trying to get ag lime was because it takes longer to break down, pelletized will give a faster result, but not last as long because the particles are finer if I understand this correctly.
Maybe. Maybe not. You need to read the label of each to decide. Some pelletized lime is simply floor sweepings with a binder. Other quality pelletized lime is formulated to provide different percentages of particles passing thru specific screen sizes. Price isn't everything. Lime is a complicated mistress.
 
You might want to consider adding you location/usda zone to your profile. What works in one are may not work well in another. I'm in zone 7a. I had a problem with marestail after we had a controlled burn. It popped up in the seed bank in our pines and invaded our fields. I had been planting RR crops, but gly just encouraged the marestail by suppressing the competition. I ended up using multiple attack angles to control the marestail. I sprayed with the appropriate control chemicals and used a smother crop in the spring. I hit the field with 24D amine when the marestail was young in the spring and let other weeds grow. I used Sunn Hemp and Buckwheat in my area for the smother crop. I used a generic version of Liberty for burn down since it is effective on marestail. I waited until my soil was nice and warm to do it. I then broadcast the buckwehat and sunn hemp and cultipacked. Buckwehat and Sunn hemp germinate quickly in warm soil and out-compete most weeds. In the fall I did a T&M with my fall plant.

As for turkey, forget feeding the adults. They will eat anything that doesn't eat them. The keep is having good brooding ground near good nesting cover. About 90% of a poult's diet consists of insects. You want good bugging fields like perennial clover that green up early and attract insects. You want to have them next to vertical cover with good bare ground underneath. Canopied soybes work, I use bicolor lespedeza to break up large fields and make them feel smaller to encourage daytime deer use. I need to warn that Bicolor can be invasive under some conditions so study it before using it. It has worked well for me. It produces millions of tiny seeds for birds but grows about 8' tall and has good bare ground underneath. The idea is to protect poults from avian predators. Having it next to bugging makes for quick escape cover.

One last thought. A "weed" is a plant growing someplace you don't want it. For farmers, any plant other than their crop is a weed. They need to maximize yield to profit. It is high input/high output farming. Things are quite different for deer managers. We plant food plots either to attract deer for hunting or to supplement native foods. By far, most of a deer's diet is native foods. When we plant to supplement food, we target periods when native foods are scarce. We are trying to even out the dips that occur in nature. Yield typically is not important to a deer manager. Any food left after the stress period is excess from a deer management perspective. When planting for attraction, if deer use it during the time you are targeting, it was successful. Many of what farmers call "weeds" are better native deer food than what we plant. They are clearly some weeds that are problematic and don't benefit deer, and at times they need to be addressed.

A focus on soil health, reduces our input cost and can be just as effective from a deer management standpoint. You seem to be headed in a good direction getting away from tillage. I have not used commercial fertilizer for quite a few years now and my crops are as good or better than before. It took a long time to build OM and undo the damage I caused with a plow.

As for ag lime vs pelletized lime, I've seen soil science guys argue back and forth over speed vs duration. There really are a large number of factors that influence how quickly the chemical reactions take place. I would not get too wrapped around the axel over it. Lime will be slow and long-lasting in clay soils. I would focus on getting the pH in the right ball park and plant crops that do well in soil with low fertility and low pH in the mean time.

The reason I asked about the exclusion cage is the lost of folks think fields are not getting much deer use. After putting up and exclusion cage, they realize deer were using the field more than they thought. It is often a pressure issue and the fields are used after dark.

Thanks,

Jack
Thanks, Jack. This is a really good post and I appreciate it. I've added my area/zone to my signature.

I've been playing around with small kill plots for about 10 years. Most of them have been oats, winter wheat and rye thrown in a cut soybean field with the land owner's permission. This is the first time I've had land to play with year around.
 
For what it's worth ............ Alsike clover grows in less-than-ideal soil pH. It's the clover we started out with at our camp before we got more lime on our fields to where we have good plots of red and white clover now. Alsike is a good "bridge" clover until you get more lime into your soil. It attracted deer for us even with deficient soil.
 
I planted crimson on one end last year and it has done fairly well. I'll be getting another soil sample and going from there. I was debating a crimson/chicory mix. I know chicory likes pH above 6 but I like the drought tolerance.
 
It grows, the deer just don't seem to browse it much. I've had very good acorns the last two years which could play a part. There were days during bow season that it sounded like a rain shower because of the acorns falling and I know the deer will always go for those first. We killed a couple does out of the plot this year and during several sits I watched them walk right around the cereal rye and browse on the oats and brassicas.

Next question: What would you plant for a spring crop to help keep the weeds at bay, and give the deer and turkey something to feed on?
I'm sure it is not the answer your looking for but wr/ww and a little bit of red and white clover is about the only thing I have seen the deer and turkey use. In N WI the deer are in rough shape after winter and with it being the first plant to green up they are in it. We have done good turkey hunting the last few years hunting over the wr. I have tried oats and peas in early spring. They grew great, but I didn't notice any use at all. I did leave some standing to mature. They hit the seed heads and pods, but that was late summer.
 
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