Recent content by Fallow Farm

Why were you so ruthless against the pigweed? Did you just want a nice pure stand? Or were you scared of toxicity? For what it’s worth, I’m still not sure toxic pigweed was my problem, but I’m not going to ignore it.

That is all very good advice. I like the weed wiper idea. The multiple plow method has worked well in the past too. But I gotta grow the peas. the cowpeas are so incredible at growing big antlers that I just can’t find a good alternative. So, I’ll have to deal with controlling them. This plot...

Dang. That is pricey. I remember renting a D6 for $2k/week. That seems awfully high! Look for an app called rubbl. It’s like air bnb for equipment. People rent out their own equipment by the week and month. There is a learning curve to any machine, but it’s not that difficult. It does take...

Yeah, that was my first thought. Peas don’t like poorly drained soils.

Oops. I gave you bad info on the N. I checked my ticket, it was 400 lbs total. I put that on a little over 1.6 ac, so about 250/ac. I wanted the potassium and phosphorus, but the coop didn’t have any mixes that gave me what I wanted without the N. I use the spreader from the COOP. Set the...

I pulled 30 or so plants in different areas to see if the little white nitrogen producing nodes are present on the roots. About 1/3 or so had nodes. Some on big plants some on smaller yellow plants. It’s not scientific, but it’s interesting. Inoculated peas will grow bigger and greener than...

The small yellowish ones are not getting grazed. The tall green ones are being grazed hard.

Maybe too wet.

My cow peas are 33 days old. Some of them are turning yellow, of those, a lot are 3-5” tall. No browsing by the deer on these plants. Very weak looking plants. Some are doing great. Dark green, would be pretty tall if the deer hadn’t browsed them back significantly. I did not do a soil test...

My ranch is in NW TX close to the panhandle. That’s where I had the loss of 1/2 my bucks. Now, I have some fallow where I live North of Dallas.

I fence off my peas to give them 30 days head start before deer get to them. I just let them in the peas this weekend. Kind of desperate for a solution, other than hand hoeing and removing every pigweed.

If you google “Do deer eat pigweed?” you get so many examples of pigweed being a preferred “ice cream” plant. Then “Pigweed toxicity” and you see all the ways pigweed kills livestock. And how stressed or highly fertilized pigweed is more toxic. Add to this that fallow will literally eat...

That’s something I hadn’t thought of. Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind on the next buck I dart.

I’ll do my best to keep this short, but details matter. Quite a few years ago, I planted 10 acres of iron & clay cowpeas. Ranch is 1000 acres, fallow deer, whitetail, Mulies, red Stag and Aoudad. The fallow were introduced about a year prior. Toward the end of antler growing season, I...

I built an attachment that has two hooks for a chain (to pick up stuff that forks or bucket isn’t best) and a receiver hitch to move trailers around. I can’t believe how much I use it. Bought the receiver plate on Amazon. Good price and 1/2” steel. And … I just bought a hydraulic screening...