b116757
5 year old buck +
Pumpkins never got really big for us but we planted the smallish sweet pie pumpkins 6-8” maybe most of them. We would store them in a shed and drop them in a feed area all fall and into the winter.
Clover in the WI Snow Belt
- Thread starter Maddog66
- Start date
This new forage option might be a fit for some of us: https://alseed.com/university-of-minnesota-researchers-release-first-ever-winter-barley-variety/
It is the sixth topic in this webinar on February 8: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAufuqurjgtEtUabwzsGJzRRgOt8LZdu9Yg
The part of the presentation directed to the winter barley is at 2:05 - 2:45. The presentation is by a professor from the University of Minnesota, not some food plot seed salesperson.
It is the sixth topic in this webinar on February 8: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAufuqurjgtEtUabwzsGJzRRgOt8LZdu9Yg
The part of the presentation directed to the winter barley is at 2:05 - 2:45. The presentation is by a professor from the University of Minnesota, not some food plot seed salesperson.
rocksnstumps
5 year old buck +
Curious the pros of barley over something like rye for food plot world. Besides a new variety of something to make whiskey outta. Bought all I know is think barley can be planted in the spring earlier than most stuff normally but gotta think a winter variety gets planted much later. Also confess did not listen to above yet. Looking for more edumacation to add to my Jethro cypher,n skills. Thx
Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
Several questions pop up immediately for me. I am in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and have been planting food plots since 1985.
1. What did the soil test tell you about your pH? If the farmer has kept the soil in great shape and your current pH is around 7, why apply lime? If it is already around neutral (7.0) you will be moving your soil to the more alkaline side by adding 1 ton of lime per acre. You don't want your soil to favor alkaline any more than you want it to be acidic. Neutral (6.5 - 7.5) is what works best for most forages we are growing for deer.
2. 4 Acres of Clover? Why? Planting clovers for deer forage is great but clover readily grows after being browsed so it doesn't get wiped out like other deer forages do at times. I have never had a clover plot wiped out. Today I plant a ring of clover (10-12' wide) around the outside edge of all of my food plots. This is more clover than the deer (and spring bears) could ever consume. About 1/10th of your available food plot acreage is more than enough for clover.
3. Why plant clovers in mid-July? Frankly, that timing would be my last choice. Summer droughts can and do occur fairly often and can have a negative impact on young clovers. I am 100% No-Till these days but when I was still turning dirt, I would sometimes plant clovers and oats in the spring for a plow down green manure crop, but the best time to plant perennial clovers IMO is fall - and I always plant clovers with a nurse crop of rye. This isn't to say that you shouldn't include some clovers in a cover crop or brassica mix planted at other times but these should be much lower rates than what you would plant for a stand alone perennial clover crop.
4. Clover varieties? While I have planted BOB (Big Buck on the Bag) varieties years ago, I now mix my own clovers using at least 3-5 different varieties. I always include Medium Red and then mix with equal amounts of other clovers like Jumbo Ladino, Alyce White, Dutch White, Alsike, Crimson, etc. Is is much easier on the pocket book and the wildlife don't know the difference.
Here is a 5 variety mix I used:
This is the variety I have left over from last year...
A narrow strip of clover around the outside edge of your food plots give you all the clover the deer can use. In many food plots if you have trees around the outside edge, annual food plot crops will often be shaded or starving for moisture and will not grow well anyway. Clovers do just fine even in those conditions. Why waste valuable food plot acreage on way too much clover when it can be better utilized for annual crops which provide greater tonnage and variety of forage.
When I plant my cereal grains in the fall, I will also drill them into my clover strips which gives a little more forage. The rye, grasses and other weeds can be terminated in the spring to give you a great clover strip for the rest of the summer.
May 12th - Not sure where all the dandelions came from in this strip but mid-May is the best time to do a maintenance spraying on my clovers anyway...
May 16th - I use a reduced rate of Glyphosate (16-24 oz/acre) to spray over my clover strips. Clover is very hard to terminate with Gly alone. This rate of only 1/2 qt to 3/4 qt of Gly may set the clovers back just a bit, but it is enough to kill grasses and other unwanted weeds...
A month later - June 16th and I have a pure stand of clover again.
There is more than one way to skin the cat for sure Maddog, but these are just a few things you may want to consider.
1. What did the soil test tell you about your pH? If the farmer has kept the soil in great shape and your current pH is around 7, why apply lime? If it is already around neutral (7.0) you will be moving your soil to the more alkaline side by adding 1 ton of lime per acre. You don't want your soil to favor alkaline any more than you want it to be acidic. Neutral (6.5 - 7.5) is what works best for most forages we are growing for deer.
2. 4 Acres of Clover? Why? Planting clovers for deer forage is great but clover readily grows after being browsed so it doesn't get wiped out like other deer forages do at times. I have never had a clover plot wiped out. Today I plant a ring of clover (10-12' wide) around the outside edge of all of my food plots. This is more clover than the deer (and spring bears) could ever consume. About 1/10th of your available food plot acreage is more than enough for clover.
3. Why plant clovers in mid-July? Frankly, that timing would be my last choice. Summer droughts can and do occur fairly often and can have a negative impact on young clovers. I am 100% No-Till these days but when I was still turning dirt, I would sometimes plant clovers and oats in the spring for a plow down green manure crop, but the best time to plant perennial clovers IMO is fall - and I always plant clovers with a nurse crop of rye. This isn't to say that you shouldn't include some clovers in a cover crop or brassica mix planted at other times but these should be much lower rates than what you would plant for a stand alone perennial clover crop.
4. Clover varieties? While I have planted BOB (Big Buck on the Bag) varieties years ago, I now mix my own clovers using at least 3-5 different varieties. I always include Medium Red and then mix with equal amounts of other clovers like Jumbo Ladino, Alyce White, Dutch White, Alsike, Crimson, etc. Is is much easier on the pocket book and the wildlife don't know the difference.
Here is a 5 variety mix I used:
This is the variety I have left over from last year...
A narrow strip of clover around the outside edge of your food plots give you all the clover the deer can use. In many food plots if you have trees around the outside edge, annual food plot crops will often be shaded or starving for moisture and will not grow well anyway. Clovers do just fine even in those conditions. Why waste valuable food plot acreage on way too much clover when it can be better utilized for annual crops which provide greater tonnage and variety of forage.
When I plant my cereal grains in the fall, I will also drill them into my clover strips which gives a little more forage. The rye, grasses and other weeds can be terminated in the spring to give you a great clover strip for the rest of the summer.
May 12th - Not sure where all the dandelions came from in this strip but mid-May is the best time to do a maintenance spraying on my clovers anyway...
May 16th - I use a reduced rate of Glyphosate (16-24 oz/acre) to spray over my clover strips. Clover is very hard to terminate with Gly alone. This rate of only 1/2 qt to 3/4 qt of Gly may set the clovers back just a bit, but it is enough to kill grasses and other unwanted weeds...
A month later - June 16th and I have a pure stand of clover again.
There is more than one way to skin the cat for sure Maddog, but these are just a few things you may want to consider.
Last edited:
Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
How big do you want em Ruskbucks?
We have planted several different varieties but have pretty much settled on Howdens. They grow big enough.
You can plant into disturbed soil if that is how you normally plant...or you can terminate a cover crop and plant into the thatch which gives you much better weed control, moisture retention, etc.
We just take a plain screwdriver to open a small hole about an inch or so deep and hand seed the seeds. Rows are 6' apart - Plants 3' apart. You will have all the pumpkins you can use in a small plot. Or, sometimes Elaine will plant 25-50 in a plot which I will have E-Fenced anyway - like beans or sugar beets. Just put a pail over the young pumpkin plants when you spray and they will canopy soon enough.
When you take the E-Fence down the deer will be all over them.
We generally harvest a lot of them and give them to friends and neighbors for Jack-O-Lanterns for Halloween. If it is legal to bait or feed deer where you are you can also use them for that.
I used to have a lot of photos but recently lost thousands of them when my computer crashed and they weren't backed up. The deer will eat everything but the stem. Here, they generally poke a hole into them and eat all of the seeds and pulp and then move on to another one. When all the seeds and pulp are gone they go back and eat the entire pumpkin.
Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
Bears are my nemesis here also. They have killed 25-30 of my apple trees over the years. They will trash them even when there are no apples or very small green apples on them. They are just plain destructive.
I got this one in the act on camera. Came in and broke off a 5 year old Honey Crisp in a minute or so and then just wandered away.
And yes, they have even trashed some of my oaks also. Climbed up and broke a bunch of branches down so they could eat the acorns on the ground.
Have not figured out how to deter them so like a fool I just keep planting more.
Not trying to hijack your thread Maddog - I'll bow out now...
4wanderingeyes
5 year old buck +
Bear are dicks, If I had a way to trap them, I would send them all over to MRBB, because he loves them destructive things at his place.
Great. Looking pumpkins and plots. I was just wondering if the deer preferred the smaller size.
I have 10-12 every year I can transplant by him too. Only time I would like to see them is hunting season, but of course most of them quit coming around during daylight.
Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
Thanks - I have never grown the smaller varieties as they have no problem devouring the large ones.
Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
Yep - Those were the kind of photos I was looking for that were lost. I am sure that somebody came back and ate the rest of that pumpkin soon.
Can confirm. Deer eat pumpkins in Northern MN. I got the seeds from Deercreek. Whatever they are worked.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hey Wild,
I’ll try to answer as best I can. Thx for your input.
1. PH is 6.4. Fine for clover, but I figure 1 ton per acre that will take a year or 2 to activate can’t hurt for the future.
2. These four 1 acre plots have never been plots before. They are gorgeous back corners of a much larger irregularly shaped field and will hold all kinds of different food plots in the future. They”ll be surrounded by corn this summer. One day I’ll have some corn of my own back there…..but until then as an absentee landowner, I want to start out with nice clover and adjust from there.
3. It’ll probably be a little later than mid July planting…..but I’ll be final prepping the fields by then.
4. “BOB”. I like that. Point taken. I’ll mix one or 2 of my own.
But here is where I really need help.
For my reasons, I want to end up with 4 nice perennial stands in summer ‘23, and I also want to hunt around these brand new plots in ‘22 bow/gun seasons. My soil is all set and I’ll plant on the perfect day, if I can. I have precision planting equipment.
HOW MUCH brassica seed, for example, should I add to my 9# per acre of clover blend when I plant? Do I deduct the brassica from the clover rate, or add it to the rate? Hoping for some fall attraction / cover crop for the young clover.
Thx again!
I’ll try to answer as best I can. Thx for your input.
1. PH is 6.4. Fine for clover, but I figure 1 ton per acre that will take a year or 2 to activate can’t hurt for the future.
2. These four 1 acre plots have never been plots before. They are gorgeous back corners of a much larger irregularly shaped field and will hold all kinds of different food plots in the future. They”ll be surrounded by corn this summer. One day I’ll have some corn of my own back there…..but until then as an absentee landowner, I want to start out with nice clover and adjust from there.
3. It’ll probably be a little later than mid July planting…..but I’ll be final prepping the fields by then.
4. “BOB”. I like that. Point taken. I’ll mix one or 2 of my own.
But here is where I really need help.
For my reasons, I want to end up with 4 nice perennial stands in summer ‘23, and I also want to hunt around these brand new plots in ‘22 bow/gun seasons. My soil is all set and I’ll plant on the perfect day, if I can. I have precision planting equipment.
HOW MUCH brassica seed, for example, should I add to my 9# per acre of clover blend when I plant? Do I deduct the brassica from the clover rate, or add it to the rate? Hoping for some fall attraction / cover crop for the young clover.
Thx again!
Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
Honestly Maddog - with July or August planted clovers you really aren't going to have much fall attraction in the northern Wisconsin snow belt IMO. They just don't grow that fast. Clovers grow down - below the soil before they start growing much above. Sure, you will get some growth from your clovers but you will definitely want to add something more for attraction. I think you will also find that your clovers are going to go dormant once cold weather sets in and they aren't going to be much of an attraction once they are dormant and covered with snow.
You mentioned "cover crop" as well but don't get "cover crop" confused with "nurse crop". You definitely want to plant a nurse crop with your clovers - usually cereal grains. Most of us will use rye or oats, although oats will winter kill when it starts getting cold in the North. I prefer rye or a combination of rye and oats so there is something green and growing as soon ass the snow melts, whereas with only oats you will have nothing but young clovers in early spring.
Frankly, given your circumstances I would lean more towards planting a true "cover crop" in most of that acreage and maybe a much smaller component of strictly clovers for the reasons stated above. A good cover crop mix will still provide deer forage and attraction for fall hunting and even some winter and spring forage well beyond what you would get with just clovers. The cover crop will also do wonders for your soil, although not necessarily overnight. You can include several different varieties of clovers in the cover crop which is right in line with your goals I believe. The best cover crop mix will include: Grasses, legumes, brassicas and non-legume broadleafs. These mixes can feed your deer as well as your soil and help take the edge off of your fertilizer bill. There is a wealth of information on-line about cover crops which can certainly give you some direction.
I honestly think you are going to be disappointed if you set you sights too high on having good hunting over 4 acres of perennial clovers in 2023. Early fall will be great, but not so much as they begin to go dormant in your northern climate. My advice would be to terminate some of the cover crop acreage and plant annuals that will be available later in the season and rely a little less on the pure clover component.
Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
I had about 130,000 photos on my Mac. Most of them were trail camera photos which I just never got around to deleting but there were many photos, documents, etc, dealing with my food plots and habitat improvements, deer hunting, etc. I tried to upgrade to the newest operating system from my old one (about 3 or 4 generations removed) and the computer just locked up. I went through 3 different Apple technicians trying to help me and none of them could even get the thing to start up again. I finally gave my Mac to a local tech to see what he could do. He had the computer for 7 or 8 weeks and was able to save some of my old data but I lost a lot of it, including about 60-70% of my photos.
Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
LOL - I thought you meant my pumpkin photos.
I meant my pumpkins.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Nightvision
5 year old buck +
Op,
There are many kinds of clovers that will work. I like Durana. It is a perennial white clover that is as tough as any out there.
I would suggest you plant at least one plot in it. It will survive and do well in a low ph plot but thrives a lot better (obviously) in one where the ph is above 6.5 It will survive a drought. It will go dormant to do so. You will swear the plot is dead and gone but as soon as the cool fall rains come it will be raised from the dead. Should have named it Lazarus clover.
If you get normal rains, it will stay green for years.
There are many kinds of clovers that will work. I like Durana. It is a perennial white clover that is as tough as any out there.
I would suggest you plant at least one plot in it. It will survive and do well in a low ph plot but thrives a lot better (obviously) in one where the ph is above 6.5 It will survive a drought. It will go dormant to do so. You will swear the plot is dead and gone but as soon as the cool fall rains come it will be raised from the dead. Should have named it Lazarus clover.
If you get normal rains, it will stay green for years.
Make sure you plant some medium red clover in at least one plot. In the middle of any extended hot and dry spell, when most white clovers go dormant, the medium red will be thriving.
As far as it only lasting a year or two, I get enough of it going to seed that I get new plants every year with a timely mowing.
As far as it only lasting a year or two, I get enough of it going to seed that I get new plants every year with a timely mowing.
