After owning my place for 8 years and watching it just overgrow, I decided to try and find the diamond in the rough. I started with a skid steer and some education through UGA courses, QDMA Stewardship courses and this forum. Over the last 3 years, I have had thinning done in the woods, open areas created where acres of thicket and stumps dominated, expanded food plots from about total 3/4 acre, Buck on a bag products to about 5 acres of mixes of my design. I've learned about soil health with minimum soil disturbance, TNM, creating early succession from old fields and a host of other great things. In the beginning I planted my "warm season" plots in May only to watch them die from drought and overgrazing. So this year I did 3 things differently:
1. I had all of my plots in annual clover and oats. I let them stay until August. I sprayed them on August 1, then planted my warm season plots into them. Waiting until August allowed tons of forbs to grow in the fields and tons of understory in the thinned pines. I was hoping that would take pressure off of the plots.
2. I probably triple seeded the plots, putting 100 lbs each of cowpeas and oats, 25 lbs sunflower, 30 lbs grain sorghum, 40 lbs buckwheat, 10 lbs sunflowers per acre.I put brassicas heavily into some other areas as well, but not with the big seed mix.I wanted to see if the deer and hogs would thin me to a proper rate.
3. I started dreaming of irrigating 6 years ago, planning 4 years ago, and started installing 2 years ago. After buying, gluing, trenching ,and burying probably 4000 ft of pipe, not counting the assembly of manifolds to hook the fields to the main lines, I now have only one plot without permanent riser pipes and irrigation guns, and it has my temporary tripods. If I never smell PVC cement or wear purple primer ever again, it will be too soon!
Anyway, I could not have done it without a lot of great advice here. Below are 3 pics from the plots at 3 weeks old, and they are getting hammered!. Had good rain initially, but these photos taken a week after mid 90 degree dry week. Heading over tomorrow to topdress.
The bare spots below have a bunch of brassica cotyledons popping. This was a thicket as you can see by what's at the edge.
This is my last and most distant plot, over 1/3 mile from the water source. Finished it last week with knee in a lot of pain, but watching this water over all this green made it all worth it
1. I had all of my plots in annual clover and oats. I let them stay until August. I sprayed them on August 1, then planted my warm season plots into them. Waiting until August allowed tons of forbs to grow in the fields and tons of understory in the thinned pines. I was hoping that would take pressure off of the plots.
2. I probably triple seeded the plots, putting 100 lbs each of cowpeas and oats, 25 lbs sunflower, 30 lbs grain sorghum, 40 lbs buckwheat, 10 lbs sunflowers per acre.I put brassicas heavily into some other areas as well, but not with the big seed mix.I wanted to see if the deer and hogs would thin me to a proper rate.
3. I started dreaming of irrigating 6 years ago, planning 4 years ago, and started installing 2 years ago. After buying, gluing, trenching ,and burying probably 4000 ft of pipe, not counting the assembly of manifolds to hook the fields to the main lines, I now have only one plot without permanent riser pipes and irrigation guns, and it has my temporary tripods. If I never smell PVC cement or wear purple primer ever again, it will be too soon!
Anyway, I could not have done it without a lot of great advice here. Below are 3 pics from the plots at 3 weeks old, and they are getting hammered!. Had good rain initially, but these photos taken a week after mid 90 degree dry week. Heading over tomorrow to topdress.
The bare spots below have a bunch of brassica cotyledons popping. This was a thicket as you can see by what's at the edge.
This is my last and most distant plot, over 1/3 mile from the water source. Finished it last week with knee in a lot of pain, but watching this water over all this green made it all worth it
