From Last Year to This Year!

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MoBuckChaser

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Looks good. How many acres do you plot?
 
John-In Minnesota, how are you generating cover with trees and how is the switch standing up for cover?

What type of switch in Mn?
 
When you broadcast your Brassicas do you do anything to improve seed to soil contact. I am planning on doing the same thing mixing brassicas and WR and overseeding my corn.
 
Mn. Are you arranging the spruce plantings in any certain pattern?
 
Art, you won't find a NWSG that will hold up like shrubs or evergreens in winter but it has other benefits like it provides very good bedding and fawning areas. I have small rolling hills in my back 40 which is all NWSG and the deer like to bed throughout the NWSG and use the terrain to bed depending if they are trying to hide or get away from bugs. In my case the NWSG provides cover while my evergreens get established.

If you are going to plant NWSG it is key to either plant it in early spring or the fall before so the planting captures all the spring rains. If you work with a planter let them know you want it planted before mid-May.
 
We planted 3 acres of NWSG 3 years ago now. I can pick out some of the natives, but to me it looks like a lotta the same old crap as before.

Should I mow it? When?

I hope by the end of this summer there is some strong signs of the natives otherwise I am kinda losing hope.
 
You have had 3 tuff growing years as I had 7 acres of CP25 planted 3 years ago and the NRCS determined it failed and will do a replant this fall. The remaining CPR I have was planted a year earlier with no drought and got well established and has done very well despite the drought. With the trend of dry weather and my sandy soil the NRCS office recommend planting in the fall so I could capture all of the spring rains. I was suppose to replant last fall but with no farm bill I got delayed a year.

Depending on your mix the cool season grasses should show up starting now and your warm season grasses will dominate starting in mid-late June. Warm season grasses are exactly that, they need heat like corn to grow. Did you have your grasses drilled or were they broadcast? With this drought I would not even try broadcasting as my drilled NWSG failed. What time of year did you plant your NWSG and did you get rain from the time the NWSG would of germinated to 4 leaf stage? I would think you would need average rain for at least two months after planting to get them established in Sandy soil. Many of the NWSGs are bunch grasses and you should see small clumps of grasses showing up.

IF you have weeds start to take over the plot I would mow every time they got over a foot tall. If the weeds are really bad you can spray a broadleaf herbicide like 24d which won't hurt the grasses but will kill your forbs. I sprayed 24d on my 7 acres 2 years ago to control the weeds and what grasses were there did better but it did kill most of my forbs. Only about 25% of my 7 acres was successful so this year I will spray and mow my field to prep for a dormant replant in late October.
 
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Looks good!
 
This may sound stupid Art, but a 8'x8' pattern and I hope to transplant every other tree at a later date to specific areas. Crazy?
Not crazy at all.
 
You have had 3 tuff growing years as I had 7 acres of CP25 planted 3 years ago and the NRCS determined it failed and will do a replant this fall. The remaining CPR I have was planted a year earlier with no drought and got well established and has done very well despite the drought. With the trend of dry weather and my sandy soil the NRCS office recommend planting in the fall so I could capture all of the spring rains. I was suppose to replant last fall but with no farm bill I got delayed a year.

Depending on your mix the cool season grasses should show up starting now and your warm season grasses will dominate starting in mid-late June. Warm season grasses are exactly that, they need heat like corn to grow. Did you have your grasses drilled or were they broadcast? With this drought I would not even try broadcasting as my drilled NWSG failed. What time of year did you plant your NWSG and did you get rain from the time the NWSG would of germinated to 4 leaf stage? I would think you would need average rain for at least two months after planting to get them established in Sandy soil. Many of the NWSGs are bunch grasses and you should see small clumps of grasses showing up.

IF you have weeds start to take over the plot I would mow every time they got over a foot tall. If the weeds are really bad you can spray a broadleaf herbicide like 24d which won't hurt the grasses but will kill your forbs. I sprayed 24d on my 7 acres 2 years ago to control the weeds and what grasses were there did better but it did kill most of my forbs. Only about 25% of my 7 acres was successful so this year I will spray and mow my field to prep for a dormant replant in late October.

Jerry-thanks for the suggestions. I broadcasted some NWSG mixes last fall on two areas that had been repeatedly sprayed with roundup. One area is clean and the other has a small weed.

Three years back, I broadcasted some Indian Grass seed on an adjacent area and had success, so I tried it again. SW of my house towards the pond if you remember the spot form two winters back.
 
Let half of the plot go as a 'check'.....proceed with beans or whatever in the other half.....in Aug see if you wasted time for the planting effort.

What about a summer mix: 4 lb milo, 2 lb flowers, 4 lb buckwheat, 30 lb beans? Figure out what the soil needs first...what the deer need second...IMO.

Think about what plants are missing in the rotation: cool season grass, cool season broadleaf, warm season grass, warm season broadleaf.....soil should see members of each class in the rotation for best health.
 
When I see soil cracks and what could be become surface crusting on a field, then the first thing that comes to mind is adequacy of thatch and the amount of grass crops in the rotation. The pic where fertilizer is evident is the one being inferred.
 
The millet you sent.....now reaching 5-7' in some areas of the mix....and heading now.
 
Doug -

When did you plant that mix that's 5-7' tall and where are you located? That's pretty impressive. What did you have in that mix?
 
Impressive! I'm bound and determined to have my beans look like that next yr! I sure hope we get this well needed rain Mo! I'm sick of watering trees!
 
Hear yah there!

Edit: We are getting a huge rain here in Hatfield at 2:45am. 1-2" it looks like. I just got done hand broadcasting 200lbs of seed into these beans last night. Wish I would have gotten the other plots done. Just ran out of gas carrying a five gallon pail around!:eek:

I guess you forgot your shoulder spreader at home? Hope the dang turkey's didn't eat all my seed...
 
With that much shade from the beans did you get much germination on the sugar beets?
 
Your an animal man, mad props!
 
Animal? Hardly! Stupidity is more like it!

I dam near had my arm fall off lugging a 30lb pail of seed for 2 hours up and down 2 fields! Dragging it through the beans trying to get it done was a killer!

Give yourself a little more credit than that, it's obvious your passionate or you wouldn't be doing it. :)
 
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