LC's mix

tooln

5 year old buck +
Plant ALL in one plot in strips or blocks

White Clover in 10% of plot
Alice, Kopu II, Durana (or comparable) white clover, sow at 6#'s per acre with the rye combination in the fall or in the spring with oats and berseem clover. Correct Ph and P&K with soil tests

Brassicas in 45% of plot
Purple Top Turnips 3#
Dwarf Essex Rape 2#
GroundHog Forage radish 5#

Plant in mid to late July in most Midwest states, or 60-90 days before your first killing frost, Use 200#'s of 46-0-0 urea and 400#'s of 6-28-28 per acre. Follow the dead brassicas with oats and berseem or crimson clover in mid spring at 60#'s oats and 12-15#'s berseem clover and/or 50#'s of chickling vetch)

Cereal Grain combo in 45% of plot
Winter rye 50-80#'s per acre (56#'s = a bushel)
Spring oats 80-120#'s per acre (32#'s = a bushel)
Frostmaster Winter Peas or 4010/6040 Forage peas 20-80#'s per acre
Red Clover 8-12#'s per acre or white clover at 6#'s per acre (or 20-40 pounds hairy vetch and 20-30#'s crimson clover on sandy soils)
Groundhog Forage Radish 5#'s per acre
Plant in late August to early September, if following well fertilized brassicas use 100 - 200#'s of urea, if starting a new plot add 400#'s of 6-28-28

Rotate the brassicas and rye combo each year​
 
I posted a question just before the old forum crashed. Here goes again: I am in central PA and I want to try the LC mix this fall in a one acre spot that is currently an old clover/chicory plot with lots of grass joining the party. I am going to no-till the mix this summer, and know about spraying it, etc. The question: would the mix be benefitted by planting something else this spring prior to the mix this summer? The spot is drawing deer and turkeys, so I don't want to plant something now unless it will aid my success with the mix. I would like to try the mix to get greater fall/winter drawing power and nutrition.
 
By the sound of your post, I would just leave it for now and spray twice before you plant. Spray it the first time 2 weeks to a month before you are going to plant, then spray it the day before or day of planting. You could spray or till it under and plant buckwheat to help knock back the weeds, but you wouldn't really gain anything over spraying it twice. If you already have growing plants in the plot, they will contribute to your OM in much the same way as a crop of BW, maybe not as much overall tonnage, but then you don't have the expense of the seed or the cost of planting it either, so it is an OK trade-off. Also the existing plants will help control any erosion issues in much the same way as BW would. Just spraying twice will rid you of as many, if not more weeds than using a smother crop of BW or something else either way. Given the circumstances at this point, you would be just as far ahead to leave it be. Nothing you plant now will benefit the LC mix, save maybe some legume to put a little N in the ground, but again, not a huge benefit at this point. One other consideration though, if you have any serious weeds in that area, do your best to make sure they do not drop seed into that plot, at this point there is no reason to allow the weed seed bank to be increased. Mow it if you have to.
 
Good point about mowing- I hadn't thought about the timing of mowing. This spot hasn't been intensively managed, but we do normally mow it 2x per year. I will try to time the mowing to gain the best results for weed suppression and to get the best spray results.
 
If you want to do something now that will help the fall mix put in a annual clover with oats. Grows quick and will add 100/lbs. of nitrogen per acre for the fall mix.
 
If you want to do something now that will help the fall mix put in a annual clover with oats. Grows quick and will add 100/lbs. of nitrogen per acre for the fall mix.
Which clover would you use and at what rate?
 
I would say about the only clover that is going to push 100lbs of N in 3-4 months would be crimson. Not all annual clovers are created equal as N producers, and crimson is pretty much the the top dog. This would also have to be very good growing conditions to achieve these numbers. Getting excellent germination and no extended dry spells would be key. That said, you can put down 20-30 lbs/a for around $50-$75 and tractor costs. You would most likely have to perform some type of tillage on the plot in order to get a good consistent stand of crimson. It would also give you a boost to your green manure production which will help your long term OM if you continue to minimize tillage moving forward.
 
I no tilled LC's brassicas last year into a small plot. I mowed the plot which was a failed clover plot that went feral with grasses and golden rod. Mowed it very tight and then mowed over it from several directions to really chop up the resulting thatch as much as possible. I gave it a bout 10 days and then sprayed the flush of new growth. I got about an 85% kill, so i sprayed again the day i planted. I broadcast my seed and then broadcast my lime and fert so that the extra foot traffic might aid in getting some seed pushed down in the thatch. I had a solid half inch of rain that day and that helped push seed down as well. the thatch acted as a mulch as well, keeping moisture on the soil surface. The only thing i would have done differently would to have not gone on the heavy side of seeding rate. I figured i was going to get a decrease rate of germination because of the "minimal" seed bed prep.....i ended up with way more germination than expected and i had some over crowding issues.
 
What I would have done differently in your situation phil would have been to lime it as early as possible before I mowed it the first time. Lime takes a very long time to start having any affect, so the sooner you get it on the better
 
I do have a question about rotating the brassica mix.

It seems that most often i've read that you can get two years max of a brassica planting in one plot before rotating. Obviously the reason to rotate is the building up of pests and disease that will kill the brassicas with successive plantings. I've also read that when planting a mix of brassicas versus a mono culture (pure stand of turnips or radish etc) you have less potential for the build up of said pests and diseases.

I recently expanded my one food plot. the plot had the LC brassica mix in it last year. I would like to keep brassicas in this plot. The expansion now allows me to turn this plot into a strip plot. My question is can I plant brassicas in strips that will traverse the old section of the plot that had the brassica mix last year or will i risk a doom and gloom crop failure in the areas of these strips that had brassicas last year?

I am in the process of planting the whole plot in crimson clover now as a cover crop that will be terminated for the strip plot using LC's brassicas and his Rye mix.
 
What I would have done differently in your situation phil would have been to lime it as early as possible before I mowed it the first time. Lime takes a very long time to start having any affect, so the sooner you get it on the better
.

Agreed...especially with my CEC of 15.8

That being said, i had been liming that plot every spring since it had been planted....even after i let it go feral...because i knew eventually i would get back to planting it. The march before I planted as described above soil test indicated a pH of 6.2. Since i literally don't have much of anything as far as equipment, I decided that waiting to lime and fert at the time of seeding would help me "pack" seeds down through the thatch since i would be having to push a lawn/garden broadcast spreader around the plot enough times to spread 8 bags of pelletized lime and one bag of fert. (we are talking about a micro plot at 5000 sq ft.)
 
I no tilled LC's brassicas last year into a small plot. I mowed the plot which was a failed clover plot that went feral with grasses and golden rod. Mowed it very tight and then mowed over it from several directions to really chop up the resulting thatch as much as possible. I gave it a bout 10 days and then sprayed the flush of new growth. I got about an 85% kill, so i sprayed again the day i planted. I broadcast my seed and then broadcast my lime and fert so that the extra foot traffic might aid in getting some seed pushed down in the thatch. I had a solid half inch of rain that day and that helped push seed down as well. the thatch acted as a mulch as well, keeping moisture on the soil surface. The only thing i would have done differently would to have not gone on the heavy side of seeding rate. I figured i was going to get a decrease rate of germination because of the "minimal" seed bed prep.....i ended up with way more germination than expected and i had some over crowding issues.
Phil- Thank you for your input. I am looking at doing almost exactly what you did last year, so your story was very helpful for my planning. (I won't be liming at planting time, though.)
 
Phil- Thank you for your input. I am looking at doing almost exactly what you did last year, so your story was very helpful for my planning. (I won't be liming at planting time, though.)

no problem and best of luck! keep us posted with some before, during, after pics!
 
I might be the only one, but I've planted brassica plots in the same spot for 3 years with zero ill effects.

Not that I recommend it, but it's worked for me.

-John
 
I was back planting trees today and took a couple pics of my LC mix.

There is a 12' strip of white clover on the left, the cereal grain mix is next to it and the brassicas were farthest right.



This is the white clover a mix of Durana, KopuII and Ladino.

 
Last Sept. when I was planting my cereal grain mix I ran low of red clover, I had a couple bags of Ladino, crimson and red so I mixed them all together and planted. I really didn't think much if any of the crimson would make it through the winter. Couple nights ago I was checking out the plots and found quite a bit of the crimson had survived the winter and was doing well. I can't tell you how much because I just grabbed the bags and planted not weighing them out but some did come up. This year I'm going to try a portion of my plot and just use crimson.

Pic of cereal grain plot with crimson coming up.

 
This last weekend I clipped my rye getting ready for planting brassicas. Last year I brush hogged the rye/clover just before tilling it under and had a bad time with the rye balling up on the tiller so this year I'm trying clipping the rye now and cutting the clover just before tilling. I usually plant my brassicas around the 4th of July so I got an early start. I walked the field first to make sure there were no fawns bedded in there and clipped it high. Here's some pics.

After clipping





Clover planted last fall with the cereal mix.



I really want to get to all no-tilling but until I can prove to myself I can do it and get the same results I'm going to do some of both.
 
Ok here is my conventional way of planting brassicas, this is the brassica part of the LC mix/rotation. I clipped the rye/clover, disced it, cultipacked it, broadcast seed and cultipacked again. This is planted pretty close to where I am trying a no-till plot with brassicas.

Before, no-till experiment is on the left by the standing rye



After discing





When it's all said and done, we are supposed to get some rain tonight and tomorrow.



I have a 10-12' strip of clover around the outside of this plot.




The no-till way was alot faster and easier than this but this way has never failed me, we'll see how everything plays out as how I will plant in the future.
 
Received 1 1/2" of rain last night, my brassicas planted on last Mon. are staring to come up.





This plot is crimson clover and oats, grass has crept into it alittle. My plans are to clip this and disc it under around Labor Day and plant my cereal grain mix. E-wheat is planted in the back to sreen the hay field.





Pic of the screen, plot is far left then e-wheat the grassy area has shrubs planted in there,Highbush cranberry and Ninebark and then is a strip of switch grass and far right is 2 rows of spruce trees.

 
I have always used LCs fertilizer recommendation for the brassica mix but went a little light on N to save a few bucks....regretted it and could tell the brassicas lacked N. I disc the fertilizer in before seeding and packing. My coop is telling me I would be better off to disc in 12-12-12 then let plants get germinated then cast 36-0-0 just before a rain. He says I am wasting N by putting it in the ground initially with the seed. Any thoughts on this....better to disc in the N with seed or wait then fertilize young plants just before rain? Thanks.
 
Top