New Plot question

[EarthySpirit]

Soil tests are a MUST! Cedars and pines put down tons of needles that will make the soil acidic. If I'm correct (4.5-5.0), you will need 2 to 3 tons of lime per acre. So I'm suspecting a ton per plot to start. Soil test will verify. If you don't take a soil sample, you are just guessing. Don't guess, get a test and put down what it recommends.

Sounds good. Thanks for the warning, coach. I'll definitely do that right away. I'll visit the property sunday, and I'll get a sample from both new plots. Thanks!!

 

[bbcoach]

Let us know what it says. Add the lime it recommends immediately. Hold out on the fertilizer until you plant. Best money you'll spend on food plots.

 

[EarthySpirit]

Let us know what it says. Add the lime it recommends immediately. Hold out on the fertilizer until you plant. Best money you'll spend on food plots.

I sure will let you guys know.

 

[EarthySpirit]

Got my samples today and will submit them this week.

 

[EarthySpirit]

Here is a pic of one of the fallow fields I'll be planting in the spring. See how thick it is? Should I let the new growth simply come in through the standing dead thatch, or should I burn this, then let new stuff grow before I apply gly?

 

[EarthySpirit]

Oops, forgot to attach pics. Here they are:

 

[EarthySpirit]

OK, got my soil samples back from my new plots created in cedar stands. 6.3 ph. So they recommend no Lime. But they recommend 100 lbs /acre of Urea and 110 lbs of DAP/acre.
Do I do this now, or after I plant? And, do I just use a hand spreader? I don't have a tractor. Thanks guys!!

 

[bbcoach]

WOW 6.3, I would have thought in the high 4 range but that is good. Once you decide what you want to plant, kill off all weeds and grasses, I would disc, apply your fertilizer then and plant immediately. Don't apply fertilizer now as you will feed the weeds and grasses. You want the seed you are putting down to benefit from the nutrients.

 

[FarmerDan]

More information from you soil sample test results, please?! PPM or lbs per acres P & K? CCE? OM%?

 

[yoderjac]

OK, got my soil samples back from my new plots created in cedar stands. 6.3 ph. So they recommend no Lime. But they recommend 100 lbs /acre of Urea and 110 lbs of DAP/acre.
Do I do this now, or after I plant? And, do I just use a hand spreader? I don't have a tractor. Thanks guys!!

You are likely blessed with that pH but as Dan says, more info would be helpful. If they gave you a fertilizer recommendation, you likely gave them a crop you plan to plant. What crop did you give them? I would likely skip the Urea if you are planting buckwheat in the spring. What did you decide to plant in the fall. I know you got a lot of recommendations.

As for applying fertilizer, you can use a hand spreader. Keep in mind that fertilizer an be corrosive so wash your spreader thoroughly after using it. Spreading 165 lbs of DAP with a chest mount spreader will be work but it is doable. You might want to look at a Solo chest mount spreader. I really love mine. All of the exposed parts are plastic (but I'd still wash it out good). I find it works better than most chest mount spreaders. If you already have one try it first, but if you find you have issue, try the Solo.

Most fertilizer recommendations are for farmers trying to maximize yield. That is not the objective for deer managers in most cases. The buckwheat will do fine without the Urea. It will save you effort and cost.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[EarthySpirit]

You are likely blessed with that pH but as Dan says, more info would be helpful. If they gave you a fertilizer recommendation, you likely gave them a crop you plan to plant. What crop did you give them? I would likely skip the Urea if you are planting buckwheat in the spring. What did you decide to plant in the fall. I know you got a lot of recommendations.

As for applying fertilizer, you can use a hand spreader. Keep in mind that fertilizer an be corrosive so wash your spreader thoroughly after using it. Spreading 165 lbs of DAP with a chest mount spreader will be work but it is doable. You might want to look at a Solo chest mount spreader. I really love mine. All of the exposed parts are plastic (but I'd still wash it out good). I find it works better than most chest mount spreaders. If you already have one try it first, but if you find you have issue, try the Solo.

Most fertilizer recommendations are for farmers trying to maximize yield. That is not the objective for deer managers in most cases. The buckwheat will do fine without the Urea. It will save you effort and cost.

Thanks,

Jack

Great! Thank you jack. That will save some money. I will get the full report in the mail on Friday. I will let you guys all know the numbers. Thank you for your help.

 

[EarthySpirit]

Great! Thank you jack. That will save some money. I will get the full report in the mail on Friday. I will let you guys all know the numbers. Thank you for your help.

I forgot to answer you Jack. I plan to plant buckwheat in the spring, and then clover in the fall with a nurse of winter wheat and or rye.

 

[EarthySpirit]

Plant ALL in one plot in strips or blocks

Alice, Kopu II, Durana (or comparable) white clover 10% of plot, 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 crimson and/or 50#'s of chickling vetch)

Cereal Grain combo in 45% of plot...we use 50# each rye, oats and peas along with radish and clover seed all planted in half of each feeding area

Winter rye 50-80#'s per acre (56#'s = a bushel)
Spring oats 50-120#'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 but for best results soil test and add only what is necessary.

Rotate the brassicas and rye combo each year

This is the recipe, good luck

This is a very confusing explanation. Can someone put this more simply for me? I'm interested in trying this recipe, but I don't understand it. for instance it says, "45% cerial grain combo, then they say half of the feeding area ( I assume half of the 45%) is to be clover and radish. If this is true, why don't they just say 22.5% is to be cereal grain and 22.5% is to be clover/radish? This makes me think I'm not understanding what he's trying to say. And there are several other things said in this which are confusing. Thanks for any help deciphering.

 

[SmallChunk]

45% brassica mix
45% grain mix
10% clover mix
=100% of field

 

[yoderjac]

I forgot to answer you Jack. I plan to plant buckwheat in the spring, and then clover in the fall with a nurse of winter wheat and or rye.

Given your goal is to establish a perennial clover plot, I'd definitely skip the Urea. Buckwheat and Winter rye respond pretty well without the added N. The clover is a legume that will fix its own N. One more tip, since this is a new field, you will want to either use pre-inoculated clover or buy inoculant and inoculate the clover prior to planting it. Inoculant is inexpensive.

I think Small Chunk's percentages are referring to strip planting. When you include brassica in a mix you have to keep the percentages low. For example, I will often add Ground Hog Radish (a brassica) to the Winter Rye/Clover mix. I never use over 2 lbs/ac of brassica. If you do, it shades out everything else in the mix.

With strip planting, you divide a field into sections and plant a single kind of seed in each section (strip). This is typically done with annuals. Each year, you rotate which kind of seed you are planting in the strips. This is a very different strategy than establishing perennial clover as I'm suggesting. It can work well under some conditions. It is a strategy used more in the north with grains, annual clovers, and brassicas. It is probably not something I'd use with small plots like yours in KY but it certainly could be used. Since you are just starting, I'd keep it simple. Preparing with buckwheat and establishing perennial clover with a nurse crop in the fall will give you a 5+ years of attraction and good deer food with one year of planting and no maintenance by appropriate mowing.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[EarthySpirit]

Given your goal is to establish a perennial clover plot, I'd definitely skip the Urea. Buckwheat and Winter rye respond pretty well without the added N. The clover is a legume that will fix its own N. One more tip, since this is a new field, you will want to either use pre-inoculated clover or buy inoculant and inoculate the clover prior to planting it. Inoculant is inexpensive.

I think Small Chunk's percentages are referring to strip planting. When you include brassica in a mix you have to keep the percentages low. For example, I will often add Ground Hog Radish (a brassica) to the Winter Rye/Clover mix. I never use over 2 lbs/ac of brassica. If you do, it shades out everything else in the mix.

With strip planting, you divide a field into sections and plant a single kind of seed in each section (strip). This is typically done with annuals. Each year, you rotate which kind of seed you are planting in the strips. This is a very different strategy than establishing perennial clover as I'm suggesting. It can work well under some conditions. It is a strategy used more in the north with grains, annual clovers, and brassicas. It is probably not something I'd use with small plots like yours in KY but it certainly could be used. Since you are just starting, I'd keep it simple. Preparing with buckwheat and establishing perennial clover with a nurse crop in the fall will give you a 5+ years of attraction and good deer food with one year of planting and no maintenance by appropriate mowing.

Thanks,

Jack

Thanks so much, Jack. This is great. I do have a concern about having winter food, however. Will the nurse crop of oats or rye be enough to get me through december in N Ky?

 

[EarthySpirit]

You are likely blessed with that pH but as Dan says, more info would be helpful. If they gave you a fertilizer recommendation, you likely gave them a crop you plan to plant. What crop did you give them? I would likely skip the Urea if you are planting buckwheat in the spring. What did you decide to plant in the fall. I know you got a lot of recommendations.

As for applying fertilizer, you can use a hand spreader. Keep in mind that fertilizer an be corrosive so wash your spreader thoroughly after using it. Spreading 165 lbs of DAP with a chest mount spreader will be work but it is doable. You might want to look at a Solo chest mount spreader. I really love mine. All of the exposed parts are plastic (but I'd still wash it out good). I find it works better than most chest mount spreaders. If you already have one try it first, but if you find you have issue, try the Solo.

Most fertilizer recommendations are for farmers trying to maximize yield. That is not the objective for deer managers in most cases. The buckwheat will do fine without the Urea. It will save you effort and cost.

Thanks,

They did ask me what I was planting. So, I guess their recommendation was a generic one. I plan to do as you suggest: Buckwheat in spring, then clover/rye in the fall into the buckwheat. And based on your other response, I may not need to add any Urea, what about the DAP?

 

[yoderjac]

You likely don't have enough acreage to have a measureable impact on the herd. This gets back to establishing realistic goals. Keep in mind that a tiny percentage of a deer's diet comes from food plots. There are two general objectives. One is doing QDM and this requires scale. The second is attracting deer and making land more huntable. It takes very little land to achieve the second objective. For the first objective, if you convert 1% of a deer's home range into quality food, you can begin to measure the effects in body weight and antler size. At 3% the impact becomes more significant. When you get beyond 5% you begin to hit the law of diminishing returns. A deer's home range varies with habitat, but a general rule of thumb is 1,000 acres. So, 1% is 10 acres. You don't need to own the 1000 acres, but you need a level of control over it. It may be a cooperative with neighbors.

The next step is to make sure that 1% is filling gaps when nature is not providing alternative quality foods. I'd start by drawing a circle with your property at the center that is 3 miles and begin to evaluate what food sources are available and when they are available. That is a starting point for where the food gaps are.

Of course if you are trying to do QDM, food is only one aspect, and it may not be the limiting factor. If your deer are limited by another factor, increase food may yield no measureable impact.

So, unless you have sufficient scale, don't worry about feeding deer. Consider your food plots as a good thing and one more drop in the bucket, but not a significant factor in herd health. Focus on attraction and huntability which are realistic goals.

We own 378 acres and cooperate with a few adjoining land owners. We have a total of just under 1,000 acres. We do timber management, controlled burns, and have 20 acres of tillable ground. We plan about 13 acres in deer food. We plant 7 acres of soybeans to cover our summer stress period and follow that by broadcasting a cover crop in the standing beans in the fall. The rest is primarily in clover. We let bucks under 2 1/2 walk. Doing all of this for over 10 years, we are probably on the ratty edge of having a measureable impact on the herd health.

If you keep your objectives realistic, you will have good success improving your hunting!

Thanks,

Jack

 

[EarthySpirit]

You likely don't have enough acreage to have a measureable impact on the herd. This gets back to establishing realistic goals. Keep in mind that a tiny percentage of a deer's diet comes from food plots. There are two general objectives. One is doing QDM and this requires scale. The second is attracting deer and making land more huntable. It takes very little land to achieve the second objective. For the first objective, if you convert 1% of a deer's home range into quality food, you can begin to measure the effects in body weight and antler size. At 3% the impact becomes more significant. When you get beyond 5% you begin to hit the law of diminishing returns. A deer's home range varies with habitat, but a general rule of thumb is 1,000 acres. So, 1% is 10 acres. You don't need to own the 1000 acres, but you need a level of control over it. It may be a cooperative with neighbors.

The next step is to make sure that 1% is filling gaps when nature is not providing alternative quality foods. I'd start by drawing a circle with your property at the center that is 3 miles and begin to evaluate what food sources are available and when they are available. That is a starting point for where the food gaps are.

Of course if you are trying to do QDM, food is only one aspect, and it may not be the limiting factor. If your deer are limited by another factor, increase food may yield no measureable impact.

So, unless you have sufficient scale, don't worry about feeding deer. Consider your food plots as a good thing and one more drop in the bucket, but not a significant factor in herd health. Focus on attraction and huntability which are realistic goals.

We own 378 acres and cooperate with a few adjoining land owners. We have a total of just under 1,000 acres. We do timber management, controlled burns, and have 20 acres of tillable ground. We plan about 13 acres in deer food. We plant 7 acres of soybeans to cover our summer stress period and follow that by broadcasting a cover crop in the standing beans in the fall. The rest is primarily in clover. We let bucks under 2 1/2 walk. Doing all of this for over 10 years, we are probably on the ratty edge of having a measureable impact on the herd health.

If you keep your objectives realistic, you will have good success improving your hunting!

Thanks,

Jack

Ok, great. thanks Jack. So you think that if I offer clover in all fields with a nurse crop of WR or WW, I'm good for the season? As I mentioned earlier, I have 51 acres. As of the end of spring I will have approximately 1.5 acres in plots. I have about 5 acres dedicated totally to hinge-cut bedding areas. They are loaded with does and small bucks. Right now, the Bigger bucks don't show up till the last week of October. Once they do, several 130-140's seem to be around. This past year there were about 5 separate ones. One may have been pushing 150. But, They are not staying on my property yet, as far as I can tell. They are following the does once the rut starts up. Maybe the clover will last until late november for N Ky, so that I dont' have to worry about december. I guess my concern about December was that if I did not get my buck in the primary rut, would I have enough food on my property to keep the bucks coming back for food in December. Does clover last through december in N KY, or does it go dormant by then? We don't get much snow, so I dont' worry about it covering the clover deeply for extended periods of time. As always, thank you so much Jack for your generous time you spend with me.

 

[EarthySpirit]

More information from you soil sample test results, please?! PPM or lbs per acres P & K? CCE? OM%?

Phosphorus is a 22 which is low.
Potassium (K) is 335, which is high.
Mg is 209, which is high
soil ph is 6.3
buffer ph is 7.0
zinc is 2.0
Calcium is 6285

CEC data is as follows

CEC 21
Base sat % 81
K% - 2
Ca % - 75
mg% - 4
H % - 19

They recommended no lime, no K2o, no lime and no mg. But they recommended 80 lb/ac of P205. What is P205? Not sure