yoderjac
5 year old buck +
If I was up north, that is exactly what I'd do...
New plot summer planting (prior to fall planting)
- Thread starter Wind Gypsy
- Start date
Wind Gypsy
5 year old buck +
If taking that route, would there still be a benefit to burning in the spring? What about a burn and spray re-emergence with Clethodim to get a start on the grass but not knock everything back? The areas that aren't as heavy in grass are mostly clover and I hadn't noticed much of concern besides the really thick grass patches.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
I'd definitely burn if you can just to clean up that extra residue so you can get through with your drill later on. I still wouldn't spray until you're ready to put your fall plot in. If you save that first shot of gly, you'll have your best shot to get everything on the first try. If you kill it and keep it partially killed and out of balance for the summer, your soil biology will suffer, and that's when the non mycorhizal fungi dependent weeds roll in and dominate. And those are the ag weeds that are nearly impossible to kill.
Rip it open quickly, get it closed quickly.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Completely agree, not need to spray in this situation unless you have a specific problematic grass that is dominating.
jsasker007
5 year old buck +
Just going from memory here but doesn't the LC rotation have the methods that LC used in the spring with certain parts of the rotation? I would follow that. I think Paul was doing most of his plots in Iowa. Not a huge difference from there to where you are at as far as what will grow. jmo
Wind Gypsy
5 year old buck +
I think he just said to follow the dead brassicas with oats/clover in the spring. Not as applicable to a new plot.
I think i'm going to follow @SD51555's advice where I burn. I have one other plot that wont get burned and is higher/dryer and more sparsely vegetated that still might get planted in the spring regardless.
bigboreblr
5 year old buck +
You could burn, then let the weeds just start to come alive young, then disc them in. That is original weed control. Even spreading lime on young weeds hurts them and kills some too.
You disc, let it go a week to let any dormant seeds come alive, then fine tine it seed n cultipack. Use what your doing to kill weeds.
Live soil dead soil, I know next to nothing about. But, it'll take some steering to get to no till likely.
Planting clover helps get the rhibosomes colonized there. Grow something annual so it grows quicker.
Or, like someone mentioned grow a stand of rye. If your in good shape weed wise with the rye alone, then run the cultipacker to kill the rye and use the seed drill. Put the application of rye a bit on the heavy side to make it dense to choke out weeds.
You disc, let it go a week to let any dormant seeds come alive, then fine tine it seed n cultipack. Use what your doing to kill weeds.
Live soil dead soil, I know next to nothing about. But, it'll take some steering to get to no till likely.
Planting clover helps get the rhibosomes colonized there. Grow something annual so it grows quicker.
Or, like someone mentioned grow a stand of rye. If your in good shape weed wise with the rye alone, then run the cultipacker to kill the rye and use the seed drill. Put the application of rye a bit on the heavy side to make it dense to choke out weeds.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
The problem is that discing just brings more weed seeds into the germination layer and doesn't really help. The original weed control was not a disk but a plow which turns the soil over. That controls weeds but destroys the soil tilth and microbiology. The best you can do is give your crop and even chance with the weeds without herbicides or a plow. I'd just tolerate them if you can't or won't use herbicides.
One thing you can do is to choose deer crops like buckwheat for summer that is very fast to germinate and grow and competes well with most weeds.
Troubles Trees
5 year old buck +
Do you mow the Buckwheat and Sunn Hemp to terminate it or do you use Herbicides before planting your fall plot? And what do you plant in the fall?
I am in a similar situation as Wind only my field is mostly Goldenrod with some native clover and grasses underneath. I would prefer not to use Herbicides at all but have a feeling I will need to kill off the native vegetation at some point. I don't care if I have a few weeds in my food plots so maybe not. Either way I am looking for T&M planting because I only have a 4 wheeler and a 60" Swisher mower to work with, and I am only planting 1 acre as an attractant more so than a food source.
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yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I typically mow it. Some years Sunn Hemp dominates and I may also run a tiller above the ground to chew it up more like a fail mower would so it decomposes faster. In years when buckwheat dominates that is not necessary. My fall mix is WR/CC/PTT. I will sometimes use a little GHR in place of or in addition to PTT in some fields. I just surface broadcast and cultipack. Weeds are not an issue for me for a fall plant. Here in zone 7a, summer weeds can be more of an issue. Again, I'm pretty weed tolerant as long and Buckwheat and Sunn hemp compete well with the weeds.
In the spring WR greens up early and provides food until it matures a bit. By then the Crimson Clover is taking off. I like to plant my BW/SH in late May or early June. If the crimson is pretty thick by then, I may use gly to terminate it before the BW/SH plant. In most cases, the maturing WR keeps the CC in check. In some years, if we have a bumper mast crop, the PTT is not eaten by spring and can bolt. In that case, I either mow or run a tiller above ground to terminate the PTT before it bolts.
In the spring WR greens up early and provides food until it matures a bit. By then the Crimson Clover is taking off. I like to plant my BW/SH in late May or early June. If the crimson is pretty thick by then, I may use gly to terminate it before the BW/SH plant. In most cases, the maturing WR keeps the CC in check. In some years, if we have a bumper mast crop, the PTT is not eaten by spring and can bolt. In that case, I either mow or run a tiller above ground to terminate the PTT before it bolts.
Troubles Trees
5 year old buck +
Good input Jack, thank you sir.
What seeding rates do you use? If you don't mind me asking.
What seeding rates do you use? If you don't mind me asking.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Not at all. For the summer mix, I've been playing around. I'd say 20-25 lbs/ac of each BW and Sunn Hemp have worked pretty well. I've been playing with adding a third component to that mix which has caused me to play with the rates. I found Milo grew well with this mix, but it wasn't worth it. I need to mow before the grain heads mature and deer hit them. I tried leaving strips of Sunn Hemp and Sorghum standing one year as vertical cover. The deer used the vertical cover as expected. I angled them in toward box blinds and such. Deer used the sorghum heads in these strips, but the amount of actual food the strips provided was minimal. I'll probably experiment with other crops that can be surface broadcast as a third component. But the rates I described above worked well with my soil for T&M and cultipack for just BW/Sunn Hemp.
For fall, I shoot for between 80 and 100 lbs/ac of WR, about 10 lbs/ac of CC and I try not to exceed 2 lbs/ac for the brassica component, whether PTT or GHR or a mix of the two.
Thanks,
Jack
CarolinaDawg
A good 3 year old buck
Yoder, I’m 100% surface broadcasting on sandy loam in central Georgia and I’m still searching for summer mix that does well with broadcasting in summer and leaves me with good thatch for my fall planting. Thatch is super critical for success with my soil.
I would love to know what your thatch is like with only BW and SH planted. I have to wait until October for my fall planting, so my fear is that amount of sun hemp growing from May-June to October would be a fibrous mess and we all know how fast BW breaks down. Seems like an easy mix for the summer, but I feel like I would pay a price in the fall. Thoughts?
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
You are right about the sunn hemp. When it gets old the stems are quite fibrous. I have heavy clay, so our soil types are quite different. Some years, the buckwheat dominates and is the tallest in the field. You find sunn hemp but it never gets more than a foot tall. I'm guessing this is due to deer browsing pressure being much more biased toward the sunn hemp when young. It may have to do with the dates I plant relative to when does drop fawns. I found that to be important with soybeans. In other years the sunn hemp dominates and completely dominates and hides the sunn hemp. If you search the froum for "Sunn Hemp", I'm sure you will find a picture of me mowing sunn hemp that is taller than than the tractor and quite fibrous.
In years when I think the sunn hemp is too thick, rather than just a straight T&M, I use a min-till technique. It is almost like using a tiller as a flail mower. I hold it so the tines barely hit the top inch. It is mostly just chewing up the sunn hemp and doing very little tillage. If you have a flail mower, with your soil, it would be an even better choice.
I have not really had a big issue surface broadcasting over this mix. I do use a cultipacker after broadcasting. My fall mix is WR/CC/PTT which all surface broadcast quite wall through thatch. I'm sure thatch could be a bigger issue with folks further south than me that have longer summer growing seasons. Sunn Hemp is from the tropics and does not go to seed here. I'm not sure how it acts in Georga.
Thanks,
jack
bigboreblr
5 year old buck +
Mower as main implement. Definitely would go the clover and grains route. Mow it this summer at the point where your mower cant handle any more grass. Come early august in NY, spread some fertilizer and winter rye or oats. Mow it low and dirve the heck out of it with your atv tires. Let the grains take over in the fall. In the winter, frost seed clover in. You can put some clover in your august mix, it may not grow, it might. Go for a red clover, it seems to handle poor seedbed prep better in my experience. When frost seeding. The red perennial clover grows taller, but ladino clover handles being grazed right down to the ground better.
Getting more good stuff to food plot with is cheap and eazy. Cultipackers are great and epxensive. A used lawn roller on craigslist of about $50. See those fancy $500 ATV sprayers with a boom? You can buy their 15 gal 1gpm spot sprayer for $100, then for about $7 buy a 140 deg nozzle. Don't quote me here, but I think you can use the grey colored one. Look at the pump curve chart. See what gpm the pump makes at 25 psi. Then look for a nozzle with the same or close flow at 25 psi. I am using 2 grey ones on my spot sprayer. I make a 4ft wide 2 nozzle boom for about $40 with 2 of those 140 deg nozzles. For a $200 investment, you got 2 really good implements.
Another cheap / free implement is water.... See garden hose for cheap at yard sales, pick them up. Pretty soon a food plot 200 yards away from the faucet can get watered. If you cant till or roll the seed in that great, having the water helps a ton. My plot is about 300ft away from my faucet. Run a spot 10 minutes, then move over to the next spot. When your done at night after work watering, move it to the middle. When yourte getting ready in the morning, turn the water back on again for 15 minutes.
Your mower....... For that fall food plot mowing. I mow high as I can, then do a 2nd pass down enough where you're not damaging the mower hitting ground or rocks. Get that stuff chopped up good.
I cant compare grains. I have heard deer like oats the best, they love rye when it's young. The bonus of oats it's found everywhere. If using feed oats, buy them a month early and test germinate them. Throw a pinch of dirt in a pan, then evenly space and count about 25 seeds. Throw some more dirt on it, key it moist and cover lightly with plastic by a window inside. You see plants, your good to go. The rye grows better on your kind of seedbed though. I've never had a bad bag of feed oats........
If you're one with the weeds. Leave some goldenrod. Meandering paths in the goldenrod forest will attract deer. A few people I know, this is what they do for deer in their field. Mid september, mow it. For the 1st 2 week after you mow, there'll be fresh growth the deer enjoy, and with your bow theyll regret it......
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Wind Gypsy
5 year old buck +
So hiring someone to Burn for me looks like a $2k cost now. I'm not sure if there is still any hay value to what's out there but if on of my neighbors wanted to hay it do you guys think that would be a big downgrade from burning it? It would still remove a lot of debris.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Wow. We just burned an 8 acre clear-cut. We provided the labor and the burn coordinator we hired charged $200 for his help and expertise.
Wind Gypsy
5 year old buck +
Update: There is now a burn restriction but it sounds like I should be able to get a burn permit sometime after green up, maybe mid may.
I just got a call informing me that my no-till drill is ready to ship 2.5 months early. I'm thinking I'll plant something like that albert lea seed summer max to get familiar with the new drill on my other plot that I didn't intend to burn because it doesn't have such thick grass. Been a damn good day, I drew my Limited Entry Elk tag in Montana too!
I just got a call informing me that my no-till drill is ready to ship 2.5 months early. I'm thinking I'll plant something like that albert lea seed summer max to get familiar with the new drill on my other plot that I didn't intend to burn because it doesn't have such thick grass. Been a damn good day, I drew my Limited Entry Elk tag in Montana too!
