Newby Central MN Hayfield to food plots

Wind Gypsy

5 year old buck +
Hi folks, new member here and am about to close on 40 acres in kanabec county MN. There is a lot of good cover but about 8 acres of the land is historically hay field. The previous owner stopped haying it 3 or 4 years ago and has been letting most of it just do it's thing. A couple acres he has tilled and planted once but hasn't touched it this year. I have never planted a food plot.

Long story short, I'm hoping to get an acre of food planted yet this year and looking for advice on the best way to go about it. What is known thus far:
1. I have an ATV with 25 gal sprayer and can borrow my stepdads cultipacker. Beyond that and an earthway 2750 bag seeder, that is the extent of my equipment and tools
2. I will not be able to start work until 8/13.
3. I have ordered enough Northwoods whitetails sweet feast brassica blend and Fall forage blend (oats, forage peas, winter wheat and rye grain) to at least go 50/50 with these on an acre.
4. I took soil samples yesterday but dont have results yet.

The areas that were tilled a couple years ago have a fair bit of bare dirt that makes me feel like I'd have a much better chance of gettnig seed to soil contact. The parts of field that haven't been tilled in decades and haven't been hayed in a few years make me question if I'd get seeds to soil and if they'd get enough sun to grow throw the thick forest of existing grass.

I'm looking for advice on process that would offer the best odds of actually getting some food to grow this fall. Throw, roll with cultipacker, spray? Spray, wait a couple weeks, and seed/cultipack in late august? Once I have soil test results should I plan on fertilizing after any germination occurs?

Thanks for any help!
 
Last edited:
I would spread the recommended fertilizer, lime and seed in the morning, then cultipack and spray everything that afternoon. That should kill most of the existing vegetation and with a little rain you should get the new seed to grow. The existing grass will help hold moisture and will actually increase your germination rate for the seeds.

I would add some winter rye and oats to at least a portion to give you some variety.

You could pick up an ATV pull behind spreader that will save you a lot of effort on both the fertilizer and large seeds. Small seeds like brassicas will likely need to be spready with a hand spreader.

Take lots of pictures and good luck.
 
I would spread the recommended fertilizer, lime and seed in the morning, then cultipack and spray everything that afternoon. That should kill most of the existing vegetation and with a little rain you should get the new seed to grow. The existing grass will help hold moisture and will actually increase your germination rate for the seeds.

I would add some winter rye and oats to at least a portion to give you some variety.

You could pick up an ATV pull behind spreader that will save you a lot of effort on both the fertilizer and large seeds. Small seeds like brassicas will likely need to be spready with a hand spreader.

Take lots of pictures and good luck.
Thanks for the reply!

The fall forage blend is oats, forage peas, winter wheat and rye grain. Were you referring to adding some to the brassicas? I read that over seeding with rye is frequently a good idea once brassica's start.
 
I missed that portion of your post - I think your plan is a good one. 8/13 is pretty late to get much brassica growth in MN, but it is certainly worth a shot and with some decent weather it could still feed quite a few deer. I would also recommend adding some groundhog radishes if they aren't already included in your brassica blend. Groundhog radishes grow very quickly and will give you more tonnage in a shorter time than other brassicas. I'd still stick with whatever brassica blend you purchased, but add some groundhog radishes if they aren't already included in that mix. I order mine from Welter's in Iowa and they are typically only a couple bucks per pound so they are a low cost addition.

I would plant everything at the same time - your planting date is late enough that I don't think you will need to delay planting rye or oats. I overseeded rye in SE MN last year on August 1st in some brassicas and the rye didn't get very big that fall, so you won't have to worry about the rye growing like crazy and taking over the entire plot.
 
Thanks. Reckon i'll need to buy a spreader for lime/fertilizer as well. It seems like the Herd is a popular hitch mount model but lower capacity than some pull behinds. I'm open to suggestions here.

I did order some of these radish seeds as well https://northwoodswhitetails.com/product/whitetail-forage-radish/ and the blend includes "tillage radish". Not sure if either is the same thing as groundhog radish.
 
Tillage radish should be similar to Groundhog.

I bought an atv spreader that just mounts to the rack. $120 or so. Has worked for two years now. Good on fertilizer and large seeds. Spread small seeds with the bag spreader.
 
Update: sprayed gly fri/sat, seeded/fertilized/rolled with cultipacker tues/weds. First rain in a couple weeks is forecasted for Friday evening with some possible rain throughout the week following.

I filled my sprayer with water from the river on my property. Just heard this morning that this is a no no because any sediment can neutralize the gly. Water was pulled from a pool that is not connected to the river because of drought conditions and it was pretty clear but it may not always be that way and I better figure out a plan for future spraying. Really hoping the gly still works because I don't have time to get back out there before the rain.

A lot of the grass/weeds didn't lay down much after running over with a cultipacker once or twice. I'll post pics when I get a chance.

I have very low expectations for this year but it was good to go through the process just so I know what the work looks like for the future.
 
Last edited:
Also, i bought an owner's brand atv rack mounted spreader. They had good reviews, were cheap, and readily available. It worked well for the 800 lbs of lime/fert granules i spread with it but there's no mistaking the cheap quality of build/components. I assume I'll upgrade to a Herd model eventually.
 
You can see the line of what has been run over with cultipacker vs not but it's not exactly all laying flat. This is one I actually want a lot of food in but the sprayer was also fed 100% from river water so hopefully I don't have a complete gly failure.

0B265501-714F-40AA-A3F8-35185EFDEA75.jpeg

Most of this has been run over with cultipacker twice and still standing strong.. I actually got most of this sprayed with gly that was mixed with well water so hopefully it gets a good kill and something grows. I'm not very optimistic and frankly dont care if this plot grows much because it is too exposed to public road. I'll have a nice screen in next year.

CE9700D1-F5AF-44D8-BD83-7F2454BA9378.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Went back today to check on things, overseed WR, and spread some urea. Brassicas in general seem to have germinated well. The oats, WW, WR, and peas “fall greens mix” seem a little less successful. I think I seeded brassicas too heavy.
74478A3F-7A69-44D8-8F29-40FF8FDDC280.jpeg

6D322819-63F8-40F4-949D-B0B84CB3526E.jpeg

this one strip of fall greens seems to have germinated much better than other areas. I’m guessing it may have been where there was overlap from two different passes with the bag seeder.

193A5AD4-5313-42BF-989A-FA1A3FDFF0E6.jpeg


I can’t tell if these little shoots are the fall greens blend or regen from the grass that was sprayed.

B8916CE5-FF2B-42FB-A2E3-069499BF823C.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Look to be too fine to be a cereal grain of any sort.

That’s what I figured. This picture from the webpage for that seed mix makes it look pretty fine so I was second guessing.

95C905D3-447C-484F-8269-52A78E1F8192.jpeg
 
Checked things out again today. There are areas of good brassica coverage but they just aren’t getting very big. Doubt they’ll get mature even though the weather has been kind to me with no frost still in the 10 day and consistent moisture. The WR, WW, WP, and oats blend really just didn’t germinate well anywhere. The bottom pic is focused on where they did best.



64F0D4FC-F5F5-4126-8AEF-11A12BC23AC8.jpeg9D353C76-C064-45CD-AEFE-748937E2016E.jpeg


B4BDAEE6-A78F-4E92-B0ED-A84DFFD0DAB9.jpeg
 
Top