Novice Question: Spring Planting vs Fall Planting

[GloryDaysDesign]

Trying to avoid a bare plot at any time of the year.

I am just confused about how a Spring Plot is meant to contribute to my goals. Is my goal to set up my Fall plot with what I plant in the Spring? Do I keep what I planted in the Spring in my plot for an entire year? I am trying not to completely screw up. I realize the difference between a perennial and an annual. So if I planted clover this week, obviously this is a perennial which will continue to grow - would I not plant again in the summer/fall? Or do I retill and plant an annual at this time? What is the formula or "pattern"/"rotation" I should be following?

I planted a clover/brassica mix last fall. Clovers are starting to pop up again.... so.... do I just top seed this with clover again and not till under what is currently coming up?

Sorry Guys, I'm trying!

 

[Tap]

Last falls clover was actually planted for THIS YEAR. Keep an eye on weed issues, but the clover should hit stride by May or June and should last at least 3 years if cared for.
What variety of clover did you plant?

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[GloryDaysDesign]

I planted GrandpaRayOutdoors.com "Fall Draw".

25% Berseem Clover
25% Crimson Clover
10% Forage Radish
10% Winfred Brassica
10% Rutabaga
10% Forage Turnip
10% Ethiopian Cabbage

Should I just broadcast more Clover seed onto this plot before a rain? Nice to meet another hunter from Pennsy!

 

[GloryDaysDesign]

This was the plot last fall, followed by a current pic of the plot.

 

[Sconnie]

I too use Fall Draw From GRO. I usually plant it around Labor Day so the brassicas stay young and tasty. When using this product I typically will plant a cover crop such as buckwheat to keep weeds down and soil happy from May - Labor day. IMO you will be okay to leave it be for the year. It will grow. Nice looking ground you have!

 

[Tap]

I don't yet know about those non-clover species (although I DO have each one of those seeds right now waiting to be planted), (more on that in a minute.)
Those clover varieties are not exactly great for long term plots in the North. My deer hammer Crimson, but for a Northern variety, it's more of an annual. Not that you won't get some regeneration, and not that you shouldn't include it in a fall (Northern ) planting because deer love it, but there are better choices for a perennial clover planting for our zone. Look into Ladino, Alice White, Medium Red (several choices on that one) and Balansa is possibly an up-and-comer for clover plots. I'm just getting into my second year of Balansa Fixation clover and , so far, I'm impressed. It's a re-seeding annual. It looks like I will have a decent plot from the seeds it produced last year.

I will make a comment on the Winfred Brassica. I didn't exactly "plant" it but I did buy some seed from Green Cover Seed. Well, the bag inside the shipping box had a cut in it and the UPS driver left a trail of spilled seed from the truck to my door. Some of the seed got into the relief cuts in the concrete of my sidewalk.
The stuff is growing out of my sidewalk and it's survived quite a few severe freezes. (I actually had a thread titled "My New Plot" incase you care to see some pics).

I'm thinking that a couple of those brassica varieties that you planted may over-winter fairly well and could produce growth this spring. But will your deer eat brassica? Some guys on these forums can't get deer to eat it and other guys can't get it established because deer destroy it as it emerges. If your deer are the former, then you may want to terminate the surviving plants that survived the winter.
Now, what should you do with that plot? 1st opinion...read all of the Lickcreek threads and believe what you read. The man was a gift to food plotters.
Otherwise, my opinion...plant some buckwheat in about a month and re-plant the plot this fall with stuff that fits your plan. Maybe split it in brassica annuals and then plant a Lickcreek mix in the other areas...basically clover and cereal rye (NOT RYEGRASS).

And some of those brassica varieties you've planted are not common with a lot of food plotters. Please share your experiences with us...you might be more experienced than you think you are when it comes to certain plants.
Welcome to the addiction.
BTW, where in Pa are you?

 

[j-bird]

I personally think you are looking at either a fall annual plot of brassica and cereal grains or a perennial plot of clovers and maybe chicory. I think the size of the plot simply reduces the chance of it being useful as a summer forage plot (without protection) or to produce fall grains in enough volume to be of use to you much into the hunting season (just my opinion). So, with that said - in either case your plot needs something in it besides weeds. I either plant annual clovers or buckwheat for now. These will build the soil and help control weeds and a better plot later. Come late summer terminate these and plant according to what you want.

Perennial plot of ladino and medium red clovers and maybe some chicory will be great for your deer in the cool weather of spring and fall. You don't have to plant the chicory as it can limit chemicals you can spray. It has shown to be of particular interest on my place in the fall to deer as they pick every blade they can find in october. The plot that fall will not look all that impressive....it will look far better come the following spring and can then provide a food plot for several years without replanting.

Fall annual plot of brassica (radish and turnips) and cereal grains (oats, wheat, rye) will feed the deer that fall, into early winter and then again come spring. Cereal grains like rye and maybe winter wheat will survive the winter and come to life again come spring.

An interesting option or spin off of a fall annual plot is to also plant your perennial mix if you wish with the fall annual mix. What happens is the brassica and oats die over the winter and the clover and wheat/rye come to life in the spring and then you terminate the wheat/rye or simply let mother natural kill it off and you end up with a green carpet of perennial clover. Lots of folks do this to establish a perennial clover plot without sacrificing the atractiveness of the plot that fall of planting.

Just my opinions and some ideas.

 

[Tap]

J-bird has good advice, but I'll add a couple of thoughts, and this applies to ANY advice you may get on forums. Your location may not conform to the successes or failures of others that advise you. It's a worn-out rant of mine...posters should be required to show location.
Another thing to keep in mind is your local deer per square mile. Especially for us plotters of small acreage. Sometimes, when we plant highly desirable forages in high DPSM areas, the deer destroy our small plots and nature hates a vacuum, so weeds and other stuff takes over. The deer eat the good stuff and the undesirable stuff takes over and we think our plots are failing. Overgrazing can be an issue for a lot of us and we don't realize it's happening. Exclusion cages are quite valuable.
And what J-bird said about chicory is so true...deer love it, but it really does complicate herbicide choices.


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[Bowsnbucks]

GloryDaysDesign posted he's from East Bangor, Pa. That's north of Allentown, I believe. His location isn't far from my home - about a 50 minute drive.

I can share what we've planted at our camp in north-central Pa. To keep weeds down & improve the soil, we plant buckwheat in May. Deer really hit the BW hard during the summer and in mid-August, we over-seed our brassica mix into the BW and then roll the BW down. The brassicas come up through the decaying BW, which helps keep moisture in the soil for the young brassicas. This has worked very well for us. BW is a good spring/summer food choice that allows you to seed something else after it for a fall/winter plot, while keeping weeds down for the fall plot & improving the soil as it decays to add organic material ( OM ).

For establishing a perennial clover plot, we've used oats & winter rye grain as nurse crops for the clovers and we plant these plots around Labor Day to the 10th of Sept. Oats will be the early attraction, but will die off with a heavy frost or two. The winter rye ( WR ) will keep growing and provide cover to the young clover as it establishes itself. The rye will be a winter food for deer and then in the spring, the clover will really take off. If the goal is to maximize the clover, mowing the rye to let more sun get to the clover will be a boost for the clover. White clovers will generally outlast red clovers in years duration. Ladino, Alice, Kopu II are the 3 white clover varieties that we use and have had good success with. I'm not familiar with Balansa or Durana clovers - others guys may be.

Tap and J-Bird above gave good advice and have planting experience.

 

[GloryDaysDesign]

Wow, I am trying to digest all of this! I have a bunch of questions to ask. Such good info - I owe you all a beer. Yes indeed, I am from East Bangor, PA. Located in the Poconos/Lehigh Valley. I call it East Central PA, right on the NJ border. Epicenter of HS wrestling.

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[GloryDaysDesign]

A few questions to start:

Tap, when you say "Plant it with Buckwheat in about a month" - Are you saying I should start this plot like it is a new plot, and retill, lime, and fertilize the current clover/brassica blend I planted last Labor Day? I never planted Buckwheat so this planting is new to me. Also, I didn't realize that Brassicas would re-germinate the following spring? If this is true, I take it I don't retill based on your strategy?

J-Bird, you are right, this particular plot is only about a 1/3 acre so def not much summer foraging. So same question - If I plant clover/buckwheat now, what is the planting method knowing there are already clover/brassicas in that soil? I have no issues replanting from ground zero, just want to understand the correct process. Also, is it a common practice to terminate a perennial clover plot come fall?

BowsNBucks, what's up neighbor! I love the BW strategy in May idea, as also recommended by the other two food plotting legends above. Same question - do I replant this plot with buckwheat like it is a brand new plot?





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[GloryDaysDesign]

And thank you for the ACRONYMS!


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[yoderjac]

From my perspective, you need to first establish your primary goal. Are you trying to improve the health of the local herd or are you trying to attract deer for hunting. Do you control enough acreage to improve the local herd in any measureable way? If you convert roughly 1% of a deer's home range into quality food, you can begin to measure improvement using weight and antler measurements. At 3% that improvement becomes significant. When you get over 5% you start to hit the law of diminishing returns. The home range of a deer varies with habitat, but a reasonable average is 1,000 acres. That would mean you need to convert about 10 acres to quality food to make a dent.

Otherwise, nutrition is a secondary concern and hunting season attraction becomes primary.

If you are in the herd improvement camp, you need to assess you stress periods. When does mother nature (or agriculture) provide a bounty of quality deer food and when are quality foods scarce? You need to select crops that can provide nutrition at the times when other quality foods are few and far between. In general, in the north, winter is the primary stress period and summer is secondary and it is generally reversed in the south. However everything is local. A guy in the south next to a soybean farm may not need to worry about summer nutrition. Farmers harvesting crops can have a major impact on stress. Failed mast crops can also be a factor to consider.

If you are in the attraction camp, fall should be your focus. Keep in mind that attraction is relative. So, timing can still be a factor as nearby ag crops are harvested. In most cases, daytime attraction will more be driven by the location of the plot and hunting pressure than the crop selected. Growing warm season annuls is much more difficult than growing cool season crops, so be sure to select crops that fit you fall attraction needs. For most folks in the attraction camp, it is better to think of spring as a time to get plots in shape for fall rather than planting for deer. Mowing clover fields helps manage broadleaf weeds. Crops like buckwheat can be part of a soil improvement program that helps control weeds and also provides deer food.

Best of luck,

Jack

 

[Tap]

A few questions to start:

Tap, when you say "Plant it with Buckwheat in about a month" - Are you saying I should start this plot like it is a new plot, and retill, lime, and fertilize the current clover/brassica blend I planted last Labor Day? I never planted Buckwheat so this planting is new to me. Also, I didn't realize that Brassicas would re-germinate the following spring? If this is true, I take it I don't retill based on your strategy?
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Did you do a soil test? That'll answer some of your questions as to whether you need to amend your soil. You might not need lime at all. My soil naturally is around 6.2 (got some of it up to 6.7) and I have limed it, but I really didn't HAVE to in order to have a decent plot.
Tillage: More and more plotters (and farmers) are practicing minimal tillage. Especially if you're using herbicide. The latest philosophy on turning soil is that it's not the best thing for healthy soil. I sold my moldboard plows and will never turn my soil again. I would like to own a chisel plow, though.
Buckwheat: It's one of the easiest things to grow. It tolerates lower pH, and will germinate with little or no tillage. Broadcasting it into killed and standing thatch and either mowing or cultipacking can get a decent stand. Lightly discing buckwheat seed into the soil is also helpful.
I said to wait about a month to plant Buckwheat because it does not tolerate any frost and likes warmer soil temps. May 8th is our normal date of last frost here in my area of Pa. One down side to BW is that the birds like the seed, so it's good to have thatch covering or incorporate it into the soil a little bit. Thatch is almost always good anyway. It helps retain moisture and eventually adds to organic matter, which feeds worms and a bunch of other valuable stuff that helps plants grow.

The brassicas: The term is widely used and sometimes misused. There are dozens of different brassica. Some are highly desirable and some, like Yellow Rocket, are considered weeds when talking about food plots. Some brassica is more winter hardy than others, and some of the survivors will start growing again in the spring (if the winter wasn't too cold or there was decent snow cover to insulate). As I said earlier, I've not yet planted some of the varieties that you planted, but my impression on the Winfred (based on the stuff germinating in January and growing in the relief cuts in my concrete sidewalk with zero soil) is that it MIGHT be very winter hardy around here. Your Winfred that you planted last fall MIGHT just rebound this spring. But It's still an annual. And that's good because long term brassica growth on the same plots can lead to disease issues. The general consensus is that brassica shouldn't be left to produce seed. Also it's a good idea to plant an interval crop (like buckwheat) in between brassica plantings. The interval crop will help break any disease cycle.

 

[Tap]

From my perspective, you need to first establish your primary goal. Are you trying to improve the health of the local herd or are you trying to attract deer for hunting. Do you control enough acreage to improve the local herd in any measureable way? If you convert roughly 1% of a deer's home range into quality food, you can begin to measure improvement using weight and antler measurements. At 3% that improvement becomes significant. When you get over 5% you start to hit the law of diminishing returns. The home range of a deer varies with habitat, but a reasonable average is 1,000 acres. That would mean you need to convert about 10 acres to quality food to make a dent.

Otherwise, nutrition is a secondary concern and hunting season attraction becomes primary.

If you are in the herd improvement camp, you need to assess you stress periods. When does mother nature (or agriculture) provide a bounty of quality deer food and when are quality foods scarce? You need to select crops that can provide nutrition at the times when other quality foods are few and far between. In general, in the north, winter is the primary stress period and summer is secondary and it is generally reversed in the south. However everything is local. A guy in the south next to a soybean farm may not need to worry about summer nutrition. Farmers harvesting crops can have a major impact on stress. Failed mast crops can also be a factor to consider.

If you are in the attraction camp, fall should be your focus. Keep in mind that attraction is relative. So, timing can still be a factor as nearby ag crops are harvested. In most cases, daytime attraction will more be driven by the location of the plot and hunting pressure than the crop selected. Growing warm season annuls is much more difficult than growing cool season crops, so be sure to select crops that fit you fall attraction needs. For most folks in the attraction camp, it is better to think of spring as a time to get plots in shape for fall rather than planting for deer. Mowing clover fields helps manage broadleaf weeds. Crops like buckwheat can be part of a soil improvement program that helps control weeds and also provides deer food.

Best of luck,

Jack

Excellent advice.

 

[GloryDaysDesign]

Live from this plot this AM!

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[GloryDaysDesign]

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[Bowsnbucks]

Glory Days - I've never planted BW into an established clover plot, so I can't answer that one.
From your pix, the few brassicas that are in your plot - I wouldn't worry about saving them. As the summer progresses, they'll just bolt and go to seed. If you want to establish a long-term plot of clover there - perennial clover - I'd spray the plot with glyphosate (gly) - which is generic Roundup - to kill all the stuff that's there now. I'd scratch up the soil somehow - disk, rototiller, spike harrow - and seed BW into the plot. We broadcast our BW with a crank spreader like an EarthWay over-the-shoulder bag type. After seeding, like Tap said above, you want to work it into the soil so the birds / turkeys don't find it.

We let ours grow until August - around the 10th to the 15th - and then seed our fall crop into the BW and roll it down. You can roll it down first, too, and then seed - this method works best if you have rain scheduled to come in a day later. Rain helps wash seed down into the soil. If you want a good perennial clover plot in the same spot, seed your clover right into the yellowing BW and the BW thatch will keep moisture in your plot as it decays. It would be good to drive a 4-wheeler over the plot then, to press the seed down to get soil contact or roll it with a heavy roller. A good 3-way mix of perennial white clovers for Pa. would be Ladino, Alice, and Kopu II. We get ours from Welter's Seed in Iowa. ( www.welterseed.com ) Phone - (800) 470-3325. Have them send you a catalog - you'll go nuts reading it !!

 

[GloryDaysDesign]

Here is a quick view of the entire farm. The pictures I uploaded prior is the lower pink rectangle to the left of the pond. Obviously this farm has a lot of Ag. One quick note: We are bowhunters, and our season ends Nov. 11th. This was posted on another thread too, so I apologize for the duplicate images. I have gathered a lot of info on this forum and I appreciate every bit of it, believe me. I am trying to stack my odds the best I can, and eliminate as many mistakes as I can control.

Per the map, Corn is to be planted this year. It was beans last year in the wide field to the north of the road. The corn field to the south was a hay field last year. Neither field was planted in a cover crop. I am not sure why? The beans were harvested on Nov. 7th and picked clean. The deer were all over the beans in the summer. Unfortunately, we do not have a say in what the farmer can plant. We are also going to plant the pink "L" plot to the North as well. The farmer does not want to give up the acreage he rents from my best friend's dad (a whole other story).

So, yes, I would imagine that these are going to be attraction plots. I will probably go with Buckwheat in both plots this Spring, and Grandpa Ray Outdoors perennial "Overseed mix" in the fall consisting of: 33% Ladino Clover - 33% Medium Red Clover - 33% Alsike Clover. Does this make sense? What would happen next year then? Since it is a perennial? Frost seed, mow, spray Cleth? Trying not to get ahead of myself.


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[GloryDaysDesign]

Rebooting this thread! Great info.

I ended up planting the buckwheat blend in both plots and it definitely exploded. I swear it was almost 5 feet high.... is this incorrect? Do you mow buckwheat? It was so high that even when I sprayed it in mid August it just layed down in huge piles. So, I guess I am a bit confused on how to avoid this? They didn't seem to eat the buckwheat, but after it was so high it actually seemed like they were bedding in it.

It seemed to be a safehaven for lots of bees too, which was cool to see. I sprayed both of these plots and planted brassica blends for the fall. Both plots had tons of action (of course mostly after hours!)