Planting ideas when I have Johnson Grass and Sericea Lespedeza

[khizzle]

First year. My Summer plot seemed to be off to a decent start with germination but deer ate my beans, sunflower, cow pea mix before any canopy. Then had explosions of Johnson Grass and Sericea Lespedeza. Glyphosate will work but kills everything else.

What could I really plant that I could still control these invasives with herbicide and keep my plantings? Or plant something that will establish quickly with less browse pressure?

The only thought I have is maybe clovers. I think the Clethodim and 2,4-DB combo should control Johnson grass and Sericea?

I guess otherwise Glyphosate tolerant crops but I think those will be hard to establish with the deer density or seem to be primarily summer focused.

Just wondering if I do a normal fall blend I’ll have the same issues.

I’m in Kentucky zone 6b.


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[Native Hunter]

If you plant fall plots around Sept first or later, you won’t have the trouble with SL and JG until next year ( assuming you get a good kill at the time ). Then it starts all over again until you eventually exhaust the seedbank of the invasives.

You could do straight wheat for the fall the first few years. Get it thick, and it comes up so quickly that it chokes everything else out that year. Deer love it and they can’t wipe it out as quickly as they did your ice cream crops that you planted. But increase plot size as needed.

After that, just start killing the invasives and not letting them go to seed. For a while you may have to sacrifice a summer crop for part of the growing season.

You can eventually get the JG with cleth applications and stopping new seed. After that you might consider doing spring oats for a couple of years as a summer crop and killing the SL with Remedy or something similar, which won’t hurt the oats. Good luck.

 

[swat1018]

GMO corn and beans that you can spray over the top of is your best option. Roundup or even some of the new xtend crops.

 

[omicron1792]

Liberty or roundup ready crops in summer. Imi tolerant crops in summer or winter. Like native said you want them to sprout so you can kill them before they go to seed and eventually you will exhaust the seed bank or rhizomes energy stores.

 

[buckdeer1]

Use plateau to kill the JG before it seeds out.Then plant fall crop