RR ag soy bean plot question

JFK52

5 year old buck +
I visited my land in the town of Almond, Portage county WI today. There is still snow in the shaded areas and the ground is real greasy. I wanted to see my winter food plots. 5 acres of RR corn is gone. Small RR ag soy bean fields are gone. However, my 6 acre large RR ag soy bean field is almost untouched. The pods are just thick and hanging like in December.

Two things happened different this winter. My land was not the only food source. A local farmer left up about 40 acres of corn in two areas to the West and North of my land. Next, I did not see ANY turkey sign on my land. Last year there were two different flocks of 40+ birds that just lived in the soy bean fields. One theory I have is that I believe I have a serious coyote problem and they are keeping the turkeys out of the soy bean field. Possibly the turkeys are in the standing corn fields as they are adjacent to great roosting areas. I believe the standing corn kept the deer from migrating to my land, as last winter I had 50 to 60 deer yarding on or just adjacent to it.

Here is my question. What do I do with this field if it is not eaten by the time planting season arrives? I was thinking of rotating it into a dwarf Essex rape seed food plot, so that would give the deer and turkeys until late July or early August before I planted it. Even then there might be a whole lot of soy beans left. All my food plots are usually totally gone by the end of February in the past several years so I have never had this situation arise. Should I just disk it under in May and spray it with Roundup until I decide to plant rape seed in it? The soy beans would be volunteers and I would use them as a cover crop and soil builder plus keep the weed under control for the rape seeding. There is no chance of it getting picked. Too small and wrong time of the year.

The 5 acre corn field is due to be rotated to no till RR ag soy beans this season. I have kicked around not planting any corn if that much is going to be left up in my neighborhood, which is always a guessing game.

Any suggestions are welcome.
 
If it were me, I would stick to whatever plan you originally had going into this year. If they didn’t eat the beans it’s because they didn’t need them for some reason. That doesn’t mean they won’t need them next winter. I can’t imagine once things green up, they’ll turn to the bean pods then. Normally there into green sources then.
 
I would mow it in the spring and lightly disk it. Come back and spray a few weeks later and let the volunteer beans act as summer forage until you want to rotate to rape. You may just end up liking the beans. When you mow beans will be everywhere....

There is always the ? of legality since the are RR beans but you're not harvesting for profit so it's a grey area.

Also if you get good rain disking may not even be necessary. If there is exposed soil beans will germinate throw and grow style.
 
I would mow it in the spring and lightly disk it. Come back and spray a few weeks later and let the volunteer beans act as summer forage until you want to rotate to rape. You may just end up liking the beans. When you mow beans will be everywhere....

There is always the ? of legality since the are RR beans but you're not harvesting for profit so it's a grey area.

Also if you get good rain disking may not even be necessary. If there is exposed soil beans will germinate throw and grow style.

Buy 1 bag of RR beans and broadcast it across all the fields you plan to lightly disk and lightly disk them in. Spray with gly and you are out of any grey area. The technology agreement has specific harvest requirements for some crops like alfalfa but not for soybeans. Since you are planting and spraying according to the technology agreement you are in the clear. Any volunteer beans you get are incidental. You are simply adjusting your seeding rate to account for any volunteer beans. If you did not plant any beans in that field and simply disked it lightly and sprayed with the intent of benefiting from an all volunteer crop, I think you may be in technical violation when you spray glyphosate on the volunteer beans.

When it comes to patent law, profit is not really the technical criteria. There is a list of criteria that I would generalize as "benefited from". Having said that, when it comes to actual suits, it is very rare for one to occur when profit is not involved.

In the case of planting over an unharvested field, you are operating within the bounds of the technology agreement and because there is no harvest requirement (you could let cattle or deer graze the beans to whatever level they chose), the volunteer beans are inherent to the nature of the patent. The spraying of the volunteer beans is incidental to your intended application of glyphosate to the purchased beans.

I'm no lawyer and don't offer this a legal advice, but I personally would be comfortable lightly overseeding an unharvested soybean field, lightly disking, and spraying with gly.

Thanks,

Jack
 
If the deer are so in love with standing corn, I would plant the big field in corn.
 
If the deer are so in love with standing corn, I would plant the big field in corn.

If the objective is feeding deer in the winter standing corn with the high carbs can do the job but corn is expensive these days. If the objective is creating a hunting opportunity, corn creates a food IN cover situation which can make deer hard to hunt.

Thanks,

Jack
 
I Like Bill's idea but I wouldn't even bother with mowing, just lightly disk them and let it rain. You will have a great bean field again. Hopefully they get used this year. You can broadcast preemergent the day you plant them and then use rup or other herbicides when its time.

This is what I am doing with my bean plots in the areas they have lots in pods yet. My dad did this last year to his and he got a great stand.
 
If the objective is feeding deer in the winter standing corn with the high carbs can do the job but corn is expensive these days. If the objective is creating a hunting opportunity, corn creates a food IN cover situation which can make deer hard to hunt.

Thanks,

Jack

He could knock the corn down pretty easily.

It seems like the local deer really like corn. Best case is the neighbor harvests his corn, leaving JFK with the best spot around. Worst case is the neighbor leaves his corn standing again, but at least JFK has the food the deer want.

The ignored the field when it had beans. Rape is unlikely to attract deer as well as corn. And he can knock the corn down in rows or some pattern that is convenient for him to hunt.

I'm new to this, but my philosophy is give the deer what they want.
 
And he can knock the corn down in rows or some pattern that is convenient for him to hunt.
You can't do that in WI. Anything not considered a normal agricultural practice is against the law.
 
Disc it..... wait for it to turn yellow and then broadcast brassica and cereal grains over it.
 
He could knock the corn down pretty easily.

It seems like the local deer really like corn. Best case is the neighbor harvests his corn, leaving JFK with the best spot around. Worst case is the neighbor leaves his corn standing again, but at least JFK has the food the deer want.

The ignored the field when it had beans. Rape is unlikely to attract deer as well as corn. And he can knock the corn down in rows or some pattern that is convenient for him to hunt.

I'm new to this, but my philosophy is give the deer what they want.

Keep in mind that dependent on location, game laws may prevent knocking down corn without harvesting it. Non-standard agricultural practices can in come cases be considered baiting. This is true federally for migratory game birds. One would need to check state by state for state controlled wildlife.

Thanks,

Jack
 
Disc it..... wait for it to turn yellow and then broadcast brassica and cereal grains over it.

Or winter rye and roll it? The old "throw and roll" method.
 
Or winter rye and roll it? The old "throw and roll" method.
If he wants the summer forage of the beans I suspect they will germinate better with light dishing vs just rolling in my opinion. Beans on soil surface tend to just feed birds. More than one way to skin a cat.....
 
How well does a throw and mow method work with soybeans I. The western PA area... looking to try this but if it isn’t as effective with soybeans that I’ll scrap the idea.. new to this method but what’s great things looking for advice - thanks to all


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How well does a throw and mow method work with soybeans I. The western PA area... looking to try this but if it isn’t as effective with soybeans that I’ll scrap the idea.. new to this method but what’s great things looking for advice - thanks to all


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Not well in my experience. Most of the things we plant for deer work great for throw and mow because they surface broadcast well. Large row crop seeds like corn, soybeans, sunflowers, etc. are done with a no-till drill or planter.

For example, I plant my soybeans with my little 4' no-till kasco versadrill in the spring. When the beans yellow, I surface broadcast a cover crop of WR/CC/PTT. No mowing is required in this case because once the leaves fall sufficient sunlight gets in for germination and the pods remain available. For other rotations mowing may be required to terminate a crop or provide sufficient sunlight for germination.

Thanks,

Jack
 
Can soybean be sprayed once it’s planted, even though the area was sprayed before hand? If grasses start to come through during the soybean growing process is there any safe to spray to keep it looking good? Thanks for the help all!


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Can soybean be sprayed once it’s planted, even though the area was sprayed before hand? If grasses start to come through during the soybean growing process is there any safe to spray to keep it looking good? Thanks for the help all!


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If you use RR (Roundup ready) soybeans you can spray with glyphosate.
 
If you use RR (Roundup ready) soybeans you can spray with glyphosate.

And if you didn't use RR beans you can spray cleth for grasses. Works best when they are small.
 
Can soybean be sprayed once it’s planted, even though the area was sprayed before hand? If grasses start to come through during the soybean growing process is there any safe to spray to keep it looking good? Thanks for the help all!


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If you use RR (Roundup ready) soybeans you can spray with glyphosate.

Good to know thanks!


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