RR eagle soybeans review

JFK52

5 year old buck +
I normally no till plant about 15 acres of RR ag soybeans and corn combined. These are primarily over winter food plots for the deer and work great for that purpose. My land is in southern Portage county Wisconsin near the Town of Almond. This area is commonly referred to as the "Central Sands area".

This year I bought a year old bag of Eagle RR soybeans for $50 to try out on some smaller food plots.
All plots were sprayed with 41% gly starting last summer. They got hit again with the gly this spring. I had them disked three times to break up the fallow ground. On June 20 I broadcast all the Eagle beans onto the prepped soil with a hand held belly seeder. I used a spike tooth drag over all the plots and then went over them with a 5 foot roller filled with water.

A few days ago I inspected all the plots. The Eagle beans are doing real well. I estimate that I got a 95% or better germination rate. The deer seem to have found the beans as evidenced by the tracks in the bare ground. All these plots are due for their next spraying of gly, as the weeds are also present. I have mostly quack grass coming back in the plots. I estimate that I planted 1.2 acres total with the large 50 pound bag (140,000 seed count) of Eagle bean seeds. So far, I am pleasantly pleased with Eagle soybeans.
 
I may be going back to Eagle beans next year. The combination of browse pressure and weed competition have kept my ag beans from canopying this year. Our deer number had been down for a few years and I was able to switch to the less expensive ag beans, but it looks like it might be time to switch back.

I was always happy with the results I got from the Eagle beans. The only thing I didn't like was the price and what a pain in the butt it is got get them in my area.

Thanks,

jack
 
I think its ALL about the browse pressure. I also no-till corn and beans in my plots for over winter feeding mostly. I have a fairly low population of deer. I tried the RR Eagle forage bean 2 times now and they grow great, probably 6' tall and beautiful green.... But nothing eats them. All the deer go to the ag beans. And in the end I have no pods to speak of.

The only time I can see them being advantageous is like you fellas are speaking of where the typical ag beans just cant handle the deer.

They sure looked nice!
 
I have never planted Eagles - don't have to. I can plant ag beans and they do just fine and produce pods with no issue. I have heard some folks say that the Eagle are great for summer forage - because they handle the browse pressure (that would otherwise destroy ag beans), but struggle to produce actual grain for the fall/winter. I also have heard that they stay green longer than traditional ag beans as well - thus making overseeding brassica and cereal grains into them more of a challenge as well. Let us know how your beans progress because I think some folks use beans for different reasons and as such the tool used is determined by the end result desired. I can use ag beans and like them because they still provide summer forage (along with the other 100's of acres of beans around me) as well as a nice fall/winter grain food source. They also turn and dry down early enough where I can get some cereal grains and brassica into the plot as well to provide some diversity. My brassica tend to not get huge by any means, but it's still good for the soil, provides a little extra food and some green forage/diversity for the deer as well.

Do you have an exclusion cage in your beans to document the deer use you are seeing????
 
I think its ALL about the browse pressure. I also no-till corn and beans in my plots for over winter feeding mostly. I have a fairly low population of deer. I tried the RR Eagle forage bean 2 times now and they grow great, probably 6' tall and beautiful green.... But nothing eats them. All the deer go to the ag beans. And in the end I have no pods to speak of.

The only time I can see them being advantageous is like you fellas are speaking of where the typical ag beans just cant handle the deer.

They sure looked nice!

I'd say it is all about location as well. No need for pods in my area, deer don't touch them unless we have a mast crop failure. The key here is quality summer forage when nature get stingy. It is a completely different picture in the north where winter is the primary stress period or in ag country where beans and corn abound.

Thanks,

Jack
 
I'd say it is all about location as well. No need for pods in my area, deer don't touch them unless we have a mast crop failure. The key here is quality summer forage when nature get stingy. It is a completely different picture in the north where winter is the primary stress period or in ag country where beans and corn abound.

Thanks,

Jack

Very true Jack! I guess I always feel like everyone everywhere has to help deer "struggle" through winter! Heck, the deer up here rarely need a hand...
 
Interested in your findings pops wants to plant these in the worst way


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I should say that I have 5 acres of RR corn this year and 10 acres of RR ag beans in three separate locations. I spray the these fields the first time with gly and hire the local coop to come in with their 60 foot boom on a pickup truck for the second spraying. They need two sprayings to get to the canopy stage and choke out the weeds. Fields are rotated every two years.

I have a medium deer density and the purpose of the Eagle beans was to provide an alternate browse source and still be going for the WI archery opener on Sept. 16 and beyond. The bag was an extra one that my helpers father had bought and did not plant. For $50 with the inoculant, it was worth the gamble. I did have to inoculate them before planting which was a slight pain but not bad. They are fairly big size, equal to a small pee. So the belly seeder had to be opened up pretty wide to let them slide through to the spinning wheel.

I do not have an exclusion cage but do believe I will install one soon. There is not question the deer have found them already.
 
They also turn and dry down early enough where I can get some cereal grains and brassica into the plot as well to provide some diversity.

That's why I switched to ag beans. But there is no doubt the eagle beans thrived at my place. Dang things were so tall you couldn't see deer in them.
 
A good exclusion cage will really demonstrate the amount of use by the deer. And a picture is worth 1,000 words as they say. You may even want a couple of them spread over the field to see how location affect both the growth of the beans as well as where the deer hit them the hardest. Sounds like a neat trial you have going. We all have different needs and as such we can have similar, but slightly different tools, to get the job done. Not too many folks will argue about the summer forage value of soybeans to deer.....but again, the devil can be in the details. Good luck with your plot and keep us updated.
 
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