SOMETHING TO ADD TO FALL CLOVER SEEDING ?

[WTNUT]

For 20 years, I have always added rye, oats, wheat or all of the above to my fall clover seedings. I let the grains go to seed in the spring and then mow. That results in more grains with the clover in the fall.

However, I have noticed my turkeys - perhaps not yours - will not come into my food plots in the spring by the time season arrives. They just do not like the tall cereal grains.

I just creates several .75 to 1.5 acre food plots and will seed them late summer. I am not going to put grains with my clovers. So my question is what - other than chicory - have you added to your clover plots to spice them up?


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[Rit]

Can you just keep them clipped above the clover to keep the height down? I’d hate to not have cereal grains available for fall deer. What about only seeding cereal grains in half the plot. Perhaps away from where you expect turkeys to enter.

 

[yoderjac]

For 20 years, I have always added rye, oats, wheat or all of the above to my fall clover seedings. I let the grains go to seed in the spring and then mow. That results in more grains with the clover in the fall.

However, I have noticed my turkeys - perhaps not yours - will not come into my food plots in the spring by the time season arrives. They just do not like the tall cereal grains.

I just creates several .75 to 1.5 acre food plots and will seed them late summer. I am not going to put grains with my clovers. So my question is what - other than chicory - have you added to your clover plots to spice them up?


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I mow my WR nurse crop to release perennial clover the following spring. Turkey love it. Hens with poults like the vertical cover and will use clover with WR. So, I keep vertical cover adjoining the clover so poults have escape cover from avian predators.

Gobblers like to be seen from a distance strutting. They typically won't use an unmowed fields with WR because hens can see them strut from a distance.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Native Hunter]

Last year I put warm season species (buckwheat and sun hemp) in with mine - knowing that they would be gone at the first frost. They were grazed hard in the fall, and I have a good stand of clover and chicory this year. I'm going to do it again this year and may add some soybeans.

You could also do Australian Winter Peas, which is a cool season species. They are high preference and could get gobbled up quickly unless you put in a large amount.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

Sunflowers, radish, and peas is what I would use.


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[WTNUT]

Can you just keep them clipped above the clover to keep the height down? I’d hate to not have cereal grains available for fall deer. What about only seeding cereal grains in half the plot. Perhaps away from where you expect turkeys to enter.

I don’t have time in the spring to clip them down, and if I did they would not seed and none would come up in the fall anyway. The only thing they really add to my “program” is good forage in late fall inside the hunting plots after the frost cuts the clover back. We have enough corn and beans that the deer really don’t need the grains to keep up with nutrition.


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[WTNUT]

Last year I put warm season species (buckwheat and sun hemp) in with mine - knowing that they would be gone at the first frost. They were grazed hard in the fall, and I have a good stand of clover and chicory this year. I'm going to do it again this year and may add some soybeans.

You could also do Australian Winter Peas, which is a cool season species. They are high preference and could get gobbled up quickly unless you put in a large amount.

I love Autralian Winter Peas, but every time I plant them the deer love them so much they are gone in a matter of days. I use to joke it I would have to plant 500 acres of peas per square mile to just have a chance at keeping them alive. In my neck of woods those peas are the favorite crop coming or going.


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[WTNUT]

Sunflowers, radish, and peas is what I would use.


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I could certainly drill some radishes in and peas. As noted above I am nor sure winter peas will work for me. What type of peas do you plant. I like the radish idea because there will be something there after a frost.


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[SD51555]

I’ve been pushing hard on flax and other grains this year. Seems to really fit in well, and doesn’t overtake anything. If the flax makes it to maturity, the C:N contribution (50:1) is almost as good as oats.

If I could do spring over again, I’d up my rate a little and spread on frozen ground as the thaw starts. Came pretty easy in the new clover.

Little more challenging in the established clover. But it came.

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[S.T.Fanatic]

Sunflowers, radish, and peas is what I would use.


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I could certainly drill some radishes in and peas. As noted above I am nor sure winter peas will work for me. What type of peas do you plant. I like the radish idea because there will be something there after a frost.


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Icicle. They are Lynx but changed hands and names. I had them over winter a couple of years ago and they put on pods before the deer ate them to the ground.


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[H80Hunter]

Can't you seed oats that would winter kill? I've never done any of this but I could also imagine buckwheat or sunflowers working since the first frost would nuke them before they could canopy over the clover. But I think I'd do spring oats unless you're somewhere that they won't winterkill. Then I'd probably do some research and do something that would kill with frost and release the clover.

 

[yoderjac]

I've often mixed warm season annuals with my fall plant for early archery season attraction. They pop up very fast because they are annuals and have a lot of energy making them quite attractive. Any that don't get nipped off by deer don't make it past the first frost. I've found I could get great deals at the local coop for soybeans for this purpose. Farmers only want fresh seed, so after soybean planting time any damaged bags can't be returned and my manager sells them cheap.

I will say that this doesn't really work as a nurse crop for perennial clover like WR/WW does. The clover really needs the nurse crop in the following spring. WR/WW germinates and begins growing when planted. Growth during the winter is minimal, but it is well ahead of summer annual weeds in the spring that have not yet germinated. It robs them of space and resources and WR even has a chemical effect that suppresses germination to some extent. This gives perennial clover time to put down a root system. Once established, perennial clover competes much better with weeds.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Tree Spud]

I have never had a problem in the spring with turkeys & grains. Their poults love the cover and the combo of clover & WR is bug heaven especially small grass hoppers for the turkeys.

 

[yoderjac]

I have never had a problem in the spring with turkeys & grains. Their poults love the cover and the combo of clover & WR is bug heaven especially small grass hoppers for the turkeys.

I don't think the issue is with hens and poults. They don't avoid grains and clover as actually love them for bugging. The tall grain like WR provides some vertical cover as well. It problem comes in from a hunting standpoint. Gobblers like to be seen from a distance when strutting. They will select open hardwoods, mature pines, logging roads and open fields for strutting. Someone who used to see flocks of hens in fields with gobblers strutting for them plants tall grains and doesn't see that activity any more. They are tempted to believe turkeys have gone elsewhere. It is easy to see birds in the open at long distance and especially when gobblers are strutting. So depending on when spring gobbler season is in a particular area relative to crop growth time, it can seem like it is a problem.

I typically don't have that issue in my area. Spring green-up doesn't occur to the second half of our season and by the time grains are tall enough to be a problem, things have cooled down most years.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Tree Spud]

I don't think the issue is with hens and poults. They don't avoid grains and clover as actually love them for bugging. The tall grain like WR provides some vertical cover as well. It problem comes in from a hunting standpoint. Gobblers like to be seen from a distance when strutting. They will select open hardwoods, mature pines, logging roads and open fields for strutting. Someone who used to see flocks of hens in fields with gobblers strutting for them plants tall grains and doesn't see that activity any more. They are tempted to believe turkeys have gone elsewhere. It is easy to see birds in the open at long distance and especially when gobblers are strutting. So depending on when spring gobbler season is in a particular area relative to crop growth time, it can seem like it is a problem.

I typically don't have that issue in my area. Spring green-up doesn't occur to the second half of our season and by the time grains are tall enough to be a problem, things have cooled down most years.

Thanks,

Jack

In the spring, where there are hens, there will be Toms.

The OP is in Ohio so he has limited options for over seeding if he wants a spring green up. Given fall seeding, low sun angles, and shading cover from the clover not much can compete and survive.

Really important is roosting cover.

The big issue is the predator cycle. Around our area the turkey population seems to peak every 3 years with increasing coyote activity.

 

[WTNUT]

What I am looking for in the fall is a crop that will still provide attraction after the clover goes dormant early November. As for the spring I don’t care if anything is there other than clover. Again at my farms turkeys avoid the grain fields by the time season arrives - poor visibility in my opinion. So far some type of brassica seems like an option but seed rates wood have to be very low in new plots, old plots could take a lot more. But having drilled them in established plots before you almost have to nuke clover back to dive the brassica a chance to get started or lightly disc then seed. That has worked nest for me in the past, but it takes some effort and is a bit of an art getting enough soil exposed to get good brassicas and clover. I liked flax idea but it gets 3 to 4 feet tall.


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[yoderjac]

In the spring, where there are hens, there will be Toms.

The OP is in Ohio so he has limited options for over seeding if he wants a spring green up. Given fall seeding, low sun angles, and shading cover from the clover not much can compete and survive.

Really important is roosting cover.

The big issue is the predator cycle. Around our area the turkey population seems to peak every 3 years with increasing coyote activity.

No doubt about hens driving Tom locations in the spring. In my area, there is plenty of woods so roosting is not really an issue, but I understand that it can be in the mid-west where trees are limited in some areas and turkeys roost by the hundreds together in the river bottoms. Here, the key is having good nesting cover proximate to good brooding ground. Hens will roost nearby and Gobblers will choose roost sites where they can be heard by hens from a good distance.

As for predators, some of the latest research sows that Coyotes are neutral to slightly positive in their impact on turkey populations. They do kill turkey and destroy nests, but they evidently kill other nest predators at a much greater rate so the net effect is not bad.

The biggest impact on turkey populations in my area is spring weather. Winter weather may have more impact in the north than it does here, but cool wet springs favor virus development and more poults are lost to that by far than to predators. That is not to say predation is not a factor.

I'm just suggesting that the visibility of gobblers in the spring (not the population) can be reduced when open fields are thick.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

I've always wanted to try sweet blue lupine and haven't yet. Might have to give that a shot this fall.

 

[yoderjac]

What I am looking for in the fall is a crop that will still provide attraction after the clover goes dormant early November. As for the spring I don’t care if anything is there other than clover. Again at my farms turkeys avoid the grain fields by the time season arrives - poor visibility in my opinion. So far some type of brassica seems like an option but seed rates wood have to be very low in new plots, old plots could take a lot more. But having drilled them in established plots before you almost have to nuke clover back to dive the brassica a chance to get started or lightly disc then seed. That has worked nest for me in the past, but it takes some effort and is a bit of an art getting enough soil exposed to get good brassicas and clover. I liked flax idea but it gets 3 to 4 feet tall.


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Your season must come in very late relative to spring green-up in your area. My WR is still very short for about half of our season. For established clover fields that are getting old and weedy, I've nuked them with 1 qt/ac of gly and drilled diakon radish into them. The clover is top-killed giving the radish time to take off. There are pics on other threads. I'm not sure about your area, but here, radish, unlike PTT for example, will rot by spring. We get enough warm days in Dec to start the process. As soon as it warms up in the spring, they are soft and mushy and just collapse in the field. The clover takes the field back over. Not sure if it will work the same in your area.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[WTNUT]

It comes in late April and goes out late May. Grains are way over a turkey’s head by the second week of season most years.

Does anyone mix vetches with their clover? I need to find out when they go dormant for winter. I am probably going to try some type of a mix. Going to be working some ground today to give the weeds a chance to come up a time or two before planting time. I was away from the farm yesterday, and they finished two new food plots I had laid out in the timber earlier this year, anxious to see what the dozers and excavators pushed over piled up and cleaned up. Now, it is also a bit scary because there is always a chance with my guys that I go to the farm an find a plot where a plot was not suppose to be. Ha ha. Little like Christmas at the office Christmas party when gifts are opened. Close your eyes and hope for the best.


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