Probably could get a better deal. I would say to look around for a used disk and box blade and cultipacker. Cultipackers are dang hard to find used. These implements typically are pretty solid. Disk and box blade usually pretty easily found. Rotary cutters are easily found used, but they can be really abused. Good luck
Starting from square 1 on implements for food plotting
- Thread starter Maddog66
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Probably could get a better deal. I would say to look around for a used disk and box blade and cultipacker. Cultipackers are dang hard to find used. These implements typically are pretty solid. Disk and box blade usually pretty easily found. Rotary cutters are easily found used, but they can be really abused. Good luck
Setting up the land better for hunting is definitely one of my top goals. But right now, it’s 300 acres with just me on it maybe 5 days a month, and a couple of longer stretches this summer for big projects.
Since I’ve only owned it about 8 months, I’m honestly still learning something new about it every time I’m there. Point being, I don’t even know what I don’t know yet. So like I mentioned earlier, THE goals for this year is to get some food on the ground in an area I know for sure has a pretty low deer population right now ....plus plenty of predators. Then I’m going to hunt it myself and figure some stuff out through stand time
Neighbor pressure is definitely there. Mostly larger land owners and so far so good. I talked to one guy with a bait pile 20’ off my line. He’s set up in a good spot to take advantage of the previous owners layout. He was a real nice guy and a neighbor. I say more power too him. He’s legal - end of story. I may or may not change the layout a little to discourage it.
Very few people doing plots around my immediate area, but everyone has a field or 2 of what they call “Horse Hay”. The sell the heck out of the stuff up there on multi year contracts for excellent money. I don’t know much about it yet but my fields have it and last summer I had 4 or 5 doe/fawn groups that used the heck out of it all summer. The main competition by far is corn piles. Both baiting and feeding. It’s year round (legal or not) and pretty big business.
The best non-native food in my area is a couple of corn fields a mile or so away. I also have a couple of recent smaller Popple regeneration clear cuts within about 1/2 mile on neighbors land.
Someone asked if I liked doing food plot (habitat) work. The answer is that this is what we have been looking forward to and saving for 75% of our working lives. I’ve done food plots with my own money on a buddies land for the last 12 years.
Yup I enjoy it..
Since I’ve only owned it about 8 months, I’m honestly still learning something new about it every time I’m there. Point being, I don’t even know what I don’t know yet. So like I mentioned earlier, THE goals for this year is to get some food on the ground in an area I know for sure has a pretty low deer population right now ....plus plenty of predators. Then I’m going to hunt it myself and figure some stuff out through stand time
Neighbor pressure is definitely there. Mostly larger land owners and so far so good. I talked to one guy with a bait pile 20’ off my line. He’s set up in a good spot to take advantage of the previous owners layout. He was a real nice guy and a neighbor. I say more power too him. He’s legal - end of story. I may or may not change the layout a little to discourage it.
Very few people doing plots around my immediate area, but everyone has a field or 2 of what they call “Horse Hay”. The sell the heck out of the stuff up there on multi year contracts for excellent money. I don’t know much about it yet but my fields have it and last summer I had 4 or 5 doe/fawn groups that used the heck out of it all summer. The main competition by far is corn piles. Both baiting and feeding. It’s year round (legal or not) and pretty big business.
The best non-native food in my area is a couple of corn fields a mile or so away. I also have a couple of recent smaller Popple regeneration clear cuts within about 1/2 mile on neighbors land.
Someone asked if I liked doing food plot (habitat) work. The answer is that this is what we have been looking forward to and saving for 75% of our working lives. I’ve done food plots with my own money on a buddies land for the last 12 years.
Yup I enjoy it..
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Here is my advice for what it is worth. Before spending money on tools, establish realistic goals and objectives, research methods and techniques, and develop a plan.
When we first bought our property, we tried to do too much too fast. In our particular case, we were trying to do QDM with an undersized property (just under 400 acres) with some cooperating neighboring properties. We knew the deer densities were very high and food was a limiting resource so we went right to work planting food plots. Started with a tractor and 2-bottom plow followed by a tiller. EXACTLY THE WRONG THING TO DO! While we did have short-term success with high input food plots, I did a LOT of damage to my soils. After bumping into some soil scientists on the old QDMA forum and watching the "Ray the soil guy" USDA NRCS videos demonstrating the damage tillage causes to soils, I had to do a complete reset.
We are now working in a much more sustainable and lower cost manor. We have become much more weed tolerant. We found that timber management is, by far, our most effective and cost effective tool for providing quality deer food. Our food plots are now focused on supplementing native foods during high stress periods when nature is stingy. Our 2-bottom plow now sits rusting. While we still use a tiller from time to time, we use is in an non-conventional way.
Establish realistic goals: Do you want to do QDM to benefit the herd? Do you have enough surrounding cooperating properties to cover 1,000 acres or more to have a realistic change as having a measurable impact on the herd? Or, are you just interested in improving the huntability of you land, or both?
Work with biologists and foresters to develop a plan that achieves your goals. It may be that food plots are of lower importance than a forestry mower. You won't know until you have a plan.
Then, if food plots are a near-term part of your long-term plan, figure out what methods make most sense in the long-run. This will drive your equipment requirements.
Thanks,
Jack
I might have found a nice deal on a new rotary cutter this morning. It’s a Yanmar YRC720 which is identical to the Woods Brush Bull (2” cut). Heavy duty gear box, domed lid, quick change blade system, rear chain guard and “upgraded” PTO shaft. Seems better built than the KK’s I’ve looked at. Less money too. Set up and out the door for $1950. Thoughts?
Excellent points YoderJac, thank you. While it may not sound like it, I do have goals. But my goals are pretty modest and not only focused on deer and certainly not on killing the biggest buck in the county. I want a private piece of ground to make better and do some hunting. Please don’t misread, but I’m as interested in songbirds, natural prairies, wild mushroom picking, and growing my own garden as I am in hunting. I also like to snowmobile, snowshoe, ice fish, summer fish.....everything outdoors except for golf.
My goals are peace and quiet and a great sense of pride in making my land the best it can be. Not much pressure to succeed when I have only one guy to please - although he can be an asshat once in awhile I’ve heard.
if my neighbors want to work together, that’s fine. If not, it’s equally fine. Plan A is to be in charge of my own destiny as much as possible based on what I have to work with.
My goals are peace and quiet and a great sense of pride in making my land the best it can be. Not much pressure to succeed when I have only one guy to please - although he can be an asshat once in awhile I’ve heard.
if my neighbors want to work together, that’s fine. If not, it’s equally fine. Plan A is to be in charge of my own destiny as much as possible based on what I have to work with.
Soil health is very important to me, it’s why if done 2 rounds of soil testing and paid for the application already. If the only way for me to have food plots and protect my soil is to buy a Great Plains drill, I guess I can do that. But the better part of $20k for a fairly complicated piece of machinery, that would be right at the hairy edge of my tractors capability.....is a tough call.
I guess I should also say that I don’t really buy used things. I’d prefer to buy new whether is toothbrushes or tractors.
Edit : old dogs and old guns are not in that category.
I guess I should also say that I don’t really buy used things. I’d prefer to buy new whether is toothbrushes or tractors.
Edit : old dogs and old guns are not in that category.
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yoderjac
5 year old buck +
No-till drills are nice. If you are planting large seeds like beans and corn. Now that I'm not, my little Kasco sits as I use some of Crimson-n-Clover's T&M techniques. Very shallow if any tillage followed by broadcasting and cultipacking. My no-till drill was cheap (used about $3K) but it is small. I think an expensive no-till drill would be low on my list. Lots of cost with only a select few crops requiring it.
Thanks,
Jack
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I think that is pretty realistic and there is nothing wrong with a blend of goals.
I may not have said it above, but my fields haven’t been opened in 10 years. The guy who did it still takes hay every year.
I looked at a Woods PSS84 this morning and the dealer actually had a buddy, who is a hired hand on a huge deer property that uses one for many acres of plots in various soil types every year. Got him on the phone.....great guy with tons of knowledge. When it all boiled down, he felt the Woods is a good to great thing for land managers in my “range”....so to speak. He’s run it on a tractor even a little smaller than mine.
He told me that NO WAY will I be able to conduct primary tillage with it successfully. He said if I get it disked with big equipment this year and maybe next, it would be great afterward for the life of the plot. He said small seeds work well and larger seeds do too.....but just don’t expect rows....more of a wide row that eventually grows into the next. But you can feather the disc and rollers to do a fine job. I saw a couple of pics.
BUT for soil health, wouldn’t it be best to NOT ever roll it over deeply ....just so you can get to the point where you can plant plots without rolling it over deeply?
I looked at a Woods PSS84 this morning and the dealer actually had a buddy, who is a hired hand on a huge deer property that uses one for many acres of plots in various soil types every year. Got him on the phone.....great guy with tons of knowledge. When it all boiled down, he felt the Woods is a good to great thing for land managers in my “range”....so to speak. He’s run it on a tractor even a little smaller than mine.
He told me that NO WAY will I be able to conduct primary tillage with it successfully. He said if I get it disked with big equipment this year and maybe next, it would be great afterward for the life of the plot. He said small seeds work well and larger seeds do too.....but just don’t expect rows....more of a wide row that eventually grows into the next. But you can feather the disc and rollers to do a fine job. I saw a couple of pics.
BUT for soil health, wouldn’t it be best to NOT ever roll it over deeply ....just so you can get to the point where you can plant plots without rolling it over deeply?
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
For soil helth, no tillage is best. Tillage introduces 02 which burns Organic Matter. It destroys soil tilth. The better your soils, the more abuse they can take and recover. Most of us are on more marginal soils. For heavy clay, compaction can be an issue that may need to be addressed with a shank ripper. I've had to do this on logging decks after heavy equipment was on them. This is not a common situation. Bottom plows that turn the soil over were originally used to address weeds. They are probably the worst form of tillage and repeated use can form hard-pan at plow depth limiting roots. If you throw enough amendments at high fertility soil, you can abuse the soil with tillage and still get good crops. Bad for soil in the long run. Unlike farmers, we don't harvest and remove nutrients. If you are smart about mixes and rotations, and don't till, you can get natural nutrient cycling to work well. I have not used fertilizer for over 4 years now with no ill effects. Farmers want yield and anything that is not what they plant is a weed that takes resources. For wildlife managers, things are quite different. We don't need high yield and since we don't use harvest equipment, we don't need to plant monocultures. Many plants that are weeds for farmers are great deer food.
Think of it this way. Any food left in your field after the stress period is over, is excess from a deer standpoint for QDM. For attraction, as long as deer are using the field during the target period, the plot has been a success. We don't need high density planting like farmers. Deer do very well with fewer plants per square foot. I'd advise increasing acreage and planting a rates your soil can handle without high inputs rather than shooting for high yield.
Cultipacking does not cause compression. While a cultipacker is heavy, the weight is distributed over a large surface area unlike tires on a tractor. With clay, NEVER get on wet soil. With T&M techniques, you don't need nice flat fields.
I would start with a simple cultipacker and broadcast seeder. I'd choose a mix and rotations of crops that surface broadcast well. Most of the crops I use in my area work well. Sometimes heavy clay will crust until you get OM built back up in the soil. A balance of Carbon and Nitrogen is important for decomposition. Mixing/rotating grasses and legumes works well. I use buckwheat and sunn hemp in the summer and rotate PTT/WR/CC in the fall. These may not be a fit for your area, but they work well here. Figure out what soil health related crops can be T&Med easily and fit your area.
Save your money. Spend a few years doing T&M first. Bushhog or an HD finish mower (I have an RM990), a broadcast seeder (Tractor or even chest mounted), a Cultipacker, and Sprayer should cover the basics.
Do this for a few years and see how things work out. You can always get fancy planters in the future if you don't like what you are seeing.
Thanks,
Jack
Think of it this way. Any food left in your field after the stress period is over, is excess from a deer standpoint for QDM. For attraction, as long as deer are using the field during the target period, the plot has been a success. We don't need high density planting like farmers. Deer do very well with fewer plants per square foot. I'd advise increasing acreage and planting a rates your soil can handle without high inputs rather than shooting for high yield.
Cultipacking does not cause compression. While a cultipacker is heavy, the weight is distributed over a large surface area unlike tires on a tractor. With clay, NEVER get on wet soil. With T&M techniques, you don't need nice flat fields.
I would start with a simple cultipacker and broadcast seeder. I'd choose a mix and rotations of crops that surface broadcast well. Most of the crops I use in my area work well. Sometimes heavy clay will crust until you get OM built back up in the soil. A balance of Carbon and Nitrogen is important for decomposition. Mixing/rotating grasses and legumes works well. I use buckwheat and sunn hemp in the summer and rotate PTT/WR/CC in the fall. These may not be a fit for your area, but they work well here. Figure out what soil health related crops can be T&Med easily and fit your area.
Save your money. Spend a few years doing T&M first. Bushhog or an HD finish mower (I have an RM990), a broadcast seeder (Tractor or even chest mounted), a Cultipacker, and Sprayer should cover the basics.
Do this for a few years and see how things work out. You can always get fancy planters in the future if you don't like what you are seeing.
Thanks,
Jack
I have that very same unit and really like it. It is not a no till drill, but it does have a few advantages over one, and it also comes up short in some areas. I plant anywhere from forty to sixty acres a year with mine. It does great with everything I have every attempted - but would not be ideal for anything in rows - like corn. I use it a lot to lightly disk through my clover in the fall - disturbing about half the ground - and planting cereal grain in my clover. It will not go very deep. I agree, if your ground hasnt had a disk on it in ten years, I would spray and then burn if possible, and run a heavy disk over it. No - I would never put a breaking plow on my ground. On established food plots, you can probably run one pass for planting. I doubt it will go deeper than three inches. It is HEAVY.
This is a woods seeder planting new millet seed in last year’s millet and johnson grass. One pass
I may have missed where you are,I used to use a disc now use a tiller when I have to break ground.I use my Kasco versa drill to plant beans,milo,wheat,alfalfa.I don't have a cultipacker and don't plant brassicas or turnips for deer as they won't eat mine.I use a sprayer on my UTV,a tiller when needed and a brush hog
swat1018
5 year old buck +
I wouldn't put 10K in a food plot specific tool, not sure I'd put 7K. If I was considering 10K, it would definitely be a no-till. I'm in a similar spot, in that I'm 6 hours from the farm. In that situation, nothing is more precious than your time, if you want good plots, that's why I went the no-till route. It's a solid investment, I think I could sell mine for what I paid for it in '13.
I would think that in your part of the world it will be lots of brassica and rye. If yo ever think you may be doing 20 ac of plots, you don't want to be running a 6' disc. If your plots are a little bigger, you can buy a 10' no-till, retired from AG work, for less than the 6 footers.
Swampcat, My tillable ground is classified as silt loam. Very fertile and in great shape from years of care by a good farmer. Would you see a need with your Woods to have any of the optional scrapers installed in my case? A full set for the packer, spiked roller and disc is almost a $1500 add on!!
Yoderjac....I’ve read your posts a number of times and am interested to learn more about the T&M methods. Any great reads you can recommend? From what I’ve seen here in the Midwest, it’s not very popular. Most people seem to either rototill or disc every year......but only the top 3-5”. Are you saying even that is hard on soil? Or are you just saying to avoid rolling the soil over with a moldboard?
I’ve been in Virginia for work quite a few times and I think you might have approximately 20x the number of DPSM that I do right now. If I leave some food in my fields, I’m ok with it. The turkeys, grouse, geese, ducks and bears can find it in the spring.
Yoderjac....I’ve read your posts a number of times and am interested to learn more about the T&M methods. Any great reads you can recommend? From what I’ve seen here in the Midwest, it’s not very popular. Most people seem to either rototill or disc every year......but only the top 3-5”. Are you saying even that is hard on soil? Or are you just saying to avoid rolling the soil over with a moldboard?
I’ve been in Virginia for work quite a few times and I think you might have approximately 20x the number of DPSM that I do right now. If I leave some food in my fields, I’m ok with it. The turkeys, grouse, geese, ducks and bears can find it in the spring.
Yeah swat.....time is my biggest friend and enemy for the next 3 years. Then we build our last house on this land. After that, I don’t really care if I have to plant my plots with a teaspoon......but point very well taken. Based on my tractor size, available acreage, and existing trail system, I’m going 6’ wide on everything.
I’ll tell you one thing.....you guys are all good at challenging my preconceived notions. Thank you!
I’ll tell you one thing.....you guys are all good at challenging my preconceived notions. Thank you!
I dont really know - I have buckshot gumbo and a lot of clay. My soils are not kind when it comes to working them. I often have the spike roller and the cultipacker gum up on me if it has much moisture in it. I have chained all my disks or they are unusuable. At least at my place, no way, no how, could I live without a disk of some kind. Repairing hog root, washes and erosion, and rutted trails. I could do all of it with my woods seeder if need be - but for deep ruts and 18” deep hog root, I like a heavy disk on it first - then the woods seeder.
I agree that a decent used no-till drill might be available for the price of a new 84” woods seeder. It would not give you the overall flexibility, but would probably be a better dedicated planting machine - if you dont mind seed planted in rows 7” apart.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Google "Ray the soil guy" Start with his water infiltration video. You can watch as many as you like to try to understand the underlying science and concepts. Ray is focused on commercial farming. Next, there is a very long thread on this forum: https://habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/the-throw-n’-mow-method.5510/ You can read as much as you like. On this thread, Crimson 'n Camo does a great job of taking the underlying principles and applying them to food plots with small equipment.
It is best if you can avoid tillage. Less frequent and less deep is better than more frequent and more deep. Keep in mind that it takes years to restore soil health. Don't expect immediate results. Soil type plays a factor in the specifics of what methods of no/min till will work best for you. I have heavy clay in VA. My OM was so low when I started this that the clay would crust and seeds could not penetrate it. So, I had to "min-till" for a few years. I would take my tiller and lift it with the 3-pt hitch so that the tines barely touched the top inch. It was just enough to break the crust. Now, depending on what I'm planting and where I do no or very shallow tillage like this. I plant 7 - 10 acres each year. We have about 20 total of open ground but I don't plant every field every year. Perennial clover is the anchor of our program. I've gone from spending several thousand dollars a year on fertilizer to using none for the last 4 years or so. There has be no decline in my plots or deer usage.
Thanks,
Jack
SD51555
5 year old buck +
If you’re thinking about corn, no till, and throw and mow, I would seriously consider a flail mower vs a rotary. You can get lower to the ground, more finely chop your material, and spread it evenly.
It’s gonna cost more, but it’s the right tool.
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SD51555
5 year old buck +
No need for a high quality result, or they have alternative methods. Outside of food
Plotting, most of those rotary mowers are used by guys to kill brush and 6’ tall thistle. And that’s the right application for them, ugly brutality.
If I’m trying to lay 6’ green rye evenly on top of soybeans I just broadcast, I wanna flail.
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