Throw and Mow/No Till plot update

[phil@thesidehill]

Here are some update pics of my no tilled, surface broadcast, strip plots. The entire plot is 1/3 acre, and is basically an exaggerated "L" shape with the short leg of the L being more or less an 8000 sq ft rectangle, and the long leg a 6000 sq ft narrow and long, but irregular shape.

this pic is from around June 20th. this pic was taken a few days after i mowed the WR/Crimson/MRC strips in preparation of my brassica planting. The WR/Clover strips are the dead/mowed strips, and the green growing strips are oats and crimson clover planted back around May 12th...those strips were brassicas last year.


here is a pic from Saturday after mowing the oats/crimson strips to prepare for an early september planting of WR/oats/crimson/MRC. This pic is from pretty much the same vantage...but about 2 months apart. The WR/clover strips are now growing with DER and PTT. The brassicas were broadcast into the dead thatch on July 13th....so the brassicas are about a month old now.


The oats had gotten to about 4' tall and were setting seed when i mowed them about 2 weeks ago with the weedwhacker. I took them down to about 12-14" and then this weekend i was able to borrow my buddy's DR walk behind mower to really take the stubble down. This think is a beast!


here are some other views of the brassicas that i broadcast into the mowed and sprayed WR/clover. I havent added any fertilizer as the soil test recommendation was to add only N at the rate of 75lbs to the acre....the soil test was not factoring in that these strips were planted in rye/clover....so i wanted to see what i could get out of these strips with out adding any N.










this is what most of the turnip bulbs look like so far...about 30 days growth.


I'm still seeing some germination in odds and ends areas along the margins of the brassica strips where i some seed fly astray. that seed had to sat there for close to 30 days before germinating.


here is the waterhole i installed in spring of 2014. Still undecided on its usefullness....i have a cam set on it...but i rarely get pics of deer directly and obviously drinking from it or even standing in it. have plenty of pics of them standing along side of it and i do see tracks leading down into it from the uphill side. if anything i think its more of a location issue. i have a nice year round creek at the bottom of the hill...i'm not sure water is a very low hole in the bucket locally....but i figured if the deer are in the plot and water is there versus down the hill they would take advantage of it. I dont think its the liner....but who knows. All i know is that it isnt nearly the attention grabber i was hoping it would be.


I have two areas where the brassicas are spotty....not too much of a surprise to me...these areas were completely littered with junk from when this property was my grandfather's. he was quite the tinkerer/inventor so he lots of "inventory" that he left out here for when he might need it to make something. lots of metal, plastic, rubber, wood, a urinal, tires...you know sh!t you might need at a later date...lol. I soil tested this area separately from the rest of the plot. the thing that jumped out on the soil test results was very high zinc levels. Any way the turkey's found the bare dirt and turned it into a dusting pit. some of their dusting spots are 6-8" deep. I'm kinda nervous they will pick my september cereal/legume planting clean before it germs.


and i found this patch of purslane in the brassica planting.....never seen it in my plot before. I was gonna pick some for the salad bowl. Should i be worried enough about this stuff spreading uncontrollably and get on it ASAP....or not bother? i've read that it can spread rapidly and is a prolific seed producer.

 

[scott44]

Good looking plot! Great looking brassicas, lots of diversity there.

 

[phil@thesidehill]

I'd get rid of the purslane if you can. The stuff will take over if you let it. I have seen it browsed by deer however

I was kinda leaning toward addressing it soon. As of now the patch is small enough that i could probably pull most of it....but i'm not sure that is the best route. i could spot spray it with gly and then just seed some rye over it in the next few weeks.

 

[scott44]

Phil, Did you spray the strips before mowing or just clip them short?

 

[SD51555]

Darn nice work Phil! You didn't do any spraying there?

 

[bowhunternw]

Nice job thanks for sharing.

 

[phil@thesidehill]

Phil, Did you spray the strips before mowing or just clip them short?

I did spray each strip a few days to a week after mowing.....however after looking at my oats strips after mowing them i think that if i had rain on the horizon i could have gotten away with mowing and seeding the same day with out spraying.

 

[phil@thesidehill]

Darn nice work Phil! You didn't do any spraying there?

Sorry....i just realized i didnt add the "spray" segment to the title of the thread. Should read Mow, Spray, Throw. I am beginning to toy around with the idea of not spraying...but it seems like all the stars have to line up just right for that to work.

 

[phil@thesidehill]

Phil, Did you spray the strips before mowing or just clip them short?

Sorry....reread your question and realized i misread your questions with my first reply.

i didnt spray the strips before mowing. I find with tall plantings, my oats were 4 ft tall, and not having any equipment other than a 3 gal hand pump sprayer, it's much easier and more effective to mow (i use a weed whacker) first and take it down to like a foot or less. then let things rebound from the mowing and then spray them. Its easier to cover more surface area of the plants when they are smaller/shorter, and its more effective because i can get chemical on the lower growing stuff. After everything is nuked i will mow it again, and mow it as tight as i can.

 

[scott44]

Sorry....reread your question and realized i misread your questions with my first reply.

i didnt spray the strips before mowing. I find with tall plantings, my oats were 4 ft tall, and not having any equipment other than a 3 gal hand pump sprayer, it's much easier and more effective to mow (i use a weed whacker) first and take it down to like a foot or less. then let things rebound from the mowing and then spray them. Its easier to cover more surface area of the plants when they are smaller/shorter, and its more effective because i can get chemical on the lower growing stuff. After everything is nuked i will mow it again, and mow it as tight as i can.

I've been thinking of trying something like this, broadcasting Wr/oats/ radishes into the clover/oats that I planted after the brassicas and mow them real short without spaying. Does the existing clover hamper the growth of the cereal grains?

 

[phil@thesidehill]

I've been thinking of trying something like this, broadcasting Wr/oats/ radishes into the clover/oats that I planted after the brassicas and mow them real short without spaying. Does the existing clover hamper the growth of the cereal grains?

That's essentially what I'm thinking about doing. But I think getting rain at the right time will be the determining factor....as long as the seeds germ quickly after the mowing and while the other plants that aren't killed by mowing are still struggling to rebound. I don't think the clover will hamper the cereals....depending on the clover variety, the weather/moisture conditions and how short you scalp them. If it's hot and dry and you cut the clover real short you can set it back quite a bit....but most clovers tend to rebound from scalping as long the hot and dry aren't prolonged.

 

[scott44]

That's essentially what I'm thinking about doing. But I think getting rain at the right time will be the determining factor....as long as the seeds germ quickly after the mowing and while the other plants that aren't killed by mowing are still struggling to rebound. I don't think the clover will hamper the cereals....depending on the clover variety, the weather/moisture conditions and how short you scalp them. If it's hot and dry and you cut the clover real short you can set it back quite a bit....but most clovers tend to rebound from scalping as long the hot and dry aren't prolonged.

Thx

 

[wiscwhip]

I'd get rid of the purslane if you can. The stuff will take over if you let it. I have seen it browsed by deer however

We used to leave it in our plots, but we were on much worse soil than what you have there, so we encouraged anything a deer would eat. It could never get established enough in our sand to really take over, so we let it be. I would suggest you follow stu's advice(If my situation would have been different I would have done the same) and get rid of it so it can't become an issue down the road.

 

[phil@thesidehill]

We used to leave it in our plots, but we were on much worse soil than what you have there, so we encouraged anything a deer would eat. It could never get established enough in our sand to really take over, so we let it be. I would suggest you follow stu's advice(If my situation would have been different I would have done the same) and get rid of it so it can't become an issue down the road.

Since it's a relatively small area would you recommend pulling by hand and the touching up with gly?

 

[wiscwhip]

That all depends on how stout of a back you have I guess. If it is only a few areas it would work to pull them. They have somewhat of a thicker tap root as I remember(and I'm not entirely sure they couldn't resprout from the root like a dandelion), so take a trowel or spade and loosen up the soil around the base of the plant before you try to just pull it out.

 

[phil@thesidehill]

As a purslane follow up...if you do pull it, make sure you remove all of it from the plot. Drop a leaf on bare ground...and a new plant grows.

That's what I read....pull and remove. It's a small area....maybe 6'x6' and it's not a solid patch in that foot print, just a small mat here and there. But it seems poised to expand from there.

 

[phil@thesidehill]

If you want a whole plot of it...just till or disk it up :eek::D

Kind of a funny side note...Tommy (THE LLC) wanted some purslane one year. I guess its very high in Omega 3s and is a tasty addition to salads. I sent him a great big package of the stuff one summer, no idea if it lived after a hot summer mailing or not.

Fortunately.....I usually only put a disk to the dirt about once every 4-5 yrs...and that's only when conditions dictate that's the best option.
I read about its nutritional benefits as well.....I'm gonna give it a try....but salad isn't my strong suit.

 

[bueller]

Nice looking plots! I really enjoy seeing plotting and hunting success on small acreage.

 

[bueller]

I use plastic tubs not liners for my waterholes so I'm speaking without any practical experience here. But do you think activity would increase if you "covered" that liner with a couple inches of sand or dirt?

 

[phil@thesidehill]

Nice looking plots! I really enjoy seeing plotting and hunting success on small acreage.

thanks man! Ultimately some day the goal is to have more land to work with...because there is only so much you can do with 10 acres....that said this little experiment on the sidehill lot has been a tremendous learning experience and has undoubtedly shortened up the learning curve for once i reach my goal of more land.