I have heard that burnt wheat is fantastic; for whatever reason all my hunting has been over sunflowers so maybe I need to broaden my horizons. I may try wheat next year...definitely much cheaper and easier. From what see online proso millet is 65-75 days. I will look into the Japanese millet as well. It’s going to be an experiment regardless!Agreed its too late for sunflowers if your goal is the opener of 9/1. Tried it a few years ago and it was a flop. Doing half in sunflowers now might make for some awesome midseason hunting however.
I’m planning on doing some Japanese millet for the first time this weekend. I would look at it hard if I were you as it appears to have one of the shorter maturity dates of the millets, right at 60 days. That would give you plenty of time for it to mature and for it to be sprayed and then burned to concentrate doves before the opener.
IME, the proso takes a little longer (90ish days?) and you’d be cutting it very close.
The bulk of my planting this year was winter wheat planted in mid September. I have heard it attracts and concentrates them almost as well as sunflowers, and at 1/10th the effort and cost (depending on if you go Clearfield or not), makes the most sense for my small plot. Add to the fact that it’s guaranteed to be ready in time, I’m looking forward to what happens this year. Planning a spray the first week of August and a burn the 2nd, which should make for an all or nothing opener.
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You’re right about that. I’m just starting to learn about planting/managing for doves. I’ve dove hunted public ground most of my life and last year was my first year planting on my own. I’m limited to a 5 acre patch right now. There are definitely decent numbers of doves in the area but I would do well to have 5 acres of early maturing crop and then 5 acres of later maturing crop to pull in more. So much more enjoyable dove hunting on your own private patch. Once my 125 acres of CRP expire I’ll have more options. Do you burn or mow your wheat/millet? I mowed 1/2 my sunflowers last year which helped, but they were still green and drying down so it wasn’t perfect.
Come dove season would you mow strips perpendicular to the rows? Burn some of it? Never planted buckwheat or millet. I might be able to divide my large and small seed boxes on my PSS84 and and plant one half buckwheat and one half millet. After turning and planting back the other way that it would give me ~7’ strips of each.
We get a lot of migratory doves here in MO. We have resident doves as well. I’m SOL on wheat this year since it’s so late. I planted sunflowers last year and the deer didn’t mess with them. I have a ton of deer but where this plot is located is close to my shop and the road so they tend not to spend much time there...they’re off destroying the 9 acres of beans I plant back in the secluded spots. This year will be an experiment. Last year was my first year with sunflowers and they did great, but they were put in a month too late. I got a couple good mid season shoots in, but they were no where near ready on 9/1. Next year I’m going to try and get the farmer to have them in the ground my early May. What’s your planting method for millet? Do you use any pre emergent during burn down?
If your opener is 9/1 like ours your sunflowers won’t be ready unless you burn them down ahead of time with gly. I went through it last year in MO. I planted 6/6 I believe last year. Millet should be ready in 70ish days depending on what type you planted. Post up your results and progress along the way. My sunflower post from last year is on here if you search my band on the forum. I kept it update through the process.
