Will this work for a dove plot?

ruskbucks

5 year old buck +
I had a bag of b.o.b 7 card draw. It is mostly oats, triticale, with a little rape and radish. I added a good amount of buckwheat and some sunflower seeds. The kid wanted to try to harvest some doves this September. My plan is just to let everything mature and maybe mow a few strips thru the plot right before season. Would this be a somewhat effective dove plot?It was a last minute project.
 
It's hard to say. Doves prefer feeding on bare ground so you might think about lightly discing the soil after mowing.
 
Deer wouldnt ever let buckwheat mature at my place. And my doves done really favor oats. The brassicas are probably more harm than good - as said above - doves like clean ground for feeding. The triticale may be a draw - depending on how much seed it puts out. If there are a lot of doves already in the area, it might work.

As I have always said - in most cases, attracting deer is so easy anyone can do it. Doves and ducks - a whole different level.
 
Deer wouldnt ever let buckwheat mature at my place. And my doves done really favor oats. The brassicas are probably more harm than good - as said above - doves like clean ground for feeding. The triticale may be a draw - depending on how much seed it puts out. If there are a lot of doves already in the area, it might work.

As I have always said - in most cases, attracting deer is so easy anyone can do it. Doves and ducks - a whole different level.

What are you planting for doves and ducks this year?

Do you plant mid summer for ducks?

bill
 
What are you planting for doves and ducks this year?

Do you plant mid summer for ducks?

bill
My dove fields consist of five acres of ripe wheat that I spray with gly to kill any weeds. The doves are just now starting to use those mature seed heads. Keeping the weeds out is pretty important. Right next to that field is five acres of browntop millet. I am in a non ag area and I cant just plant a seed crop like millet and mow it two weeks before season - I have to attract - and hold doves - all summer long. Doves numbers will build on those mature wheat heads beginning now and then switch to the millet when it gets ripe in two months. I will probably spray the wheat with gly, twice to keep it clean. I have also had several spin feeders going since March, spinning out some corn every morning. Besides feeding deer, and providing hog hunting, there have been fifteen or twenty dove using each of those feeders for the last two months. I also have a feeder in the middle of the millet field feeding sunflower seed and cracked corn. That feeder is turned off a few weeks before dove season so no corn or sunflowers are left. In my state, normal faming practices as defined by the ag extension service allow for the top sowing of wheat on disked fields after the 15th of Aug. We disk the old wheat field and top sow fresh wheat onto the bare ground. That further holds doves. Mid Sept, we disk the millet field and top sow wheat. The wheat will eventually germinate in those fields and start the process over. I switch which field I keep the wheat in each summer to the field that was millet the previous year, so I can spray weeds that might have accumulated the year before. It is a seven month effort.

My duck ponds - as I call them - get millet. I plant them as the water recedes in the summer heat and drought. If an open mudflat is exposed, I walk it with a hand seeder. I plant chiwappa millet before the 15th of june with a 120 day maturity date. Then, I plant Japanese Millet or Golden Millet after that - depending on how much growing season is left. A lot of my duck pond area will grow smart weed - which must be dealt with or it will out compete the millet. I have an electric seeder mount rigged on the back of my ranger and a sprayer in the back of the ranger - so I can spray gly and plant millet at the same time. If it gets really dry, I have one duck pond I can pump up with a 10” crusafulli style pump. I will pump it up one day and turn around and pump the water off it the next day.

Hogs and deer tend not to eat millet if some acreage is available. We cant plant corn or milo here, because there wouldnt be anything left for ducks

7A5118A1-5A82-4E5C-BFC5-B7BA27C5B9F9.jpeg
 
I had a bag of b.o.b 7 card draw. It is mostly oats, triticale, with a little rape and radish. I added a good amount of buckwheat and some sunflower seeds. The kid wanted to try to harvest some doves this September. My plan is just to let everything mature and maybe mow a few strips thru the plot right before season. Would this be a somewhat effective dove plot?It was a last minute project.

They stuff you are adding seems more dovish to me than the mix. While I do plant for different species, I always plant for soil first. To my way of thinking you need to add a legume to the mix. Regardless of the species I prefer about a 50/50 mix of legumes and non-legumes. For doves, bushhogging strips flat to the ground, almost scalping is a good idea.

Thanks,

Jack
 
They stuff you are adding seems more dovish to me than the mix. While I do plant for different species, I always plant for soil first. To my way of thinking you need to add a legume to the mix. Regardless of the species I prefer about a 50/50 mix of legumes and non-legumes. For doves, bushhogging strips flat to the ground, almost scalping is a good idea.

Thanks,

Jack
What legume would you plant for doves, realizing pretty much any pea type plant would be eradicated by deer.
 
MY town's hunting club uses bird seed mix for their pheasant plots. Dove enjoy it too.

IF you got a major bird propulation, they may destroy the brassicas. Ruffed gruse refuse to let late summer plnted turnips make it. Thy literally fight over the plot for territory.

Big brand food plot seed is typically frowned upon here. I have not planted the 7 card draw, but the ingredients look to be a great deer / turkey mix. I also like plotspike''s forage feast. wheat oats peas brassicas and clover.
 
What legume would you plant for doves, realizing pretty much any pea type plant would be eradicated by deer.
As I said, I plant for soil and diversity first and a species second. If deer densities preclude peas, even and annual clover would be fine. Partridge pea or vetches would be better if deer densities don't overwhelm them. Every place has different considerations.
 
As I said, I plant for soil and diversity first and a species second. If deer densities preclude peas, even and annual clover would be fine. Partridge pea or vetches would be better if deer densities don't overwhelm them. Every place has different considerations.
I am not sure planting for soil and diversity is an effective approach when trying to attract doves and ducks. To compound matters, doves prefer clean ground, which is not conducive for soil management. I would be afraid vetch would overwhelm any grain producing crop. Partidge pea might work at a very light planting rate. That is the thing about doves and ducks - it is all about the food. With deer, you need to have the most attractive amongst your neighbors. With doves and ducks, you need the most attractive ground in ten or twenty miles. There are so many things we can plant for deer and will work to attract or hold them. It is all about seeds for doves and ducks - and lots of them. These are some of the reasons I maintain deer are so easy to plant for.
 
I am not sure planting for soil and diversity is an effective approach when trying to attract doves and ducks. To compound matters, doves prefer clean ground, which is not conducive for soil management. I would be afraid vetch would overwhelm any grain producing crop. Partidge pea might work at a very light planting rate. That is the thing about doves and ducks - it is all about the food. With deer, you need to have the most attractive amongst your neighbors. With doves and ducks, you need the most attractive ground in ten or twenty miles. There are so many things we can plant for deer and will work to attract or hold them. It is all about seeds for doves and ducks - and lots of them. These are some of the reasons I maintain deer are so easy to plant for.

For deer, attraction, means something very different around here. It is not what crop I plant, it is how safe deer feel during the season accessing the food that will largely determine where they feed. While I have done dove fields, I'm not a waterfowl guy. For dove, "bare ground" doesn't actually need to be bare. It needs to be clear. I find setting a bushhog very low so it is almost scalping right before the season is just as effective as bare ground. Mowing a little sooner and then lightly disking can also be effective. You can plant those strips for fall deer food as well.

By the way, if planting peas or other legumes won't work for the OP, I'm not sure how he is going to grow sunflowers in his mix...

Thanks,

Jack
 
For deer, attraction, means something very different around here. It is not what crop I plant, it is how safe deer feel during the season accessing the food that will largely determine where they feed. While I have done dove fields, I'm not a waterfowl guy. For dove, "bare ground" doesn't actually need to be bare. It needs to be clear. I find setting a bushhog very low so it is almost scalping right before the season is just as effective as bare ground. Mowing a little sooner and then lightly disking can also be effective. You can plant those strips for fall deer food as well.

By the way, if planting peas or other legumes won't work for the OP, I'm not sure how he is going to grow sunflowers in his mix...

Thanks,

Jack
No way could I grow sunflowers unless it was ten acres or more. I used to grow them, and the doves prefer them over everything I have planted - but deer like them and they can be pretty high maintenance keeping the ground clean using a variety of pre emergents and post emergents.

For deer, in my area, it is all about the food. Everywhere around me has bedding cover. I also have some bedding cover, but food trumps everything here.
 
No way could I grow sunflowers unless it was ten acres or more. I used to grow them, and the doves prefer them over everything I have planted - but deer like them and they can be pretty high maintenance keeping the ground clean using a variety of pre emergents and post emergents.

For deer, in my area, it is all about the food. Everywhere around me has bedding cover. I also have some bedding cover, but food trumps everything here.
Yep, every place is different. I feel your pain. For quite a while our deer numbers were way too high. Sunflowers were near impossible here too. We solved that by harvesting every doe we saw for a number of years even taking button bucks if we were not sure if they were male or female. We are in much better shape now, but it took quite a few years and lots of doe tags!
 
I have planted numerous dove fields each year for over 40 years. Another thing I would say about dove fields - it makes a big difference what the dove population is in the general area. I have planted dove fields in areas where there were a lot of doves to begin with - usually ag areas - and mowing a seed crop like millet, milo, or sunflowers two weeks before season would produce adequate doves to hunt. If your property is in non ag area like my property now, you have to grow your doves all summer long - and attract doves all summer long. I can plant just millet and mow it two weeks before season and not have enough doves for a one man hunt. I probably have forty or fifty doves using my place right now. Doves nest all summer, raising a number of clutches. Get those adult birds coming to your fields early - and their offspring will follow.

I know a guy who e fences his sunflowers with great results. I am not going to that extra effort - but you may find it worthwhile.
 
I have planted numerous dove fields each year for over 40 years. Another thing I would say about dove fields - it makes a big difference what the dove population is in the general area. I have planted dove fields in areas where there were a lot of doves to begin with - usually ag areas - and mowing a seed crop like millet, milo, or sunflowers two weeks before season would produce adequate doves to hunt. If your property is in non ag area like my property now, you have to grow your doves all summer long - and attract doves all summer long. I can plant just millet and mow it two weeks before season and not have enough doves for a one man hunt. I probably have forty or fifty doves using my place right now. Doves nest all summer, raising a number of clutches. Get those adult birds coming to your fields early - and their offspring will follow.

I know a guy who e fences his sunflowers with great results. I am not going to that extra effort - but you may find it worthwhile.

A lot of this may depend on your location. While some doves stay, most migrate. There is probably a difference between dealing with resident doves and those migrating. We do have some doves that stay all winter here, but most of the doves shot here are migrating birds in flyways. If you are in a general flyway, it doesn't take much during migration. If you are not, it can be pretty tough. Folks in the deep south may be planting to "hold" birds. Those further north may just be planting to get migrating flocks to choose your field over the one a half mile away and generally, if your are in a flyway, they will use both.

Location seems to play a role in everything... :emoji_smile:
 
My dove fields consist of five acres of ripe wheat that I spray with gly to kill any weeds. The doves are just now starting to use those mature seed heads. Keeping the weeds out is pretty important. Right next to that field is five acres of browntop millet. I am in a non ag area and I cant just plant a seed crop like millet and mow it two weeks before season - I have to attract - and hold doves - all summer long. Doves numbers will build on those mature wheat heads beginning now and then switch to the millet when it gets ripe in two months. I will probably spray the wheat with gly, twice to keep it clean. I have also had several spin feeders going since March, spinning out some corn every morning. Besides feeding deer, and providing hog hunting, there have been fifteen or twenty dove using each of those feeders for the last two months. I also have a feeder in the middle of the millet field feeding sunflower seed and cracked corn. That feeder is turned off a few weeks before dove season so no corn or sunflowers are left. In my state, normal faming practices as defined by the ag extension service allow for the top sowing of wheat on disked fields after the 15th of Aug. We disk the old wheat field and top sow fresh wheat onto the bare ground. That further holds doves. Mid Sept, we disk the millet field and top sow wheat. The wheat will eventually germinate in those fields and start the process over. I switch which field I keep the wheat in each summer to the field that was millet the previous year, so I can spray weeds that might have accumulated the year before. It is a seven month effort.

My duck ponds - as I call them - get millet. I plant them as the water recedes in the summer heat and drought. If an open mudflat is exposed, I walk it with a hand seeder. I plant chiwappa millet before the 15th of june with a 120 day maturity date. Then, I plant Japanese Millet or Golden Millet after that - depending on how much growing season is left. A lot of my duck pond area will grow smart weed - which must be dealt with or it will out compete the millet. I have an electric seeder mount rigged on the back of my ranger and a sprayer in the back of the ranger - so I can spray gly and plant millet at the same time. If it gets really dry, I have one duck pond I can pump up with a 10” crusafulli style pump. I will pump it up one day and turn around and pump the water off it the next day.

Hogs and deer tend not to eat millet if some acreage is available. We cant plant corn or milo here, because there wouldnt be anything left for ducks

View attachment 43513

.......a rig after my own heart.......complete with the gratuitous Coors Light in the back!!

bill
 
We don't hunt doves, but after planting a seed mix with dwarf sorghum (wild game food sorghum) in it, we had doves EVERYWHERE!!! In bird seed mixes, it's known as MILO. The seed mix had white proso millet in it too, along with the dwarf sorghum. We didn't mow the field either. The doves came like flies - and we never had them at camp prior to that planting. FWIW.
 
We don't hunt doves, but after planting a seed mix with dwarf sorghum (wild game food sorghum) in it, we had doves EVERYWHERE!!! In bird seed mixes, it's known as MILO. The seed mix had white proso millet in it too, along with the dwarf sorghum. We didn't mow the field either. The doves came like flies - and we never had them at camp prior to that planting. FWIW.

The filet mignon of the sky in east texas

bill
 
Milo and Japanese Millet have worked best for me. More doves than I've ever seen on our place last year.. Strips help also.

Could mow, lightly disc then pack so easy landing, walking for them.. Or just disc a fire break around an area and burn.
 
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