I'm on your side with the clover. I had a 1/4 acre clover field that was more than enough for my deer in NW WI. Never saw heavy browsing on whitetail Institute or bio logic clover. As far as other crops, 3 1/2 acres is never enough. Beans, corn, sunflowers, raddish, rape it all is demolished. I just hope to have something for them around gun season. I would suggest going with winter rye. It holds up to the browsing and it will feed deer fall,winter, and a little in the spring. I like it because it's my best bet to hold up to the browsing. I plant mine early July, to try to get it ahead of the deer. They usually keep it mowed to a couple of inches.Turkeys also are in it all the time.
Year round plots
- Thread starter Bill Loser
- Start date
swat1018
5 year old buck +
When I frost seed clover I do it on the last snow of the year, or when you are getting a little muddy soil during the day, but still frosty at night. I like to frost seed clover into fall brassica plots, soybean fields, or any spot with a lot of bare ground come spring. I wouldn't do any grain crops while frost seeding. I guess you can try some spring oats, but never have.
Bassattackr
5 year old buck +
Bill L - Where / what climate zone are you located in?
SD51555
5 year old buck +
1. Not sure
2. Always with a grain in it, continuously from the day it comes up.
3. I wouldn't. Let the clover be the legume in the mix while you're getting it up and running.
Bassattackr
5 year old buck +
1. Late winter is best for germination. Ideally about a month before your last frost date is about perfect but you can go much later provided you have a couple of good frosts left. If you go before the month out, the worse your germination will be as you rewind from that date further..
2. Fall (Sept 1st is perfect along the I-70 corridor, move forward/ back for every 100 miles you are south / north respectively) for wheat and rye, they both need to vernalize (need cold weather) to produce grain in the spring. Oats can be added in the spring after the last frost, but you will have to disturb the soil or drill them in, both will reduce your clover stand.
3. Peas are a great companion crop for oats for hay and forage in the beef cattle market. They, like oats cannot be frost seeded however. They also need to be drilled or worked in the soil.
Bill L - Your best options are either frost seed the area with a white, red clover combination as outlined above OR you may consider doing a oats, peas and berseem clover planting after your first frost date. Then in the fall you can establish your perennial clover plot with a cereal grain of your choice. Both are great ways and have worked well for me in the past. The only advantage of a fall establishment is fewer weeds to deal with. But if you’re good with mowing / spraying then frost seeding can be a viable solution.
Lastly, I would also to encourage you to read the Lickcreek threads on clover and cereal grains for a greater understanding of both.
Good luck!
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Bill Loser
5 year old buck +
Thanks!
Im in zone 5 south east Wisconsin
Im in zone 5 south east Wisconsin
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
1 - Late winter, when the sun warms the soil enough to thaw the top 1/2" to 1" - then freeze again at night. The freeze / thaw cycle works the clover seed into the soil with no cultivation needed.
2 - Even our PURE clover stands were started with a "nurse crop" of oats or rye right around Labor Day. Oats will die with later fall freezes, but rye will survive until the next spring & summer. Then, to release the clover, the rye can be mowed short. Early fall planting gets you past summer weed competition.
3 - A couple farmers here told me that peas do well with rye grain to climb on / support them. ( We tried peas at camp a few times - but they got eaten early and never had a chance to "climb" on anything !!! )
For clover, either late winter frost-seeding, or early fall planting with a "nurse crop" of rye or oats seem to work best. Our camp members aren't farmers - but we took the advice of farmers (on here and locally) for establishing clover with either method ........ and it worked.
Bassattackr
5 year old buck +
I planted the Dbltree mix in early September here in MO. First year planting peas and they’re doing well, taking my deer a little longer to find them but starting to browse on them here and there..Bill Loser
5 year old buck +
I was reading through the lickcreek forum, and they talk about the double tree mix. Is this a mix you can buy or do you buy the seeds and mix your own according to the ratios he has listed on there?
Bassattackr
5 year old buck +
No where I’m aware of, I just mix my own. All his listed rates are per acre.
Bill Loser
5 year old buck +
I thought so. Thanks
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Lickcreek and Doubletree are one and the same guy - Paul Knox. He passed on a couple years ago, sadly. The "doubletree" mix is his own seed mix he found to work very well for crop rotations when feeding deer. Most of us on here use his guidelines and buy individual seeds to mix our own - using his recommendations.
TreeDaddy
5 year old buck +
Lickcreek threads/forum are habitat Gold
Once you start reading them, you wont put them down until reading them all
Challenge me on this
bill
Bassattackr
5 year old buck +
No challenge here Bill.. I can’t count the amount of hours I’ve spent reading and rereading them on MI and IW forums.. Paul was the “godfather” of food plotting.
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
I'm thankful Paul took the time to share what he knew / learned with us on here and on another forum. How we've benefitted from him!
Bill Loser
5 year old buck +
Ive started goung through them. Gotta be honest, some of that stuff makes ny head spin. Lol
chucker66
5 year old buck +
I remember when I found the LC thread on QDM forum. It took me 4 days to read through and I teared up at the part when he passed away. I wish I could have met Paul. I use his guidelines quite often in my plots, with Winter Rye being my main stay in NW Wis.
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I keep it simple - mostly durana - but at least some sort of clover or combination of clovers - and plant wheat into it every fall. Sometimes not a pure year round plot if we have a hot dry summer as clover will die down end of summer leaving a month of maybe two sometimes, with little green vegetation. No fertilizer. I used to plant all kinds of stuff, but have pared down the plant variety, and saw no diminished use of the plots. The wheat is for me to hunt over and the clover is for the deer
Nightvision
5 year old buck +
Two ways in my opinion and both would work better if you have access to a no till drill.
First, plant clover everywhere. Then drill oats,wheat, or rye into it every fall.
Second is the Grant Woods Buffalo system where you plant beans every summer then drill rye, brassicas, and some clover into the standing beans while they are still green. It will kill some of the beans but there will be a lot of green for the deer.
In the spring, crimp to kill the rye and then drill beans into the crimped rye. Rinse and repeat every year.
First, plant clover everywhere. Then drill oats,wheat, or rye into it every fall.
Second is the Grant Woods Buffalo system where you plant beans every summer then drill rye, brassicas, and some clover into the standing beans while they are still green. It will kill some of the beans but there will be a lot of green for the deer.
In the spring, crimp to kill the rye and then drill beans into the crimped rye. Rinse and repeat every year.
Nightvision
5 year old buck +
SC,
When your Durana dies back a little towards the end of summer, does it come back with the cooler weather and rains of fall? Mine does. Sometimes, there will be little more than dirt there around august but by late September if we have had rain and cooler temps that stuff comes back. A very resilient clover.
