Keystone Krops

I grew up poor, and already feel guilty having that nice equipment that I can't justify and don't deserve. But you are right on the money. Guys can seed grains into clover by broadcasting the seed by hand while walking the field, and get the same results. Just remember to increase your seeding rates by about double if using that method.

Don’t feel guilty but rather proud of the results of hard work. As I’m sure you are. I’ve always enjoyed successes of others when done appropriately. Good stuff. Would like to see video of it in action if you can.


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Shame a guy can't click like x100. You're preaching my gospel man.

Now throw some flax and chicory into that drill as well, and diversify your grains with some barley, spring wheat, and split maturity oats.

Green cover has some fantastic info in their book this year around cold-kill temps for cover crop species. I'm watching the weather closely to see when it's gonna be safe by me to let the barley fly this spring.
Cold temps have never killed my early spring cover crops and that's always been a surprise to me, since I'm planting oats and radishes way earlier than recommended. I think what happens is that although my early spring plantings go through a few frosts that might freeze them back a bit, since the actual soil doesn't freeze anymore the root systems are ok, because I've had phenomenal success with early plantings. I will probably experiment with barley some more here in the future, but in my soils oats and rye won every test hands down so far. Chicory doesn't fit well into my herbicide program, although I do grow it in some plots.
 
Don’t feel guilty but rather proud of the results of hard work. As I’m sure you are. I’ve always enjoyed successes of others when done appropriately. Good stuff. Would like to see video of it in action if you can.


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The one fact with nice equipment is that, the better your tillage, planting, and spraying equipment is, the more that you save in time and money for seed and herbicide. For instance, with my notill drill and 15 dollars worth of seed and a half hours time I can control 1 acre of ladino clover for almost a year with little further work. Because I have bigger equipment, I can buy cheap bin run oats, if they have weed seeds included I have the equipment to easily handle those weeds if they become a problem. Most of my clover is so thick that weeds have difficulty getting started. The oats control the grass, fertilize the clover, feed deer, and expire on their own in midsummer. Sometime after that point I might mow the clover one time, or I might spray weeds one time if necessary, and I'm good for another year, with tons of high protein deer food available 24/7, ten months out of the year. I notill fall grains into some of my clover plots to feed deer the other 2 months of the winter. So, although food plots can be made and maintained with zero equipment, the more equipment that a person has, the less time and money they will spend afterwards.
 
Nice. I'm experimenting with my clover as well. Drilled barley into one plot a week ago. What are your rates on the oats and radish?
About 80 lbs per acre of oats, and 2 lbs of diakon radishes into an existing thick stand of ladino. Although spring oats did much better for me last year than spring barley, I like the idea of barley, I'm going to keep experimenting with barley in the future.
 
About 80 lbs per acre of oats, and 2 lbs of diakon radishes into an existing thick stand of ladino. Although spring oats did much better for me last year than spring barley, I like the idea of barley, I'm going to keep experimenting with barley in the future.
Just curious, when you say oats did better, what was your desired outcome?
 
Just curious, when you say oats did better, what was your desired outcome?
Fast germination, early spring deer feed, and then mature grain and later on, straw for a late summer throw and mow. I planted identical alternating strips side by side and the oats outperformed the barley by almost double in each of these categories. There seemed to be a mysterious factor in play that I couldn't identify. Either it was poor soil, or, I didn't wait long enough after spraying 2-4,D to control marestail, or it was too early to plant barley. But whatever it was, the oats performed and the barley didn't. The wheat component in the test didn't do well either. Reposting pics of the test.
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Did you notice any difference in how your clover responded to the oats vs. barley?
Last spring I drilled these strips into an expired brassica plot from the fall before, so clover wasn't really a component of the test, although there was some volunteer clover present from prior plantings, but I didn't notice any difference from one strip to another. The better growth rates of grain fodder leading to higher levels of decomposing residue feeding the clover more carbon is a long term breakdown process over several years that would require testing procedures beyond my capability, such as the more precise testing methods that a university would use. When I do a test I grade the results with a tape measure or with visual assessments and make notes on the back of a seed bag. A lot of the records of my testing is in pictures. In other words, I'm just having fun.
 
Very cool. Those cereals fascinate me. In that last picture, is the shorter stuff squared off by the deer?

This is why I like a blend. Rye seems king when it comes to biomass. Awnless winter wheat seems king when it comes to extended spring grazing and summer grain. Oats seem to push out more fall tonnage than anything else. I haven't done spring oats to know how they'd be received by me. But if they get eaten anywhere, they'll get eaten at my place.

My biggest challenge is no drill, so I've got to have stuff that broadcasts. It puts me in a box at times, but I get through it.

Did the deer clean up the oat grain before you moved on to your fall plot?
 
Very cool. Those cereals fascinate me. In that last picture, is the shorter stuff squared off by the deer?

This is why I like a blend. Rye seems king when it comes to biomass. Awnless winter wheat seems king when it comes to extended spring grazing and summer grain. Oats seem to push out more fall tonnage than anything else. I haven't done spring oats to know how they'd be received by me. But if they get eaten anywhere, they'll get eaten at my place.

My biggest challenge is no drill, so I've got to have stuff that broadcasts. It puts me in a box at times, but I get through it.

Did the deer clean up the oat grain before you moved on to your fall plot?
If we had that many deer that they could hold a strip of barley from maturing a person could probably walk across the field on their backs. Talking seriously, I'm impressed with the amount of feeding that deer do at my place on ripe oats. March oats ripen in mid-June and our deer strip all the heads off in the next 2 months. Ripe standing oats are similar to radishes in that deer need a few years to learn to eat them, they hit them harder every year.
For us, oats are a swiss army knife go-to spring crop for many reasons; cheap seed, withstands frost for early planting, grows in poor soil, quick germination, erosion control, disease resistant, allopathic to keep grass down, early spring deer food, midsummer seed head deer food when it's too hot for some crops, soil builder, double crops well with no-till June soybeans, grows well in established clover if seeded early before the clover has ground cover, straw provides drought resistance for next crop, provides an excellent stand of straw for a brassica throw n mow in August. That's over a dozen reasons why we plant early spring oats in just about every field that we have. The only fields we don't seed in early spring oats are the fields that already have a growing crop of carryover rye and wheat from the fall before.
However, with not much growing in the fields, and residue on the ground from fall crops, a drill is an important part of this early oats planting for us. I never tried broadcasting grain seeds this early in the spring, I'm not sure how that would work.
 
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If we had that many deer that they could hold a strip of barley from maturing a person could probably walk across the field on their backs. Talking seriously, I'm impressed with the amount of feeding that deer do at my place on ripe oats. March oats ripen in mid-June and our deer strip all the heads off in the next 2 months. Ripe standing oats are similar to radishes in that deer need a few years to learn to eat them, they hit them harder every year.
For us, oats are a swiss army knife go-to spring crop for many reasons; cheap seed, withstands frost for early planting, grows in poor soil, quick germination, erosion control, disease resistant, allopathic to keep grass down, early spring deer food, midsummer seed head deer food when it's too hot for some crops, soil builder, double crops well with no-till June soybeans, grows well in established clover if seeded early before the clover has ground cover, straw provides drought resistance for next crop, provides an excellent stand of straw for a brassica throw n mow in August. That's over a dozen reasons why we plant early spring oats in just about every field that we have. The only fields we don't seed in early spring oats are the fields that already have a growing crop of carryover rye and wheat from the fall before.
However, with not much growing in the fields, and residue on the ground from fall crops, a drill is an important part of this early oats planting for us. I never tried broadcasting grain seeds this early in the spring, I'm not sure how that would work.
Alright, you got me. I'll see if I can remember to get a few different oats to throw in this spring. Still gonna be barley major for me, but I'll toss 1 bu/ac oats in as well. It'd be neat to see early vs late vs black vs hull-less and if there is any preference. I put in Goliath last fall and it kicked out the tonnage like a champ.
 
Very cool man! Please keep the pics coming as it comes up. That'd be neat to follow. I'm still under snow and working obscene hours, so I appreciate seeing these pics.
 
Very cool man! Please keep the pics coming as it comes up. That'd be neat to follow. I'm still under snow and working obscene hours, so I appreciate seeing these pics.
I planted these oats 2" deep. For early or late plantings I plant a little deeper than normal for early frost protection, and for late drought protection, so it takes longer for them to come out of the ground. In prime planting season I only plant 1" to 1 1/2" deep and they pop out faster.
 
We're not allowed to go to work, go out to eat, go to church, go shopping, or visit friends. But there's no restrictions on building more hunting blinds. I've been itching to change a few of my hunting stands and add a few blinds, so I bought a kit from 360 and set it up today. 6' diameter, 16' to the floor, stairway with railings and a landing, 4 double height archery windows and 4 double pane clear/tinted windows towards the food plot, and 5 regular tinted windows towards the woods, carpet on the floor and walls, conklin roofing, and main structure posts wrapped in painted steel.
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March 13th notill drilled oats are well out of the ground exactly 2 weeks later on March 27th. Clover and radishes seeded at the same time with the small seed box are up as well. That day I seeded mostly into existing clover stands, but this is actually a newly cleared plot in the woods, first planting ever.
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