Food Plot " Stacking"

[CentralKyHunter]

Been working on a new food plot plan for my farm going forward after experimenting the last 4-5 yrs. I'm calling it "stacking", i'm sure other people have done it before but I do not know of anyone.

I'm planting either sorghum/ milo or corn in every plot next spring . After it dies down and thins up a little I am going to try to sow turnips , radishes ,and probably clover with in the standing grain.

I really really like sorghum/milo as a late winter protein source for quail/rabbit/turkey/deer and it also gives great cover for the small game .

The biggest challenge is going to be the secondary plot with in the primary plot that is dead but still standing but I've got a few ideas on how to make it work. If it works I think it will be an awesome set up.

-Are you familiar with anyone who has tried this approach??
- Any ideas on how to achieve the 2nd planting while leaving the original plot standing? Hydro seeder?!?
- Should I reduce initial grain planting density to allow more room for secondary planting? I would think so .

Let's hear your ideas one day after you've had time to ponder. My plots are more than deer food, I try to focus as much for small game

 

[Fish]

I really cant help much other than my experience this year.
I planted milo in late May with the intention of seeding rye and turnips into in September. I planted pretty heavy, which helped keep weeds at bay this summer, but dang if that stuff wasnt green and canopied come September. I seeded because i was there anyway, but it doesnt look promising at this point. Just too thick.

 

[buckdeer1]

I have done that with soybeans but it may be tough on milo.i too plant milo every year and I plant strips and then plant wheat inbetween or I plant a strip around the edge then the wheat and radishes in the middle.My milo will be completely gone by jan.

 

[farmhunter]

done it with other plantings - but not Milo. No pheasant here and Doves are songbirds in NY - so milo hasn't been on my list.
I've seeded oats into Brassica and brassica into corn and clover - sometimes soybeans as well. I like brassica in corn especially where I have thin spots - because I already have fertilizer down!

 

[Gravel Road]

I ran into the same problem as Fish, as it just seemed too thick for a fall planting. My field was broadcast so that could be the main issue. With wide row spacing I don't see why it wouldn't work well. Thinking of just leaving this field fallow next year and let the giant ragweed fill in, then plant another area of the field with milo next spring.
This is my first year for milo and can't wait to see how it is utilized over the winter.

 

[Brokenbear]

CKH ..you don't say what equipment you have to work with as to implment or tractor horsepower but you are planting the #1 (Milo) and #2 (corn) debris creating row crops that are encountered in the central US ...and to not have ground contact for celulose/fiber breakdown by leaving it standing compounds the problem greatly to the follow up spring planting ....You can thinly plant the milo so it it is not so thick but then you leave yourself in a bad way since the milo won't be thick enough to shade out weeds and grass and roundup ready milo seed is all but non existant and the weed and grass chemicals for milo are either expensive or come in large containers only meant for larger acres or the chemicals require the sale of said chemical to be sold/applied to only licensed/certified appliers ...so in my book thin sewing of milo is to me not an option ...so come spring you need to bush hog as soon as you can to get it on the ground ...you need to disc the debris in as soon as you can ...then whatever follow up crop you choose can be sewn with a simple old style non-no-till drill like an old Van Brunt (John Deere)....
Think a 3 way crop plan ..you can drill milo and beans ...you need to plant corn with a planter ...a no-till planter can make it thru the mess milo will leave behind but it will try your patience ...a traditional planter has NO CHANCE of working in the milo debris ...so here is why you should add beans
First is simply rotation of the crops on a given piece of ground where the crop following the previous crop uses some of the neutrients put there by the previous crop and then adding it's own specific value to the ground for the following crop ....diversification is very important in not allowing the ground to develop nematodes and other root and plant attacking aborations that occur by year after year planting of same family crops create
Think this Year 1.. crop milo ..which is easily followed by beans drilled with a normal old style drill (low cost$$) to plant beans
year 2 ..crop beans ...which can easily be followed by an old style low cost planter to plant corn
year 3 ..crop corn ...which can easily be followed a old style drill to plant milo

This is the way to reach your crop desires with small, low cost, minimal equipment ...of course this all goes out the window if you have big horse power tractors...big heavy no-till equipment ...

You will not over seed milo period with out breaking it down and stiring the dirt
if you do not have the horses to shred and turn the milo over I highly reccomend you stay away from any large amounts of it

Good luck and have a safe and fun season
Bear

 

[j-bird]

I sort of do what your talking about.....Once the corn or soybeans dry down I simply walk every other row with a small handheld spreader with a mix of brassica and cereal grains. Now baiting is not legal in my area so any process I would use that would knock grain on the ground is considered baiting. That is why I simply walk and crank. I have disced strips of standing beans in and then followed with a broadcasting over the top as well - deer LOVE fresh green soybeans in the early fall when the others are brown. I also like to remove thin/weak areas before it produces any grain to make small plots inside them as well. I used end rows the same way as well. Since the primary crop is still the main purpose I still plant it to maximize it - the secondary crop is simply "icing on the cake". Something that will help is getting earlier maturing primary crop varieties as this will increase the growing window for your secondary crop. I have not used milo - I use soybeans or corn (both RR). I have far better results with soybeans than I do corn simply because I tend to get beans to dry down sooner and I get the seed to broadcast easier over the beans vs thru the corn.

Come spring time - I have to bush-hog everything down and either plow or use a tiller to get everything worked back into the soil.

I even sort of do a similar thing by planting my fruit/nut trees in my perennial plots - again trying to maximize the food output of that particular plot. I simply need to dedicate as much as I can to cover and having a perennial plot, summer annual plot, fall annual plot AND an orchard in each of my 3 areas simply isn't practical.

If you have larger plots having it aerially applied may be the ticket - depending on cast.

 

[Scott44]

The last couple years I've planted a sorghum mix and I really like how it's turned out. I've never stacked it but planted everything at one time which is the first part of June. The only thing that I added was mid July when I planted my brassicas I broadcast some brassicas into sorghum plot. Last night I had my first sit of the year and when they started coming out they ate through my cereal grains and headed right to the sorghum plot, ate in there for 30-45 min and then came back out. I noticed this same thing last year so I think I'm going to always have a sorghum plot of some sort.

 

[CentralKyHunter]

Good info guys

 

[Fish]

I have two rows of milo and with no equipment i am going to try and burn it off come late winter. With a larger field that could be a bigger issue, but not small scale like i am doing. But i will have to lay it down first if winter doesnt do it.

 

[buckdeer1]

I usually burn whats left of my milo fields in early spring.It makes it alot easier to get ground ready for next crop

 

[DocHolladay]

I don't know what everyone else calls it, but several people have been doing it for awhile. I saw it on several occasions at the old QDMA forum. Grant Woods has been preaching it since I started watching him several years ago.

 

[dgallow]

Burning residue with fire and storing residue in a hay bale?.....exactly what does that do to the soil below?....what happens with no residue?.....think for a moment about both short and long term consequences.

The term residue management for crop/forage implies that you have residue....a goal for that residue....and an idea of how much residue is needed to meet the goal.

 

[MattJK]

Burning residue with fire and storing residue in a hay bale?.....exactly what does that do to the soil below?....what happens with no residue?.....think for a moment about both short and long term consequences.

The term residue management for crop/forage implies that you have residue....a goal for that residue....and an idea of how much residue is needed to meet the goal.

Residue is great for soil health, drought tolerance, fertility.

I think we are just barely touching on the crop species, equipment, and timing of species to make for good stacking. How big is the plot? A hand spreader around the edges, or an ATV spreader run through the middle of it could yield results.

 

[catscratch]

I spread wheat into standing grains. It works well with beans, sort of well with milo. For me it isn't so much the ability to get the wheat to grow in milo as much as the deer don't seem to like to graze with their head below milo stocks. To account for this I like to broadcast a strip and then mow over it (the milo). Gives cover around them and green to eat in the winter.

I also do a different form of "stacking". I will broadcast wheat or rye into the same plot several times in the fall. This gives a lot of variation in plant growth during the winter. These plots will have everything from 1inch tall wheat to 8 inch tall wheat in the late season. I don't know if it helps or not, but I do it anyway.

 

[j-bird]

As far as "residue" is concerned - I see it as potential organic matter that is good for the soil - you just have to get it INTO the soil. This is where mowing and then a tiller or my 2 bottom plow come in handy. If you have "no-till" equipment then it's all the better as that residue will help retain soil moisture as well. I have to till in some manner to plant corn and beans so I loose that surface level soil moisture as part of that process anyway.......it isn't ideal, but we work with what we have.

 

[Prairiesneak]

I call what I've been experimenting with a form of relay cropping. I plant milo early with an adjustable 2 row planter. I plant the milo in 30 inch rows, but turn wide to leave a 45 inch middle between planter passes. When the milo is starting to set seed I move my planter units out to 60" and straddle the milo and plant winter peas. So then I have 2 15" rows of peas 2 30" rows of milo and the pattern repeats. I then broadcast fert, rye and a light rate of brassicas. Works awesome but does require a special planter. Me and my 7 year old built it last summer.

 

[Smallplot]

This process is commonly referred to as cover cropping. Some farmers have been doing this with success with crops like corn. Don't figure it would do very well with Milo but someone would likely figure it out. There are a few instances where cover crops are planted early between wide corn row rows with success, might be able to do the same with milo. .

 

[dgallow]

As far as "residue" is concerned - I see it as potential organic matter that is good for the soil - you just have to get it INTO the soil. This is where mowing and then a tiller or my 2 bottom plow come in handy. If you have "no-till" equipment then it's all the better as that residue will help retain soil moisture as well. I have to till in some manner to plant corn and beans so I loose that surface level soil moisture as part of that process anyway.......it isn't ideal, but we work with what we have.

I presume you have pastures or range land in your area? And does the residue on pasture and range land have to be 'put into' the soil by the rancher each year? Or does the animal and soil life whom works for the rancher to put residue back into the soil via the 'natural model'? When soil is healthy and the natural soil model restored, the only thing you may need to 'put into' the soil is a new form or type of seed which many times requires very little effort on the ranchers part. Proper residue decay is very much a key part of natural soil fertility...when annual rainfall exceeds 30" a proper decay rate is naturally built into the system! I understand equipment issues....which may or may not be able to be changed. My point is to align management with the natural model to restore soil function and natural cycles of decay etc.

 

[dgallow]

CKH ..you don't say what equipment you have to work with as to implment or tractor horsepower but you are planting the #1 (Milo) and #2 (corn) debris creating row crops that are encountered in the central US ...and to not have ground contact for celulose/fiber breakdown by leaving it standing compounds the problem greatly to the follow up spring planting ....You can thinly plant the milo so it it is not so thick but then you leave yourself in a bad way since the milo won't be thick enough to shade out weeds and grass and roundup ready milo seed is all but non existant and the weed and grass chemicals for milo are either expensive or come in large containers only meant for larger acres or the chemicals require the sale of said chemical to be sold/applied to only licensed/certified appliers ...so in my book thin sewing of milo is to me not an option ...so come spring you need to bush hog as soon as you can to get it on the ground ...you need to disc the debris in as soon as you can ...then whatever follow up crop you choose can be sewn with a simple old style non-no-till drill like an old Van Brunt (John Deere)....
Think a 3 way crop plan ..you can drill milo and beans ...you need to plant corn with a planter ...a no-till planter can make it thru the mess milo will leave behind but it will try your patience ...a traditional planter has NO CHANCE of working in the milo debris ...so here is why you should add beans
First is simply rotation of the crops on a given piece of ground where the crop following the previous crop uses some of the neutrients put there by the previous crop and then adding it's own specific value to the ground for the following crop ....diversification is very important in not allowing the ground to develop nematodes and other root and plant attacking aborations that occur by year after year planting of same family crops create
Think this Year 1.. crop milo ..which is easily followed by beans drilled with a normal old style drill (low cost$$) to plant beans
year 2 ..crop beans ...which can easily be followed by an old style low cost planter to plant corn
year 3 ..crop corn ...which can easily be followed a old style drill to plant milo

This is the way to reach your crop desires with small, low cost, minimal equipment ...of course this all goes out the window if you have big horse power tractors...big heavy no-till equipment ...

You will not over seed milo period with out breaking it down and stiring the dirt
if you do not have the horses to shred and turn the milo over I highly reccomend you stay away from any large amounts of it

Good luck and have a safe and fun season
Bear

A thin stand of sorghum will produce thick stalks which are tough to handle...not to mention annual and perennial grass encroachment. A thick stand of milo will have thin stems and actually easier to deal with and that thick stand will control a good number of weeds. Most sorghum residue breaks down at an acceptable rate....some of it will be long lasting which is a benefit to some insect predators of plant pests and soil fungi. The natural model has a mixture of fast and slow decaying material every year...does it not? 10-30% standing residue is of no concern above 30" rainfall in a no-till non-cash crop production setting. Traited corn,however, can be extremely slow to degrade due to disruption of soil life by the plant traits...yielding a excessively slow residue decay and nutrient tie-up. Rarely will a 3 crop rotation of warm season plants provide enough diversity to thwart the efforts of major crop pests (but it will give you high residue and house warm season plant pests).....there simply isn't enough 'time-out' of a crop in a 3 way rotation for the pest numbers of one plant to decline naturally and significantly below threshold...and there is insufficient 'time-in' of pollinating plants to attract needed beneficial insects. There are many things to think about when doing a rotation.....and a having multi-specie mix is an easy way to forego the complexity of monoculture rotations while addressing multiple field issues (tweak the proportions of seed as needed). Further, many plotters won't know the difference between a pest and a beneficial organism! The important thing here is to follow the natural model!