I want something where I can plant multiple things (corn, beans, milo, etc.). Trying to decide what to get. The no-tills are expensive and I'm trying to figure out if I can get by with just a 4 row planter. What are y'alls opinion?
I have been planting food plots for nearly 20 years. In the beginning years I was fussy to have everything in neat and uniform rows with the exception of clover, alfalfa and other forage grasses. I paid a neighbor to come in and plant corn. After realizing I wasn't going to cultivate the corn I decided to try another route. I'm planting food plots for wildlife, I'm not trying to achieve maximum yield to feed a dairy.
If I want to plant a plot with corn now I disc the ground, use my broadcast spreader to spread the corn seed and lightly disc the plot again. I don't go out and spend big dollars in the spring for seed corn. I have already bought my seed corn for next years planting from a nearby farmer neighbor who had some left over. If I don't get 100% germination it's no big deal. I have done the same with soybean seed. A couple 30 packs can go a long way in bartering for seed the farmer won't use anyway.
If the seed goes on too thick it's no problem. Some will get crowded out and some won't mature as quickly as you might like. Who cares? The deer will still munch away.
Three to four weeks after planting I use my broadcast sprayer and spray the corn and soybeans with 41% Glyphosate. That's it. If a few weeds grow the deer will eat some of them and the rest will struggle to get sunlight and not bother anything anyway. I'm not going to harvest the corn so rows aren't important to me after the corn reaches full growth.
I do lime my plots as required and use bagged fertilizer. This is also applied with a broadcast spreader. By broadcasting my seed I am taking full advantage of the amendments as opposed to having some lay between rows doing nothing more than feeding weeds.
