What's your most ambitious endeavor for 2017 food plots?

J

JFH

Active Member
Mine is starting a large (4+ acre) RR alflafa field.

Have previous experience with RR alfalfa in smaller settings but hope to get something extraordinary going this year.

Impressed with the latest winter-hardy (yet also late-season) cultivars available. Going to do my best to get that going. Praying for regular rain in the establishment year (sandy soil).


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I also did an alfalfa field last fall thinking I had most of the grass knocked back but I am seeing some cool season grass so I will over seed it with RR alfalfa so that i can spray.Then I am looking at trying an early soybean plot as soon as frost danger is over and will not worry about grain production.
 
Never overseed alfafa with alfalfa, or follow alfalfa with same -- even after plowing. Alfalfa is alleleopathic (sp?). It kills its own seedlings via chemicals that remain in the soil for a year or two.

Sounds strange; but there's a good evolutionary reason for it. Google the subject.
 
Yes but the time that it was planted in the fall should be short enough that I can over seed.The seed guy I use said anything under a year easily should be safe.After that you can't even seed bare spots
 
Mine will be to try to establish pines on a hinge cut area on far ridge to improve thermal cover. And plant more Pear trees, and maybe some more Apple.
Also if drought will stay away, expand my alfalfa/clover field by twice the size. I know that it is recommended not to overseed alfalfa, but I've done it for 4 years now and it works quite well. Do it in late March. My plot is a clover alfalfa mix and perhaps that helps, but no way do I see it not helping. A monoculture plot perhaps, but otherwise, spread the seed. Also ck boron levels as alfalfa seems to like that stuff. I spread that and 0-20-20 before May. Mow occassionally 2-3 times a summer with no baling. Deer love it and still hammering it thru the snow.
 
Mine would be getting 11 food plots planted on 11 different farms in 3 different counties. And try to pull all of that off on weekends only.
 
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I want to widen a narrow logging road lined by pines and plant it with rye and clover next fall. I would also like to get a few sawtooth planted in the same area. The deer are walking in the pine/sparkleberry now. If I take the pine down and leave it this should make the deer either come upon the road earlier or go down in the bottom. The problem is you do not see the deer until they are already within 25 yards and only passing through. It would be nice to see them a little earlier and have them stop for a little bit to munch on some food.
 
Rickey said:
I want to widen a narrow logging road lined by pines and plant it with rye and clover next fall. I would also like to get a few sawtooth planted in the same area. The deer are walking in the pine/sparkleberry now. If I take the pine down and leave it this should make the deer either come upon the road earlier or go down in the bottom. The problem is you do not see the deer until they are already within 25 yards and only passing through. It would be nice to see them a little earlier and have them stop for a little bit to munch on some food.
Click to expand...

My two-track roads are planted to clover / chicory. Great way to boost warm weather forage with minimal effort.

Disk, lime/fertilizer, disk, cultipack, seed, cultipack again. The lime/fertilizer/seed can be easily spread by sitting on the back of a vehicle with a lawn style drop spreader while a pal slowly drives the roads.
 
Planted over 100 fruit trees over the last 11 years without a decent crop of fruit yet. Dying trees, slow growing, planting mistakes and frost

Not food plots but fruit plots have been my biggest challenge
 
I am hoping to change up food plots a bit in the Bull Pen. Have had the boomerang for several years now but very little daytime activity, and not enough camera surveillance to know about the health of the herd in that area. Access sends us thru the middle to hunt the bull pen, fields and woods, and I want to change that somehow.
I have begun by planting pears and chestnuts in one end of the boomerang. I will either let that leg rest this year or just plant wheat and overseed heavily with clover. Would be great to have a steady clover stand among those trees. I am thinking of establishing the primary food plot in and among some ten year old sawtooth, and move the shooting house for easy access.

Yellow shows the tree planting and lime the new food plot area. Sorry about my drawing

newbp.JPG
 
My goal is to get 100% of my "new" plots into production this year.

I bought a farm in 2014 that had been abandoned and foreclosed on sometime during WW1. It had remained on the county books for almost 100 years before it was "discovered" by the bean counters and auctioned off.

I got a dozer in after the 2014 season and in the winter of 14/15 had 2 plots cleared, about 5 acres each.

This is not prime corn ground. We have rock. So after dozer clearing, there's a lot of hand rock picking and dirt work that has to be done to get the plots "crop prepped". I have also battled the weather, the last 2 years have been extraordinarily wet in the mid summer, slowing efforts to a crawl because the tractor can't be driven on these plots for weeks at a time.

So this year, God willing, I'm getting the skid steer in with the rock bucket for the last leg of prep clearing on the second lplot. It took us 3 growing seasons, but we'll have everything 100% productive this year.

I'm also going to try forage soybeans for the first time. My thought is that I will experiment with them and if the deer wipe them out, I will have plenty of time to replant a fall crop in their place.

Grouse
 
Growinf a screen around 2 sides of my food plot area. I've got 200 rhizomes of miscanthus giganteus coming for one side, and I'm thinking about arrow wood viburnum cuttings for the other.
 
Mine is 4 acres of soybeans with corn mixed in, I'm hoping to overseed that with PTT. 2 acres of buckwheat and a brassica mix. And 3 separate 1/4 to 1/2 acre plots of red clover.
 
This year will be my most ambitious ever. 7 acres of corn, 6 acres of peas/sunflowers/sunn hemp, 5 acres of leftover LC mix + chicory that I will fertilize, 2.5 acre of Bahia grass.
 
"ambitious" - I don't do "ambitious"...... Food is not an issue on my place. So I will plant the same acre or two total in either corn or beans. The other 100 acres will be planted in corn or beans as well by the cash rent farmer. I say this because spring here can be a craps shoot at times so depending on weather and what seed I can get for free will dictate what I plant. I have found it is easier for me to roll with the punches than it is to actually plan and then worry about it. I could even let the plots sit idle all summer if I so chose.....lots of soybeans in my general area every year so the deer are not going to go hungry. I plant summer annual plots simply for the fall/winter grain they provide. If my deer actually ate brassica better I would simply plant fall annual plots and not worry about it at all! So yep, I'm a slacker.....I prefer the KISS principle....."ambition"......that just leads to frustration.....I got enough of that!:D
 
Setting out tree plots on the edge of the food plot. Nothing major, but about 20 trees to keep alive and growing strong.
 
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