Almost that time

[buckihunter302]

After an hour and a half of discussing different options with John at Merit Seed this morning, I came home with a truckload of work! I had planned on roughly a 3 acre plot, with another 3 acres of switchgrass for cover. However, after having to wait for the farmer to harvest his wheat before I get the field, it's now too late for SG. The new plan is to plant Egyptian Wheat around the edges for a bit of a screen, and plant the whole field in plot. Next spring, I'll convert 3 acres into SG. The plan is to plant roughly 1.7 acres in Austrian Winter Peas, Medium Red Clover, and Oats around August 1. I'll be using Buck Forage Oats on half and Everleaf Oats on half to compare the 2 varieties. I'll then overseed with Rye in September. On the remaining 4 acres I'll be planting their UltraMax brassica mix (kale, rape, and turnip) with some radishes mixed in. Once I'm down to only 3 acres of plot next year, I plan to rotate the 2 mixes to avoid planting the same thing over and over. Heading out to spray Glyophosphate tonight and hopefully get the screen in the ground tomorrow. I won't get full growth, but hopefully I'll get enough to act as a screen for this season. It's gonna be a lot of work, but I'm pretty excited to see how it all turns out!

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[Mennoniteman]

This sounds like a good plan! All that you need is some timely rain and you will have the ultimate hunting spot for the fall. IMO planting fall plots at the right time is more critical than spring planting dates. I'd sooner lean towards planting too early than too late. For myself I find that labor day plantings in zone 6b don't have enough growing days left before cold weather to grow a significant amount of forage that amounts to real deer feed. Just a thought, given the larger sized plot that you intend to put out you could consider putting a part out earlier than August 1, if you get rain it'd get much bigger than the later planting, no rain you still have the later planting to fall back on.

 

[buckihunter302]

I'm getting the whole 6 acres sprayed tonight. That will give me the ability to look for the best chance of a good rain from here on out. There aren't many weeds now, so the gly should clean it up pretty good and then we'll just wait for rain. There's a 50% chance a few days this week so I at least want to get the screen in asap. I'll probably wait for a bit more rain before putting all the seed in the ground though.

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[buckihunter302]

One thing I haven't decided on is whether to disk lightly, or just run a cultipacker over the whole thing with the teeth down to scratch the ground up prior to seeding. Wheat was just harvested off this piece, so I should have a good seed bed, but I'd like to scratch the surface up a bit before planting. I just want to avoid encouraging weed growth.

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[Mennoniteman]

The peas should be buried at least an inch or they won't grow, and the oats are good at an inch as well. The brassica and clover should be broadcast on top and cultipacked in. It's impossible to make a good tillage recommendation without seeing your dirt but I like the light discing idea. It sounds like you have your weeds under control and the light discing should not start a rapid weed crop if you are using gly beforehand.

 

[buckihunter302]

The peas, oats, and clover will be drilled with the peas and oats in the front bin and clover in the back. I haven't decided how best to do the brassica. I've got to look at drill settings to see if I can plant so as not to overdo it on the seed. Another option would be to mix some lime pellets with the seed and broadcast.

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[Mennoniteman]

Wow, you are on top of things, you have a drill available. Broadcast seed, it might grow. Drilling seed ups that germination percentage fourfold. Pelletized lime is way too expensive IMO. $290 a to vs $92 a ton for powder bags. I often drill my brassica in the back bin same as clover, drilling brassica gives a much nicer stand than broadcasting due to the even seeding rate. I set my great plains small seed box at around ten for brassica and clover, seems like a low setting, but with these small seeds it gives me about ten lb per acre, or: 5lb GHR, 3lb PPT and 2lb DER, as recommended by most plot guys.

 

[Mennoniteman]

So if you have a drill why are you tilling at all? No need to stir up the seed bank unless you need to level the field a bit.

 

[buckihunter302]

All the equipment belongs to my father in law. I'm not certain it's no-till, as it's an older drill. I was thinking I would need to at least run the cultipacker over the ground first to break it up a bit before seeding. I'll double check with him tonight when I'm out there to spray. This is my first go at planting a plot, so I'm just trying to get a feel for what may work best given my circumstances.

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[Buckeye]

I'm getting the whole 6 acres sprayed tonight. That will give me the ability to look for the best chance of a good rain from here on out. There aren't many weeds now, so the gly should clean it up pretty good and then we'll just wait for rain. There's a 50% chance a few days this week so I at least want to get the screen in asap. I'll probably wait for a bit more rain before putting all the seed in the ground though.

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With this heat wave we're getting shouldn't take long for the Gly to take effect

 

[Mennoniteman]

You are lucky to have a father-in-law who owns tillage equipment. I'd advise schmoozing up to him, maybe buy him dinner. I think you are thinking correctly on the tillage thing, a pass with the disc or packer with teeth may be a good thing. When I run my GP notill drill through an untilled field the front cutting disc's and the opener disc's turn up enough dirt that by the time the seed out of the small box falls behind the second set of disc's it's falling on tilled dirt, and then the closing wheel comes along behind that and rolls it in, so I'm tilling, planting seed at two different levels, and packing it in, all in one pass. The only reason I disc anymore is if I want to level up an old field that has ruts in it.

 

[buckihunter302]

I am very grateful for my wife's family and I make sure they know it! The plot is actually going on part of her grandparents farm that my wife and I are in the process of closing on. We were supposed to be closed a few months ago, but the process hit a small bump and we're on hold for now. Hoping to close in the near future and own my own slice of heaven! And it definitely helps that all the equipment I could need is sitting a couple hundred yards away!

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[Drycreek]

Drill huh ? She got any sisters ?

 

[Mennoniteman]

This guy asked if he could date my daughter, but I didn't know if I liked him. Then I found out that he has a nice boat. He's my son-in-law now.

 

[buckihunter302]

My father in law and I have a pretty good relationship now, though I was definitely nervous around him for the first couple years! My wife and I started dating in 2007 and got married in 2015, so I feel like part of the family at this point.

Anyways, I got a good dose of Gly on the plot tonight. This was the first I'd seen the ground since the wheat was harvested and there were definitely more weeds than I was expecting, but still not awful. Here's a few "before" pics I shot tonight when we got out there. I'll try to post a few every now and then as things progress.

 

[Buckeye]

My father in law and I have a pretty good relationship now, though I was definitely nervous around him for the first couple years! My wife and I started dating in 2007 and got married in 2015, so I feel like part of the family at this point.

Anyways, I got a good dose of Gly on the plot tonight. This was the first I'd seen the ground since the wheat was harvested and there were definitely more weeds than I was expecting, but still not awful. Here's a few "before" pics I shot tonight when we got out there. I'll try to post a few every now and then as things progress.

Looks like a killer spot!

 

[FarmerD]

Just throwing something out there to think about, prior to planting on Aug 1. I apologize, I didn't read everything above, but I assume you've sprayed? If you do not plan to till, after a good rain and 5 days, you may see a lot of volunteer wheat come up, that was left by the combine. The combine will usually spit out small sized seed, which will germinate pretty quickly.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Just throwing something out there to think about, prior to planting on Aug 1. I apologize, I didn't read everything above, but I assume you've sprayed? If you do not plan to till, after a good rain and 5 days, you may see a lot of volunteer wheat come up, that was left by the combine. The combine will usually spit out small sized seed, which will germinate pretty quickly.

Volunteer wheat in a deer food plot would be a good thing.

 

[Mennoniteman]

My father in law and I have a pretty good relationship now, though I was definitely nervous around him for the first couple years! My wife and I started dating in 2007 and got married in 2015, so I feel like part of the family at this point.

Anyways, I got a good dose of Gly on the plot tonight. This was the first I'd seen the ground since the wheat was harvested and there were definitely more weeds than I was expecting, but still not awful. Here's a few "before" pics I shot tonight when we got out there. I'll try to post a few every now and then as things progress.

A beautiful setting for a wildlife plot, i see a lot of stand opportunities there. With the amount of slope in your field you should keep tillage to the bare minimum you need to plant to avoid washouts and losing topsoil.

 

[FarmerD]

For sure!!!!! The only negative would be if it comes in too thick, too quick and not let anything else grow. Or that it grows too fast and becomes unpalatable to the deer before deer season. That's a timing issue which may be good or bad, just something to consider.