Anyone plant Eagle Soybeans, Managers Mix?

Weasel

Well-Known Member
My hunting buddy surprised me with a bag of Eagle Soybeans, Managers Mix, he picked up at the Ohio Deer and Turkey Expo from the Merit Seed booth. A much appreciated gift as a bag of those things are not cheap. Just curious to hear the good, the bad and the ugly from those of you who are familiar with them. Thank you.
 
Never planted them and finally have a field big enough to try them. I will be following along to see what others have to say.
 
Good, bad. ugly? I have been planting the Eagle Beans for about 10 years now and they have never failed me. Years with good rain they way out produce the deer in my small 1 acre plot of Eagle Beans and even in bad drought years they will at least keep up with browsing and even on the bad years I always have pods. The only bad thing is they can tend to be over browsed in high deer densities and get wiped out quickly. So be sure to plant a big enough plot or protect till they get established. Ain't nothin' ugly about Eagle Beans!
 
Good, bad. ugly? I have been planting the Eagle Beans for about 10 years now and they have never failed me. Years with good rain they way out produce the deer in my small 1 acre plot of Eagle Beans and even in bad drought years they will at least keep up with browsing and even on the bad years I always have pods. The only bad thing is they can tend to be over browsed in high deer densities and get wiped out quickly. So be sure to plant a big enough plot or protect till they get established. Ain't nothin' ugly about Eagle Beans!

Thanks Doc, are you using the Large Lad or other southern blend? No worries about over browsing, I am in bean and corn country. Just looking for an acre or two in a hidden back field of mine and hope to have pods for the late season. I might even fence some off for the late season if browsing gets heavy. Broadcast or row plant? Any other planting tips you've perfected over a decade of planting them?
 
Thanks Doc, are you using the Large Lad or other southern blend? No worries about over browsing, I am in bean and corn country. Just looking for an acre or two in a hidden back field of mine and hope to have pods for the late season. I might even fence some off for the late season if browsing gets heavy. Broadcast or row plant? Any other planting tips you've perfected over a decade of planting them?
My co-op carries the Game Keeper Blend - which is what is recommended for my area. I till, broadcast the seed, then lightly till into the soil. Only other planting tip is get soil sample. Anyone can grow soybeans. I usually spray them at 6 weeks. I occasionally have to spray again as Johnson grass is a constant problem at my place.
 
I have planted Large Lad, Big Fellow and Managers Mix for probably a decade. Mostly plant Managers Mix in most of our plots now. Keeps up with the browse pressure as long as it isn't a tiny plot and we get pods with beans. It is probably only about 1/3 of the plants that get pods with beans but it works for us. If you want a plot with tons of late season beans they may not be your best bet. They do withstand browsing pressure while still producing beans as long as the plot is big enough. Kind of a niche thing for plotters who are planting 1-5 acre plots and want the best of both worlds.
 
My co-op carries the Game Keeper Blend - which is what is recommended for my area. I till, broadcast the seed, then lightly till into the soil. Only other planting tip is get soil sample. Anyone can grow soybeans. I usually spray them at 6 weeks. I occasionally have to spray again as Johnson grass is a constant problem at my place.

Thanks. I will be broadcasting too unless I find a suitable planter in my price range before then.

I have planted Large Lad, Big Fellow and Managers Mix for probably a decade. Mostly plant Managers Mix in most of our plots now. Keeps up with the browse pressure as long as it isn't a tiny plot and we get pods with beans. It is probably only about 1/3 of the plants that get pods with beans but it works for us. If you want a plot with tons of late season beans they may not be your best bet. They do withstand browsing pressure while still producing beans as long as the plot is big enough. Kind of a niche thing for plotters who are planting 1-5 acre plots and want the best of both worlds.

Seems like these Eagles are more of a forage variety for summer and fall and not so much for late season dried pod availability. Heck I don't even know if my deer would know what to do with late season dry beans. Everything in this country is harvested long before that stage.
 
Never planted them and finally have a field big enough to try them. I will be following along to see what others have to say.
Triple C you should try the Eagle Big Fellow in that beautiful big field you just made bigger. I planted them last year In Dooly County on 2 acres. I did not fence them in either or put any milogranite on them because I wanted to see how they handle browsing pressure. They only got 2 feet tall at the most but did produce some beans and they withstood that hard drought we had. we went 3 months with no rain and they still grew. I was impressed.
 
I have wanted to try them at Blue Granite but have been too cheap to want to cough up the money to try. Alyce clover or sorghum is about all I can do anything with up there in the way of summer plots and even that isn't fool proof.

I do have a buddy that plants Big Fellow in a few plots on the other side of the county from BG and he has pretty good luck with them. The most I could do in one plot would be 6 acres. It would be the only 6 acres of soybeans for 10 miles in any direction in an area with a deer density that does this to cereal grain & clover plots.

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From what I have heard Eagle Beans are great in the longer growing season southern regions. Up north not so well because the growing season is shorter. Not being a late season draw would be the biggest problem with Eagles IMO. As a summer and early season browsing plot I think they would be good though. I know after witnessing how my beans worked out for me last season from November until end of season that late season bean plot with plenty of seed is an awesome draw.
 
We'll see Blizzard. I was happy with the Real Worlds I planted last year. I'm going to order a bag of RWs too to plant just for late season insurance. I've got the room for another acre or so of beans. Maybe I'll line the outside woods border with the Eagles and put the RWs in the center.
 
We'll see Blizzard. I was happy with the Real Worlds I planted last year. I'm going to order a bag of RWs too to plant just for late season insurance. I've got the room for another acre or so of beans. Maybe I'll line the outside woods border with the Eagles and put the RWs in the center.

I'm doing the rw this year. Place near house has then and I payed 72 bucks a bag. Eagle seed around me is 90.

Eagles work well ad give you a ton of beans. However I don't believe the pods hold up in ohios winters.

Regular Ag beans will hold pods forever. I am hoping real world is the same. Or maybe I just have more deer around then I give credit for? Haha.

Best of luck buddy!
 
Real World are just varieties of Ag beans. They have selected varieties that are shatter-resistant. If the Ag beans you normally use hold pods forever, I doubt you'll see much difference. I have planted the RW, they are good beans too.
 
We planted the eagle beans for a couple year's- We are in Adams Co.Il, Honestly was not impressed with them at all, We also had regular ag beans planted in other area's of the farm, Our deer favored the ag bean's, The eagle bean's grew fantastic, but they were horrible to walk through, and the first good snow we had knocked them to the ground and they were useless after that, We also planted RW beans, honestly just my option, There is no need at all to pay 100.00 a bag for a bag of bean's just because they have a deer Picture on them, (wink)
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Any one try surrounding a plot with ag/eagle beans... basically use them as a screen of sorts then have like a brassica/clover mix in center? I know you could use buck wheat/sorgum/etc but I think the beans might look kind of neat and that would at least start the deer using the site. btw this would be broadcasting (no planter or drill yet).
 
I mix rr crop soybeans with my Eagle Seed beans because eagle seed don't put a lot of pods on but they they do grow a lot taller than crop beans
 
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