If I frost seed clover, alfalfa, and chicory for a spring/summer food plot, how can I best plant sugar beets and oats in the fall
I just don’t want to have to keep breaking ground and destroying my spring plot to plant a fall food plot
First, you rarely, if ever, need to break ground. I started with a 2-bottom plow and tiller and high inputs of commercial fertilizer and soon learned I was killing my soil. Most of what we plant for deer can be planted with no-till or min-till methods and you don't need a no-till drill to do it.
The best practice for planting perennial clover is to plant it in the fall (not spring) with a cereal nurse crop like winter rye. Perennial clover takes time to put down roots and it may do little more than germinate in the fall and really takes off in the spring. You then mow the cereal in the spring each time it begins to shade out the clover. It will stay alive through the spring taking up space from weeds while the clover is filling in.
However, this is also a good approach to use with annual clovers when you want to plant in the fall. I'm in zone 7A and here is the no-till approach that works for me.
Each fall I plant a mix of 10 lbs/ac of Crimson Clover, 2-3 lbs/ac of Purple Top Turnips, 3-4 lbs/ac of Daikon radish, and 100 lbs/ac of winter rye. The WR and Radish tops are the early season attractants. The WR continues to be attractive all season in our zone as it grows at pretty low temps. About the time we get our first frost, the PTT tops start to become attractive as well as the radish tubers. The PTT bulbs get used in late and post season. The crimson clover, which in an annual gets started and has some use during the season.
The following spring, the crimson takes off. The Winter Rye becomes rank and is not used. You can either let it head out, and the heads will get some use by deer and a lot by turkey, or you can mow it. Either way the crimson covers the spring.
In my area, I usually wait until late-May or early-June to plant for summer. Again, just like in the fall, I mow every thing flat and wait a week or two for new weeds to start and then spray a non-selective herbicide like glyphosate or liberty. I then surface broadcast the seed and cultipack it, usually with rain in the forecast. In the spring I plant a buckwheat and sunn hemp mix at 20 lbs/ac each.
In my area, this spring plant occurs when nature is producing a bounty of food. By the time our native foods begin to senesce, my summer plant is producing great food.
One key here is the crop mix. In each mix, we include a grass like a grain and a legume like clover or sunn hemp. The puts Carbon and Nitrogen into the soil like composting producing organic matter.
I have not needed any commercial fertilizer for over 10 years now and my plots get just as much or more use. Keep in mind that soil test fertilizer recommendations are meant for farmers who plant monocultures and focus on yield to make money. We don't harvest, so most of the nutrients cycle naturally and if we don't burn up our organic matter too fast by tilling and introducing oxygen into the soil, we can do well without commercial fertilizer.
I've also become very weed tolerant, especially for warm season weeds. Many are better quality food for deer than the crops we plant. As long as a single noxious weed does not dominate a field, I like having weedy fields.
Depending on your location, you mix of crops may be different than mind, but the key is mixing complementary crops that surface broadcast well and don't require tillage.
Best of luck!
