Corn and soybeans

tyeager67

Member
Hi guys,

This year I did a small rest plot with RR Forage soybeans, small may 0.5 acres. I fenced it in and they cage in great!! Very impressed probably around 3.5-4’ tall in most places. Next year I am going to expand the planting to about 1.25 acres. I was just curious if anyone has had good
results mixing in RR corn with their soybeans. I will be broadcasting the seed as I do not have a planter.

Thanks,

Ty
 
Depending on deer density, I’ll broadcast 3/10 of a bag of corn and 1/2 a bag of beans. This is without fencing. Deer focus on young soybeans which gives the corn a chance. Something else I might consider is planting corn in the perimeter and beans in the center. With enough of an elevated set up, you’ll be able to see in. The deer feel very comfort in such an enclosure. I’ve also toyed with an idea from the old board which was adding 10-15% by weight of corn to soybeans. The concept is the same—provide a sense of cover for the deer.
 
My experience is limited with this in a broadcast seeding application. I love to plant corn and beans together with a row planter. This past year I broadcast a mix of about 1/3 corn to 2/3 beans by weight into tilled soil and simply packed the seed. Everything grew fine.....then the corn reaches a phase and the deer eat it and stunt it's growth. The corn also doesn't like competition and didn't get the N it needs to really thrive as well. The beans did fine, but the corn really didn't amount to much at all. I had another plot where the volunteer corn was pretty bad and the beans kept it in check as well....again without N being added coupled with the competition from the beans it didn't have much of a chance.

If you want your corn to actually produce grain I would suggest planting the corn with a row planter in a specific manner and get it the N it needs and limit its competition. Then broadcast your beans in the "voids" and you should get better results. The 2 big issues I see are the competition between the two and the significant fertilizer requirement differences.

I'm not saying you can;t grow a decent corn crop by broadcasting. I just know corn is very picky and minimal competition and proper fertilization are key to success in producing grain and even decent stalks. And that's just the things you can control.....toss in weather conditions and the like and beans are just far more forgiving in my experience.
 
I did corn and beans last year but ended up spraying and replanting corn.Problem has been coon mostly but will make a great early season plot this next year if a plan come together
 
Corn and beans -- people food! :)

I know, I know...so is pretty much all the other stuff we plant, if you want to get technical about it. What I can't understand is why all the fuss and expense to plant something that requires a fence or has a higher risk of failure? There are countless mixes of other seed types that will create a DIVERSE planting that feeds deer and other wildlife. They are less expensive, easier to plant, have a lower chance of failing and deer love it! People drive around and see all these corn and soybean fields, and they convince themselves that must be all deer really want to eat. Well, they'll eat those things, for sure...but there's tons of other stuff they'll eat that serve the needs of food-plotters and hunters even better.

The Lick Creek 3-part rotation is a far better solution. Combined with a carefully thought out and executed throw n' mow or no-till approach, you've got a comprehensive and sustainable food plot program. Corn and beans? Those are good side dishes with barbecued ribs. ;)
 
Corn and beans -- people food! :)

I know, I know...so is pretty much all the other stuff we plant, if you want to get technical about it. What I can't understand is why all the fuss and expense to plant something that requires a fence or has a higher risk of failure? There are countless mixes of other seed types that will create a DIVERSE planting that feeds deer and other wildlife. They are less expensive, easier to plant, have a lower chance of failing and deer love it! People drive around and see all these corn and soybean fields, and they convince themselves that must be all deer really want to eat. Well, they'll eat those things, for sure...but there's tons of other stuff they'll eat that serve the needs of food-plotters and hunters even better.

The Lick Creek 3-part rotation is a far better solution. Combined with a carefully thought out and executed throw n' mow or no-till approach, you've got a comprehensive and sustainable food plot program. Corn and beans? Those are good side dishes with barbecued ribs. ;)

After 7 seasons of planting for deer I've migrated to this position on planting for deer and other wildlife. Down here, and with no competing ag in the form of beans n corn anywhere near me, I don't have the need to plant summer forage and then try to hold it over for fall and winter. And now that the newness of my habitat journey has worn off over the years, cost inputs weigh more and more on my mind and pocket book. Foodplotting can be expensive, particularly with required fertilizer needs. Give me year-round ladino and durana clover and add grains and brassicas in the fall and I'm a happy hunter. And I think the deer are as well. I spent quite a bit this past fall adding to my clover expansion. It's doing great and based on my last 3 years of managing clover, deer will be in it everyday during the summer. Only risk is a severe drought with heat in mid-summer but that's rare for us. My goal is the sermon preached by Lickcreek...have something growing in the same plot year round to keep mama and her offspring coming to the same plot every day to feed. Clover is the magic bullet that makes that happen for me.
 
Great advice thanks guys. I am relatively new to food plotting. The old Farm that my wife and I bought and built a home on has been ours for 4 years just built on it last year. The deer numbers are here however I feel that a lot of younger buck are killed by the neighbors. I have never killed a deer here in the 4 years that we’ve owned the place. Passed countless doe and young bucks but can’t seem to keep them on the place. Have done some hinge cuts to improve bedding cover and over the last couple years have been in the process of trying different groceries for them to eat. The major problem I believe is that the plots are so small totaling around 1.25 acres of our 67. I have planted clover, brassicas, soybeans, and broadcasted wheat, oats, and triticale into all of the above. Year after year the plots are smoked very quickly. I do enjoy offering a variety which is the reason I planted the soybeans (almost I’m still in the experimental stages). This year I am planning on at least doubling the amount of food. Clover, sugar beets, oats, wheat, soybeans and maybe corn. Just like trying new things.
 
I don' think it matters how much of your 67 acres is food, deer will still leave your property and the neighbors will get a shot at them.
 
Oh I completely agree, I am just trying to go from the food plots being completely consumed to being able to provide quality food sources for a longer period of time.
 
I consider a young buck 2 1/2 and younger, I would love to be at the point where I can let 3 1/2 yr olds walk but I am probably not to that point yet. As far as what I use to determine age on the hoof, I would say mostly body characteristics. I know it is not 100% and if you ask 10 people you may have 5 different opinions but I look for the following characteristics:

1 1/2 yr old. Long legs, thin body, thin neck, thin waist


2 1/2 yr old. Legs still too long, overall still thin appearance but shoulders are more developed, some tarsal staining


3 1/2 yr old. Legs look the correct length for the body, muscular shoulders, deep chest, thick neck,tarsals heavily stained


4 1/2 yr old. Legs look short, waist is dropped , muscular shoulders, to me they look like a rectangle with legs

I know not exactly text book but it will get me in the ball park. The area I hunt gets a lot of hunting pressure in rifle. Have to take into account that bear is also in the first week of buck season but I heard 87 shots from sun up til sun down the first day. A significant drop off the next day but a lot of shooting none the less.
 
On smaller properties, public land, or anywhere most hunters are happy to harvest any legal buck, letting 2.5 year-old deer walk is challenge enough. What you harvest, and why, is entirely up to you...but given your circumstances, passing on 2.5's and waiting for a 3.5 might result in the vast majority of your hunting seasons being a disappointment. It is relatively easy to distinguish fawns from older deer and yearling bucks from those that are 2.5 years or older. For this reason, my family and I do our best to pass on any deer that might have ANY chance of being a fawn, and we try very hard to recognize when a buck is only 1.5 years old, irrespective of antler development. Any buck older than 1.5 is on the menu, because in our area, it is a fool's errand to pass on 2.5 year-old bucks, hoping a good percentage of them live to be much older. Your situation might be different, but it typically is not, in PA. It's your decision, of course...but unless you want 4 dry years to turn into 12, give yearlings a pass and squeeze the trigger on healthy 2.5's. IMHO YMMV n' all that.
 
If you are just managing for deer - wheat and clover will do it - provided there is no late summer drought - like we usually have. My clover rarely makes it through the summer. Thus, I plant eagle seed soybeans that provide a food source from May to February. Also shoot doves off them in Dec and Jan. And now that we are speaking of doves, I also plant ten acres of sunflowers and two acres of millet to hold them until the sunflowers are ready. And now that we are on millet, I plant 15 acres of millet for the ducks.
 
If you are just managing for deer - wheat and clover will do it - provided there is no late summer drought - like we usually have. My clover rarely makes it through the summer. Thus, I plant eagle seed soybeans that provide a food source from May to February. Also shoot doves off them in Dec and Jan. And now that we are speaking of doves, I also plant ten acres of sunflowers and two acres of millet to hold them until the sunflowers are ready. And now that we are on millet, I plant 15 acres of millet for the ducks.
Pearl millet, an excellent soil builder, bird food and deer cover planting! As for clover, you are further south than us, so your problem is that your clover doesn't survive the summer, further north our problem is that clover doesn't feed our deer over the winter. Since this is a soybean thread I just wanted to give soybeans a bit of a shout out here. Our clover is frozen to nothing by mid-December, but with an average sized deer herd, our three acres of ag beans should keep the deer fed most of this winter. In my world the perfect "one field single source" food plot is a six acre field with three acres of Lick Creek style plantings and three acres of beans. This year we have wheat, rye, oats, corn, turnips, radishes, chicory, rape, and a half a dozen other things planted in some other fields, but it's our soybeans in the other half of the LC field that impressed me the most, they are simply unbelievable for deer food. Clover is the backbone of our program, but soybeans run a close second, with the deer hitting them hard all summer, a gap in the fall when the leaves turn yellow, and then feeding on the pods in midwinter when the only other food plot species surviving the snow in zone 6B is corn, turnips and rye, none of which provides much deer food value in midsummer like beans do. Here's an idea of what our major source of planted plots are that we have for our deer by month in a perfect world weather-wise: January& February; soybean pods, March& April; wheat, rye, May& June; clover, July& August; soybean forage, September& October; clover& acorns, November& December; clover, brassica. There's overlaps of course, plus other assorted plantings, fruit and nuts, and natural browse in the woods that are important parts of a whitetails diet as well. But according to our cameras, sightings, and tracks in the snow, our deer do the majority of their feeding in our fields, and soybeans fill those two important midsummer and midwinter slots better than anything else that I've found thus far. The amazing thing with the RR ag beans that we plant is that the deer eat the top leaves bare, leaving only understory leaves in midsummer, until there's nothing but stems sticking up on top, but the plants still produce a bumper crop of beans. Here's a pic of our beans today, the deer are hitting them hard every night. The back third of the field is stripped to nothing by now.WP_20180106_09_27_31_Pro.jpg
 
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