G&N Farm

[SwampCat]

First post on this property tour, so bear with me. South Arkansas. I have two pieces of property eight miles apart. One is 300 acres and the other is 60 acres. I live in the SE corner of the 300 acre property. The bright green plots are established winter wheat and clover. The dark green is established soybean. The yellow is established sunflower, and the gray is established clover. The western half of the 300 acres is recently purchased and the plots on it have not yet been established. The pink will be winter wheat, the blue will be duck holes with millet, the red soybeans, the orange clover, and the tan a small grain planting like millet or milo. The western half all bottomland subject to flooding. The eastern half mostly upland.

 

[SwampCat]

The second piece is 60 acres - all established plots. The bright green is wheat/clover, the yellow is sunflower, the dark green is soybean, and the blue are duck holes with millet. All bottomland. Only about 6 ft in elevation difference over the entire property. The eastern half of the property has been planted with trees several times but the flooding has killed them. The eastern half is covered in grass - mostly Johnson grass.

 

[SwampCat]

Twenty to thirty deer per square mile. Hogs, coons, bobcats, coyotes, alligators, ducks, squirrels, and a very few turkeys. 29,000 surface acre lake and 60,000 acres public within a mile. We don't shoot does on the 300 acres - the neighbors take care of that. We do on the 60 We used to take a 125 - 150" about every year. Excessive doe harvest over the past few years has dropped population in area by 50% and the older bucks are much fewer than just two or three years ago. We now look for a decent 3.5 yr old (115 - 120") and there is usually one or two 4.5 yr old bucks roaming around.

 

[Merle Hawggard]

Looking forward to following swamp.
I'm about as far away from you as one can be and still be instate so I enjoy seeing the difference.
What kind of oaks did you plant that the flooding killed? Water, overcup, and Nuttall oaks should handle some flooding if it wasn't any of those.

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[SwampCat]

I have planted water oak and nuttall, sawtooth and loblolly pine. A FEW of the sawtooth made it - on the shallower end. Eight or ten loblolly pine made it. I am not particular about the species of tree in there - I just want cover. Might go with cypress next time. Even cypress will drown when water is over the top of them for 60 days in May and June like it was last time. I think if they could make it 6 or 8 years - they would be alright. Just hasn't happened yet.

 

[Merle Hawggard]

If you just want cover water tupelo is another option for you as well. We have a lot of wild pecan that grows on the river side of the levee here that get flooded for sometimes a month in the spring. I bet most of your problems are as you already mentioned, being submerged.
I could send you an endless supply of cottonwood cuttings if you wanted to try that. The levee district plants them along the levee bar pits.

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[SwampCat]

I really like the native pecan and I am not against cottonwood. May try something off the wall this time.

 

[SwampCat]

Took a break from the computer and headed out to do some bush hogging. I went down to what I call the Swamp Food Plot - a two acre wheat/durana clover plot in the narrow section of land connecting the east and west sides of my 300 acres. The lower side stays a little wet but the rest of it grows durana and ladino clover pretty well.

Swamp Food Plot

 

[SwampCat]

On the way to bush hog, I went through the Garden Food plot - on the most eastern side of the property and next to my garden. It has winter wheat - eaten down by the coons and pigs - and arrowleaf clover - which is dying down now but was three feet tall a month and a half ago with does fighting over it for fawning cover.

 

[SwampCat]

Also drove through some sunflowers and beans on the north side of my property. Sunflowers are growing well - but pretty small. Eagle Seed beans are doing well for the calcareous soil they are planted in.

 

[split toe]

Look forward to following this!

 

[SwampCat]

Headed out this morning to get the hog feeder baited up and running. Three big old boars have been making their way up to the plots on top the ridge and not staying in the bottoms like they are supposed to. I will try to get them on some corn and if one becomes halfway regular, I hope to correct their bad behavior. We can put out feed/corn year round in AR - as long as not in the CWD area. I don't bait for deer other than when I do my camera surveys in Sep. I do run feeders when deer season isnt open for hog hunting and coon hunting. Deer wont utilize the feeders because the hogs keep it so wallowed out and muddy the deer don't want to feed with their faces in the mud. The boars are pretty much nocturnal. We can hunt them 24/7/365 on private ground. I have my best luck with a hog sniper light on my bow at night when/if they get regular on the feeder. You can see my ladder stand directly behind the hanging barrel. A big boar is a smart critter.

 

[SwampCat]

This is a little 1/2 acre durana food plot. Usually dried up and gone this time of the year - but this year has been a little wetter and cooler than normal. Probably haven't been over 95 but maybe once this year. It is the gray plot on my 300 acres.

 

[SwampCat]

One of the resident youngsters stopped by to take a look. This is a pretty average 1.5 yr old around my place.

 

[SwampCat]

This is some of my land I have worked hard to convert from heavily grazed fescue to native grass.

 

[SwampCat]

This is my pond - about 1.75 acres and surrounded by Eagle Seed forage beans. Also a picture of some of the locals in the pond. They know when it is feeding time. Some almost crawl up on the bank.

 

[SwampCat]

My bees are pretty hard on the sunflowers right now. I rob the honey the first week of July and keep the honey supers off the hives until the sunflowers are done. Sunflower honey supposedly crystalizes quicker than most honey. I have about 25 hives - depending on how they are doing at the time.

 

[SwampCat]

Picture from a few minutes ago. Several deer like this around my place - but just dont seem to get that one more year on them they need. They never look as big when the velvet comes off.

 

[j-bird]

That's a dandy Cat.

 

[SwampCat]

Went to hand spray some cocklebur and after I got done, checked on one of the duck holes and it has probably the best stand of natural smartweed it has ever had. Just now starting to bloom. Should be solid blooms in a couple of weeks.