Cold temps have never killed my early spring cover crops and that's always been a surprise to me, since I'm planting oats and radishes way earlier than recommended. I think what happens is that although my early spring plantings go through a few frosts that might freeze them back a bit, since the actual soil doesn't freeze anymore the root systems are ok, because I've had phenomenal success with early plantings. I will probably experiment with barley some more here in the future, but in my soils oats and rye won every test hands down so far. Chicory doesn't fit well into my herbicide program, although I do grow it in some plots.
The one fact with nice equipment is that, the better your tillage, planting, and spraying equipment is, the more that you save in time and money for seed and herbicide. For instance, with my notill drill and 15 dollars worth of seed and a half hours time I can control 1 acre of ladino clover for almost a year with little further work. Because I have bigger equipment, I can buy cheap bin run oats, if they have weed seeds included I have the equipment to easily handle those weeds if they become a problem. Most of my clover is so thick that weeds have difficulty getting started. The oats control the grass, fertilize the clover, feed deer, and expire on their own in midsummer. Sometime after that point I might mow the clover one time, or I might spray weeds one time if necessary, and I'm good for another year, with tons of high protein deer food available 24/7, ten months out of the year. I notill fall grains into some of my clover plots to feed deer the other 2 months of the winter. So, although food plots can be made and maintained with zero equipment, the more equipment that a person has, the less time and money they will spend afterwards.
About 80 lbs per acre of oats, and 2 lbs of diakon radishes into an existing thick stand of ladino. Although spring oats did much better for me last year than spring barley, I like the idea of barley, I'm going to keep experimenting with barley in the future.
Just curious, when you say oats did better, what was your desired outcome?
Fast germination, early spring deer feed, and then mature grain and later on, straw for a late summer throw and mow. I planted identical alternating strips side by side and the oats outperformed the barley by almost double in each of these categories. There seemed to be a mysterious factor in play that I couldn't identify. Either it was poor soil, or, I didn't wait long enough after spraying 2-4,D to control marestail, or it was too early to plant barley. But whatever it was, the oats performed and the barley didn't. The wheat component in the test didn't do well either. Reposting pics of the test.
Last spring I drilled these strips into an expired brassica plot from the fall before, so clover wasn't really a component of the test, although there was some volunteer clover present from prior plantings, but I didn't notice any difference from one strip to another. The better growth rates of grain fodder leading to higher levels of decomposing residue feeding the clover more carbon is a long term breakdown process over several years that would require testing procedures beyond my capability, such as the more precise testing methods that a university would use. When I do a test I grade the results with a tape measure or with visual assessments and make notes on the back of a seed bag. A lot of the records of my testing is in pictures. In other words, I'm just having fun.
If we had that many deer that they could hold a strip of barley from maturing a person could probably walk across the field on their backs. Talking seriously, I'm impressed with the amount of feeding that deer do at my place on ripe oats. March oats ripen in mid-June and our deer strip all the heads off in the next 2 months. Ripe standing oats are similar to radishes in that deer need a few years to learn to eat them, they hit them harder every year.
Alright, you got me. I'll see if I can remember to get a few different oats to throw in this spring. Still gonna be barley major for me, but I'll toss 1 bu/ac oats in as well. It'd be neat to see early vs late vs black vs hull-less and if there is any preference. I put in Goliath last fall and it kicked out the tonnage like a champ.
I planted these oats 2" deep. For early or late plantings I plant a little deeper than normal for early frost protection, and for late drought protection, so it takes longer for them to come out of the ground. In prime planting season I only plant 1" to 1 1/2" deep and they pop out faster.
Most of the pieces were precut beforehand. It took two of my children and myself five hours. Things don't go as fast anymore.
Most of the pieces were precut beforehand. It took two of my children and myself five hours. Things don't go as fast anymore.
