Say Goodbye to Regenerative Plotting?

[KSQ2]

Is it time for a change? Spending significant money on seed each year that has very little, to no real chance to grow, does this make sense? Regenerative plotting is IMPOSSIBLE without timely rain; I’m not talking about short 30-60 day dry spells that people inaccurately call drought, I mean REAL years long drought. I think I’m done buying clover, chicory, and anything else that is not a cereal grain. This means dumping fertilizer into the ground, spraying constantly, and basically thumbing my nose to anything that is good for the soil. I guess that’s where I’m at now. It’s either that or forget plotting all together, which I’m also considering. This is so depressing. It was just 4 short years ago that we regularly had plots like this; it seems like decades ago…

 

[yoderjac]

You are right that timely rain covers a multitude of sins. I've been on a long-term quest to both reduce my costs, improve natural nutrient cycling in my soils, and continue to benefit deer. I don't generally have a drought issue, so not everything may apply to you, but here is my trip so far.

We started with high input traditional tillage. We had magazine cover food plots but were spending lots of time and money. As I learned about soils, my perspective changed.

My first step was to stop deep and frequent tillage. This step should apply to you as it conserves what moisture your soil has. Planting mixes and rotations of legumes and grasses, my OM and nutrient cycling returned and I stopped using fertilizer. I has been close to 10 years since I fertilized food plots. Deer usage is as good or better than ever. I began selecting complementary crops with lower fertility requirements (WR over WW for example and Sunn Hemp and buckwheat over RR corn and beans for summer).

My next step was to begin to convert many of our small kill plots to permaculture (Fruit trees). They were not primarily apple trees that need maintenance, but trees like persimmons (native here) that don't need maintenance. I planted them in small kill plots that had a clover base. I then let these plots grow up in weeds. When I start to get woody growth that is almost too big for a bushhog, I mow them back and let weeds take over again. The hope is that native weeds plus the fruit become a very low maintenance food source for deer.

I then became more weed tolerant.

I'm now beginning the journey to weed management as shown on this thread: https://deerhunterforum.com/threads...lds-for-bigger-bucks-and-better-hunting.7125/. I will always have some food plots, but the amount of acreage is decreasing and the cost and time required has dramatically dropped.

Keep in mind that I am on a pine farm, and our management of timber is probably an even bigger contributor to deer food and cover than anything I've done under the food plotting umbrella.

Thanks,

PS One last note - Over time I've learned the more I try to reshape nature, the higher differential the cost and lower the differential gain. I'm much better off when I conform to nature and bend her slightly to favor deer. As I move into retirement, I don't ever plan to plant again without a high chance of rain in the forecast. Previously, I was working full time and had limited time to put in plots, so I forced things.
Jack

 

[Drycreek]

Jack, my routine is close to yours, although I’m still fertilizing. My tillage is minimal most of the time, but it looks like this fall it may be deeper than usual as I have plots that are pretty thick with grasses and weeds due to all the rain we had this summer. I sprayed seven plots Saturday on three different places, and after seven or eight days I’ll mow them close. I hope the roots will disc easily but you never know. No rain in the forecast so I’ll probably look for a front before I plant. Bow season starts the first Saturday in October so that figures in also. Gonna be a busy old man for a few days there.

 

[KSQ2]

What you guys describe is exactly what we were working tioward, very successfully I might add, with a lot of advice from people here. Then the spigot shut off, and it all stopped. If we stuck to our guns to wait for rain in the forecast, which is what I’m doing now, we would have ever planted the last 3 years.

 

[yoderjac]

What you guys describe is exactly what we were working tioward, very successfully I might add, with a lot of advice from people here. Then the spigot shut off, and it all stopped. If we stuck to our guns to wait for rain in the forecast, which is what I’m doing now, we would have ever planted the last 3 years.

Yes, drought can be a real conundrum. That would push me toward native weed management even more. Native weeds are generally better adapted to our climates than the crops we plant. Of course all plants suffer from prolonged drought. The challenge I'm finding with weed management is identification and assessment. Growing weeds in general is easy for me, but the concept behind weed management is to let nature grow what it wants and then disadvantage weeds that don't benefit deer with herbicide and fire.

After I retire, I plan to focus on identifying the major kinds of weeds that we have and figuring out which do and don't benefit deer.

 

[cutman]

Nothing will work during drought. Remember when Brushpile went through some awful years at his place? Maybe go back through his thread and see how he made it through the bad years.

Life needs water. Until your pattern changes, I’d focus on saving as many of your trees as you can. Forget the plots.

 

[KSQ2]

Nothing will work during drought. Remember when Brushpile went through some awful years at his place? Maybe go back through his thread and see how he made it through the bad years.

Life needs water. Until your pattern changes, I’d focus on saving as many of your trees as you can. Forget the plots.

That’s a big effort right now, especially considering our fruit trees got sprayed not once, but twice by the contract farmers.
Trying hard to keep them from getting so stressed they kick the bucket.

 

[MarkDarvin]

Is it time for a change? Spending significant money on seed each year that has very little, to no real chance to grow, does this make sense? Regenerative plotting is IMPOSSIBLE without timely rain; I’m not talking about short 30-60 day dry spells that people inaccurately call drought, I mean REAL years long drought. I think I’m done buying clover, chicory, and anything else that is not a cereal grain. This means dumping fertilizer into the ground, spraying constantly, and basically thumbing my nose to anything that is good for the soil. I guess that’s where I’m at now. It’s either that or forget plotting all together, which I’m also considering. This is so depressing. It was just 4 short years ago that we regularly had plots like this; it seems like decades ago…

Your lesson is almost complete by the sounds of it. You're clearly not getting rain, and good chances it may not come any time soon. You have to change your plan to adapt to that, or it's over. I'm not saying your drought can be beat, but you have tools on the table that you haven't tried yet, and you're putting lots of time and money into things that aren't going to work when it doesn't rain.

I don't mean to come across harsh, but I want you to succeed. You have to get purely focused on growing with no expectation of rain ever again. Once you master that, you can hopefully start scoring some wins. But growing clovers and brassicas and other high moisture crops will just prolong the frustration.

 

[MarkDarvin]

I think your take on regen plotting is off though. If you go back to conventional growing with tillage, pellets, and sprayers, your results will get even worse.

 

[KSQ2]

I can grow cereal grains every year, I just will not have much in the plots throughout the year. That’s the possible new plan; cereals in the winter and weeds in the summer.

 

[MarkDarvin]

I can grow cereal grains every year, I just will not have much in the plots throughout the year. That’s the possible new plan; cereals in the winter and weeds in the summer.

Here's one idea to consider. It sounds like you have your pinch point, and it's, "what do I do when the heat arrives?"

I'd add yellow sweet clover to your winter cereal planting this fall. Let that crop stand as long as possible into summer. Then, plan to ROLL the crop flat when the cereals and sweet clover is done done. Before rolling, I'd broadcast in a short summer crop of a drought tolerant sorghum, mung beans, white sweet clover, sunflowers.

The entire focus of this is to generate a blanket of residue and get it laid flat to protect your ground from direct sun. No idea if any of that extra stuff will germinate, but that is your best bet to get anything to germinate. If you can drill it in and then roll it flat, even better.

If that summer crop makes it, repeat the process (throw or drill and ROLL flat), but again with winter cereals, yellow sweet clover, and I'd throw the chicory back in again.

At every step of this process, you want to keep building that residue blanket. May it work so well we've got to troubleshoot how to get seed to soil through all that residue.

 

[davidhelmly]

Is it time for a change? Spending significant money on seed each year that has very little, to no real chance to grow, does this make sense? Regenerative plotting is IMPOSSIBLE without timely rain; I’m not talking about short 30-60 day dry spells that people inaccurately call drought, I mean REAL years long drought. I think I’m done buying clover, chicory, and anything else that is not a cereal grain. This means dumping fertilizer into the ground, spraying constantly, and basically thumbing my nose to anything that is good for the soil. I guess that’s where I’m at now. It’s either that or forget plotting all together, which I’m also considering. This is so depressing. It was just 4 short years ago that we regularly had plots like this; it seems like decades ago…

View attachment 28589

If the outlook is that bleak, it may be best to stop planting altogether and spend that money on timed feeders and corn.

 

[KSQ2]

If the outlook is that bleak, it may be best to stop planting altogether and spend that money on timed feeders and corn.

I'm not much for hunting over corn personally. If others want to do it, fine and I have no problem with it, but it's not for me. It's beginning to look like there will be a major attempt in Kansas to outlaw it anyway. Cereals will work for season, it's the other parts of the year I'm most concerned about.

 

[KSQ2]

Here's one idea to consider. It sounds like you have your pinch point, and it's, "what do I do when the heat arrives?"

I'd add yellow sweet clover to your winter cereal planting this fall. Let that crop stand as long as possible into summer. Then, plan to ROLL the crop flat when the cereals and sweet clover is done done. Before rolling, I'd broadcast in a short summer crop of a drought tolerant sorghum, mung beans, white sweet clover, sunflowers.

The entire focus of this is to generate a blanket of residue and get it laid flat to protect your ground from direct sun. No idea if any of that extra stuff will germinate, but that is your best bet to get anything to germinate. If you can drill it in and then roll it flat, even better.

If that summer crop makes it, repeat the process (throw or drill and ROLL flat), but again with winter cereals, yellow sweet clover, and I'd throw the chicory back in again.

At every step of this process, you want to keep building that residue blanket. May it work so well we've got to troubleshoot how to get seed to soil through all that residue.

I've been doing something similar with wr, and it works wonders. In the past decade and a half, we have had dry spells that clover planted with wr thrived in. I'll check into that other seed possibly. Next year will be the experiment year, all of our seed is already purchased for this year. The relatively decent rainfall, as compared to past years, had my hopes up when I purchased seed a while back.

 

[yoderjac]

I'm not much for hunting over corn personally. If others want to do it, fine and I have no problem with it, but it's not for me. It's beginning to look like there will be a major attempt in Kansas to outlaw it anyway. Cereals will work for season, it's the other parts of the year I'm most concerned about.

I'm with you. Hunting over bait is illegal in my state anyway, but I'd struggle with that on an ethical basis. I know it is common practice in some places. Just like hunting deer with dogs is common practice in parts of our state, and would have been considered unethical to the point of shooting a dog chasing a deer in the state where I grew up.

Point source attractants also have the risk of increased disease transmission. All in all, I'd hang in there. I find it surprising that you can grow cereal grains planted in the fall but can't grow persistent and drought resistant clover like Durana. Durana is slow to establish, so maybe if you get drought during the first spring during establishment, it may fail. Once established, durana should last many years.

During that first spring, I mow the WR each time it begins to shade out the clover, but after that, I don't ever mow until fall right before the season. The weeds growing in the field actually help shade the clover form the summer heat.

There are no great answers to drought!

 

[catscratch]

I can grow cereal grains every year, I just will not have much in the plots throughout the year. That’s the possible new plan; cereals in the winter and weeds in the summer.

That's exactly what my dad went to 2 decades ago. Gave up on any perennials or spring plantings altogether. Fall plantings of wheat is where he's at.

I just stuck a disc into a couple of my plots this summer. First time they've ever been turned. Dealing with the same drought and failed TnM conditions you are. Not doing it to all my plots, just some. Might as well have fun and not stress about maybes, could be's, or had beens. Just try stuff and enjoy it. This shouldn't be stressful.

 

[KSQ2]

That's exactly what my dad went to 2 decades ago. Gave up on any perennials or spring plantings altogether. Fall plantings of wheat is where he's at.

I just stuck a disc into a couple of my plots this summer. First time they've ever been turned. Dealing with the same drought and failed TnM conditions you are. Not doing it to all my plots, just some. Might as well have fun and not stress about maybes, could be's, or had beens. Just try stuff and enjoy it. This shouldn't be stressful.

Good advice on the plotting. When it comes to the stressful part, it’s not just the plotting and the tree growing (which I realize is the subject of this thread), it’s not even just the difficulty it brings to my family who farm and ranch, it’s everything else that comes with long term drought. I LOVE rain and green; it’s not easy to remain content when the rain doesn’t come.

Eric Snodgrass from Nutrien Ag Services had a special focus on the long term drought in SE Kansas a few days ago. He said he wasn’t offering proof of drought cycles, he was merely looking back through the last 4 decades or so and noticed there tended to be 7-9 years of average to above average rains, followed by 3 year extended droughts. If that pattern holds true, we should be soon entering an extended “wet” period comparatively. What’s concerning though, is we’ve moved beyond 3 years in our extended drought this time, and the fall and winter forecast does not look promising once again.

 

[catscratch]

I'd love to have a wet winter!