Small plot of soybeans ???

[Wild Thing]

Here is a link to some discussion on Soy Beans from the Michigan Sportsman Forum:

soy bean ?'s

While not entirely relevant to your question, a lot of the replies paint the same picture as many of the replies above. Small Plots of soy beans do not flourish in high deer density environments. Even the expensive Eagle Forage beans are no match for heavy browsing and I will not buy them again.

I used to be in the same boat as you with 160 acres of completely wooded property. After 2 timber sales and a lot of dozer work and rock picking, I now have 16 acres of food plots (10%) and I can pretty much stay ahead of the deer most of the time. I tried Plot Saver in the past and it does work if you can get right out there after it rains and apply it again but that limits its effectiveness. My answer for small plots has been solar E-Fencing. I now have 3 chargers and enough posts, wire, etc to fence 3 small plots. Yes, it is expensive initially but as has been previously mentioned, once you buy it you can continue to use if for many years.

Looking towards your long term goals I would strongly recommend increasing your food plot acreage (along with native browse) and reducing your deer numbers until you can strike a balance.

Best of luck.

 

[Jeff H]

Here is a link to some discussion on Soy Beans from the Michigan Sportsman Forum:

soy bean ?'s

While not entirely relevant to your question, a lot of the replies paint the same picture as many of the replies above. Small Plots of soy beans do not flourish in high deer density environments. Even the expensive Eagle Forage beans are no match for heavy browsing and I will not buy them again.

I used to be in the same boat as you with 160 acres of completely wooded property. After 2 timber sales and a lot of dozer work and rock picking, I now have 16 acres of food plots (10%) and I can pretty much stay ahead of the deer most of the time. I tried Plot Saver in the past and it does work if you can get right out there after it rains and apply it again but that limits its effectiveness. My answer for small plots has been solar E-Fencing. I now have 3 chargers and enough posts, wire, etc to fence 3 small plots. Yes, it is expensive initially but as has been previously mentioned, once you buy it you can continue to use if for many years.

Looking towards your long term goals I would strongly recommend increasing your food plot acreage (along with native browse) and reducing your deer numbers until you can strike a balance.

Best of luck.

Thanks Wild Thing, I think you are correct on the lack of acreage. I have no budget for dozer work currently but I do agree that I need to provide more food, specifically winter food until I can strike that balance you speak of. Either by more food plot acreage or browse.
Someone on the old forum had a tag like that read something like "if your land has 10% food plots, what are you doing with the other 90%?"
I always remembered that as it fits my situation.
Beans would give me everything I am looking for but with my limited acreage I have to realize that I can't have it all.

 

[Jeff H]

With my shoestring budget and need of winter food and shading out of Sericea lespedeza I'm leaning toward a mix of grain sorghum (milo) and sunflowers for the area of my field that had the heaviest SL growth. In my existing clover plots I'll kill the grass with cleth and add in chicory as suggested. Hopefully the chicory can take some of the pressure off my clover. I'm not sure how this will effect my fall plan but I've got some time to figure that out. Maybe mow strips into the milo and plant WR and brassicas.
Next winter I will work to expand my plots and/or winter food supply. Does this sound like a good plan?
Jeff

 

[Blizzard Ridge]

Blizzard, When I typed out that post it was not directly in response to your earlier response. I should have made that clear. It was just something that popped into my head so I threw it out there. If I sounded argumentative I apologize. That was not my intent.
/QUOTE]
Jeff I did not take it as argumentative. To me that's just discussing anyway lol Believe me I need knocked in the head from time to time when I get an idea in my head. Good luck with the plot. As soon as my plots are no longer ponds I am planting on getting some beans in the ground, but things aren't looking good right now.

 

[Jeff H]

I sprayed cleth onto my plot yesterday. Since I don't have a tractor or a 4 wheeler I had to get creative. I have a 15 gallon tank sprayer so I rigged up a system to run it out of the back of the truck. It actually worked out pretty well. I only used it to spray the power line easement which was two trips with the sprayer. I did the rest of the plot with a 4 gallon backpack sprayer. Here's my low budget, redneck spray rig:


I have never used cleth before. I mixed it at 1/2 oz per gallon with 2 tsp of non ionic surfactant per gallon. Because my plot was already waist high and pretty thick I decided to throw in .75 oz per gallon of gly hoping it would not hurt my clover too badly.
Here is a picture of my clover plot.. there actually a really nice stand of clover under the grass.

 

[Jason Broom]

Did you include oats when you seeded the clover? The picture isn't clear enough to be certain, but it looks like there's a fair amount of oats in that grass.

 

[Jeff H]

No oats. I used winter rye.This area of clover is 3 years old. I don't know for sure what it is. I thought it was fescue.

 

[Jeff H]

Here's an update on what I did with my 1 acre Spring plot. First off I'll admit that I'm the worst at taking pictures when I'm on the farm. I only have a couple and they are not the greatest. I have lots of room for improvement here. I decided against soybeans due to the lack of acreage to plant. All advise was pointing toward it being wiped out in short order. I have four parts to my food plot currently: clover plot , my main plot , west power line plot and east power line plot. they are all connected. The utility company cleared the power last September and they are rough! Poor soil and lots of slash on the ground.
On my East power line plot I went straight milo. It's a small area (approx 1/8 acre) and I really don't wan't deer in it during the season. Milo will provide some security to the main plot (county road is off the east side) and yet it should provide some winter food source which is something we have very little of in my area.
The west power line plot is three times larger than the east power line plot. I went with buckwheat, PTT and Radishes for soil building.
In my clover plots I killed the grass with Cleth and planted chickory to take pressure off my clover. Thanks to JohnL for the advice here. I've never used cleth before. It worked great. I did add 3/4 oz per gallon of gly as the grass was really thick and I'm not patient enough to wait for the cleth to do it's thing.
In my main plot I went with a mix of Milo,sunflower,cowpeas (couldn't resist), hairy vetch, and malabar spinach. I put up a plot saver fence in this area as well as milorganite to keep the pressure off it until the milo gets some height to it. The thinking was the sunflower and milo stalks will give the cowpeas,vetch and malabar spinach something to climb. Baker put the idea of vetch in my head. The deer vetch or aeschynomene would not work for me on this site due to lack of moisture, but hairy vetch seems like it might work. The malabar spinach is my own idea. I grow it at home on a trellis. It's very aggressive and taste just like store bought spinach. It'll be interesting to see how this all works.
One of my main goals here was to shade out the Sericea Lespedeza that was so thick last year. In an odd twist of fate I can find very little SL in my main plot. Go figure! Maybe that's testament to Pasturegard that I sprayed it with last year, or maybe I'm just living right !
I'm having trouble uploading pics right now. I'll try again later but so far everything is looking good.

 

[Jeff H]

West power line. Buckwheat, PTT and radishes.

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[Jeff H]

My main plot. Sunflowers, milo, vetch,cowpeas, and Malabar spinach.
You can see the plot saver in the background.

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[Jeff H]

Main plot closeup. You can see the vetch,cowpeas and sunflower in this spot. Milo seems to be spotty and no sign of Malabar spinach yet.
Fwiw I'm digging this tapatalk!

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[Wild Thing]

Pics look great! Good plots look great! Nice work Jeff.

 

[Jeff H]

Here is a pic of the Malabar spinach from last year. Not exactly food plot stuff but it's an aggressive producer and climber. I'm anxious to see how it works. If I can find some growing I'm going to cage it in.

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