Sunn Hemp

B

Baker

Well-Known Member
I know there have been several threads about sunn hemp and one question generally asked is if deer actually eat the stuff. This is the 3rd year I've planted it in various combos or in straight plantings. I've seen browsing both on the growing tips and the leaves as you can see in this pic. This is a 3 acre field of sandy soil planted in 15lbs/acre to try and improve the composition. It may not be the most attractive planting I have but I like hemp both for the soil and it is grazed adequately. What you can't see in this pic is the deer also nipped all the tips even though it was probably 5-6 ft tall.IMG_4374.jpg
 
Deer will definitely eat it. When we started testing the stuff about ten years ago we couldn't get a stand of it due to browse pressure. We had to put it under high fence, or hide it in a mixture.
 
So this may be an alternative for me since I can't get beans to grow. If by chance they don't graze it, can it be mowed to keep fresh growth?
 
LetThemGrow said:
So this may be an alternative for me since I can't get beans to grow. If by chance they don't graze it, can it be mowed to keep fresh growth?
Click to expand...
I find it handles grazing pressure quite well though I usually have it in larger plots. Couple of options I have tried. The plants in the photo have not been mowed and are 7-10'tall. Nonetheless as you can see deer are eating the leaves and still nipping growth buds where they can reach them. Sunn hemp grows fast and it doesn't take long to reach a stage where deer can't catch up and it will keep growing even if deer nip the top very early after sprouting..

By letting it go unmowed the main stem will get quite thick and fibrous thus taking a long time to break down. I'm ok with that on this plot as I'm trying to build up sandy soil. I've also let it get about 6' then mowed as high as the deck on my bush hog will go which creates a lot of resprouting plus lower for deer. Stems aren't as thick then , break down quicker, and are easier to work with. Depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

The hemp will grow till first frost though I will terminate the end of August for fall planting later in Sept.
 
I never could get it past deer unless e-fenced for a few weeks. They wiped out three acre fields.
 
I have sun hemp in a ten way mix at five pounds an acre.
It has reached the knee high stage and really starting to jump. Due to a busy schedule and reworking a conventional drill to plant with , the mixture of seed has only been in the ground a few days short of a month. Did not spray herbicide at the time of planting as the oat rye crimson mix had browned out.
This is the first time I had planted red clover and it was the only green thing in the plots. The fresh planted mixture was slow to germ and grow in 3 to 6 inches of thatch. At first I thought the red clover was smothering out the new plants.
At three weeks most of the seedlings were still buried in the red clover. Just in the last week, the new plants have grown above the red clover. The deer have tried to demolish the red clover and have left the sun hemp, soybeans cowpeas, okra, sorghum and radish alone except where they topped a plant trying to get to the clover. Have some photos but couldn't get them to load. Is taptalk the way to go?
Will the sun hemp branch out and get bushy after being topped?
 
A 10 way mix!!! Love it. Yes I see multiple branching after being topped by deer or mower. I even see some top branching in plants that have not been grazed.I'll get pics if interested.
 
Lewi B said:
I have sun hemp in a ten way mix at five pounds an acre.
It has reached the knee high stage and really starting to jump. Due to a busy schedule and reworking a conventional drill to plant with , the mixture of seed has only been in the ground a few days short of a month. Did not spray herbicide at the time of planting as the oat rye crimson mix had browned out.
This is the first time I had planted red clover and it was the only green thing in the plots. The fresh planted mixture was slow to germ and grow in 3 to 6 inches of thatch. At first I thought the red clover was smothering out the new plants.
At three weeks most of the seedlings were still buried in the red clover. Just in the last week, the new plants have grown above the red clover. The deer have tried to demolish the red clover and have left the sun hemp, soybeans cowpeas, okra, sorghum and radish alone except where they topped a plant trying to get to the clover. Have some photos but couldn't get them to load. Is taptalk the way to go?
Will the sun hemp branch out and get bushy after being topped?
Click to expand...
What are you planting that only needs 5# an acre?
 
Does good in a mix with sunflowers, cowpeas,soybeans and sorghum . Monocultures work fine too as seen above. Just have to match planting to circumstance.IMG_4122.JPG
 
ncnat said:
What are you planting that only needs 5# an acre?
Click to expand...

Sorry for the delay in answering. I mixed ten varieties of seed together to see which plants would grow in my setting. Sun hemp, sudan sorghum, milo, two kinds of cowpeas, two kinds of soybeans (bush and running of both), buckwheat, okra, and diakon radish. Ok, eleven different seeds. The sun hemp was in the mix at five pounds per acre. Planted approximately forty two pounds of this mix per acre with a conventional drill into fully mature and browned out rye, oats, crimson and red clover. Seed went in the ground June 23rd ish, much later than planned. Normally July and August are drought months so i only fertilized at fifty pounds of urea per acre to make the sorghum get going.
With having timely rains in July, the plots have really taken off.
 
Fat fingered the post button in the middle of writing.
Seven weeks later the sun hemp,where the deer have not topped it several times, is close to eight feet. The tall hemp is only where the sorghum protected it from brousing. I have only planted red clover last fall for the first time. Where the red clover came in thick, the sun hemp and most of the mix has had a hard time becoming established. But the deer............they couldn't care less. The deer have eaten the red clover like caviar at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Now the clover is past prime, the deer are working on the soybeans, hemp, and radish.
 
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