Food Plot Basics

[Deer Slayer]

Time to work your foodplots. Get the grass and weeds turned under.

 

[deerwhacker444]

Glad you guys talked me out of planting and waiting for a while.

The handfuls of seed I threw out in the tomato patch at home cam up nicely and are about 4" tall,..but they sure aren't liking this 100+ degree business.

I've been able to keep them alive by watering in the evenings, but wouldn't have been able to do that in the woods.....

 

[Deer Slayer]

I am glad someone listens to us ol' timers who have been doing this since 1987. It is still too early to really plant the plots unless you want to dust in some wheat.

 

[deerwhacker444]

So we're looking for a rainy period followed by a week or so of mild temperatures so the "sprouts" will be able to bust thru and not hit any "crust".? No more of this high heat crap.

Don't see one of those on the forecast yet...

 

[Deer Slayer]

RRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTTTT

 

[dennishoddy]

Next week is scheduled to be in the 80's, so if we get any of this rain this week, it wouldn't be too early.
Note the dust cloud behind the disk in the upper pic.

 

[Deer Slayer]

I am doing something different this fall with my plan for planting. Instead of using more fertilizer I am planning on using less by adding more legumes. Why ? because by adding more legumes such as austrian winter peas I will be fixing more nitrogen in my soil because of the legumes rather than buying salt based fertilizers. I should have a net gain of N. I am waiting to hear from my OSU Extension agent on how much N that I can possibly expect to gain based on my plant rate of peas. My P and K is approx 95% adequate so I need little of that but I need some N. I currently have 6 #/ac of N so I may need to supplement a little 46-0-0 to get the ball rolling then with the incorporation of more legumes this fall I may have sufficient N fixed so I will not have a future need. Hopefully this makes sense to you. I am restoring the soil with a soil supplement and working WITH Mother Nature vs. against her. By using the supplements and fixing the nitrogen I am moving away from salt based fertilizers that create long term problems with salt in the soil. This past growing season I proved a 26% increase in protein on winter wheat and increased the production by 46% while breaking the clay soil down to a crumb. Where water, historically, has stood in a field after a 4.5", there is no standing water. This showed soil improvement. There were additionally improvements too. I am moving from short term gains with using synthetic salt based fertilizers such as 13-13-13 to long term gains with planting more legumes to fix N and the deer love it too. The soil is being restored, the deer are happy and I save money in the long term. This is where we need to be headed to re store the soil quality to where it was at the beginning of the 1900's before salt based fertilizers were being needed in the 1950's.

If anyone has a further interest in what I am doing to restore the soil then send me a pm and I will explain further.

 

[Okie4570]

I was just reading about this about a week ago. I'd been around the crop rotation concept before, but I learned a lot from this article from New Mexico State. I didn't realize the N differences and uptakes in different legumes varied so much.
http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_a/a-129.pdf

 

[Deer Slayer]

Good publication Bobby, Thank you.

 

[deerwhacker444]

To plant or not to plant,..that is the question..?

Plant for "Friday's rain event" or not yet, still too warm..?