How to plant a food plot...

[MARK J]

I have a long narrow 2 acre north/south food plot north of atlanta michigan with sandy acidic soil that I limed 2 tons per acre 2 years ago.

This spring I'm going to first broadcast about 500 lbs 19-19-19 granular fertilizer on the ground...

Then....I'm going to till it, disc it and cultipack it.

Then I'm going to hand broadcast 30#'s of seed with a quad... a mixture of seed consisting of 10# purple top turnips / 10# ladino clover and 10# dwarf essex rape.

Then I'm going to run the cultipacker over it twice.

And then I'll be so tired that I'll have to put a folding chair out in the middle of the woods on top of the hill overlooking my food plot.

Then I'm gonna find a few ice cold bottles of beer, listen to the whip-r-wills (spelling?) watch the sun go down and listen for the coyotes...I should be in bed and be unconsious from exhaustion by 9:45 PM.

How perfect is that???
But will it work?

Someday I'll really figure all of this out. Is there anything wrong with this plan?

[Taxidermist]

Sounds like it will work to me and if it dosent then go back to the top of the hill with more brown bottles and take care of the pain.



Rob

[spikecamp]

I know some people that will pay for plots like that. A buddy of mine runs a food plot business in the thumb area. He owns 120 prime acres in the thumb, and all surrounding private land owners all manage their lands, and no one shoots young bucks, they been doing this over 10 to 20 years, and you should see some of their big bucks that they shoot every year. Management has proven that it works.

[sandbur3]

Mark J For my sandy acidic soil two tons of lime is not enough. Maybe you should check the pH first, if too low, skip the ladino for another year and spread more lime. Or spread the lime early and seed in August.

[halfczech]

You should end up having a marvels food plot. All you need is mother nature to cooperate. I did what you did last year. When darkness made me stop i told my buddy who was helping me that if i had some cold ones i might sit out here in the woods all night. one thing you might want to look at as far as seed is qdms ultimate blend. it has purple top and dward essex and canola and biologic as annual. for perennnials it has 5 types of clover and chicory and trefoil and alfalfa. good luck and i hope the weather gods are kind to you.

[NorthJeff]

My sandy loam soil up here requires a minimum of 4 tons per acre. First, I'd check the soil ph with a test. Next, if you have done nothing previously to address weed concerns, I would scrap the entire plan...otherwise "carry on" and have fun!

If you have not eliminated the weeds, then you have a couple routes you can take to address both weeds and soil fertility at the same time.

*If weeds are not too bad, spray to kill, and then go with a planting of buckwheat in late May and allow to grow until mid-July, at which time you spray again. Then, plant your desired mix the first part of August, which is at a time when moisture patterns will increase through Nov., followed by winter dormancy, followed by another shot of great moisture in the spring. Your crop has less of a chance for overall failure, and your clover will be established at a time(fall) when weeds are dying, and not thriving.

*If you have a pretty bad weed problem, including bracken fern or sedge, you can spray, plant buckwheat, spray in Aug, plant annual rye 2 weeks later, and do the same thing next year, finally planting the more "premium" planting in late summer of 07.

Most of the time a good crop of clover can be established with a fairly decent elimination of weeds (but not total) in the first year following just the 2 sprayings and 1 crop of buckwheat. However, the buckwheat and annual rye rotational planting is incredibly easy to plant, gives you the opportunity to spray multiple times to fully control weed growth, greatly improves your soil, and is very attractive to deer during during the seasons they are at their best, including mid-summer for buckwheat, and mid-fall through early spring for rye. It's not a big deal to push-off the more "premium" planting to late summer 07 and there could be several benifits. Also, most of the time you can get away with only the sprayings, and very light equipment to plant, resulting in more time for you to kick back and enjoy some cold ones.

A great thing to do would be to plant 1/2 the plot this August in your blend, after the 2 chemical treatments and buckwheat crop, and plant annual rye on the other 1/2. Next year kill and plant buckwheat on the rye portion, and plant your mix on that 1/2. Each year you can kill 1/2 in late summer and plant your favorite cold-season annual/clover based mix, resulting in a great fall forage on at least 1/2 of your plot, with the established clover on the other 1/2. You can even split your plot into 3rds, so that each clover planting lasts 3 years, although this further limits the amount of forage and nutrition your plot provides from mid-fall through early spring.

Again, if you have not addressed your weed concerns...I wouldn't plant this spring, and I'd first make sure your ph is addressed. If your ph is poor, you can plant the buckwheat and rye rotational planting while the ph is improving with another application of lime..both are very tolerant of both light soil and poor ph soils. They are also both supperb soil builders...probably the best combination you can use for alternating cold and warm season annual plantings.

Overall, planting in the fall gives you more moisture, less weed competition, more hunting season attraction, increased fall through spring forage at a more critical time for the deer herd, and will still establish your clover very well with a higher probability of success.

[chinamigarden]

You might want to take some soil samples to the County Extension office. They will tell you exactly what your soil will need. That way you aren't spreading too much of one nutrient and not enough of another. Each sample tested is about 10 bucks and is well worth it in the long run.

[davidshane]

Do the soil sample first; figure out what you are working with before making the plan. Follow the advice of this forum. Both a friend and myself did last year and we both had sucessful plots on our properties.

The beer is ok at anytime!;)