food plot prep

[Nova]

Just got back from a weekend of doing some plot prep work. Got 2 existing plots worked up and started a new one in an ideal location. Here is one that we had last year, it's all set for planting in a couple weeks

This next one is a spot on a south east facing slope with tons of sumac. We wanted to put a hole in the sumac for a plot due to the great cover in the sumac. They can feed and have a nice bedding are with excellent cover real close. The hope is that they don't leave the property to the south of here(which they do now) cause these boys shot everything. Now I am not saying there is anything wrong with that, but if I am managing deer I want them to stay away from that area. Here is the location before construction.

Here is the plot in progress with the sumac cleared and a couple hours of discing complete. Still needs work, but we got a good start.

[Cooter]

Looks great! Have you decided what you're gonna plant?

[Mark Christianson]

Just think what a tractor will do fer ya Nova!

[woody1975]

Do you guys recommend starting food plots now?

We were hoping to get them in the next two three weeks, will we be too late?

We are in Southern Minnesota.

DL

[Mark Christianson]

I guess I would follow gardeners or farmers.

If its too early for them, its too early for plots.

Yes, thats overly general, but I think you could use it as a baseline as to when you could safely start to plant things.

I know I wont plant anything until early May for certain around Fergus.

Just remember how cold it gets on fishing opener some years.

You dont want seed thats germinated to get hit by a cold snap, nor do you dont want seed to sit in the ground for an extended period waiting to germinate if we hit a cold spell again.

With that said, I have done a late April planting one year, knowing it was early, but my time was shot in May to plan on doing it so I took the one window I had to get it done.

[Cooter]

Do you have the ground ready for planting? If so plant within the guidelines for that particular plant and by all means do so before a rain if your schedule is flexible.

[jlm]

Way too early to plant yet! Go ahead and prep the soil though if you have the itch. Great time to take a soil sample and have your plots tested. Those who test it will give you some great suggestions to prepare your plot for whatever it is that you would like to plant. The PH level and the amount of fertilizer can be the difference between and a great plot and a horrible plot! Good luck!

[roosterslayer]

I will not be planting until Memorial weekend. I will be prepping the old plots and the new sites in two weeks.

[DCF]

What do you guys plant? I usually do just corn. This year I was going to strips of corn/milo. I am in southern mn. Looking for something to plant in some small plots by deer areas just for deer. Any good ideas???

[jltimm]

What's a guy to do who wants to tear the ground up, but doesn't own a tractor, but has a wheeler? Is a tractor the only way to break up the ground on a powerline clearing?

[Nova]

I am going with 2 plots at home, one corn and one sunflower, skirted with Rooster Booster. Then these 4 plots up north will be one corn, one sunflower, and two with the MDHA cold weather blend that I got last night from BLB. I have about 2 more weekends to prep the plots up north and then plant early May, the plots at home will be worked up in May and planted late May/early June. Thanks for getting me the MDHA seed Mark. It's gonna be fun to watch it grow and see how the animals react.

[PerchJerker]

Quote:

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What's a guy to do who wants to tear the ground up, but doesn't own a tractor, but has a wheeler

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I do all my food plot work with atvs and atv implements. BLB's problem is he has so many tractors he can't decide which one to use.

You can find atv discs and sprayers and other implements at fleet farm, northern tool, tractor supply company, runnings, the big ganders, and tons of places on-line. They work, they just take longer than tractors and field equipment. Especially discing new soil, especially if there's already some turf (grass or weeds) there. If you can add weight to the disc it goes MUCH better.

I've been using a worksaver flip-over gang disc behind my atv for 6-7 years and it works good.

You definately don't want to go with light gardening and garden tractor implements. They will take a beating doing food plot work, you need something stronger and heavier. There's a lot of atv implements out there to choose from now.

[Nova]

I too only use an ATV and ATV implements. Yes it takes longer, but they work good. The pics above are done with and ATV and a ATV disc purchased at Fleet Farm. We don't have a tractor...yet and I don't think you need one unless you are doing 5 acre or bigger plots.

[Mark Christianson]

Perch

Its easy to figure out what tractor to use.

At any one time, 3 of the 4 have something broken on them anyway...

Lets see.

This spring we have a water pump out on one, flat tire on one, one that has a short somewhere in the dang thing, so if you leave the battery hooked up it drains it.

So that leaves us with one that will for sure start today. Well we hope so at least.

I dont have much to add to whats already been said as far as working up a plot, except, plan on putting some sweat equity in the project. ATV's can do it, but it aint no tractor with a plow.

Most of our plots were originally conceived with ATV's. And I enjoyed every minute of it.

Great seeing you again last night Nova. Can we keep that info secret about the deer running around my house last night, and your snide comment to me about what kind of hunter I am? LOL

[Cooter]

Quote:

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Lets see.

This spring we have a water pump out on one, flat tire on one, one that has a short somewhere in the dang thing, so if you leave the battery hooked up it drains it.

So that leaves us with one that will for sure start today. Well we hope so at least.

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Too funny, sounds just like my uncle! "Well, we can use the disc but will have to grab a tire off the manure spreader first."

I put down some more lime on my little woods plot Sat and tilled up half of it. I planted rye last fall and the one half had so many oak leaves on it I just tilled it up. The other half is fine and the deer are in it so I'm gonna wait another couple weeks. With all those leaves I think I'm taking clover out of the possibilities list. Thank goodness we got that rain last night - things were getting pretty dry over here. We could have used more but it will help.

[Nova]

Spent about 10-12 hours Saturday discing and dragging the plots. They are all set to plant. Going up this coming weekend to shoot a turkey and get the seed in the ground. Any one have a good spray that I can hit the sunflower with after it has been planted for a couple weeks to control weeds?

[Code-Man]

sunflower spray needs to be sprayed preferable prior to emergence. Spray will be determined upon soil texture.

medium rate on everything

Pre Plant/Pre Emerge

Dual 2 Magnum 1.33-1.67 pts

Glyphomax xrt or durango up to 24 oz + AMS

Round UP 13-26oz + AMS

Treflan TR-10 1.25-1.2 pt

Post

Assert .6-.8 pt+1qt Preference

Select 6-10 oz + 1-2 pt Prime Oil + 2.5 lb AMS

Select Max 12-32 oz + 1 qt Prime Oil.

There are lots of options but cheapest Plant and Spray same day. Any other questions shoot an email

[email protected]

[Scott K]

I planted clover, and a wild life mix. Is there a spray I can use on this, or will it harm the plants? And I am not planning on getting a soil sample, but is there a fertilizer that should be put down that will help it grow, and not the weeds?

[Code-Man]

depending on what is in your food mix there could be an option. Best bet when planting grasses that have any alfalfa is to burn down everything prior to plant. Once alfalfa is established you aren't going to be able to spray much. Nice thing about clover is that the worse the soil is the better it grows. But for the grasses you will want some fertilizer. depending on how big the area is a 40lb bag of fertilizer will do 10,000 sq ft aproximately. If you are looking I would check your local coop for fertilizer bagged. We have 40lb bags of 20-10-10-4s and 66 2/3 bags also of differnt mixtures. I would check to see if they have any available in the commercial bags. don't look fancy cause you don't need it. If you are looking for places to pick up fertilizer drop me a line since I can't suggest stuff on here but at our coop we charge 9-10 bucks for 40lb bags and 14 for our 66 2/3lb bags. Also if you have more questions about spray keep me posted. Also found out today you can get Antler King in 3 acre and 6 acre bags...crap load cheaper. Custom ordering in some for some of our bigger customers.

[Nova]

Quote:

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sunflower spray needs to be sprayed preferable prior to emergence. Spray will be determined upon soil texture.

medium rate on everything

Pre Plant/Pre Emerge

Dual 2 Magnum 1.33-1.67 pts

Glyphomax xrt or durango up to 24 oz + AMS

Round UP 13-26oz + AMS

Treflan TR-10 1.25-1.2 pt

Post

Assert .6-.8 pt+1qt Preference

Select 6-10 oz + 1-2 pt Prime Oil + 2.5 lb AMS

Select Max 12-32 oz + 1 qt Prime Oil.

There are lots of options but cheapest Plant and Spray same day. Any other questions shoot an email

[email protected]

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Code-man, thanks for the info. I hit the sunflower plot last Sunday with round up, discing and planting this Saturday. I will be up in mid june to hit my round up ready corn with round up and just wonderred if I could or should hit the sunflower with something to control the weeds. Again, thanks for the help.

[Code-Man]

If you do spray your sunflowers I can not stress rinsing your tank many times prior to doing it. Sunflowers are sooo touchy it's not even funny. most farmers will do a burn down of round up the same day they plant and if they have a weed issue to cultivate instead of spraying. One Sunflowers are touchy to spray and if they even smell the wrong chemical there dead. Two the spray will cost you an arm and a leg.

[Nova]

Ok, thanks for the info, I will just leave them and hope the initial weed control works until they get going good. Appreciate the info.

[BLACKJACK]

codeman, good advice on the bagged fertilizer. The coop in Elrosa will sell me 50 pound bags for $12 while the locals want $16 for the same stuff!!!

[Scott K]

code man,

I already planted the seed, is there anything I can put down to control the weeds at this point? And if I fertilize now, will that just make the weeds grow faster?

[Code-Man]

you bought it from ELROSA?!?!?! Nice thing about elrosa is I work with them. I work Prairie Lakes Coop in Long Prairie and it's a Prairie Lakes in Elrosa. Nice thing about Elrosa is they only charge a bagging fee for mixtures you want. You order it early enough Larry will bag it in 66 2/3lb bags if you want and it will be cheaper because our bags don't cost as much as our 40lbers because there not fancy. Drop an email if you looking for anything else Black Jack

[Code-Man]

what weeds are present in your clover plot? One thing that I was shown by a person who was picky about his gardens was he didnt' want to spray the whole garden but wanted obviously the weeds sprayed. He would dip a brush into a 50/50 chemical/water mixture and would dip a paint brush in and coat the leaves. Worked wonders for him. Might be an option if hte weeds get too high. I guess it's hard to recomend the spray without knowing the weeds and crop(s). If you have any questions send an email and I can try helping you out further. I will only be checking in once a day or so because work is going full bore.

[Scott K]

I didnt fertilize, or spray. I planted last weekend, and I have clover growing that is about a half an inch tall so far. I am just going to try it naturally this year I guess. Weed it by hand when needed.

[treeguyus]

I spoke with a long time farmer this morning who told me to disc my food plots throughout the summer. Preferably after a rain. Then Mid-August fertilize and plant. He said by leaving the plots black through the summer will kill alot of weed roots. He reccomended once you see weeds disc them again. He also reccomended mixing legumes like orchard grass with clover. Because the root system on orchard grass is very complex and then keep cutting to keep fresh shoots coming.

[Nova]

the corn plot and the sunflower plots are both in up north and 2 more plots are disced up and ready for a mid August plant. 2 more to get ready at home this week and hopefully get the seed in the ground before opening of fishing. Here is the newest plot up north planted in corn. This will be a great spot if the corn comes up good.

[BLACKJACK]

I was at BLB's place last night up north of Brandon and hes not kidding when he talks about broken down tractors!!! Him and his dad were working on reattaching the front end to one of them!!! I guess a tree jumped out at him!!! Then when he was giving me a tour with the Gator, he managed to start a fire in the Gator housing!!! Don’t let BLB near any of your power equipment!!!!! BLB did show me some real sweet food plots in the woods!!! I can't wait to see the trail cam pictures!!