• Help Support TNDeer:

Food Plots Going to try alfalfa

Strongly suggest round-up ready variety. Usually try to plant it in the fall but, understandably, this was not a good year for fall planting.
 
Soil test and amend 1st. Round up ready seed or dont. Dont waste your money on a spring planting! IT WILL NOT SURVIVE SUMMER!
Fall or not at all! Plant with wheat to protect the young alfalfa and retard weeds, mow the wheat once it ripens and fertilize per your 2nd soil samples. Be prepaired to spray for weavels, dont wait for them to show up, be ready! Walk in it often and look for weavels and other common problems and react quickly! Plan to mow it 2 or 3 times a year and spray for weeds twice. Alfalfa can be a wonderful thing and it can be one very high maintenance date! Understand that alfalfa has a self defeating characteristic that prevents its own seed from germinating and if you do real good after 5 years you will kill whats left and plant something else for 3 years then start all over again.
Alfalfa can and has been a wonderful plot but it will cost you plenty in cash and heartache as well. Been there, Done that...
Not likely to do it again.
 
Best advice is don't. But if your set in doing it don't plant in the spring as said above. Do your research talk to farmers that grow it. Crazy maintenance.
 
Popcorn said:
Success with alfalfa is being stressed out because the deer mowed it like a golf course at night and were sleeping it off while you are on stand!
Click to expand...

And then it ceased to exist. Pretty much exactly my experience with it. I don't think it made it an inch out of the ground before the deer had it gone. It's the only thing I've seen deer gobble up faster than peas and beans.
 
Popcorn said:
Soil test and amend 1st. Round up ready seed or dont. Dont waste your money on a spring planting! IT WILL NOT SURVIVE SUMMER!
Fall or not at all! Plant with wheat to protect the young alfalfa and retard weeds, mow the wheat once it ripens and fertilize per your 2nd soil samples. Be prepaired to spray for weavels, dont wait for them to show up, be ready! Walk in it often and look for weavels and other common problems and react quickly! Plan to mow it 2 or 3 times a year and spray for weeds twice. Alfalfa can be a wonderful thing and it can be one very high maintenance date! Understand that alfalfa has a self defeating characteristic that prevents its own seed from germinating and if you do real good after 5 years you will kill whats left and plant something else for 3 years then start all over again.
Alfalfa can and has been a wonderful plot but it will cost you plenty in cash and heartache as well. Been there, Done that...
Not likely to do it again.
Click to expand...
I totally agree with everything said here. WAIT FOR FALL! Summer will kill it out with the roots being shallow. One thing I will add is if you can keep the clippings off it after cutting it will last longer. Whether you bale it or whatever removing the clippings helped us tremendously. Like Popcorn said we did it once but won't likely do it again.
 
Been there, tried that. Replaced it with clover and lespadeza, broadcast seeder and left to fight for survival. The lespedeza has choked out my orchard grass, but seems to leave pasture bermuda alone.
The remaining front pecan grove is heavily clovered, to the point I can stand on the front porch and get deer, rabbits, groundhogs with a handgun. Seed was a mix of red, white, Dutch and Japanese, roughly 200 pounds of seed on 14 acres.
Back orchards have been left unmowed. Vetch, blackberries, ironweed, lots of other native forbs. Pasture bermuda, bunch grasses, perennial rye, wild oats, wild squashes, sand plums, chokecherries, ground cherries…
I've never seen more deer on the cams, unfortunately they have already gone nocturnal.
 
SeaBee133 said:
Been there, tried that. Replaced it with clover and lespadeza, broadcast seeder and left to fight for survival. The lespedeza has choked out my orchard grass, but seems to leave pasture bermuda alone.
The remaining front pecan grove is heavily clovered, to the point I can stand on the front porch and get deer, rabbits, groundhogs with a handgun. Seed was a mix of red, white, Dutch and Japanese, roughly 200 pounds of seed on 14 acres.
Back orchards have been left unmowed. Vetch, blackberries, ironweed, lots of other native forbs. Pasture bermuda, bunch grasses, perennial rye, wild oats, wild squashes, sand plums, chokecherries, ground cherries…
I've never seen more deer on the cams, unfortunately they have already gone nocturnal.
Click to expand...
Sounds like some great diversity SeaBee133 but curious how you plan to manage the back orchards in the future? Bush hog every other year? Burn? Spot spray invasives or the less desirable plants? Or some combination of all the above? I love old field growth habitat and the diversity it provides and Im interested in different management techniques. In our area we have allot of blackberry, honeysuckle and a variety of other plants but if left untouched to many years red cedar will take over and then it can become more difficult to manage. Goal being to keep it in a more early successional stage. Appreciate any input.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top