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Food Plots The part the pigs didn't hit

L

lol

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Joined
Jul 31, 2024
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Location
Monroe County
I'd posted the lower part of this field before with pig damage. This part remains untouched, so far, by deer or pigs. Hopefully, the deer will start hitting it at some point. Unlike the bottom part where I sprayed, all I did up here was broadcast crimson clover, winter wheat and cereal rye into standing goldenrod, then I drug part of it with a chain drag. Mixed in with this is some volunteer wild radish which are about a foot long and as big around as a coke can. I found one of those dug up and half eaten in the lower part of the field. Anyways, I think this part turned out pretty good for the first time basically doing a throw and grow.
clover.webp
 
Looks great! Deer will hit it at some point in the season... or the next couple seasons.

On my new property, I dozed in a new half acre plot in the middle of 5yo select out thick stuff.4 years ago.

Hardly any deer on it until December or so. Fast forward 4 more years of plot in the same location, and it's an absolute deer magnet all year long.

Sometimes it takes a year or two to find and regularly use, so don't give up.
 
megalomaniac said:
Looks great! Deer will hit it at some point in the season... or the next couple seasons.

On my new property, I dozed in a new half acre plot in the middle of 5yo select out thick stuff.4 years ago.

Hardly any deer on it until December or so. Fast forward 4 more years of plot in the same location, and it's an absolute deer magnet all year long.

Sometimes it takes a year or two to find and regularly use, so don't give up.
Click to expand...
Appreciate the info. We will keep it growing for sure. I'd like to clear some more as well if I can get my hands on some better equipment.
 
megalomaniac said:
Looks great! Deer will hit it at some point in the season... or the next couple seasons.

On my new property, I dozed in a new half acre plot in the middle of 5yo select out thick stuff.4 years ago.

Hardly any deer on it until December or so. Fast forward 4 more years of plot in the same location, and it's an absolute deer magnet all year long.

Sometimes it takes a year or two to find and regularly use, so don't give up.
Click to expand...
Same with some of my newer plots. They were log-loading decks when we conducted our last timber cut. We had the loggers bulldoze them out much bigger. But the soil was so poor that it took several years of lime, fertilizing and turning for the soil to become productive, grow a decent crop, and have deer flock to them. Basically, almost 4 years.
 
BSK said:
Same with some of my newer plots. They were log-loading decks when we conducted our last timber cut. We had the loggers bulldoze them out much bigger. But the soil was so poor that it took several years of lime, fertilizing and turning for the soil to become productive, grow a decent crop, and have deer flock to them. Basically, almost 4 years.
Click to expand...
I soiled tested my fields. This one was the least bad but the PH is low and it basically had no phosphorus. I didn't manage to get lime down, but I hit if with triple super phosphate. In my other field, we had about an additional acre cleared mostly into pines and I managed to get some sparse growth with partridge peas and some oats during summer for erosion control. Aside from the lack of nutrients, it looks like organics are a bigger issue.
 
lol said:
I soiled tested my fields. This one was the least bad but the PH is low and it basically had no phosphorus. I didn't manage to get lime down, but I hit if with triple super phosphate. In my other field, we had about an additional acre cleared mostly into pines and I managed to get some sparse growth with partridge peas and some oats during summer for erosion control. Aside from the lack of nutrients, it looks like organics are a bigger issue.
Click to expand...
THAT is something Mega really turned me onto. At first, I was tilling my plots because the ground was concrete hard and would not absorb water. But once I had tilled them several times - to the point they WOULD hold water -what I needed was organic matter. Over the last two years I've gone back to throw-and-mow planting techniques. Mowing biomass down onto the soil and letting it naturally decompose has been a game changer. Now my summer crops are more about producing biomass to mow onto the soil for my fall crops rather than actually growing plants deer want to eat in summer. Probably the best summer biomass I've grown has been Sunn Hemp and Sorghum. Both grow very tall and produce a huge volume of biomass once bushhogged.
 

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