Planting wild rice for ducks?

[gingib]

Heard a buddy tell me he contacted the game warden about planting wild rice for ducks in his tank and it is legal. Also planting Japanese Millet is also legal as long as it is not hunted the year it is planted I think he said.

Has anyone done this? Any cons/negatives to this?

[Triple 7]

We have planted Japanese Millett and had good success before the hogs got into it. But you have to be where the ducks want to be or nothing works

[gingib]

We have planted Japanese Millett and had good success before the hogs got into it. But you have to be where the ducks want to be or nothing works

How did you plant it? We have hogs so worried they may tear it up if we plant it in our tank on the edge

[LiftAndShoot]

Interested, too. I have about a half acre pond I'd like to make more attractive. Hogs are welcome - but the target is ducks.

[Triple 7]

I have 10 acres of swampy beaver pond land. In the summer when its dry I would spray to kill all of the vegitation that I could. After it was all gone and dead I would disk it with a small atv disk to make sure that the soil was fertile. I would plant using a spreader and cover it back up with a piece of chain link fence that I drug behind the atv. Just like you would for a deer food plot. There can't be standing water but it will grow in wet mud.

[knighttime]

Wild rice will not re-seed because our temperatures do not get cold enough to activate whatever scientific name they call it.

Myself and another member on another forum have been talking with kester's and a few other places up north that specialize in this stuff and said yes it would grow but it like wouldn't establish itself after the first planting therefore you would have to seed every year.

However wild rice can be planted in 1-3 foot of water so it would make it an excellent idea for those beaver sloughs that litter this part of the country.

That's the research I have attained this spring while others may have more to add that's what I can suggest. The other fella is trying a couple different options this spring to see how it turns out and I'm going to go from there.

[knighttime]

Also Japanese Millet is a touchy subject, from what I gather its up to the warden's assumption on when it was planted and if it was altered. I believe they say you can't even walk through it or send a dog through it in the first year. Made me too nervous so I tried brown top millet instead. It grew well on the banks of my pond but I never caught enough water for the ducks to hit it

[Triple 7]

In my situation the native vegitation was much more attractive to the birds than anything that I planted. The duck weed gets hit hard later in the year.

[js4242]

Knighttime - Pretty funny we frequent the same internet chat boards. I planted last Friday. It was a lot more work than I thought it was going to be. The night before, my buddy and I spent 3 hrs putting 300 tubers of sago pondweed into cheese cloth (5 per bag) with gravel to weigh them down. The next day, due to the rain my tank is so full that the shore line was deeper than expected. Its an old rock pit and since the water came up there isn't much of a gentle slope anymore. It gets deep real quick. the 100 Deep water duck potato tubers had to be pushed in by hand. That was a lot of fun. The pickerel plant seed was mixed into mud balls and tossed out. The good news is I have a ton of water, the bad news is I wasn't able to follow all the planting instructions to a "T". If I can get a some stands going of each plant I consider it a win. They will all reproduce if I can get them to seed. Being at the ranch sure beat what I do for a living so it is a win in that regard as well. I will keep ya'll updated on how its progressing throughout the year.

What I learned - If you can't control your water, you are at the mercy of mother nature. Planting a tank is more than just throwing some seed down.

If you have fish in your tanks, be careful due to the oxygen levels.

If none of this works - I will go get a couple of pillow cases full of duckweed and put it in the tank next year. Cheaper since it can be harvested from local waterways and it floats (no roots = no planting).

Jap Millet has to be replanted every year. Rules for hunting around it and other plants can be found here:

https://tpwd.texas.gov/regulations/outdoor-annual/hunting/migratory-game-bird-regulations/general-rules

Good luck to all those that are bettering their habitat.

[knighttime]

Knighttime - Pretty funny we frequent the same internet chat boards. I planted last Friday. It was a lot more work than I thought it was going to be. The night before, my buddy and I spent 3 hrs putting 300 tubers of sago pondweed into cheese cloth (5 per bag) with gravel to weigh them down. The next day, due to the rain my tank is so full that the shore line was deeper than expected. Its an old rock pit and since the water came up there isn't much of a gentle slope anymore. It gets deep real quick. the 100 Deep water duck potato tubers had to be pushed in by hand. That was a lot of fun. The pickerel plant seed was mixed into mud balls and tossed out. The good news is I have a ton of water, the bad news is I wasn't able to follow all the planting instructions to a "T". If I can get a some stands going of each plant I consider it a win. They will all reproduce if I can get them to seed. Being at the ranch sure beat what I do for a living so it is a win in that regard as well. I will keep ya'll updated on how its progressing throughout the year.

What I learned - If you can't control your water, you are at the mercy of mother nature. Planting a tank is more than just throwing some seed down.

If you have fish in your tanks, be careful due to the oxygen levels.

If none of this works - I will go get a couple of pillow cases full of duckweed and put it in the tank next year. Cheaper since it can be harvested from local waterways and it floats (no roots = no planting).

Jap Millet has to be replanted every year. Rules for hunting around it and other plants can be found here:

https://tpwd.texas.gov/regulations/outdoor-annual/hunting/migratory-game-bird-regulations/general-rules

Good luck to all those that are bettering their habitat.

HAHAHA and here is the man that knows wayyyyyyy more than I do about this topic!! Hope your planting went well! Luckily I've got a stagnant pond about 75 yards away that is chalked full of this duckweed, just hope the state doesn't mind me "borrowing" some

Great minds must think alike

[Razrbk89]

I'm not sure about wild rice but you pretty much have to be able to manipulate your water for regular long grain. Posters above had some good ideas with helping native vegetation get established, and I think that'd be your best bet.

We have attempted some small rice patches before in our woods. We mainly just wanted to see if it'd make. We made a gate, fertilized, let it come up, closed the gate and pumped ditch water in it. It actually made a decent stand in what is maybe a 1/4 acre hole. I'm sure the ducks ate on it but they can really clear something that size out quick.

Good luck to ya man! I'm ready for the ducks to come back!

[EastTx]

I have never planted rice but can give my experience with Japanese Millet. I have planted Japanese Millet several times and it has never reseeded on its own in any of the spots I have planted. If you do not have control of your water level it is a gamble and in my opinion not worth it. If you do get lucky and water levels work in your favor, and you are in a decent flyway, it will definitely bring in ducks. The seeds can be wiped out very quick on small plantings. I have planted too early and had a whole plot stripped before early Teal season opened. I prefer to plant later than suggested but you will have some plants that won't seed out. Japanese Millet can be hunted the year you plant as long as it is not manipulated.
Got similar responses in emails asking this question several years ago from TPWD and FWS.

You can hunt over it the first year, however, you may not walk through,
drive through, shred it down, disk it or make any of the seed heads to
drop their seed by anything or any activity you do to cause such. Read
the Waterfowl baiting federal laws very closely since we follow suit
with those.

http://www.fws.gov/le/HuntFish/waterfowl_baiting.htm

[gingib]

I would be planting it in 1-3 foot of water on the edge of my 1/2 acre pond. Just don't know if its worth the $100 or so for seed to take a gamble to see if it will sprout

[knighttime]

I would be planting it in 1-3 foot of water on the edge of my 1/2 acre pond. Just don't know if its worth the $100 or so for seed to take a gamble to see if it will sprout

Wild rice will grow in those depths but I think what you need to decide is what is your ultimate goal for that 100$. If you just want it to take and hope that it attracts a few green tops this year then sure its worth it, but if your hoping it re-seeds every year then no its not for you.

Lastly at a 1/2 pond how much of that is actually going to be 1-3' of water? If its just the edge I would imagine wood ducks are going to clean you out in probably a couple weeks to a month.

[Ride_Klein]

Lots of good information above. Japanese millet has been hard for us. Brown top grows well, but you have to be able to keep it out of standing water. We've been able to get it to reseed by draining the slough at the end the season and then running a disc through when it dried out.