Food Plot advice

[Setxbowhunter58]

plan on planting several food plots in east texas. Im hunting in hillister. what grows best during the summer/fall months in east texas and when is the best time to plant?

[muddyfuzzy]

LabLab and Iron Clay Cow Peas are a great East Texas combination. I just seeded about 1.25 acres with 30# of Cow Peas and 25#'s of LabLab. If you use a Legume type seed be sure to use type EL inoculant if the seed isn't already precoated to increase your germination rate, its worth the extra 5 bucks or so. My plot went in last weekend and the rest of our members planted this past Saturday.

[ranchdog]

LabLab and Iron Clay Cow Peas are a great East Texas combination. I just seeded about 1.25 acres with 30# of Cow Peas and 25#'s of LabLab. If you use a Legume type seed be sure to use type EL inoculant if the seed isn't already precoated to increase your germination rate, its worth the extra 5 bucks or so. My plot went in last weekend and the rest of our members planted this past Saturday.

This (cow peas / soybeans, Roundup ready are very cool) in the spring, and in the fall go with Buck Forage oats. Be aware that if you have a high deer density they will hammer a small spring plot of peas as soon as they come up. If they eat the first two leaves of the young sprout the plant usually dies. You may need to put up an electric fence to protect them. If grasshoppers are bad in your area they too will hammer your plants.

Good luck, after several years of trying spring plots I just couldn't overcome the deer or the grasshoppers. I think if you can plant 10 acres or more like farmers do you can overcome some of this. I basically just went to feeding protein.

Now fall oat plots are easy. The deer cannot kill the plots by eating it right away and grasshoppers and other bugs have no interest in the oats.

Ranchdog

[Boomerang]

The innoculate does not enhance germination, it is used for legumes for nitrogen fixation and is specific as there are several kinds. There are other innoculants that can improve the soil.

[Drycreek3189]

Good advice above, but whether the deer decimate your peas/beans largely depends on your deer density as well as how much you plant. I plant iron clay peas on two spots in Rusk Co. and one place in Trinity Co. The deer density varies, but I have no trouble growing the peas without the deer eating them up too early.

Also, you can't plant RR beans and iron clay peas in the same plot and expect to spray gly on them without killing the peas. Soybeans are great, but for the cost, I'd only use the RR variety if I KNEW I was gonna have a bad weed problem. This will let you spray with gly when the beans are small, killing all the weed competition. At over a $100 for 50#, they're just not that much better than i/c peas, UNLESS you're gonna keep them into the winter for the bean pods. If you do, you can always broadcast wheat, oats, or rye grain into the bean plot about the time the leaves start to turn yellow. Lots of it will germinate and you'll have bean pods and a green crop too.....if the frickin hogs will leave them alone ! Good luck whatever you plant.