Food plot questions

[mikem]

I am wanting to plant some food plants in Liberty/San Jacinto County.


There are limited cows on the place
I just sent off a soil sample.
I have about 5 acres of open pasture I am wanting to plant

I have a 45hp tractor

size and type of disc?

What and when to plant?

Any thoughts or advise would be appreciated..

[MQ32Shooter]

I have a 64 hp tractor and I use a 10' JD tandem. I would think any tandem up to 5-6' would work fine. As far at when to plant, hopefully, someone from your area will chime in and give you some thoughts. I'm way north of you and my planting time and what to plant will differ from your area. But, got to get them cows fenced out if you've not already done that.

[Drycreek3189]

You don't say if you have front wheel assist on your tractor. If so, a 6' disc, if not, I wouldn't go over 5'. Anything you plant for summer use will probably be cow food. Need to fence them out as MQ said. My recommended plot would be iron clay peas. Easy to plant, will grow in marginal soils, and are drought resistant. Good forage, can be over 30% in protein content. Deer love them, so it's a win-win.

My regimen is:
If it's thick grass or weeds, mow it. A few days later, hit it with a 3 oz. per gallon glyphosate mix. I usually run in third gear at 2000 rpms and get it pretty wet. After a week or so, disc heavy until you get it all under. This is the time to add your lime (which won't do any immediate good but will start working to amend your ph). Then, straighten or almost straighten your disc gangs in order to level your seedbed. When all you have is a bunch of shallow grooves in your seedbed, broadcast your fertilizer according to your soil test and your seeds. Use a drag to smooth the seedbed, then go home and plan your fall plot ! If you don't have a drag, pick up five large pickup tires at your local tire store (out of the junk pile of course) and about 40' of medium chain, enough quick links, and make one. Tires from a one ton would be perfect, but big 3/4 ton tires will do.

[ranchdog]

You have to decide do you want Fall Hunting plots to attract deer (then plant Buck Forage Oats) or Spring plots to provide nutrition (Plant cow peas, Soybeans, Lablab, Roundup Ready Soybeans etc)

Let me warn you about Spring plots. You need to plant a lot, like the whole 5 acres and even then if you have a lot of deer they can eat it down overnight and kill it in 3 days time. If they eat the first two leaves of a cow pea it dies pretty much. So you may need to put up an electric fence. Then if you have a ton of grasshoppers they will invade them and hammer the cowpeas. Now in the Fall with oats you have none of these issues. I basically gave up on spring plots and use protein feeders.

So, you should, Spray with roundup, then mow it down to the dirt, then hope for a light rain, Use a disk or rototiller, then cast seeds, then harrow over them to cover seeds, then fertilize.

Here is some of the tools I use.

Good Luck, Ranchdog





Below is Fall Oats

[Drycreek3189]

The drag above will do a job like this. Each tire is tied into the other and enough chain to make a pull loop. Takes about thirty minutes once you have all the material. I use the links with the screw type collars to tie it all together.

[ranchdog]

Here are some pics of plots and electric fence



Best stand of Cow peas I ever had



Roundup Ready Soybeans

[Drycreek3189]

Sorry Ranchdog, but you're just wrong. You can have both spring and fall plots. I have done so for the past eight years. I don't have many acres in spring plots either. It totally depends on deer density, how much native forage you have and if you can time your plots to get the fast growth that they need. Below is a soybean plot that's about an acre and a half. I had two more smaller ones on 217 acres. Iron clay peas won't get this tall, mainly because the stem is too weak, but I had two acres of peas on Brushy Creek last summer that lasted until mid-September. Pretty good deer density there ! I saw up to ten deer at once feeding in them and I didn't feed any coons either.