Can you spray your food plots with herbicide too early? We have very little snow on the ground here in lower MI so I was thinking about going out to spray some food plots this weekend to get a head start. I know the plants are still dormant but does that matter when spraying with glyphosate?
if you are spraying with glyphosate then you are good to go. Mind you, your not going to have as good of results but it will still do a fairly good job. Now that also depends what mixture rate your using
This /\/\/\/\. Also it would be better to wait until things "green-up" a little bit. You can get some of the new growth killed as well. If things are dormant is burning an option? We've had real good luck with burning now then spraying when things start to get green.
Roundup won't work well if your night time temps are below 50F and won't do much, if anything, if they are below 32F. Not to mention the snow is probably covering much of what you want to kill. A plant has to be actively growing for the spray to be metabolized and translocate to the roots. Besides the colder the temp the harder it is for a leaf to absorb the chemical. That's even ignoring the freezing point of the spray mix. If you're bored and have extra spray, knock yourself out, otherwise wait till spring or until night time temps are above 50F for the night before and the night after you spray.
I myself just asked the same questions to the guys with a DEER ON BAG....LOL, and they told me that I needed to wait until I had at least 3 days of 60 degree weather in a roll before I sprayed roundup on my plots..... Just sayin what he told me, cause I didn't know myself... Hope this helps someone... Creeks
I know that the temps during the day this week are above 50° but they drop at night to 30° +/- I'm really just trying to get a head start on prep work since we have no snow here right now and last year my spraying didn't work so well.
This is what they told me.....6 I would wait to apply the RoundUp until you have 3 days of 55-60 daytime temps in a row. At this temp, the plants will uptake the herbicide and if it cools off the herbicide will already be in the root system. Wilson
I'd go for the fire. Covey is definitely good at this. We did last year to get rid of what was left of the cow pasture. The guy farming didn't want us to do that to the part of our place that he was going to put in beans. We burned off the part of the field that was going to be our food plot, 2 acres. We planted beans in both places. Ours out preformed his by a noticeable amount. It could've been the type of bean we used. Spray/fertilizer were all the same. Soil sample was same also. JMO
It doesn't matter what the day time temps are, the night time lows and soil temps determine if a plant comes out of dormancy and the spray relies on the plant actively growing and metabolizing the chemical to get it where it needs to go and work. Fire is a good option to kill cool season weeds and grass otherwise to get an "early" start with chemical, you need to start in the fall and put down a tank mix with a residual appropriate for the following springs expected crop.
Roundup is systemic so you need contact with the plant in order for it to transfer through the plant and kill it. In no way would I ever spray roundup in the winter, snow or no snow.
I guess I have to remember that you guys are not as far south as I am. Shoot, my clover never goes dormant. I bet a can count on one hand how many times it has gone dormant. I'm in lower Alabama and we have had lows in the high 50's all week. I have good success with Glyphosate year round, even on dormant forage.
And I wish I could move up there. Maybe we can go on house swap and swap out for a while... during deer season
Screw that! By then you're area is hotter than hell and mine is just right, lol. I need a winter vacation farm down there and all would be golden, haha.
We have a great lease! We only kill 4yo and older. We killed like 12 this year that were 140's off the same block of land.
same here! Love this South East Alabama weather though. Planting sure isn't as hard as it is out west and such. I'm on the verge of just burning my plots. The burning only helps the soil so why not.
