Gonna try my hand at this food plot thing...

I owe a huge public THANK YOU to Pastorandrew! I am still in the beginning stages of trying to get a couple small plots planted on one of my leases that is nothing but 200acres of a 5yr old select cut piece of land.

I contacted pastorandrew after staring at the food plot section of the forums for days. He told me what to do to get started and put it in simple dumb terms for someone like myself. I went up last weekend and did a soil test on a couple sections and sprayed all the weeds down with generic round up.

I thought I was working with more but after measuring out I am going to end up with two small plots that total 1/10th of an acre.

The one plot is going to be 60'x60' of clayish soil and it tested out at 7ph which is great but sounds too good to be true. I guess time will tell?

The other plot is going to be 10'x150' of rockier soil and it tested out at between 6-6.5ph. Again higher then I imagined.

I am going to try to plant a mix of Winter Wheat and Winter Rye. I was going to put Oats in as well but i am having a hard time trying to find any seed in my area.
I will also be planting a mix of Turnips and Rape as well, Turnips are also sold out around town but I am told they should be here before I am ready to plant.

I will be heading back up in a couple days to see how the weed killer is coming along. I will keep this post updated on how things are moving along. I don't have the best tools for the job but will try my best with what I got, which is basically just an old ATV Disc, Plow, and harrow drag.

Pics to follow

 

Good Luck!

 

Great pics!

 

Great pics.

Is one of those pics a logging road? Is that where the clayish ground is? If so, it might be hard pack from the equipment, with very little organic matter left (did your soil test specify OM?). Did you happen to take several samples in one area and mix together or was it a one shot deal (because that can sometimes skew the pH, but probably not significantly enough for you to worry about yet).

If you're planning on getting those Brassica's in, you'll want to get moving (ideally 60 days prior to your first real frost date), and I would (if you can), add a large root/forage brassica (Ground Hog Forage Radish for instance) into your planting to help breakup the soil a bit.

The rye and wheat are a great idea and will definitely do well for you in your first year (even in less than desirable soils). I would also consider planting buckwheat as a follow-up late spring/summer crop, and till in lightly when planting in the fall. From the sounds of it, you're going to want to build up some organic matter in both of these places if you're thinking long term plots.

Good luck and looking forward to the progress.

 

No my tests did not check organic matter. I also only took the sample from one spot in the middle of each plot. I am a complete rookie and didnt know how to properly do it.

That is an old logging road but the soil is the one that looks like decent dirt but has very small rocks throughout. The larger looking plot is the one that is more clay like, it is just a natural opening in the woods.

Thanks for the tips on larger roots and the buckwheat spring planting. Ideally i wouldnt mind having these plots in long term but with the way ground gets leased around and or sold in the area we may only have the lease for 1yr or 10...who knows?

 

Pictures look good! can't wait to see your hard work paying off! I am open for food plot questions any time! welcome to the addiction! lol

 

Hate to admit it but pastorandrew knows his stuff!

 

I just rode back up and checked on how the generic round up was working along. It did great pretty much killed everything except for some thicker brush.
So I guess tomorrow morning me and a buddy are going to go up and trim what thick stuff is not dead and go ahead and disc it up. I dont have all the seed I need yet, so we will disc it and get the fertilizer down (1bag Triple 19 per plot) and then the seed should be here on Monday or Tuesday which works because I cant make it back up til Thursday or Friday to put the seed down.

 

lookin good!

 

Thanks hopefully this time next week it looks alot better!

 

Wow lookin good for only 2 days! Looks like the plots will be in some good spots!

 

welcome to the addiction.

Thanks for keeping us updated along the way. Always cool to see progress pictures.

 

A little update, it looks like my plots are going to be smaller then I had planned. The first plot still turned out to be a 60'x60' circle plot but that is when the discs we were using decided to break. I don't think i will be able to repair the broken disc without a welder anytime soon so it will just be the one plot this year. I'm not even sure that if the discs were in working order if I could even break ground in the second spot anyhow, after more observation the ground in that spot is very hard and the discs I have don't cut that well! Regardless I will be looking for a better system for next spring to cut in another spot or two.

Anyhow this plot should be fine for this year. I think next year if it works out i will try to widen it out another 20'-30'. It is tilled up and fertilizer spread. I will be going back Thursday or Friday and putting down the seed.

 

Is that a bucket of lucky buck on the back of the 4 wheeler?

 

Boonerville Very Good Eye!

 

Haha....you are a smart man. I use an entire pallet of lucky buck per year....and I'm not even on their "pro staff."

 

This is my first year using lucky buck so its still in trial mode, but so far it seems to be getting hit fairly well. The only downfall that may keep me from using it again is the very sweet apple smell, I am getting way too many pics of bears. Where are you from, do you tend to have the same problem?

 

Sheesh! No bears in Indiana....but we had plenty in nc where I'm from. Bears are attracted to salt too so i would imagine you would have the same problem no matter what you use.