2012 Food Plot. A work in progress (Picture Heavy)

I've owned my property for 5 or 6 seasons now, but was busy building my home for the first few years. Last year was my first attempt at a food plot. It was about 1/2 acre turnip plot. It turned out pretty well, lots of nice growth, but the deer didn't really use it as I would have hoped. Probably due to the very mild winter. This season, I am expanding out into a much larger scale. I will have about 3 1/2 acres in a food plot. I plan on planting the 1.2 acre plot in turnips like last year, then I will have about a 3 acre field that will be planted in soybeans, with clover planted around the edge. I may mix in some type of taller plot screen in a couple areas, but this is a work in progress and my plans are pretty flexible at this point.

Here's an overview of my land and an outline of my food plots. More to come.

 

I'm getting a little later start than I would have liked. I had killed the field w. Pronto Big n Tough about a month ago, and wanted to get it burned off about a week later. That didn't happen. Seems like it rained the day before every day I had off. I finally get a chance last Saturday evening to get it burned off. There was a little new growth, but for the most part it did a good job burning off the field.

 

awesome stuff! I liked the thread you made from the food plot you created last year. Keep us updated!

 

Looks like its coming along great!

 

awesome! lookin good!

 

Looking good keep updating !!!!

 

looks like a great spot. Subscribed for updates

 

Nice work Sky ! You do a great job with the pictures and updates !

 

Looking great Sky! Can't wait to see it progress.

 

Awesome looking setup youve got there. Looks like a great plot for western winds also!

 

I got some more work done over the last few days. I did run into a snag thought that slowed me down. I was digging out some of the trees that had grown up in the field over the years. I was working the loader pretty hard trying to dig out the root ball and my curl down function stopped working. I couldn't dump my bucket. After some investigating, I found that one of the quick disconnects for the loader was bad. The nearest dealer that had them in stock was about 80 miles away, so 160 miles and 3 days later, I'm back up and running. I have brush hogged the whole field down, dug out all but 1 tree(which I'm leaving for now), and used the box blade to pull a ton of trash out of the ground up around those old grain bins. Here's some pictures of the progress.

Here's a before picture of a couple of the treed that I dug out.


Here's an after picture from the same spot.


Here's some more of the end results of this phase.








My next phase will be to till this up. Hopefully I can get that done this weekend or early next week, weather permitting.

 

Great job! That looks very promising. Thanks for sharing Sky

 

Just curious...why'd you take out the couple small trees/bushes? I'm a big fan of leaving some structure in plots if they get any bigger than 1/2 acre. Deer love them for sign posts, and can add a little bit of security...but that's just me and love to hear reasons why not.

 

I left the only quality tree in the field. Every other tree was either a Hedge or Honey Locust. Not sure if you have any experience with either of these type trees, but you don't want them!!!!! The hedge trees grow out as much as the grow tall. and grow very nasty non-uniform branches. The Honey Locust grow massive thorns that are NASTY. Long, sharp and rough on tires. When I get back out there, I'll take a couple pictures of each. Neither tree are beneficial to wildlife in my opinion. One of my long term goals it timber stand improvement, which will involve me cutting down massive quantities of the trees and replanting with beneficial hardwoods.

 

We have honey locust here as well...they are great for quick cover and hinge well but in your situation I can see that. Hedges I love as licking branches, however I can see how you'd rather not mess with keeping them trimmed back. Just more reasons why I love land manipulation, you can never say "this is right" and "this is wrong"...good luck and keep us posted with your progress.

 

They just spread so fast, you can't keep up with them. I have plans of also planting an orchard of fruit bearing trees to the south of this field. These deer are so used to feeding in large agriculture fields, I don't think they will mind being out in this field. As you can see from the google image, this field is pretty well secluded and there's no road exposure, which isn't typical of most of the ag fields around here. Hopefully that plays into my advantage.

 

Great pictures Sky!

I hope this breeds success for you in the fall

 

Man this has been a process. I just got back into the field yesterday to start tilling, between work, ball practices and games, the weather and everything else happening, it has been hard to make time. Anyway, I have started tilling and have about 3/4 of the job done. I was hoping to finish the tilling today, but I broke my drive chain and a tine, so I have to get the tiller repaired before I can finish this stage. You would not believe all the crap I have pulled out of this field. I will take a picture and post it later, but haven't taken one yet. Here's some pictures of the tilling progress from start to about halfway done.

 

Well I got the drive chain fixed and was able to get the first pass completed. I was working in a couple placed that I didn't get very well on the first pass and the tines stopped rotating again, so I assumed the drive chain broke again. Well, I wasn't so lucky. This time the shaft that runs through the gearbox to the drive sprocket sheared off. I have no idea what caused that and why my slip clutch didn't slip. Gonna have to get a new drive shaft and probably going to need to get a seal kit for the gearbox too.

Here's some pics of the fully tilled field.






I snapped a some pictures of all the junk I pulled out of the ground. I had used my box blade w. the tines all the way down to rip the ground around those old grain bins and found a lot of it that way, but there was a bunch that was just randomly found throughout the field.

 

looks great.

That is crazy on all that stuff you found. wowzers.