So I have 66 acres in which I have created two small 1/2 acres food plots. This year I planted turnips and rape late summer. The plots were amazing and I shot two nice 130 inch deer off if them. They hit the turnips hard and still are as the winter progresses. My question is for next spring. I want turnips again for sure, but I would like to have some forage for them in the spring and summer. I don't want them sitting bare all summer when I could be feeding the deer and keeping them close. What would be something good I could plant in the spring that could easily be put back in to turnips/brassica mix by late summer? Wheat, oats, peas??? Things to keep in mind: - I live in West-central WI - I don't have a lot of access to good equipment so planting something that will need to be disced in is not a very good option. I'd like to to be dead or sprayed with the ability to broadcast seed in after. - I broadcast my seeds and have access to a gator with a sprayer. - There is not a lot of competing food nearby. There is however an alfalfa field on the neighbors property. Any help offered would be great!!! Good luck to you late season hunters!
I always like clover and alfalfa with oats, rye or wheat. However if you don't have any kind of tools to till to plant your turnips that makes it so that I would plant the oats, rye or wheat. I like to have some fresh clover/alfalfa even with other fields nearby, I plant a small patch and make sure that it is mowed about a month before hunting season begins to give the deer a fresh green crop to hit.
Thanks elkguide. Do you think the wheat or oats will headed out and dry by the end of July in Western Wi? I am also thinking of doing half of one plot on white clover/chicory so I have a perennial as well.
Can't tell you on your growing season. Here in Vermont, where we are somewhat similar to you, our wheat/rye/oats are usually heading out around the first or second weeks in August. I've never had any success with chicory or should I say that I've never seen deer eating chicory.
What you want is some sort of warm season annual, perennials will have to be killed out. Here are some options: 1. Spring barley or oats 2. Milo 3. Soybeans (group 3) 4. Field peas 5. Cow Peas 6. Snap beans 7. Lentils 8. Sunflowers (less positive about these due to growing season) With any of those you can just sow them heavy and take what you get. #'s 1 and 2 have the best chance of good results from a no-till broadcast type deal. Late in their growing stage you can either ride through with an atv and spreader or broadcast by hand into the standing summer crop. Try to do it just before a good rain whenever you seed. With a total of one acre it should be fairly cheap and easy which is great if it takes the first try but even better if it has to be redone. Be sure you have decent fertility and with grass crops especially pay attention to N and PH. All the legumes and broadleaves on that list have been successfully broadcast by people in the past. The larger seeded stuff would have a better chance rolled down.
I've planted the Cow Peas before and had great luck with them. Another one that I've had good luck with but deer in different places react different to it is Buckwheat. It comes on quick and grows quick. Other than Buckwheat, Covey covered things pretty well. Covey is a pretty good source.
I had fifty acres of buckwheat this past fall, the deer and turkey and quail hammered the crap out of it. It has nearly zero residual food quality though, once it's done the seed shatters out completely and the plants dry up to nothing. I think it would be far better as an ingredient in a mix. I planted it as a monoculture because I had it contracted for the seed. My dad got sick and we got a big rain before I had a chance to harvest it and it shattered every drop of seed out on the ground. I imagine I'll be fighting volunteer buckwheat there this coming year, lol. I really did enjoy having that buckwheat though and my bees loved it.
That is a fact about the bees! It sounded like planes buzzing by, it is so loud, when the buckwheat is blooming.
Ha, yeah I had eight hives full sitting on an 18 acre plot of it. It was a lot of fun watching them work it.
The bees sound fun! If I do a variety of pea, what will those looks like come late July? Will I be able to broadcast right into them? Maybe run them over with the gator first?
Covey nailed a lot of what I'd have suggested, really know your soil and know what you what to accomplish and run with it. This year we plan on planting in the spring/early summer some Beans with probably some peas mixed in it...then come fall we will plant brassicas right into the standing beans right before they start to turn. Other plots our plan is to do more cereal grains focusing on peas and oats and winter rye as well throughout the year. For those plots in the spring we like to plant heavy on buckwheat and mix in peas and oats then in fall they get re-worked or heavy overseeded with the oats and rye only. Our clover plots will get overseeded this year and chicory is thrown in as well. I've found chicory is a favorite before brassicas really start to get hammered.
Depends on what variety you use but normal field peas should be done by then, I think they're like 75 days to seed so short season. They have pretty weak stems so I'd plant them with spring oats or barley or wheat. Peas are one of the large seeded plants that would take better being planted or harrowed into tilled soil. I'd sow into them standing and then run them over, they'll reseed themselves and you'll get some volunteer until frost.
