Okay i know i need to read more but just wondering if any quick input could steer me in the right direction. This pic is our farm. Its a little under 100 acres. Its bisected by rt. 146 almost directly in half. Problems are this farm is 2 hrs away from us and kids sports and work make it really tough in spring/summer. We have 5 small food plots. Largest one is about 1/3acre. Smallest is maybe 1/10 acre. We cant seem to get them planted until late august. I know its pretty half *** but the small to no growth still seems to attract a few does that live on the property. I guess my question is how can i make the best out of the situation i have??? We plant an assortment of food fclover brassica chicory and turnips. Still a dummy when it comes to this topic.
Three things come to mind and in no particular order. Highway front property x2...I'd sell it for a buttload of money and buy something closer to home that's more secluded with some open fields on it and with the extra dough I'd buy a tractor and implements to plant the fields and play a little bit more. Option two would be to find a neighbor with some equipment that you can trust and hire to plant the plots when they need to be planted. Option three is to plant them in clover and alfalfa so all they need is fertilized, sprayed occasionally and clipped with a mower. Personally I'm a greedy bastard so I like number one . Of course I'm not familiar with the situation so if that's not an option or won't work...I'd probably opt for option three. Year around plots with minimum maintenance...hard to lose on that one.
I have a farm I have a similar situation with. It's 4 hours from my house. Being an "absentee landowner" definitely has it's challenges. Basically what you need to do is decide what your goal for the property is, and use your limited visits to the property to do as you can to accomplish that. Fall annuals are great because they don't require multiple trips to mow, spray, fertilize, etc like perennials do. With small plots like you have, you could easily get all of them done in a day or weekend at most. At my Illinois property I take a weekend trip in August and take a mower, disc, roller, atv, seeder, and all my seed & fertilizer. I mow then disk immediately (I don't use a tiller because I'm not spraying first and a tiller has a tendency to bring more weed seeds to the surface than a disc). Then I broadcast seed & fertilizer, then roll it and I'm done.
Thanks for the input. Farms been in the family for a long time and is loaded with deer. Butts up to Shawnee. Probably could find place closer to home but it wont always be this hard. Once the kiddos are grown should get freed up.
Thanks for this. Guess i just need to concentrate more on lower maint. Foods and time management. $$ is always an issue too. We have a bush hog but rely on another "absentee" neighbor to disk and roll as we dont have that equipment yet
I know u mentioned $$ was an issue...but another option would be to hire out the plot work. I would estimate 40% of the plots I do for people are absentee landowners that simply don't have the time to do it themselves. I just finished 14 acres of fall plots for Jimmy John (yes the sandwich guy). He has an Illinois farm he hunts every year but lives in another state
are you wondering about this year yet??. if so, winter wheat/oats/rye are about the only option i can think of.
Wow thats pretty cool. Yea $ is tight right now but that should only be for a few years. If you dont mind me asking how much would be avg. Price for lets say 2 acres of plots to be done. Like how much would you charge?
yes. you may get the tops to grow yet and hope for a late frost. i would not bank on turnips this year though.
Thanks i wont waste the seed then. Going down next weekend. Pope county illinois. Never know when its gonna frost in illinois. Could be september could be mid nobember. Lol
I am putting in brassicas now. You also have plenty of time to put in winter wheat and rye and triticale. I won't put those in for another couple weeks. You have plenty of time for either. I have planted turnips as late as September 10 and killed deer in them. It's cheap seed. Go for it.
