Frank's 2916 food plots
Whitetail Deer
Thought i would start my food plot postings for 2016.
About 2 weeks ago I weed sprayed Gly on my spring plot. It started turning brown one week later so I did a light disking.
It's just been a rain off and on since. Today I went down and ran the cultipacker across it for planting tomorrow. Seen only a couple of weeds in the .3 ac plot.
Now it's raining so hard it's blowing sideways. So it's going to be wet for couple days and looks better midweek for planting.
The son's plot next door that I planted 10 days ago has 1" plants coming up in good shape.
Same here. I have three acres to go in order to be through for spring plots. Got it glyed, disced, and dragged, then the floods came. Don't know if I will plant next week or not, as they change the forecast about three times a day. If I had any hair, I'd pull it out !
I replanted my corn plots last night. They were about 6'' tall but very spotty in a lot of places. We got a hard rain shortly after I planted them the first time & the soil in my area tends to crust over when it rains hard. I think a lot of the plants ran out of juice trying to push out of the ground.
Here , in South Carolina , I have not got enough rain at the right time to seed any plots. Plus my local shop was out of seed I wanted. I will see what hancockseed has left. And of course pray for rain.
I spread fertilizer on the new spring plot and on my front grass-clover that I bale for cattle. The County caught me mowing too much and was going to raise my taxes so I now bale 400 ft by the road. Only allowed to have one acre homestead when going AG tax exemption.
Few more weeds in the new plot so I was going to spray gly today but as soon as I got back to the house it started light rain again. I'll do that this week when I plant.
My new-old cultipacker worked just fine with the rebuilt plastic bearings. I only need it for about 1 mile per year so it should last a long time. Going down the rocky hill drive was hairy.
Finished corn and soybean plots on Tuesday 5-31-16. On Saturday 6-4-16 I can row all plantings.
I looked at my five day forecast again this morning and it was favorable, so I'm not gonna look at it anymore ! Gonna pretend it will stay the same and see what happens :)
You are way more advanced than most here. :^) God Bless
It only rained a light sprinkle. As so as my son gets home so I can get my Gly jug back I'll spray tonight. Then plant tomorrow. Even though I'm retired I still do some contract work for a ammo re-manufacture company. Got to get some work done and caught up.
Then since I believe I have my tractor fuel problem fixed I need to get the pushed over cedar trees cleaned up on my new plot on the west side of the farm. This plot is on a N-S main deer trail that comes across the road, goes through my over grown cedar tree pasture. I have a small .3 ac plot there now with some nice buck picture traffic. What's special about it it's only 100 yds from the house and will make a good quick evening hunting spot and the wind will correct for our SW wind pattern.
Oh for the love of it. The family thinks I'm rather crazy doing all this work and the expense of it with seed, chemicals and equipment. Then I only take one deer per year off the farm. It keeps me busy and I tell them it's physical help for my MS and heart problems. I figure to enjoy my remaining years the way I want to and not harm anyone else doing it.
We had cold and dry for the first 3 weeks after the education plots were planted. Now the temps and rains have been timely. Mother nature always comes into play each year and that's why i preach biodiversity and plot rotation. When you plant mixes that contain both wet and dry weather forages in a mix, your reducing the chance of total failure.
MK, keep it up ! I'm retired too ( by low oil prices ), so I have to have something to keep me busy. I enjoy the food plotting most of the time, although because of the rain lately I've had to spend some ten-12 hour days doing it. Gotta strike while the iron is hot ! It's very rewarding to see a plot full of deer knowing that you made that happen for them and for yourself.
MK,
My name is Frank and I was working on my plots this weekend and saw this and thought, "hey, who knows what I was doing?" LOL.
Really respect your attitude sir, best wishes!
Frank, You can start a Frank's food plot as I by mistake did 2916. LOL
I went to a Catholic school in the 1950's and since there is no saint Frank the Nuns wanted to change my name. Then they found out my 1st name was Walter they changed my name to Walter. After about 1 week of Walter being absent every day and a Frank was always there they just gave up. But they sure didn't like it.
Oh those nuns, LOL! They would be proud of you though!
I went down and sprayed gly tonight. It's been a good chance of rain and gusting wind the last couple days. Today the wind changed to the NW slight gust but I'm spraying down in the bottom surrounded by trees and not a whiff of breeze. Was going to spray under my pasture fence but my hitch broke so there's always tomorrow. Plus I want to spray 2 pasture fence edges with the damn honeysuckel as the stuff is a plauge down here. Tomorrow I plan to plant the seed as good chance of heavy rain on Friday.
Sprayed a half acre old foodplot today that hasn't been planted in 6 years. Been mowing it close all spring to deter seed production. Not sure what I'll be planting. Maybe a dove field / fall deer plot.
Only 84 degrees here today. What a relief :)
If I have no R&D work tomorrow I plan to mow the clover plots to knock down the few weeds. Then I have to tear the fuel tank off my MF diesel tractor to have the tank pressure washed out to remove the crud. At least I still have my Ford 420 tractor to use. I have to get the ceder trees cleaned up that I pushed over last year in my new plot and get that ready for a fall planting. Of course I have to get my new hunting tower put up soon.
If these food plots weren't so much fun, they would almost be a damn full time job!
I planted my 4 acre river bottom plot to corn & beans this evening. I always try and wait on it as long as I can. I end up getting flooded out more often than not on this plot. The river is fairly low right now but that can change pretty quickly. Good thing I get the seed cheap!
I went down and mowed the clover plots. The spring plot is just too dry to plant. Rain possible tomorrow and almost everyday next week. I think I'll let a shower of rain wet it down then plant and cultipack.
It's steady raining now if it will stop now.
We got that shower yesterday just enough to wet the ground. So I seeded my .3 ac spring plot with rutabaga, couble hands full of daikon radish. 2 hands full of sugar beets and couple hands full of purple top turnips. It maybe a little late for the sugar beets but hoping to get some maturity on the bulbs. Sugar beets have never bee a crop down here in SW Ohio so it may take a year for the deer to figure it out as food. IMHO. I ran the cultipacker across the seeds and it looked good when done. Supposed to get some heavy rain mid week.
On a good side note when going back in I seen my 30 day old calf. I haven't been able to find it in the waist high pasture and figured for sure the coyotes got it. In 23 yrs of raising calves here I've never lost one to coyotes.
Also the clover sure looked good with the weeds cut off.
A guy stopped by yesterday and wanted some of my dead red cedar trees in my front pasture. He's making a bed frame for grandson. I said OK. They stopped back today and got about 10-12 trees. Supposed to bring me pictures when done. Now I don't have to clean them up.
Worked at the farm Friday through Sunday. Sprayed the continuous 6 acres last weekend and turned over two of it Friday and then planted a mixture of soybeans (free) sugar beets and winter bulbs, brassica/turnips and a little rye grain. I did 1/2 acre of beats/winter bulbs last year and took two does off of it within days of each other. Had 9 deer on it at one time.
Experimenting a little to see if given a longer time period to grow will the beets get bigger. Plenty of beans planted next to me and they are already up so I thought the risk was worth it. All 3 days were in the mid 90s. I am too old for this stuff!
Here were my steps:
Tilled it twice.
Broadcasted fertilizer, 1000 lbs of triple 13 and 250 lbs of urea using 3 point fertilizer spreader.
Broadcasted the beans using ATV and electric broadcaster.
Pulled a 12'X8' drag harrow over it.
Broadcasted the remaining seed with the ATV spreader.
Ran a Kasco 8' cultipacker over it.
Watered with sweat, then said some prayers.
Forecast is for little rain and in the 90s for the next 10 days. I guess I better get to church a little more:)
I'm with you on that too old stuff. One hard day now needs two days of recovery !
I'm 'done' with my plots for now. Planted soy beans about 3 weeks ago. Haven't had any real rain since. (1/2" in that 3 weeks) We had August like weather last weekend with temps in the low 90s. They're starting to pop but the weeds are already ahead of the beans. The deer are already plucking the sprouts as soon as they emerge as well.
I've already mowed my clover twice. I have two large areas of thistle starting to take hold, so as soon as I see it starting to flower I top the entire field. Sure could use a recommendation on how to get rid of it.
Last weekend I planted two plots of Fast Gro. I'm going to keep a running log of how they progress on the Fast Gro thread.
I envy you guys that are retired. I'm 1 foot and 3 toes out the door myself but still doing the 100mi/day commute thing. As soon as I sell my house, I'm giving notice and moving to the 'farm'. Looking forward to being able to plant & hunt when the time is right not when I have the time.
Howard
We got a good heavy rain tonight so that should help the seed to sprout.
gundog, that's what I thought when I retired too. But the rain made my plan for me. I just heard the local weather guy say this morning that in the last 18 months we had 99" of rain. All I could do to try and mow, spray, disc, and plant in what few " windows " I had. I'm playing catchup right now, but I'm almost through with planting. Saturday I will be finishing my cowpea plot and next week my annual clover plot. I hope !
Here's my 2016 two rows corn two rows beans with lots of volunteer beans that came up from last year all beans plot. This pic was taken today.
