Alfagraze 600 food plot
Whitetail Deer
will be planting 50#'s of RR alfagraze 600 in a few weeks.
soil samples yielding 6.8 PH - with good nutrients - only required 200# per acre of 0-0-60.
I have got the 2.03 acre field partially prepped. we disked it, then tilled it up. going to apply fertilizer before the next tilling. waiting for rain and moisture level. Target Planting date is October 1st - depending on rain.
Soil samples said to apply 3lbs of Boron Per acre annually.
what is a good source for Boron ??
pics to follow.
Don't know much about boron but planting alfalfa in Oct that late seams odd to me. In Oklahoma most plant July-August. I've seen it planted in September but I've seen some of these platings freeze out. Alfalfa needs a few leafs on the stem before the first freeze.
Just noticed your from Mississippi. I had it in my mind you were in Ohio. You can probably plant in Jan in Mississippi lol.
MS is correct - our deer seasons are so different because we have a Late Rut Usually January. and we hardly ever have more than 30 days of really cold weather the entire winter. our average first front is Nov 15th. and its usually mild. I have cut my st. Augustine lawn as late as Dec. 1st.
my main concern is the moisture level being to high for the alfalfa, but I do plant to cut a drainage ditch to help with that.
I will defiantly reach out about that fertilizer that Nutritionist has.
3 lbs boron per acre/annually is a heavy dose, boron can be toxic in higher quantities. "Solubor" is a granular product in 50 lb bags that is 20% boron. Dissolved in water it can be sprayed evenly over the field. Thus 30 lbs of Solubor would give you 3 lbs boron per acre on 2 acres. The recommended annual application also assumes there would be an annual harvest. If this is just for the deer, with a mowing or two per year, you could back off on the boron in following years.
its primarily for the deer.
I grow my own beef at home, so I am contemplated cutting 1 or 2 cuttings of hay off of it in the spring summer. and feed it to my cows. I have to mow it anyway, so I might as well use the clippings.
If you simply cut the alfalfa, it decomposes and recycles the nutrients right back into the field .... the macro and micro nutrients stay in that field. If you remove the hay, then you are removing nutrients that need to be put back sometime in the future.
Don't sweat the small stuff! Do you think the amount of boron in your soil will make a noticeable difference. It's a food plot not an ag field you're trying to make a living at. Just do the best you can. I can't believe someone would/could stand in their field and say "If I'd just added boron".
i may or may not add the boron. just depends on how hard it is to get my hands one. Nutritionist is working on getting me something that should be affordable and easy to apply.
it is a 3-4 year investment - which is most of the cost on the front end.
Pics coming soon....
I think Boron is fairly important and often overlooked, but I will defer to a pro like Nutritionist.......
I just planted RR alfalfa in two plots. Planted it the first of August. It's probably 6" tall now and looking pretty good. I planted oats as a nurse crop so the deer would give the alfalfa a break.
I used Butyrac on the pigweed I had and it worked great. Hope the alfalfa gets some more growth before any severe cold weather.
My plant foods are a stress pack and the biggest thing that is does is contain the zinc, manganese, copper, cobalt and boron that larger farmers now use but food plotters have been overlooking. Most farmers with hay fields put boron on. More of you should consider it. For only $5-10 per acre, you get about $100 of added growth and nutrient return per acre.
Boron is cheap and your looking at $5 an acre for small quantities that i can mix in with my humic booster.
Pat and many of you might not be aware but i came out with a humic booster dry product that contains, humics, sulfur, zinc, manganese, copper, cobalt, and boron. It costs $10 per 1/3 acre bag and helps loosen the soil. The humics help make your dry fertilizers "chelated and time release." and the essensial micros get one back on balance. You might only need to use this every couple years but for new plots, the people who have used it have noticed differences visually....
Many of us food plotters have little or no farming experience and don't know much of anything about micronutrients (stuff other than N-P-K). I recognize the importance but don't know where to buy them, amount to apply, etc. Might be a good thread topic for here.
Its powder Dry here in MS. trying to wait for a little moisture before I till the fertilizer and micro's in.
i'll get pics before I start.
waiting on rain.
I SELL micro nutrients. I sell a product called humic booster on my site. I also can custom blend any liquid micro nutrient mix if someone submits a plant tissue analysis. I'll be shooting a video on this Tuesday. I also can custom mix any dry micro nutrient mix.
I also sell chemicals, fertilizers and more. Most don't know this but i also have a seed distribution company and fertilizers are a part of that NON wildlife business.
www.grandparayoutdoors.com [email protected] 608-235-0628
here are pics of the prepped field
That field looks like a blank canvas. I love to see a nice prepped field. So much potential
Just waiting on rain. would like it to rain before we plant, but if we have a "for sure" storm coming in I will probably plant.
the plan is the spread fertilizer and the Micro nutrient/ boron that I got from Nutritionist. then section harrow it under.
then Roll with my 10' CulitPacker - then plant the alfalfa and roll again.
All those trees are Saw tooth acorn trees. we use tree shelters when planting the 12" tall trees. it really helps them get started and allows you to spray around them without harming the trees.
the generally produce acorns in 8 years or so.
I'm with Pat, just a pinch of borax will work. You can dilute it in your lime and/or fertilizer
we are around day 75 with now rain.
we stand a good chance for thunderstorms tomorrow.
going to plant the plot this evening.
all I have to do is hand spread the $670 bag of seed, and culitpack it. I spread the fertilizer and section harrowed earlier this week.
I will post pics
I use Borax laundry deg, and roach powder , for boron, I spray it out in my roundup application, it only takes 1 teaspoon of roach powder and a table of borax in 30gal once a year . Never had a low boron level after that. It stays in the soil for a while , and I second the danger to plants if you use to much, as its a good weed killer by it self. if you spill some on the ground nothing may grow there for yrs , or not grow correct.
got good even coverage. took alot longer than the ATV or tractor mounted spreader.
final cultipack with our 10' homemade cultipacker.
this plot is flat as a pan cake.
yall say a prayer for us some rain.
Wished that I could have sent you about 6" of excess rain we had about a month ago!
Hopefully you will get adequate rains to get your plot up and growing!
hopefully this will do it.
hopefully this will do it.
the rain in the above picture really crapped out before it got to the farm.
we received enough rain to wet the top 1/4" of soil.
just enough to germinate the alfalfa.
so we went to extreme measure and are doing our best to irrigate the field.
it took 1500' of water hose but we have been running the sprinkler on an off since Friday night to try and salvage the field.
still praying for rain......
i'll get updated pictures. the plot is doing great.
we had an extreme drought in the fall and it did affect the plot, but it made it thought the winter and is now growing like crazy.
i did spray it once about 1 month ago.
there are a few spots that i completely lost - hoping it will fill in this summer.
Olebuck,
Holy smokes! Your field looks incredible...congrats!
What did you end up spraying it with?
Mark
That looks awesome! That stuff is roundup ready, correct?
it is Roundup ready.
we sprayed it with a 3% soultion of generic round up.
Ill have roundup ready alfalfa along with 4 other alfalfas in the educational plot. Note, i hate roundup ready alfalfa nutritionally. I am a nutritionists and my focus in on providing the best nutrition to deer as possible. There is no reason to plant roundup ready alfalfa if you follow sound agronomic practices. There are numerous economic chemicals to spray on alfalfa if need be.
If you have effective preplant weed kill, have good quality seed, and plant with good seed to soil contact, there will be no need to spray. Case in point my high and dry mix that i planted in the G.R.O organic educational plot. Thick sward that will never need to be sprayed.
I'm not farming half as good as I know how to already. Now I feel even worse.
Nutritionist,
Can you elaborate on the roundup ready alfalfa nutritionally?
I will say that I am not a Roundup fan specifically.
I have read that pesticides and herbicides are bad for soil health biology. So I am going to develop microbes and that environment.
olebuck, You've done some pretty work there. Can you tell us why you chose Alfalfa? You're in Mississippi and I thought alfalfa didn't work in the South. Thanks!
Elkstabber,
i am not as deep into the Nutrition for whitetails as Nutritionist, Honestly i am really not concerned about what my deer eat - i am more concerned about what I EAT! the deer here are in great shape. we kill 200 lb plus deer every year - VERY HEALTHY Herd.
I want to MAXIMUM ATTRACTION! i want to see deer when i hunt, and pick one out i want to shoot. we have lots of land and plant all kinds of deer forage so we wanted something different for attraction reasons.
The main reason we picked alfalfa being in the deep south is for the feed attraction. this particular tract of land has the ability to pull deer from deep bedding areas.
Here are list of reasons why i picked alfalfa.
1. PH & nutrients of this plot was good for it per soil test 2. it attracts deer 365 days a year (major factor for us southerners) 3. Cheaper - even though the initial cost is very high - for 5-6 years i do not have to till the ground, replant, buy seed, fertilize, till, burn down, or anything. which = less humane interference ( huge deal for us - we have 120 day gun season and high hunting pressure from neighbors) 4. the particular variety that we chose is supposed to be for southern states.
Thanks olebuck. It seems comparable to clover because it will last for at least a couple of years (low maintenance). Thanks for sharing.
How often should I clip it? When should it be clipped or cut?
2017 Monsanto Technology Use Guide:
"Planting Limitation: Grower must not plant Genuity Roundup Ready Alfalfa in any wildlife feed plots,"
http://www.monsanto.com/products/documents/2017_tug.010617final.pdf
If you eat the deer that are eating roundup ready food plots, you are eating round up yourself. That's why i don't eat anything GMO. Something to ponder.
BullBuster,
for a living i am a commodity Food Trader, i know exactly what your talking about, thats why i grow my own garden, and my own beef.
Most of the produce in this country comes from mexico - picked by mexicans who have never worn shoes - everything you buy at the grocery store has something added to it.
I'll get you pics. the deer are absolutely pounding it. its 100 degrees here and its holding up good.
i need to put up a containment cage to see exactly how much they are eating it.
Anyone who eats anything with flour in it just might be eating gmo added food probably over 90% with any corn added might have added gmo.Our family markets close to 9000 acres of green beans sold in the U.S.and grown in the U.S. Not from Mexico.Lewis
