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Sunflowers

Has anyone planted these for a summer plot. My buddy did last year for doves and the deer tore it up. the also seem to love okra too.jeff

The "trick" to planting sunflowers is to plant a lot of them and to plant the giant Varity. Don't plant the dwarf type;the deer will eat the bud before it has a chance to flower.

Birds,skwerlz, dove,and bear love them. Deer will eat them when young. All eaten up way before season begins (like within 2 weeks of mature seedheads, stalks very tough to breakup and plug up tilliage equipment. No RR so difficult weed control.

I think sunn hemp is a better option for a summer plot. Just make sure you mow at 12" before they get 4'. They will regrow and still produce and draw. Can be turned under for a cool season plot at anytime. Much lower fertility required

Can't blame the deer for loving okra,good stuff.

I planted them on my Kansas lease once, deer ate them some but it was disappointing.

Deer year them up when they are green. Turkeys, doves, and quail frequent them when they are dry. One of my favorite food plots. They are cheap and easy to plant and they'll grow in a wide variety of soils

grew them last year in southern Ohio checked them after 3 weeks hammered, 1 month after that found one plant from 8 lbs of seed Guess the deer like them.

I tried sunflowers a couple of times and they are very drought tolerant and produced LOTS of seeds. But...goldfinches, and I don't mean a few, I mean SWARMS of them ate those seeds with abandon. It was a super pretty sight for the 10 days or so that the field withstood the goldfinch swarms, but I don't think any other game benefited from that patch as the goldfinches cleaned it out in late August'ish.

I've been planting them for several years and I intend on continuing planting sunflowers. 1st, with small plots (1 acre for my sunflower plot) and high deer numbers, you will have to fence them. I use an E fence to protect them until seed heads are matured. When I remove the fence, the deer absolutely hammer every single leaf and the also pound the seeds, of course. They even eat a lot of the head itself. You can just plant black oil birdseed sunflowers bought anywhere, but you may risk introducing weed seeds also. You can also buy non-hybrid certified seed and not have to worry about weed seed. It's a little more expensive than bird seed. Another option in Clearfield Sunflowers which are hybrid (and expensive). Clearfield are herbicide resistant like RR crops, but to a different herbicide than Roundup. For Clearfield Sunflowers, you use Beyond aka Raptor (I forget the chemical name) but They are also very expensive in the quantity sold (almost $600 per gallon), however, for the per acre price, it's fairly cheap...only use about 6 oz or less per acre. But another herbicide option is Clearcast. It's not labeled for Sunflowers as far as I know, but it's the exact same chemical as Beyond/Raptor.

I did Clearfield for a few years, but I've decided to stick with the nonhybrid sunflowers. Mostly because of the residual herbicide that Raptor leaves in the soil. Some follow up crops can't be planted for 18 months. Plus Raptor can only be applied once (or twice?) per season. I bought a gallon of Raptor several years ago and when it's used up, I doubt I will buy it again.

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