i plan on planting mine with a planter on 36" rows or so.
Broadcast 50lbs - acre Rows 35-40lbs - acre
the key is to have good loose type soil where the turkeys can dig it up easy, it also needs to be well drained soil. if its wet, it will rot over the winter and not come back in the spring.
I planted it in Oklahoma once and it did okay, it does much better planted in rows than it does broadcast. on this particular place the turkeys did not winter there, only showed up during the spring. only planted 30lbs (1/2 acre or so) and it was gone in 3 weeks after they found it, and they were there every week.
it takes alot of fertilizer to get it established and growing well, but once established it can last several years providing the critters don't eat it all.
if you have turkeys and chufa in the spring, its a LOCK - they will be there ! plant the full 2 acres if you can.
Coons love it also, but we do alot of trapping to try and keep the coons at bay.
If you got hogs, don't plant it.
i'll get pics when i plant. I plan to plant mine the 1st or 2nd week of june here in MS. Prepare Fertilized seed bed, Plant in rows, then spray with pre-merge, may add some glypho if i have many green weeds left.
it needs 100-120 days before a frost.
Mark
it was $87.88
Chufa seed is expensive, perhaps $2.50-$3.00/lb. Do not buy it from the subsidized NTWF program. It is full of invasive weed seeds like Morning Glory, Loosestrife, Johnson Grass and Cuckleburr. I learned this the hard way.
Plant chufa in well-drained loamy/sandy upland soil, preferrably in rows so you can control the weeds with cultivators. Weeds are a problem with chufa, and there may be oversprays available for that will kill broadleaf plants, but be careful. Any herbicide that will kill grass will kill chufa. Pre-emergents work pretty well.
Chufa is in the Yellow Nut-sedge family, and is essentially a grass. "New" ground makes the best plots since weeds are not yet established. Planting with a planter is ok if you have a seed plate that will not crush the large seeds.
With 30" spaced rows, about 35 lb. per acre should do it. Use 17-17-17 fertilizer, and pray for rain. Chufa requires around 90 to 110 days growing season to mature.
Turkeys will find chufa and scratch out the tubers in the fall. However, I have never known turkeys to eat all chufa tubers in a plot, and it will come up voluntary the following spring.
In my experience, chufa is the wild turkey's favorite food. They will walk past whiteoak acorns on their way to a chufa patch. Chufa will hold turkeys on your property.
Some people will disc chufas lightly to expose the tubers for turkeys. This may be illegal, and considered baiting in some states.
Sorry this got a little long. Hope it helps.
Technically, Chufa is not grass, but the leaves have a very similar appearance to some grasses.
The average turkey hunter probably does not care, so long as the birds show up to eat it.
How about some pics of the seed, the plants, etc.
Thanks.
soy bean plates will generally work but will drop more than one seed every now and then, peanut plates will work also.
I'm using bean plates
I'll get some pics of seed.
After trying broadcasting and hand planting, we've found that the planter works best.
Chufa plants grow about 12 to 16 inches tall, and turn golden brown and get curley in the winter. Turkeys will scratch out the tubers thru a couple of inches of snow.
The tubers are delicious and taste like almonds. In Spain, where Chufa originated, they crush the tubers and make what they call Chufa Milk from the juice.
The Spanish chufa drink is called Horchata. Good stuff.
If turkeys are around, they WILL find it.
gotta get it a little cleaner to try and No-Till Plant the chufa.
Pics coming soon.
Thanks for all the help and info you guys.
Mark
Anyone have experience with chufa in a "MN type climate?"
Mark
sundowner's Link
From Link: "Extreme northern range, such as northern Minnesota, may not be suitable for chufa because of short growing seasons and limited use by turkeys during the winter."
I'm kinda envious of all the plot stuff you guys get to do during the summer, it sounds fun and rewarding. All I get to do is climb up 2k ft and stare through binocs for hours on end.
Don't get me wrong, I love hunting mulies, but I hate the summer. I enjoy my scouting, but having something productive to do during the summer just seems like it'd make the summer go quicker.
but it rained 1" or so the day I planted, every where there was a slight low spot the coons hammered it! they must have dug up 10 rows so far.
I replanted some yesterday, put out 150lbs of 13-13-13 and sprayed witn 1.5 pints/Acre of poast + .5 pints of 24D/acre and 1 pint of surfactant
we will see how it does, struggling right now.
Will hit it with 150lbs of ammonia per acre soon.
one areas of the chufa was no-till planted and had a good bit of grass there.
another area is where I plowed up some clay and iron peas to grow the chufa and I needed to hit them with s some 24-D
Crows eat it. I've pulled the "nuts" out of the ground. After washing them off they taste really good raw - about like sunflowers but of course much bigger.
Maybe Virginia turkeys are just slow to learn?
Anybody who has planted, where do you prefer to get your chufa seed. I checked with John t Grandpa Ray's and he does not sell it. Obviously, there are tons of options, but does anybody have a certain brand/place they get from for one reason or another. I know generally the "big buck" brands have a lot of weed seed, so I wasn't sure if that would be the case with chufa since it isn't a smaller seed or not.
Any help is greatly appreciated