Building my first food plot:
Massachusetts
So here is the docu drama on me pretending to be a farmer,.. and creating my first food plot ever. At the outset I told my hunting partner,.. "You realize this could be a total flop, for one of many reasons",.. he nodded and we both jumped in not knowing at what point the tractor might not work, the harrow was seized up ( as you will see it was very old and very buried),.. the land owner might change his mind. There were a ton of potential pitfalls before us.
Several post will follow but here is some basic info,..
This food plot cost me the following
86 dollars in lime
12 bucks for breakfast for me and HunterMA (bribe for pickup truck use to haul 500 lbs of lime)
40 bucks for Imperial Whitetail clover,.. plants a half acre which we did not have. We estimated 1/10th of an acre. That is just a wild guess.
25 for a rake/hoe (cheapest hoe I ever paid for!)
20 for a seed spreader
A lot of hard labor,.. as I sit and type this I am totally spend, sore, beat tired.
Pictures and videos to follow.
PS guys I really tried to find some mud but alas I could not,.. so no Mud Man Yet!
PS the videos seem better if you watch them here on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4SDS4iCA7g
So the next catch was getting a 1940 harrow out from a very overgrown pile of prickers,..
Why does it always have to be prickers,.. ?? !!
So this sucker weighs in at 1800 pounds and has 32 disks on it. It is quite the beast. Note : all the rocks placed on top of it to weigh it down,..
The tractor is a John Deer,.. that is about all I can say on that as I am a computer guy and this is all new to me.
So here is the video attempt to free the Harrow from the grip of years and growth.
Clearer video on Youtube site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Jedj55iqQ
Here is the Harrow after we cleaned it up
So here is where the tractor starts pushing at mounds of old wood chips, leveling and knocking over trees and such,.. it is amazing the power of a tractor.
Here is seeing this tractor make short order of shrubs, prickers and trees,..
https://youtu.be/9OwoyFRanZc
So here are the final photos,.. The plot is tilled, limed, and seeded.
It was important to get it in before the incoming rain. We have a lot of rain coming and that should create a nice germination. Clover is a cold loving plant so the low temps will not bother it.
In one of these photos you can see the Harrow left about halfway down the plot. The plot is pretty big we will measure it at some point.
Will follow up with more photos as it starts to grow this spring,..
It was a lot of work but I am hoping to get 5 to 7 good years of the perennial crop. We are already eyeing a second location for next year,.. LOLOLOL
BB, you don't realize what you started. Can I pm you in a day or 2 to talk about this food plot thing. Got OT tonight to pay off seed and diesel bills !
Awesome job. Can't wait to see it pay off in the fall.
Terrible addiction, anyone know where to get soil tested in zone 11??? And what is a cheap fast dissolving lime???
Check for your local ag extension service for soil testing. Have fun, Let's Go
Damn Btown wish I knew as I have 55 gallon drums of lime and nowhere to get rid of the crap.
Well folks my body still feels like it was beat up bad yesterday,.. and it was.
Part of what went wrong was this,.. I brought my typical home owner yard lime spreader to spread the lime,.. Now on grass and semi compacted earth like in my front lawn,.. that works great,.... I push it along and it flings my lime.
Not so much in a freshly tilled/harrowed field,.. so I try to wheel the thing along after this was tilled and the little spreader wheels loaded with a 40 lbs bag of lime just sunk right in 4 inches into the soft earth and left me unable to use the typical lime spreader.. No tractor limer available to me,.. SCREWED!
Now at this point I am under the gun already tired/beat,. and need to lime/seed it before the rain,.. and my tool is toast,.. Alone and wondering what the fuck to do I said screw it,.. I grabbed the 40 lbs bags threw them on my shoulder and started manually spreading it,.. carrying each bag into the field and flinging it all over,..
All I can say was I got it done,.. barely,.. and it sucked bad,.. but better than crapping out and giving up.
Still in recovery mode,.. and where the hell is the rain!! LOL
Xi,.. Your plot on the other post is huge!,.. bet ya have a lime spreader for the tractor! LOL
Anyways will post photo if it starts to grow,.. Please rain! :)
Exciting! Hope it grows great, and you have some exciting action come fall!
Haha BB, got your message, talk soon. Plenty of rain here in Western MA for the clover. Actually your fine with this weather, did you roll the seed in or just let it frost seed in.
coating on deck,.. and my food plot!!
Oh well ,.. clover is tough its not like a tomato plant
coating on deck,.. and my food plot!!
Oh well ,.. clover is tough its not like a tomato plant
I have to laugh crew,.. I am used to Mud,.. But this new form of Mud has me frustrated,.. it is like clear mud,.. Frozen,.. without the dirt,.. Most strange, but I seem to have plunged into that also,..
So I plant on Saturday ,.. and today on Sunday there is an ice storm,.. there is ice baby,.. ice,.. LMAO
Ugh,.. Tis the life of a Farmer,.. and I love every minute of it!
BB, my 1st plot was a 10' square that I hand tilled of Burpee sweet corn, perfect straight rows. I thought I'm in, it all sprouts and the crows pulled every sprout to eat . Real good read in the food plot review here on bowsite about seed reviews. My current plots are 1 1/2 acre of corn, 1/4 acre of clover that I'm gonna replant this yr, and the two 50 x 150 plots, 1 soybean and the other will be sunflowers (My daughter wants them, she gets them). Your fine with this weather, as long as there is no standing water for any length of time. Keep in touch, its still early.
its addicting.....i just cleared another acre off the side of my 3.5 acre plot. spike u really got lime you wanna get rid of??
Jdr, I manage a railcar repair company and we occasionally get in lime hopper cars that come in empty but still can have a few hundred pounds left in it. I currently have some 55 gallon drums with some although they have been sitting for awhile but still may have loose lime if they didnt get moisture inside. I just got a hopper car in and I think it has a decent amount in it. I have someone else asking as well but hopefully plenty to go around. I honestly cant find a company to get rid of the stuff. I also have barrels of loose cement as well. I also get hoppers coming in with grain as well. I would love for this stuff to get taken away as I actually have to pay to get rid of it. Im hoping to be down there this week (westfield) so I can get an idea of how much good stuff I have.
that be great if you had a decent amount of it....i got a fresh 3/4 of a acre thays begging for lime( figured id have to pony up for a lime truck) just today i got this years seeds in the mail. going to have 2 acres of real world soy beans, 1 acre of clover, and 3/4 acre of radish/ brassica mix. i will alsi over seed the beans with brassica mix too....
Brad, what type of grain do you get coming in? Animal feed type stuff? If so, I'll take a whole bunch of the stuff as the NH bear season approaches.
Make sure you get the soil test done. When I started my plot 2/3 acre. I used 500lbs of lime too. Had a soil sample done later and I needed to put down 2 Tons more.
X2 on the lime. JDR, are you using round up ready beans and where you getting them? I had to get my Monsanto registration number 2 yrs ago.
yes rr beans ....aka realworld soy beans , i tried them once vefore and they held in pods well into march. x2 on the lime..... ive had a lime truck come in to my plot 3x over the years.
Joe, from what I know it is I believe distilled grain that is a bi product of ethanol. It looks like what I used to feed my quail. I dont have any grain cars in at the moment but I could some time in the coming weeks or months.
Well here is the monthly update video,.. This is at 2.5 weeks since planting,.. on April 14th
PS good sign that deer tracks walked across the plot! LOL other than that,. um not so sure?
It is odd that after you post a video it is all blotchy for a while,.. but if you look at it an hour later it is good,. so if this thing is blurry just come back to it ,.. on my recent post review you cannot see anything,.. but I saw that last time,. that is why I added the direct links. I guess the lesson is after uploading a video to Youtube let is sit an hour,.. before using it.
Most plants out seed start with just two little round leaves. That's what breaks open the seed. Anyway, its most likely what you planted. Thats what plots start out looking like
Haha BB, when you start banging your head on the wall look for Pine, it's softer than oak ! You were warned about this food plot thing !
I am almost a reactionary conservative on most things. But an exception is herbicides, pesticides and environmental contaminants in general. There I am green and left wing. Anything ending in "cide" is designed to kill livings things. Usually by disrupting a cellular pathway. Trust the government and Monsanto? Not me. And just dont call it "organic venison". Foodplots aside, the long term effect of dumping millions of gallons of herbicide year after year on the soils that sustain us is unknown and pretty disturbing. Tekoa
Tekoa, look at the city of Westfield and the current water problem. Yikes !
I agree Tekoa,.. the long term dumping of anything in large volumes into our air, water or soil is generally going to cost us long term,...
If it is possible to fuck it up,.. mankind will find a way to do it.
Did you guys hear about the sun block on swimmers damaging the reefs in Hawaii? Good grief what is next? LOL
So far guys I got organic clover but not sure how long that can last,.. gotta see what happens as it grows and if I can manually pull shit or cut it??
Ok folks,.. here is the latest update I took some time off today to get out there before a large amount of rain comes in,.. In order to work the place/plot you end up walking all over your babies, crushing and wrecking them. It is my hope if I do this right before rain they may recover to some extent?
Although the clover seems now established as tiny 2 inch seedlings it would seem there is now a battle under way between weeds and clover,.. I am studying how to deal with this next,.. Hey at least there is clover!
Like I say in the video I hope some of you novice plotters can gain from me documenting my first time attempts at trying a food plot,.. and the mistakes I make,.. plus we might all get a chuckle ,.. at my expense!
So enjoy,.. again my yard roller lime flinger would not roll in the freshly tilled soil so I had to resort to hand hucking 160 pounds of lime,.. you can imagine in the hot humid day what I looked like at the end! LOLOLOL
Even Pi would have laughed,.. and of course I have blamed it on global warming! LMAO!!!!!
Looks good rain should help out!
Cool BB - excited to see how the vid's progress and in particular, how the deer start to feast.
It just hit me though... do you have a rig besides the stang? Going to be, um, exciting to put a deer on that to get it home :)
No big rig,.. just my midlife crisis car,.. as far as the deer in it,..
I have already figured it out,.. I am going to prop the deer up in the passengers seat,.. and cause you re supposed to have part of the deer sticking out visible,. I would flop the head out the window,... front feet on the dash,..
LOL
Nice job b.b. maybe check out Q.D.M.A. 5 herbicides every deer steward should know. Clover is considered easy to grow in most cases because you can spray it for other weeds and grasses with out killing the clover. Thanks for inspiring me to get to work on my own food plot. I am lossing about 150 acres of huntable land in my neighborhood, to a solar field and to a bunch of atv riders who dont seem to know what respect is. I guess im going to need the food plot.
BB - I, literally, have never wanted another person to get a deer more than I want you to at this moment... :) (Ok, I wanted my wife to, and my buddies kid... But since they have been successful, and I have several years to wait on my kids... seeing a deer in the passenger seat of a mustang is all I have left :))
BB, another warning dont get involved in this. Heres a swing arm mounting pin that I snapped today in the rain after 1 pass with a big disk harrow. Thought of you and just smiled !
Almost like my birthday. Got home from work last night and this was waiting for me, hope to plant on Friday. Now I just got to intercept the bill !
Xi when do soybeans die back or are there beans still inside dead pods into the winter? When do you see deer feeding on soybeans? I always thought of them as an out west product. Recently though, I have been learning the best food plots have a variety of foods so I have been looking to add something to mine but know very little about Soybeans. Roundup resistant,.. now that's a plus! Do they eat the whole plant or just the pods?
Any help appreciated,..
75 bucks is steep price for a bag too ! Cha Ching,.. refi refi!!
Just watched the video on RW soybeans,.. pretty cool!
BB, you forgot shipping ! RW Beans are for forage, not so much for bean production, deer mainly feed on the plant over all. They love them, but won't hit the leaves once there's a frost and die off starts. I would love to have the deer hit the pods late season , but if they predict snow the deer are gone from behind the house. Heres a pic I've posted before, this was in the backyard last year.
They love beans
They love beans
BB, Xi, a farmer that took over some fields in my neck of the woods (well, in my home town) that were always corn or alfalfa and started planting them with soybeans. They have been deer magnets over the tail end of summer the past few years.
Will, I've been enjoying soybean fields for a long time in N.Y.. I just have a way to plant them now here locally. I will say it everyday, this whole food plot thing is a bad addiction, now it's got the syrup thing right next to it !
1/4 acre
1/4 acre
That is awesome looking! and big!
looks good but your a bit off......real world beans are shatter proof and aimed at bean production not forage(leaf production) they are a great late season draw(december) i will over seed mine in august with brassica/radish mix . im jealous xi...i see you have a row planter thats one implement i dont have. i just till mine in lightly with the harrow. worked great last time
https://youtu.be/CLmlVsINBwc
The next step
Having fun !
Having fun !
Haha, Dad we're bored. Ok, let's do something together. Pick rocks !
Holy cow. How did you get some of those big rocks picked up? I could never lift those.
50'x200'
50'x200'
Ok, the rock plot is done. Picked, disked and planted with Real World soybeans. Jeb, team work, and I pick up alot of fat people for a living !
Spent Sunday in N.Y. working on plots. 1st light was watering a plot of clover and alfalfa mix. Son had fun on the hose until he got tired.
200 GPM pump
200 GPM pump
Nice plot Xi, looks like with that pump you could mine gold as a new hobby....
Yeah,looking at your plots xi makes me realize we're playing two different ball games , your a major leaguer and I'm not even in single A yet! Lol. Awesome plots! I can't help but think of the number of deer that you've helped get through those rough winters. Hopefully that herd your growing will be there for your kids and grandkids. Nice job brother!
WTF,.. is that where I am headed? LOL
You go Xi! LOL
Yeah.... little jealous..... Looks great xi!
nice xi! ive often thought of doing the same at my plot as i have a large swamp that abuts min in one corner....where did you get that set up?
Everyone, this is what trying to get it right does to me. It's what 15+yrs of all the insanity of food plots does to someone. My 1st pump was a 1/4 hp bilge pump that I powered with a coleman generator strapped to my 4 wheeler. Well with 50 feet of hose attached I was peeing farther and had more output. JD, it's a pacer pump with a Briggs and Stratton engine. I bought the whole thing as 1 unit at tractor supply. I had to add the output connections and bought the hard suction kit to go with it. It's a 200 GPM pump but my hose is only good for 150 GPM for the diameter so I off bleed some of it with a regular hose connection. Guys this "hobby" is fun but takes alot in other ways. If your looking at buying something this yr, wait and save your money and get the next size up next yr it will be worth it, there's no such thing as too big in this game. Don't get discouraged if it doesn't work the first time.
Here is my two month video update:
Also cams were on the plot for 2 weeks and showed a ton of deer in the plot. I am suspicious that at this time of the year clover is a key food. Of the 14 days cameras soaked ,.. deer were in the plot for 11 of those days/nights. When hunting season approaches watch that hit near zero LOL
I wrote down the days and times the deer were in the plot and today hope to back track and look at the wind on those days/times and see if there is any sort of pattern,..
little pissed today....went up to my plot and this week the deer have been hammering the soy beans.....which would be fine if they let them get a little taller 1st! tomorrow im gonna spray them with gly and a deer repellant as a last ditch effort otherwise looks like i will have to scrap the bean idea
Capital punishment for the offenders! The only good thing is its early enough is the growing season you can prob recover the plot with reseed if you want... best of luck!
ya i got till end of july.....to decide if i want to till it under....
I make my own deer repellent to spray on my vegetable garden. I mix up eggs, cayenne pepper, garlic, and water. let it get ripe and spray it on. it works. only problem is rain washing it off.
When I was a young man,.. and spending all my time in the woods (that's actually what got me hunting back then) I had to figure out an anti predation plan to stop damage from deer and rabits on my garden.
Here was my recipe,.. The base ingredient is Tangle Foot (because it does not wash away in the rain). So ya take a volume of tangle foot sticky paste,.. I used a cup back then but a food plot would be something different,.. and start to mix it with cayenne pepper, regular pepper and Tabasco sauce (like the hottest crap ya can find).
Ya take this toxic mix and grab a small stick on site and start to paint "Only the tips of the biggest leaves outward facing on the plants. So I mean like a 2 or 3 millimeter long tip of an outward facing leaf.
Now in a food plot this could take a while,.. so what I would try is mixing a large volume amount of above.... and apply to the edge of a 6+ foot stick,.. then I would then walk along the rows of soy beans,.. touching the tops of the plants and sweeping across them,.. touching and depositing this concoction on them,..
Obviously this will not work for acres,.. it only takes one chomp/bite though,.. the fire of that chomp will drive em away,.. maybe permanently! That is my fear,..
Good Luck!
i got about 2 acres of beans....that would be a job! that and all the beans are very small...(3-5") im gonna tray spraying ther perimeter with repellant
100s of dollars in seed, 1000s in equipment, countless man hours in effort. This is what you get, ravaged food plots, by Rabbits !!!!!! JD, was gonna PM you but know i don't have to seeing I'm not alone !
Ouch. Massive resurgence of rabbits in recent years, it seems to me.
glad im not alone.....i got rabbits too , but biggest problem is deer , then porcupines... i cant win if i fence it deer wont touch em for 6 months i dont fence them they eat them to the ground
Worst year ever for plots. Top it off with a female coyote with 3 pups in 1 pic in the middle of another plot.
You know, those of you with a deer problem in your food plots, I imagine a lot of guys on here would be willing to step up and take a shift in the fall, keeping them in check. This is a pretty charitable bunch.
funny thing is my plot is in a very low dpsm area.....they flock to it all summer .....i struggle to keep them in it consistantly in the fall
Clover that's been watered.
how the hell is yours soooo weed free,.. mine is a constant battle ?
BB, sprayed it off with gly. Disked and rototilled. Seeded and packed. Sorry about the delay in replying.
Gawd I'm being lazy! You guys are doing great! The half acre I was going to disc up went wild with blue berries and raspberries after I limed it. It's so thick the Doe's are hiding their fawns in there and I think I'm going to leave it be this year, maybe they'll keep using it as cover or bedding.
So I'm doing a little radish plot again, about where I had one last year that kept the deer coming from mid-November until everything was eaten, about late March or so.
Here's a pic of a Momma back in the blueberries.
Nevermind, that momma has bumps on her head.
here a pic of my current mess....about 1/2 acre of clover thats kickin ass, beans are now doing very well and the reast i got all tore up, newly cleared 1/2 acre ive been digging up rocks and burying them. i got 2 weeks to get is all neated up , limed, and fertilized......uhg
For the love of it all ! Looks good, it'll all pay off in the end.
Jdr, now all you need is some deer in MA lol. How many deer you think you have using the plot?
right now i have about 6 using it..... might sound like alot but this is in a area of thousands and thousands of heavy forested acres so its tough...
Wow, that is a serious plot! I'm guessing you must get a few bears out there also?
yes on the bears, i took a 300lbr last year during shotgun, and 2 others in our hunting group took 2 as well. nears are reason 1 i will never plant corn
a little food plot porn.... spread and tilled in 2500lbs of fertilizer , seeded 1/2 acre of raddish white clover mix , and a 1/2 acre of green patch plus
J - that looks awesome! That thing will get pounded, hopefully during daylight :)
Deer farmers! Looks great
Awesome looking plot to be. Only thing I got right now is bed sores on my hind parts from brush hogging acre after acre.
Opposite end
Opposite end
Just need the deer to show up !
Wow!! My garden doesn't look that good...
nice xi! i pulled the deer deer repellant pie plates off my soy beans today.... my radish is kickin ass about 4" @ 13 days old....just need rain to lay off and sun to shine
Man, you guys are killing it!
JDR, it's amazing the growth when the sun shines for a few says after the rain. I like the broadcast beans, they look real good.
Wow you guys - amazing. Looking fwd to the "after" pics. JR you bear hunting over the plot this year or letting it sit until MA opens?
will, if the bears are into the apples i may try, they really dont bother with the plot ( unless i wanted corn/bears) bears are bycatch lol.....
Will, it's a hobby ! I would love to post some after pics. This is the worst year ever for pics here for me. I have a family of 4 coyotes that are absolutely running me barren with deer. Every night howling and screaming. 1st year since 1999 when I bought my land that we don't have a fawn around here on the property.
Wow great looking plots.!!!!!!!
OK everyone,.. I started my first food plot/and this thread,.. this last spring,.. on a wing and a prayer with my team of John and Len,.. we used someone else's land,.. and someone else's tractor,.. reviving a long buried Harrow,.. trying to figure out how this is done,. with no prior experience. I made an ass load of mistakes and hopefully you have learned from them and others input who also put into this thread that has grown to 100 Posts tonight,.. kinda funny as this is my last post/visit to this thread as season approaches,.. we have vowed to let this plot,.. sit without us! and on the hundred thread that is pretty cool!!!
Enjoy the video,.. it has come a long way from looking at tiny sprouts wondering is that is clover,.. or weeds,.. ??? LOL You all said be patient and you are correct, it is awesome and wonderful,..
So on this hundred post I can sum up the first year doing a food plot as follows:
In general use lots of lime!!! Whatever you think ,.. just plunk 100's of pounds down more!
Weeds suck,. spray to kill them early May,.. or till repeatedly to kill them before planting. once they are grown it is too late.
It is easy to do, sorta,.. just try it,.. oh and get some help cause it is hard work
It cost about 500 bucks for my plot,.. I thought it would be 80,.. so whatever you think,.. its way more!! But now I have the equipment,. back pack sprayer etc,.. Who wants to do a food plot? Contact me! LOL
It required lots of labor,.. glad Len and John helped! May we all have many years of good hunts there. It is a lot to establish but clover is there every year now,.. we just have to plant brassicas each year,.
It is special to put your heart into a place and then hunt it,.. you land owners are blessed!!
Enjoy all!
https://youtu.be/8b8dthNJfNs
Looks good! Any big bucks on cam in the field yet?
Negative,.. early in the year 3 but since then nada,.. I suspect the early bucks came in for the Minerals I put down in the plot?
lots of does, but I have been plagued with camera problems the latest issue being a bad SSD card.
Looks good b.b. we are all routing for you.
BB it looks great. I'm really hoping you get to Christen the Triax there in a few months! Did you land an antlerless tag? I dont remember...
BB, it's an addiction either way. Next thing you know, BOOM, equipment everywhere and half a dozen seed retailers on your email list ! Looks great BTW.
Xi, I can’t even control the weeds in my backyard couldn’t imagine a whole field!
Did you make a mud puddle, you know, so you don't have to go lookin' for one?
Looks good. If this is your first year of brassica's you might not see a lot of action right away, but end of the season into January and February they'll hit it hard.
I'd be embarrassed if you saw my lawn !
thos os my worst year for pics in a while....that being said i cleared another 1/2 in the back corner and was working i the field alot which kicks them out .....if i leave it in clover and dont bother them i usually have a bunch of good pics..... this is my best pic lately i expect it will pick up in about a month
I hope the hard work pays off with some venison in the freezer this fall, BB!
They're hitting the beans real good now !
they are hammering my beans as well....pretty impressive right now ....hope it continues for a few weeks!
JD, next yr I'm all beans and clover, 4 rows of corn as a sight blocker from a neighboring house.
xi, they are hammer my beans im thinking more too but i will hold that opinion till end of season, i also have raddish clover oats and asorted brassica , last night i watched 5 deer go from one section to the next. im always looking for the ultimate all season draw
Looks great guys good luck !
BB we need an update. How is the food plot working out so far? Seeing deer ?
BB - I ditto B and S... Though more generally - how are things? been able to test out that Jeep's carrying capacity?
