Damn it’s dry...

Been preparing seed beds on our plots the past two days. Ground is hard as concrete. Had to break it with standard disc then hit with rotary tiller. Not a drop of moisture in the soil. Planning to put fertilizer and seed in the ground on Thursday and Friday and praying we get that forecasted rain within the next week or so. I felt Like that kid from Charlie Brown that always had a dust cloud following him around.

You ain’t kidding ! I dreamed it rained last night..

And no reasonable chance or rain for the next seven days

No way I'd put seed in the ground as dry as it is and no rain in the 10 day forecast. Good luck to y'all though and maybe you'll get lucky

Not to mention any nitrogen in fertilizer will be gone within 14 days

We’re doing the same and just hoping. We don’t have the option of waiting for forecasted rain. Everyone lives 9 hours away except for me, and I can’t just drop everything in my life and plant 25 acres by myself when rain is predicted. We plant the last weekend in September or first weekend in October every year. We’ve never had a significant failure. Heck I’m seeing some dove fields germinate that were top sewed in dust and haven’t had rain.

I hope you get this rain you are talkin about because my weatherapp isn't showing a chance of rain for Pike Road through Oct 9th. If you put it in the ground this week you might want to go ahead and ask your club members to start saving to replant in my opinion.

That's the main reason all my fertilizer and seed is still in the barn. It's not going to rain for a loooong time yet, it appears.

come on now you know better than to try and plant in this type situation, youre just going to waste your money

Hell I put lime out 2 weeks ago and I believe it all blowed away

Unfortunately, the guys in our club want to plant this weekend and can't convince them we need to wait until mid October.

Oh well...

I would think a lot of the seed might be ok if covered. My fear would be one shower comes along, causes germination, then the tender little sprout wilts and dies with the heat and no rain for a couple weeks.

This

Or you waste the fertilizer money.

You need to wait.

Why would the fertilizer money be wasted??

If the birds eat your seed and the weeds eat your fertilizer, you have wasted your fertilizer money.

Makes sense. Carry on

P&K fertilizer would be ok to put out now. Just not N

Seed will be fine if covered. Shoot most fields dont even need replanted they will grow back in whatever you have been planting them in. At least at our place they will. We have started just mowing and fertilizing some of our less productive fields and by the middle of December you cant tell which ones we planted and which we did not they all look good

That's because you ain't got no turkeys

Seed will be fine. I overseed anyway. We will not fertilize until we know for certain rain is coming. My concern is what someone else mentioned and that is we get two or three days of rain then nothing for else for October. It would be a $4,000 gamble at this point but we haven’t lost in the past years, but I know It is a possibility. There was zero moisture in any of our plots.

Well I have Decided to cover all our seed and fertilizer with plastic that is setting one each plot and play the waiting game. Everybody going to be hunting over a big old corn pile anyways.

Yep, I see seed and fertilizer sales down and corn sales through the roof!

Wouldn’t the heat from the sun and plastic ruin the seed though?

Wouldn’t it make the most sense to wait until after the seed germinates and develops a root system before you fertilize??

Perhaps. May also depend on how easy/often you can access the land.

Decided to wait until Mother Nature decides to cooperate. Hopefully within the next 2-3 weeks something will break loose in the Gulf and bring us some much needed moisture.

It will not harm either of them. Probably cooler out in the middle of the plot than it is in most Feed and Seed warehouses.

Hope the coons don't find it before you plant.

Was able to check two spots I've planted a couple weeks ago. Bad news is that even though I planted into a dustbowl the wheat is germinating. Good news is nothing else has grown so it looks like top sowing some wheat and N won't be an issue when we finally get some rain. Glad I only did two spots out of 5 and just planted the cheapest thing out there.

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/storminfo/12L_geps_latest.png

With a spaghetti model like this Karen might wind up in Oregon. I think I counted 9 high pressure symbols that are affecting the US. I'm not holding my breath for rain any time soon. It might be Thanksgiving before planting for us.

I thought you meant you were spreading seed and putting plastic over it. The picture made a lot more sense.

It rained hard at my office in Luverne today for about 20 seconds. That was it and the sun was right back out. When I heard it hitting the roof I about lost my mind. Pulled it up on the radar and it was just a tiny speck right on us

Come a gully washer about 15miles from us last night, fizzled out before it got here.

As of today we officially canceled planting for this weekend. Ground was so hard we could barely break it. We’ve tentatively rescheduled for the last weekend in October. We may not be able to get all 25 acres planted this year but better than wasting our money. What a year for baiting to be legalized. Acorns and corn should have deer all over them with no plots around until at least gun season

Hell, water tanks might not be a bad idea at this point

We are lucky to have quite a few spring creeks on our property. I’d bet if you have some property with sparse water, the water holes would be a good place to hunt.

Planted all ours yesterday. Turkeys can eat it if they want. It wont matter there is so much seed left over from the last 25 years of planting the same plots when it rains it will grow and be beautiful

we got most of ours planted yesterday. I’m gonna try and get everything finished before the rain next weekend

Where is this rain supposed to be?

Postponed putting seed in the ground and we're not going to plant until we get moisture. Going to spend "planting weekend" to do more bushhogging, trimming back roads and stand work. Going to get the tractors into some areas that are usually too wet and clean them up while we can. Hopefully this high pressure will weaken and Fall fronts will bring some moisture. Going to need to get a couple of inches of rain for it to make a difference.

Good news with this drought is that there seems to be about a third of the spiders in the woods that there were last year, which is a good thing when you are driving through the woods on an open cab tractor.

I thought the same thing several years ago until being informed 1" of rain over an acre area is around 25,000 gallons.

I ain't planting chitt till I actually SEE rain falling.

I prolly would of lost all of the deer pear trees I planted this year if I hadn't been watering them, some of the others also. Damn it's dry.

My grandson and I went up to our land this morning to check the feeders and none of the branches have any water in them. I've already made arrangements to buy 3 - 250 gallon water tanks and we are going to get a few float valves and put some water sources in the plots next weekend.

Tilled powder all day yesterday. Saw a 40% chance of rain first part of October.

I dont see it rainin for 2 weeks atleast.

Or 4.

What if we do get that rain in the forcast next week, then it dont rain any more till the middle of november? I reckon ill just let em eat icpeas and standing corn for a while longer till were getting some regular rain.

This was a few weeks ago at the camp. This is a pair of bottomland camp pants. The dust is about 1/4” thick.

What I’m seeing next Sunday in Choctaw County I’m getting an 80 percent chance of rain

I'll keep waiting. We planted 2nd weekend of November in 2016. Looks like we may be on that track again. October is historically the driest month in AL. Unless we get a hurricane, I dont see any relief in sight

Those chances will diminish closer it gets. They just playing the odds.

Looks like sunday is definately the best chance this coming week for Choctaw Co. 63 saturday morning will feel awesome

One 40% chance of rain 8 days out isn't good enough to plant food plots yet.

Long range forecast is confirming the pattern shift that's been hinted at. Next week highs in the 80s and lows in the 50s. We'll get rain before too long and probably an earlier than normal frost

Y'all do realize a small chance of rain 7 days out isn't worth the paper it's printed on. They've had that same 40% posted up out there for 4 weeks now. It never gets any closer...

Now it's up to almost 90% sunday and 70% monday so it may just make it maybe

Y’all watch some whacked out wather guessers. Ain’t gonna do much.

We always plant 2nd week of October - November 15th depending upon the forcast.


God Bless,
David B.

Yep, it will rain.

What forecast are you looking at? Channel 13 and weather.com has 40% Sunday and 50% Monday.

Dark sky is the app I use. Now it's down to 21% S and 64% M so maybe it wont make it

Our plots are all quite dead from spraying.

Will start disking this weekend, but ready for the (hopefully) cooler weather next week.

One of my friends son had a little luck in the meantime.

I'm showing 40% Sunday and 30% Monday

Yep 54 and 50 on mine now

The big concern is to get it wet enough to germinate, but then no more moisture and burns up the sprouts.

This

I disked one of my home fields yesterday evening, just scratched the surface. Going to hit it again with a subsoiler, redisk

Sumpter, you got a good layer thatch there, now is your chance to take the leap to T&M. LOL One advantage to the T&M method is that it takes a decent rain to wet all the thatch and get to the soil to sprout the seed. A small rain event often wont make it to the soil, so you dont have to worry about a small rain sprouting it and then the next day the sun beating down on the soil drying it out.

We are going to put the seed in the ground in the morning. 20% chance of rain Sat and Sun but then 40% on Monday and Tuesday and then 40% again on Friday. This heat should be gone this coming week and some regular rainfall return. I HOPE and PRAY!!!!!

That's what I'm afraid of. Were penciled in to plant on Oct 12, but in a holding pattern for now. Fields are ready but a little rain would be worse than none If you planted, had germination, then more hot dry weather. You'd have dead fields and wind up buying more seed to plant. It's driving me nuts, I'm ready to be done with it and go hunting

I'm gone do the same Its either gone work or it ain't

I don't care if it is Nov 5, not planting till it rains a significant amount.

This.

Yep, we are waiting too. Nothing about this forecast is making us want to put our seed money in the dirt



Especially with these current conditions

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?AL

Gentlemen.
Look at the rainfall totals before you plant. The weathermen are predicting around a 1/2 inch rainfall total for the month of October at this time.
I am in the woods everyday. I see a lot of your food plots that have been broke up. They are nothing but powder!!!!!

I don't disagree. But it's October 4. If the weather men knew how to predict the future out 27 days, they wouldn't be working for a living. They can't even figure out if this rain even Monday is real or not. I've seen 80% all the way down to 40% for the same spot in the last 24 hours.

Northern part of alabama has a little better forcast. Showing after saturday highs in upper 70s to low 80s, 40-50% chance of rain several days the next two weeks. Ill believe it when I see it but it is trending cooler and more chance of rain as time goes on, has been the opposite in the past few weeks. Im not planting till I see regular rain and more in the forcast but my foodplots are a half mile from my house. If I had to travel to hunt I might feel different. I guess you could plant the seed and wait on the rain to broadcast fertilizer.

That was a waist tall pasture that I mowed about 5 weeks ago,. Sprayed 3 weeks ago. I was told I would disk it,at least this year, that spot has not had the ground broken in 45 years and the cows have compacted the soil badly.

I do have 3 spots (about 8 acres) that are in year 3 of T&M. Getting better each year. After year 2 I fertilized the existing grasses in late May and got rid of all the sparse spots. It came up much better last fall.

This!!

Well, I pulled The trigger and we planted 26 acres today. They have increased our rain chance to 60% now for Monday and 50% on Friday. Then we are back to looking at 20% pretty much every day. Keeping my fingers crossed that this heat is leaving and rain is coming.

2 weeks from now we’ll have why are my plots dead thread If it only rains 1” or less

Yep. Planting now is a suckers bet.

I got a couple fields at my house that was planted 3 weeks ago, been up for 2 weeks if this weather the last 2 weeks didn't kill it I think everybody will be alright from here on out.

Thats why we are still holding off. Everyone wants to plant at the first mention of rain.

Well, I planted this morning into standing dead thatch and it's been raining good here for 45 minutes.

I put out an automatic spin seeder in June. But no corn came up cause the deer, raccoons and skwerls keeping eating all of it when the corn seeds hit the ground. Even tried apple flavored to discourage them. It only made it worse.

We got a little over an inch of rain,which was way more than was forecasted (.20), but I'm still holding off for at least another week. Mid October is about the longest I can wait due to my schedule, but hope it will improve.

A big farming outfit that is between our 2 farms had all their equip. out and planting last weekend. We had previously planned to plant Friday and Saturday... I feel ok about having our seed in the ground. Had a good Stead rain into yesterday and currently have a nice slow soaking rain going now. I've planted at worse times and better times.

Only .04 inches of rain down my way. But it appears more rain is on its way within the next 10 days. Just glad I dont Have to worry about planting anymore

The next 10 days currently shows a handful of decent chances of rain so hopefully you will it a couple. At about 6:15pm yesterday that cut corn field just south of Farmington was loaded with deer when I was heading south.

Planted like a dream into very good moisture today

Too wet to disc here, ive tried the past two days.

257, how many acres is that field you are planting there. Also, what are you planting? Never used a drill planter and wasn't sure if you could plant a blend or not with the different size seeds.

My experience with the drills is you have multiple seed boxes - generally two - one for grains such as oats, wheat, rye, etc - and one for legumes - clover, other small seeds. You probably could do a 3 way mix with oats/rye/wheat in the big box and then clover in the small seed box, but don't think you would be able to plant like a 5 way mix that has oats/wheat/rye/clover/peas all mixed together. We use a Woods seeder and besides the "no till" part, it works similar in that it has a big seed and small seed box. The bigger seeds get buried a little deeper and the smaller seeds get dropped just before the cultipacker. I would only put different blends of seeds in the boxes together if they were very close to the same size.

Looks like his Daikon Radish field which was 7 acres or so if memory serves me well.

We got seed in the ground Monday and plenty of rain following. All plots are already sprouting. The field I planted last Thursday is up 2” and already green from a distance

That field is 22 acres. I mix triticale, crimson and radish all together and know my best setting off trial and error over the years. Looks like a golf course today, a week later. I’ll post up pics of it later this week

Looking good. I’ve got sprouts as of Tuesday. No disk necessary.

Do your deer play golf??

It’s green. Like a golf course. Not littered with weeds and such

Y’all need to go to couples counseling.

Yeah no chit, get a room.

Shots farred.

My deer play golf, but they suck at it kinda like me.

Finally rain in North Jackson

Just under a half inch here today.

We been getting it all day long and ain't let up yet

Went out and checked about 5 of our 30 plots and they are up and looking very nice. Will post some picks in about week once they all fill in good. Last year was almost too wet to plant and this year, well it was the driest I have seen in years. So grateful that I decided to push back our normal plant date of first weekend in October. Hope everyone else's plots are doing as well, with this much needed rain we have seen over the past two weeks. Now it is time to stop worrying about plots and start hunting.

We finally got ours in Thursday before a good soaker on Friday. We had to work under the lights until about 8 Thursday night and almost got everything done. We got 20 out of our 25 acres planted. Which was 10 out of our 12 fields. When we started this process the last weekend in September during the drought we never thought we would get it done. Still need to fertilize which we plan to do opening week of gun season, but at least we will have great looking fields by our rut in late December

For the folks that did not have time to get all of the fields, will you them be, overseed wheat or try to get them done later? I would at minimum sling some what on top of the ground and you will have some if not most of it that should take hold.

I got about 1/2 of mine done Sunday and an inch of rain yesterday. Could not get to rest of place because of access issues.They will be planted Thanksgiving and fine as frogs hair by late January when I do my real hunting.