That picture is a little deceiving. I have really heavy browsing pressure and the deer have kept all of the clover browsed down to ground level this spring while the rye has begun to bolt. There are actually 3 different varieties mixed in there….crimson, yuchi arrowleaf, and durana.
The first step is to get a layer of thatch down over the top of your bare soil. For folks with small plots and really heavy browsing pressure…..this will be one of the biggest hurdles to cross. The reason being is that you need the plots to produce excess of what the deer are eating in order to also grow a crop of biomass to feed back to the soil. This type of plant growth can be tough to achieve if the soil is in poor degraded conditions.
Once you put down a nice layer of thatch across the soil surface then it will begin to decompose and turn into mulch. Basically we are just creating one big mulch pile that’s spread a couple inches thick over the surface of the plot. The microbial community will break it down from there in the same manner that you see forest debris rotting away and disappearing in the woods. Once you have gotten the soil surface to the point that its like potting soil then seed germination will greatly improve.
Below is a really short video showing the current conditions of the soil surface in my field. I am still about 50-60 days away from spreading my summer seed. Between now and then I will let the rye mature and go to seed while the clover continues to cover the understory (if the deer allow it to)….At planting I want the remaining debris on the soil surface to be at a very advanced state of decomposition. When I mow, what is left will almost disintegrate and mix with my seed that I’ve thrown out….creating like a rat’s nest of debris. It’s like replicating the way you sprout seed in a paper towel but we’re just using processed straw instead of paper towel
