the plot is probably 120'x60', so a bag of triple 13 ? How much millet, what type. I think they throw a little fert every year, but not sure. Since its a dog hunting club they plant several small plots that usually arent hunted. some wheat and oats usually, but I like the location, and there a shooting house from a hunter that hasnt been there for 5 years, but the club was still planting it, but Im gonna try to plant it this year.

That's less that 1/4 acre....you could probably just go with about 10 lbs of brown top millet. One bag of 13-13-13 will be plenty.

I have a little open area just off from a field where my trophy rock is set up. Deer are eating a lot of the native vegetation while at the site. Is there anything I could plant that might come up this time of year (only partial sunlight). I realize whatever I plant will get murdered and will not really help the deer herd. I just want to play around and see what, if anything, will come up. Or should I just fertilize what's already there?

The best thing you could probably do would be to mow the area so that fresh new vegetation comes back in. The farther we go into summer the more the native vegetation matures....hardens off and becomes less and less desirable to the deer. Buckwheat would be an option if you just wanted to throw something in during the process.

Thanks, and good thoughts. The 1-acre field bordering this spot has been cut with the past month so there should be a lot of new growth off of that.

Only mow it once….maybe twice per summer. If you continually mow it then you will start suppressing your broadleaf species and moving more toward a grass dominated system. Try to time your mowings with periods of good soil moisture as well. Don’t mow when its hot and dry as bone.

Whole sections of peas and buckwheat are being taken out nightly now. Might as well bring on the weeds and crabgrass at this point and fill the areas in with plant growth. The quicker it happens the better.

Can someone ID this plant??…..Referring to the plant in the center of the pic with the small yellowish flowers about to bloom and leaves with serrated edges.

Tomorrow will be 4 weeks since planting...........

Looks like cut leaf evening primrose. The yellow flower that is

I believe you are correct. Good call 257....Thanks!....

The brassicas are beginning to flower now. I’m noticing that there are actually a decent amount of volunteer radishes around the field. The deer had a lot of them eaten back to nothing but they still managed to throw up a shoot of flowers. The deer are hammering the flower shoots of the radishes much more than the shoots of the turnips. Look at all the nipped stems toward the base of the plant.

CNC I'll have to say I thought I was the most OCD person alive, but starting to think you may have me beat with this passion you have for throw & mow. Just curious what size acreage you plant and are you 100% throw & mow? Ever do light discing to help thick layers of thatch decompose faster?

I think it’s more ADD than OCD……I’d describe it as feeling like restless brain syndrome. Probably why I read too much as 257 says.

The test field where most of the pics are coming from is around 2 acres. I also have another 3-4 acres of orchards where I’m doing some minimal throw and mow and another 14 acres at the hunting club. I’m not 100% throw and mow or for that matter 100% anything other than trying to 100% understand how soil is suppose to properly function…..understand the different tools at my disposal…..and understand how my use of those tools impacts the proper functioning of that soil and the plant communities that sprout from it.

I was actually considering taking a little angle out and running my disk over this summer crop but after seeing the turnips sprout earlier in the spring I decided to go ahead without any disturbance. My topsoil is literally like a bag of potting soil now and getting a seed to sprout is not an issue. The only challenge now is just managing surface residue. I was still verging on having too much residue on the surface to get my seed down close enough to the soil surface but it still worked out pretty well even though it wasn’t optimal. What I want to have happen now is for the current plant community to go ahead and quickly canopy over all of this surface thatch. Once it does then it will change the conditions on the soil surface to where the thatch will stay continually moister and more like greenhouse conditions. That will speed up the decomposition process. Ideally we would like to have most of the surface reside in a well decomposed state when we get ready to broadcast on our fall cereal grains and clovers. I think that once it gets a dense canopy over it then the thatch is going to quickly disappear well before then. If this happens then I’m going to mow the field in another 4 weeks or so and “double crop” the summer biomass.

I’m still very likely going to pull my disk across the field this fall but it won’t be for the purpose of traditional sod busting. I want to have a dove hunt this fall but it requires me mowing the field down several weeks ahead of when I want to plant my fall mix. I’m going to go ahead and mow for the dove hunt but later when its time to plant my fall mix I’m going to use my disk in the manner of a hay tedder. I’ll broadcast the seed and then just pull the disk across the surface enough to stir things up and get the seed down to the surface. I think this should work well. A disk is just a tool like a hammer. It can be used to do more than just drive a nail.

I still plan on top seeding clover wheat and oats into my standing grain sorghum and sunn hemp this fall. As cold and wet as this spring was my red ground needed tillage to loosen it up. Also I may have found a 4 row pull type planter and just bought a sprayer this week so I will be no tilling more finally.

I saw a 7000 series on craigslist. It was a 4 row. It looks like it needed a little work but was priced right and like you told me parts are easy to find.

My peas beans and sunflowers are doing decent in my two bottom fields and are from a foot tall to 2 feet. My field on the hill the corn Is maybe a foot tall in most of it. But everything else is 6" or less and the plants are very small. What do y'all think is going on? I've put 200lbs of 20-20-20 down in two apps and were only talking 1 1/4 acres or more.

How does the plant color look?

They're pretty green.except last year I had peas in this field that did great. It's a pretty hard field I think I may have to keep disking it pretty hard. I'll post pics in the morn I don't have enough service to get photobucket to work at the house.

In hard ground I have seen subsoiling to break the hard pan make a huge difference in corn.