I am new to the site and wanted to get some opinions or hopefully first hand experiences. Our club planted soybeans this summer, and despite a hog problem, we have ended up with one heck of a stand of beans that are loaded with bean pods. Knowing the benefit of having these standing for the late deer season, i have know idea what the hogs will do to them after they dry out. The hogs are not bothering them now and they are being heavily browsed by the deer. We have a difficult decision to make regarding our fall planting, whether to leave the standing, or disk them in and replace with our cereal grains. One thought was to leave half of the field standing, plant the other half, and top sow into the Standing beans since they have a clean under story. We have three, four acre fields of beans in question. Any experience and advice from you guys would be helpful. Thanks

Sew your grains into the standing beans, it's done a lot. There is no way, if i had a lot of standing beans with pods, that i would disk them down. Not sure what the hogs will do, but good luck.

Yeah that's what I would do

This X infinity. DO NOT now down beans with pods. Broadcast into them right before a rain. Go heavy on your clover.

We summer planted beans on our hunting club in Wilcox County and the deer and hogs destroyed them well before they ever got out of the ground good. How did you keep the deer and hogs off of them to get the beans to maturity?

Like others have said, I'd broadcast into the standing beans. May need to double (or at least increase) the planting rates.

We only planted about 1 acre of beans (two 0.5 acre plots) and were worried about the deer clipping them off before they ever had a chance to get started. I used a couple treatments of Milorganite to keep the deer off (1 bag per plot at planting and a 1/2 bag per plot 3 weeks later). They are getting hammered now, but our intent was for them to have the soybean plants to eat rather than keeping them off the whole summer so that we could have pods. That said, they are blooming, but no idea if we'll end up with pods or not. I do expect to have one very small area with pods, it's behind a little fence I rigged up.

We don't have hogs though and doubt the Milorganite would slow them down.

http://www.aldeer.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1389420#Post1389420

http://www.aldeer.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1432949#Post1432949

A good problem to have! Except for the hogs.

Gallagher S17 solar fence chargers with two strands of wire, one low one high. Kept the pigs out and deer until they were tall enough to withstand the browsing pressure.These were ag beans, we also planted one plot in eagle forage beans that are extremely browse tolerant, but not much for bean yield.

Hated to have to fence the deer out, but we have clover fields that were established and being utilized until we turned them loose on the beans.

I would disk in some strips with Oats and wheat. Disk the width of the swath of your spreader. You have the best of both worlds. Strips of cereal and strips of standing beans.

We bushog, disk and plant a couple of lanes thru the beans. Makes good shooting lanes.

You don't have nearly as many deer and hogs as Wilcox county has, that's how.

Were you drunk when you bushog'd that lane?

I do this ^^^ every year. Works great. Be sure to spread your seed before the leaves fall of the beans though. It really helps with germination.

Good looking field, Chief. It pains me to see those beans cut down.

possible

Heres a shooting lane we made in another of our bean fields

Why not keep the fence up and lower the top strand so the deer can enter. If you have much of a hog problem, I would expect the hogs to hammer the beans hard if you don't keep them out.

Another beautiful pic, Chief. Do you find the deer prefer one over the other when they come into the field? How long do your beans last?