Unfortunately, I'm having to report my first T&M failure in this three-year experiment. This is the first summer my WMS pea patch failed. I'm not sure, but I think it's a combo of a few things: (1) less rye planted this year, as rye was really expensive, and I was trying to get more foods the deer would eat, (2) waited until end of may/first week of June to plant, and I think some other grasses started to take over the fields, and (3) rain, or lack thereof during the month of June, as it was fairly dry.

I honestly thought we got just enough rain, so I am leaning on 1 and 2, as when I cut, there wasn't a lot of standing rye/wheat/oats left. Very little. Then, grasses didn't quite all die out from cutting, and may have outcompeted the other seeds. The buckwheat came up well, though. I also had lots and lots of turkeys in all three patches I've been trying this in.

It seems to me that if you are T&M into a heavy planting of rye, you have plenty of biomass and your weeds are just not there as the rye does a good job of keeping them out. The downside is that I swear that deer don't like it as much as they do wheat and oats. I'll either (1) go back to planting rye, (2) get a sprayer to spray before I T&M, or (3) go back to the old fashioned way now that i have pretty decent soil layer going. Let me know if you have any thoughts.