257.....Here's to you man!

I thought you might enjoy this article........

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/scienc...-soil.html?_r=1

Great article. Big difference between no-till farming and your throw & mow methods. I've been nearly 100% no-till farming more than 6 years. Several hundred acres. There's a bit more to farming than throwing out seeds and then bush hogging

Really?…..Is there really a “big difference?”…..No-till is about the philosophy of soil health and that’s still the exact same. Just because I don’t use a drill in order to sprout a seed…how does that make it WAYYY different? Do you know that more acres of cover crops are planted from an airplane than with a drill? I’m still producing large amounts of biomass which I’m recycling back to the soil to increase OM% as well as increasing microbial life, covering the soil with residue, improving soil structure, etc,etc,,etc….I could go on with a whole list of how it’s the same….I may have tailored my approach more to that of a deer manager with minimal equipment and not that of a farmer with a big fancy drill…… but its still the same no-till philosophy. I don’t have to do it the exact same way as a farmer anyways because we have different end goals. No-till is not about the equipment……its about the understanding of how your soil functions. Here watch this video and see if they don’t repeat those same words in the first 30 seconds. This is a great video……

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWXCLVCJWTU

Thats an interesting article to come from the NY Times given that most no-till farming necessitates the use of "evil" GMO crops and the use of "deadly toxic herbicides"...

CNC...... You're the schit! You're by far the best throw and mower Ive ever seen. Youve opened my eyes to make me realize us farmers don't know a thing. Shucks I bet you can grow 400 bpa corn just scattering your little seeds here and there. Thanks again for the info. I think I'll suggest one of my 4000 acre growers he's been doing it all wrong and see how far that gets me.

^^^^^^^

Great point. No till and GMO/ herbicides go hand in hand. I have no problem with that, just reality.

257 and CNC, I'm not sure why y'all are at odds. Don't most big time farmers no till now anyway? All the ones around me do.

No Remington it's about 50/50 I work with both.

I disagree. I'm sure that there have been plenty of herbicide used with no-till farming but it is not a "must have" for us as food plotters. I've not used any in over a year now. Timing and the use of smother crops like cereal rye or buckwheat are very good alternatives to the use of herbicide.

No way you can scatter beans or corn in a field, mow it and expect to grow a profitable crop. That's just silly. Seed placement, depth, weed management, residue management, seed to soil contact. You methods will not produce yield. If you are just out to play and have fun I'm sure can get something to grow but is NOT farming. Not close

Use of smother crops will not manage weeds. You are just plain wrong friend

Sounds like CNC may be a Prius driving green peace organic nut to me

Sounds like he means well but has never farmed for a living.

True dat

I’ve never advocated for farmer’s to adopt the “throw and mow’ method. Anyone farming for a living using a no-till method would certainly invest in a drill. This is not Alfarmer.com though and we are not trying to grow fields of monocultures for profit. We are deer managers trying to attract a goat to an opening in the woods without breaking the bank to do it. I think you guys have trouble separating your farming goals from that of your food plot goals…..

I treat my food plots just like I do the ag fields. Soil test, adjust ph, plant, fertilize, & control weeds.

I just don't believe in halfassing things. Whether no till or conventional but I know "throw and mow" is halfassing

Yeah its halfassing alright ……Half the time, half the fert, half the lime, half the labor…….

From the above article……..

“Degraded soil requires heavy applications of synthetic fertilizer to produce high yields. And because its structure has broken down, the soil washes away easily in heavy rain, taking nitrogen and other pollutants with it into rivers and streams.”

“He no longer needs to use nitrogen fertilizer or fungicide, he said, and he produces yields that are above the county average with less labor and lower costs. “Nature can heal if we give her the chance,” Mr. Brown said.”

Any farmer who shoots for county average is one I don't do business with. We strive be way above "average".

I pretty much do too. But not everyone has access to all the fancy tools ($$$). I frequently read on here guys with 40 or 60 acres of woods and a 1 acre plot. Doesn't really make sense for them to have a big-time tractor and invest thousands if this is their only spot.
You can accomplish some of the things CNC talks about with a sprayer and a riding mower or less.
I don't do it, but its cool to see his results.

It's VERY cool to see his results, which can be duplicated GIVEN THE RIGHT CONDITIONS, and time and patience.

What's NOT COOL sometimes is the attitude of people like him who (like reformed drunks or people who've kicked a drug habit) to foam at the mouth about how their method is THE ONLY TRUE WAY and everybody else is a dumbass, etc etc etc.

I haven't read enough of CNC's posts to know if he's too evangelical with his beliefs, but 257 is a relatively levelheaded guy who makes a living dealing in the things he's speaking of, it's not a HOBBY, or a PASTTIME, or a sometimes activity for him. IT'S HIS LIFE, basically. When he speaks of things in that vein, his opinions are based in fact, and on long hard bought experience. I think when he gets flippant, holier than thou responses from CNC (I'm guessing here, I'm not 257's psychiatrist) he doesn't respond well to them.

I understand that too. Keyboard Cowboys are only slightly more common than Keyboard Evangelists, and they are both aggravating in their own way.

Different people have different goals too. I'd be thrilled with 100 bpa of corn, while a true farmer usually wants a lot more than that because its his living. It's all about perspective, budget, and a variety of other factors.

Careful, that kinda talk got me in trouble with the dirt Police a while back.

RobertD. I think you've made a fair assessment.

come on now. You mean Yall are not going to fly on your cotton seed over the top of a cover crop. Then mow the cover crop down????

Well you know I did think about flying on some soybeans for super high 80bpa yields but I realized I disked up all my thatch! But we have to rename it fly and mow.

you probably could have made at least 85 bpa if you would have put out at least 100lb per ac of 8-8-8

Actually, I believe they are flying on cover crops such as annual ryegrass, cereal rye, oats, clover, radishes etc……into standing cash crops such as corn or beans. The cash crop is then harvested and the silage is left behind. There's not a whole lot of difference in this and the throw and mow method other than just the altitude that the seed is broadcast from. I'm probably covering the seed more with thatch than what they do. The reason I mention the aerial application of cover crops is because its one of the methods that gave me the idea for "throw and mow". Thousands of acres of cover crops are planted this way every year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swYzaqNIz0E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH6I38um3Rs

CNC I know that man. It's what I do

Skipping back a little....This is using cereal rye, crimson clover, and hairy vetch as a smother crop in the spring.



The rye is allowed to mature….The canopy effect shades out the understory and keeps any weeds from being able to get started. This is the same concept you see happen in pine stands when the understory becomes shaded out.



Seed is then broadcast into the standing crop just like an aerial application in the previous videos and the crop is mowed down without disturbing the soil and seed bank.



The new crop begins to sprout………



……and eventually canopies back over the understory creating the same shade effect we talked about previously. This is one way that weeds are controlled using smother crops.

.
100lbs of triple 8 is just that, 8lbs. I wish that's all it took!

What's your lbs/acre of cereal rye in that pic of your smother crop?

You can plant it at 75-100 lbs/ac. The previous pic was planted at 100 lbs/ac due to my high deer density and heavy browsing pressure during the winter months. That actually turned out to be a little too thick come spring though as the rye just about shaded everything out….including my clover. Looking back, I probably could have given it one mowing early in the spring and had a better balance of clover and rye. Someone with less browsing pressure may just want to back off to planting a lower rate of 75 lbs/ac in the beginning. Again, this was using zero herbicide.

Do you get any volunteer rye?

I was wondering that same thing myself…..so I took this little section of powerline that was planted in cereal rye and just let it go for the entire summer. I was curious to see how much of my own seed I could produce for the next season.



This is how much I ended up with. It started coming back in around the end of October. I imagine a lot of the seed was eaten over the summer. It’s by no means a full stand but that really wasn’t the point of this experiment. If you knew that you could get “X” amount of cereal rye to come back from seed like this each fall….then you might could cut your seeding rate back from say 75 lbs down to 50 lbs…..or from 100 lbs down to 75 lbs. Even if you just left it the same planting rate, then the extra seed would make your stand thicker.

With our browsing pressure, I couldn't count on volunteer seeding. I'd have to reseed as if I was starting over.

Ok, i'll play. First of all i don't care how anyone plants their plots, but anybody that says you can't have a very thick,lush, and productive plot using the throw and mow method is an idiot. I used to plow, and had great results. If you like plowing, then have at it. The reasons some of you have weed issues, is because of the use of a plow. My weed issues have went waaaayyy down, because i'm never disturbing the weed seed bank by plowing. Most of you don't care anything about soil health and thats fine by me. I'm not fanatical about soil health. When i started using this method, it was all about shortcuts, and saving money. Soil health was icing on the cake. I've seen my soil darken. It has the ability to hold more rain water and i had some of the best looking plots that i've ever had, and the whole time, all the experts on here were telling me, that i planted too early and that i couldn't have a lush plot planting this way. Waist high IC cowpea's, so thick that you cant see the ground, is pretty damn good. And to the the expert that claims that you can't choke, or shade weeds, well you have no clue. Fast canopying plants are used all the time to shade out weeds, as long as you leave the plow in the shed. I don't want to get into this war, as i've said, i really don't care how anyone plants their plot. It just blows my mind that some people can't see that there are different ways of accomplishing the same thing. Some people make smart ass comments about things they know nothing about. All they know is, well we been doing it this way for years, so it's got to be right. Every farmer around me, uses a no-till drill. I wonder why that is, if plowing is so beneficial. CNC and i, along with many others have found a way to accomplish the same thing the farmers are doing without buying a seed drill. Whats wrong with that?

…..aaaand blumsden comes out this morning with guns blazing. Just to show the complete yearly cycle with zero herbicide here’s the rest of the summer through fall planting.

Notice how the new crop has canopied over the understory and kept weeds at bay.



The deer actually ended up nearly decimating the plot over the coarse of the summer. Removing the canopy allowed crabgrass to eventually creep in once that happened.



Everything was allowed to mature without any mechanical disturbance until the first of Oct. At that point seed was broadcast again and the summer crop was mowed down over the seed using no herbicide.



…….and the new crop comes up. I’ll repeat this same process next spring with a few minor tweaks and the process will continue. Very simple…..very efficient….very effective method for managing food plots.



.....mid season



As of last week....

Blumsden you are correct. There are many ways to plant food plots. I agree that anyone who still uses a plow is wasting time & money. They are also not building soil health or increasing OM. However, I strongly disagree that you and CNC can throw seed on top of the ground, mow existing vegetation and grow a crop like a farmer. I've used cover crops for years, however they are only part of our overall weed management program. You can't get high yields without using herbicides. Seed to soil contact, seed planting depth, and seed placement are all critical to successful crops. Land managers with limited acreage available to plant should look for yield, not some fade that is an easier way to plant.

Here is another picture of what is not possible…..How high yielding do you need a food plot to be RiverWood? Is this not acceptable?

Show me you corn & soybean yield. Anybody can grow grass

Get ready to watch videos.

I've grown some soybeans using this method. I'm not saying and have never said that this is the preferred way to grow large seeded plants, as a matter of fact both CNC and i have repeatedly said that smaller seeds work best. For soys and corn, a seed drill is the way the farmers plant it around here. I understand that everyone is not going to buy a seed drill to plant plots, hell neither am i. I have successfully grown:Buckwheat,sunflowers,all cereal grains,clovers,brassica's,sunn hemp,milo,EW,millet and cowpea's using this method, probably left out a few.

I sure hope farmers aren't using a drill to plant corn!

You guys slay me how you just keep reaching for anything you can find to discredit what some of us are doing….even if you have to just pull something out of left field that’s really not even relevant like your doing here.

Again, I’m not trying to use the throw and mow method to farm high yield corn and beans for profit. I’m #1)…. using it to plant a very functional, low input, year round food plot rotation that accomplishes the goal of continually attracting deer as well as #2)…. improving soil health in the process which in turn allows me to do goal #1 much more efficiently, effectively, and at a lower long term cost. Being that I’m managing for deer and not farming for profit…..I don’t have to grow high cost, high maintenance crops like corn and soybeans. I can accomplish the same deer management goals using much easier options. Options like durana clover for instance…….

Why would that be a problem? There are a lot of fields that are planted in corn and their not plowing them, so i would assume, their using a drill.

I'm guessin' 257WM is refering to the difference in a drill and no-till planter.

Planting fields are one of my favorite parts of land management & deer hunting in general. Glad y'all found a method that works for you. Hope you have as much fun doing it as I do. I definitely agree that no-till is the way to go. An old man once told me, our entire existence depends on a few inches of soil and rain - take care of your soil. I agree

Drilling corn would equal disaster. You have to closely regulate corn population for high yield predominately we use vacuum planters or metered planters. Plus row spacing is critical. I was just letting you know there's a huge difference between drilling and planting.

Mowin ain't plantin I don't care what you says CNC. I plow and spray my fields every year and still get 575 dozen bushels of corn per acre. Now let me see your corn boy!

257, that company phugged up when they hired you . . . . . . . . . You don't know sheeiit about growing corn or soybeans. The best thing to do is just get a bunch of Alabama fans and put em in the back of your pickup and drive through your food plots and let em throw seed corn off the tailgate.

Haha yep they did. I don't know sheeit. Just a poor ole ragged dirt farmer done lost all my topsoil cause all I know how to do is plow plow plow.

257…..Since you seem to want to talk about corn so much, I have a question. How much fertilizer will you apply to your corn this summer?

If my K is still holding strong when I get my soil test back…I’m going to try to grow my summer plot this year with no additional fertilizer inputs other than what you see below. I think it'll probably just be some buckwheat and radish/turnip mix added to the durana clover that will likely bounce back. I don’t think a mix like that will need a whole lot of fert to do well. We’ll see what happens. It may still be a little premature but I’m going to begin weaning myself off of synthetic fertilizers. 257…..wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a way that us food plotters could plant our fields without having to buy or handle all of those bags of 17-17-17 or 13-13-13? What do you think?

Austrian Winter Pea planted last fall



Hairy vetch reseeding from 2013 planting



Crimson, yuchi arrowleaf, durana clover…..crimson reseeding from 2013 planting

I'll put down 40-60-60 at planting then come back at V4-6 with another 80 units of N for top dress. You can't grow higher yielding crops without synthetic fertilizers

Yeah, that’s kind of what the original article was saying as well. Degraded soils require massive amounts of “bought” fertilizer in order to produce a crop. It looks like you are making a good case for that. How much cost in fert does that equate to....$250 per acre??? Will that be for only one crop?


“Degraded soil requires heavy applications of synthetic fertilizer to produce high yields. And because its structure has broken down, the soil washes away easily in heavy rain, taking nitrogen and other pollutants with it into rivers and streams.”

Man you're way out of touch. On both fronts. But it'll cost me $62.50 an acre Mr know it all

It's hard to explain the difference between farming for a living, and growing some weeds for the deer to eat. JFC.

I liked "space donkey" better.

I guess my "degraded" soils last three yield history look like this:
2012- wheat 89bpa followed by 42 bpa soybeans
2013- 63 bpa soybeans
2014- 93 bpa wheat followed by 38 bpa soybeans

Mind you when I bought the farm in 2012 it was in pasture/hay so it took a lot of litter and lime to build it up.

So piss on your "degraded" soil theory

Maybe you get a big discount since you sell the stuff but I don't think any of us out here could even buy 120 lbs of actual N for that price. Seems like a bag of 34-0-0 cost us around $13 or so. 7 bags would be nearly $100 by itself. Are you not giving those numbers in actual lbs of fert?

Yea bill I was gonna save that one for later. You caught me!

CNC I actually buy it from my competitor because my company audits and frowns on us to buy for personal use. If you know how to read fert analysis you'd understand when I say 40-60-60 that's final put on the ground but you don't so it doesn't mean anything to you

The ones that truly don’t know much about the subject are the ones chiming in with nothing more to add than juvenile name-calling. I’m rather enjoying our back and forth though. It’s fun to watch you play out in left with your smoke and mirrors……..

Is that a fact?

Damn, 257 I can't believe you bit again. You should know you can't win. You can pull soil samples, lime and fertilize per sample , have record yields, don't matter, you're wrong.

you two need to get a room, I'll supply the boxing gloves....

Is this the Clorox on a stump post?

Don’t rush the foreplay Troy…….I’m not through pitchin woo yet. He’s just now gettin heated up.

that price is achievable if it was bulk materials. Bagged fertilizer is going to cost you more. That would be roughly 35 lbs urea 46-0-0. 130 lbs dap 18-46-0 and 100lbs of potash 0-0-60 to the ac

This whole argument is apples and oranges. No way mow & throw is gonna compete with 257s farming methods. It's a lower cost way to establish deer plants. You can not grow high yield corn or soybeans without chemicals. Smother crops will not fully control weeds. Nurse crops will not provide adequate nutrients to maximize yields. Mow & throw is for weekend food plot guys. Not real farming

^^^^^ thank you

I agree with this. I think CNCs method is a very viable solution to food plots and will probably try it this year on a couple of plots. But....if I was farming to make money I'm gonna use what ever I can within reason to get as much product per acre as possible.

I agree. The savings in time, labor, fert, lime, etc…is all pretty substantial in the long term. You can still however, accomplish the same food plot goals as what many others are doing now with much more costly methods in terms of all of the previously mentioned inputs. You say that this method can’t compete with 257’s true farming method but what goals is he accomplishing that I am not by spending so much more to “farm” his deer plots? Is the field below suffering from lack of deer use? Is it suffering from lack of forage? I’m merely suggesting that these things can be accomplished through much simpler, more efficient means than what others are promoting to do.. If I can use a method that accomplishes these same goals without using any fertilizer or herbicide as well as saving half the tractor time…then it looks like that would be something that any food plotter would find interesting. I’m sure some will still continue to suggest that it isn’t possible though and the only way to do it is to apply heavy amounts of fert, lime, and plenty of herbicide. Folks are free to choose. I’m just offering an alternative.

Last time I checked this was a hunting forum. Deer aren't counting bpa.

When did you stop fertilizing?

In the process of doing it now. It’s a weaning off process over time as fertility builds in the organic matter that’s created. As an example, the last time I had my soil tested I was still holding 220 lbs/ac of K in my soil…..so this last fall’s crop was able to be grown with no additional potash added. Now that I’ve gotten things established like hairy vetch, durana clover, winter peas, etc. and they are beginning to recycle into the organic matter…..I’m going to begin reducing the amount of synthetic N that I throw out. First trial run with zero nitrogen will be this summer. Probably still a little premature to completely quit but we’ll see how it goes.

This organic matter you see in the pic below is key to making this happen. You can have your organic matter % tested when you send your soil test in to see how much you have present. In the first two years of changing my planting practices, this field has been turned around from less than 1% organic matter to 3.7% now and climbing. Here is another quote from the original aricle………

“Soil health proponents say that by leaving fields unplowed and using cover crops, which act as sinks for nitrogen and other nutrients, growers can increase the amount of organic matter in their soil, making it better able to absorb and retain water. Each 1 percent increase in soil organic matter helps soil hold 20,000 gallons more water per acre said Claire O’Connor, a staff lawyer and agriculture specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.”

I knew if you had stopped, it must've been recently.

If it's one thing that lawyers are known for, it's definitely soil science.

Actually, for every 1% of organic matter increase you gain 18,000 POUNDS more water per acre. Organic matter is able to hold about 90% of it's weight in water. Not gallons. If you really want to improve the water holding capacity of the soil, add silt or clay, that REALLY jumps it up there. Do you know that organic matter actually makes heavy clay soil hold LESS moisture? It works as a buffer of sorts, so the water holding capacity of the soil can be effected both ways by organic matter.

The funnel shaped hole is a nice touch. It makes it look, at first glance like you have 6" of good soil instead of 2" of good soil.

CNC, it's not your methods that bother me so much as, it's your incessant grandstanding of a method that can result in total failure if everything doesn't line up JUST right the first few years.

Most deer hunters have very little time to planting food plots and most don't take the time to pull soil samples or improve their soil. If nothing else, covering seed with soil is the SAFEST way to plant seed.

I have improved a patch of soil that was as sorry as any soil in the state by using tillage to incorporate the organic matter into the soil. The soil has gone from crap to fantastic in 5 years. It involves growing enough quantity and quality of cover crop to have enough organic matter to put into the soil. I could dig holes and post pictures but I don't have an agenda to prove.

Not sure where you're coming from that one but I'll be glad to throw a tape down there for you on the next one.



How are you so sure that it will fail? I'm sure everyone down here in south Alabama remembers how planting conditions lined up JUST right this past fall? We can pull up some old posts if we need to but I recall many food plotters down here having near complete failures or the worst plots that they had ever grown. Does it look like my plot failed? Y'all like to make all kind of claims about what won't work even though you've never done it that way to really know. You'll use one time when you top sowed wheat onto concrete as a comparison.

The next thing you know we're going to have meteorologists coming on here trying to be deer biologists.

Actually, my South Alabama plot did very well this year.

CNC, I think you doing a great diservice to the aldeer members by claiming that you can not lime, till or fertilize and just throw some seed out and bush hog it. That ain't the way it works.

I'm with Fur Flying. Really getting tired of CNC grand standing. If you like to throw and mow do it. I like to no-till drill, use chemicals & fertilize. You are like the Baptist preacher who always wants to sing Just As I Am 10 times. One reason I'm now Methodist. We heard you the first 9 times

He kinda sounds like a democrat to me. Keep saying it enough and before too long you believe the BS spewing out your mouth.

I was thinking more like a . . . . . . . . . . . .

This is probably one of the most important statements in the original article….as our peanut gallery has so graciously illustrated for us.

“The greatest roadblock to solving a problem is the human mind,” he tells audiences."

You’ll see lots of naysayers claiming that this won’t work or that won’t work, when the whole time they have never tried it and are only throwing out harsh criticism about what they only assume to be true.

Take last fall for as example. I’m sure most folks down here remember the big rain forecast at planting time that turned out to be a complete bust. A good old-fashioned soaker turned into to not even a drop. I, along with many others, planted our fields ahead of that forecast expecting lots of rain. When it didn’t pan out there were lots of irritated food plotters including myself. Now if you listen to the Three Stooges, they will tell you that a throw and mow planting will fail ….or it just doesn’t work that way…or that conditions have to be JUST right…. or……try that with corn!

However, here is my field just a few days after the non rain event. Its sprouting and beginning to grow despite zero rainfall. All of that organic matter in the top soil combined with a thatch layer over the surface, work in conjunction with one another to hold in thousands and thousands of gallons of water in the topsoil from previous rain events. Therefore, since we have conserved soil moisture leading up to planting time….we are not so desperately dependant on the next rainfall following our planting.. Here again is another picture of what is not possible….