South AL Food plots

Just wondering what seed types/mixes you guys are using. Our place is primarily sandy soil gallberry flats (just like 80% of the bottom of AL). We have 6 plots averaging about 2 ½ acres each. We’ve always mixed rye/wheat/oat in the past. I’d like to use something with more nutritional value and that could actually draw some deer, not just sustain them. We’ve failed miserably with small attempts at clover and I was considering cutting the rye out and replacing with radishes/turnips. Suggestions?

Australian camel turnips. Do it.

I considered swapping over to that Super Skunk that you Citronelle boys grow, but I don't think we could handle the browsing pressure.

I use oat/wheat/rye combo as well. But I also mix in about 5 lbs of crimson clover and about 1/4 lbs or so of turnips (if I can remember the turnips). My measurements are based on 1 acre. I think the most important thing to do down here with our sandy soil is to put the fertilizer to the patches. I fertilize during planting then again around X-mas and with the extended season it would not hurt to do it towards the end of January.

Paging CNC...........

Lol, on a serious note, I plant oats, clover, rape, turnips, and sometimes wheat for better cover in Citro. Like said above, I think fertilizer plays the greatest role in our plot success. 300 pounds per acre is what I shoot for.

I've had good luck with the Australian winter peas mixed with oats then overseed with wheat/turnips/rape and kale.

Just remember our sandbeds don't grow anything without fertilizer.

We have good luck with a mix of wheat , oat , Ebon rye. Add to it 2# Rape and 2# purple top turnip. We buy the feed wheat ,and feed oat to hold down cost. For small plot ,say .5 acre ,I would use 2 bags feed wheat , 1/2 bag feed oats ,1 bag of Ebon rye OR Wrens Abruzzi .
If you don't have many plots to do or if the cost ant that important ,you could buy the bags of 3 way mix.( wheat , oat ,rye)

On sandy soils, you need to build up your OM, so it can hold moisture. First, if you disk, stop. You need biomass to build OM, and nothing does it any better than cereal rye. Throw in some oats and try crimson clover, and CNC like's yucchi, i'm going to try it this year. Pea's, will get decimated quickly, so if you plant them, don't expect them to last long. Increase your planting rates.

North, Where are you getting your Austrian Winter Pea, I can't find any locally?

Is there a food plot in distress???

I have very sandy soil too so I feel your pain. Growing in poor soil conditions can be tough. What many folks ultimately lack as a result is good plant health and vigor. This is the missing link for many of us that keep our plots from being the magnet we want them to be. Plant health and vigor is ultimately tied to the health and fertility of the soil, although one can achieve plant vigor through adding lots of fertilizer……. but without also focusing on the basic principles of good soil health, then ultimately much of that fertilizer is wasted. The stuff costs way too much these days to allow half of it to wash down the ditch or not be able to be taken up by the plant due to nutrient imbalances. Sandy soils with low CEC values are just not capable of holding and delivering large amounts of fert. This is why working on improving your soil’s organic matter content becomes important. The CEC value of my base soil is around 4 ish…..the estimated CEC value of decomposing OM is around 150. Let me just stop there on soil health for now.

I’d recommend using cereal rye as the majority of your mix…..75-100lbs per acre. It does much better on poor sandy soil’s than other cereal grains. Mix in some yuchi clover or some crimsons clover along with some purple top turnips. Concentrate on fixing the soil.

Have you has a soil test done?

iron clay pea,s draw deer better than anything else in S.E. Al. But there not cold tolerant and will get deimated. Other than that there really isn't one seed that makes them come a runnin. So I feel that variety helps. Generly rye/wheat/oat then spread a little clover and radishes. sometimes turnip,kale,rape maybe a few sweet beats. I have planted diffrent plots using r/w/o and adding one or two of the other seeds. Couldnt tell were one had more browse than the other. So I am a fan of r/w/o with crimson clover. It cost way less. ferterlize prior to planting.

We have one plot that's really sandy, but in a great location. We've been experimenting with several mixes and had our best plot last year with rye grain and crimson clover. This year, we're probably going to skip disking and simply bush hog, spread fertilizer & seed and cultipack.

A friend of mine here in Dothan has a mixture that worked very well for me last year. It comes in 49# bags. 10# wheat, 15# oats, 10# triticale, 5# Daikon Radish, 9# Aus winter pea. It worked very well on my land around Luverne. Some sandy & loamy soils. Its called Kleins Choice. He has all kinds of liquid fertilizers & Lime. Since so many of us deer farmers has difficulty getting Lime and buggys from the COOP.

Good info.

Normally, I’ll turn the patches under a couple of weeks before we plant. Then we typically pour the 13-13-13 to it when disc’ing & planting. I’ll have balls deep green grass till December… and a light green rug by February.

And no, I haven’t done a soil test. I know I need to though. Are the test kits at Walmart worth buying?

I've never tried them but its only $7 or $8 to send one to the Auburn soil labs. That's what I'd recommend. Here is the link.......

http://www.aces.edu/anr/soillab/

Just to help out a little bit. This site explains what CNC was talking about pretty well. It goes past where he left off because he didn't want to type a bunch or confuse anyone but it is important to understand if you truly want to get food plotting down to an art.

Link for CEC info

I plant the same in South AL as I do in West AL. It's worked very well.

Cereal grains grown on well fertilized, pH adjusted plots, have all the protein a deer needs to do well in the winter. They also produce tons of forage per acre where some of the fu fu dust magic deer crap seed doesn't.

Bucky I get mine at our local hardware store in Chatom.

The deer kept my fields grazed down but there were 30 and 40 head a night feeding in them and they lasted throughout the season.

A little of both..... There’s just no simple and short way to answer the question. Even if we fully explain CEC then there’s still any one of a number of other aspects of soil health that we would need to go into. One of the major ones that I think is important for many to start recognizing is erosion and topsoil loss.

What happens on freshly tilled dirt when a heavy rain comes through? Not only do we lose top soil and fertilizer……but we also lose all the water that should have infiltrated into our soil instead of running into the ditch. This improved infiltration is achieved through having an initial roof of OM over your soil to break up and dissipate the energy of the raindrops a few inches above the soil surface instead of directly on top of it. If rain directly contacts the soil surface then it dislodges tiny soil particles and begins the erosion process. We don’t want that to happen. We want it to slowly infiltrate.

Once the rain drop hits our “soil roof” and shatters into smaller particles, then we rely on soil structure to allow the water to slowly seep deep into the ground. Proper soil structure is achieved through using plant roots as well as the microbial community to create space between soil particles instead of one compact mass…..things like worm tunnels or channels left after radish roots have decomposed. When we begin to put these pieces of the puzzle together then we begin to see an inch or two of rain soak up and disappear into our plot without any problems. The more rain your soil soaks up and the less runoff you have…..and in turn the less nutrient loss you have due to leaching. You also retain more water in your soil for plant use. We also improve soil aeration by improving the structure. Improving your soil involves many aspects…..

The next couple pics are some of my old plantings that show topsoil loss due to heavy rain on freshly tilled soil. To add insult to injury, not only do we lose topsoil and fertilizer but the soil surface also becomes like concrete. Any future rainfall hits the concrete surface and quickly begins running off……no soil structure or roof to allow the water to efficiently infiltrate.





Once you get a roof over your soil and begin to improve soil structure then water infiltration will also improve. This area use to have a solid river of water that flowed all the way through the field coming off the hill behind me. Now the soil is able to soak up most typical heavy rains Not only does the layer of thatch (soil roof) help dissipate the energy of falling raindrops, but its also helps slow down the momentum of flowing water.

You did it anyway

CNC & blumsden - Would the seed mixes listed above work in a "no-till" application? Would I need to spray/spread seed/mow or spread seed/mow/spray?

When to spray, is up to you. If it's really thick vegetation, i would spray before. It helps thin out the weeds and grasses. Of the cereal grains, cereal rye, does the best top sewn, but wheat and oats will do well too. Oats has a larger seed, so i would say they are third. Clovers and brassica's do very well top sewn. I had a friend, who had never planted a food plot in his life, have success last year planting 3, using the spray and then throw method. He sprayed an area, top sewed cereal rye/crimson clover/rape and it did very well. Shot 3 does from the plots in bow season.