Chufa starting to wilt.

What now?

when did you plant them? takes roughly 100-110 days to fully mature

July 10th. I guess my question is do you just leave them alone till Feb and then disc a row or 2 up? do they sit dormant till then? They made really well, pulled a couple up and their full of the little nuts in the root ball.

you just leave them, the first frost will kill them. they will make chufas until that point as long as they have enough nutrients. You can't give them enough nitrogen. if you have pulled some up, I'd throw them somewhere away from the fields so you don't attract the animals too soon. start discing a lane or two in February to get the turkeys on a routine

It's normal for the tops to start wilting after the plants are over 100 days old and especially if the weather is dry. If you have made a good crop then don't be concerned. The tops of mine in Coosa Co are completely dead. The ones in Perry are still alive, but they were planted later and are in much better soil.

I've noticed that tops die much quicker in poor soil, but even then they make ok if they get rain. I've made good crops this year; been one of the best years ever for growing chufas. Others on here have posted that turkeys have been slow to find a new patch, but it's never been a problem for me. I think they have about wiped out my field in Coosa already.

Mine are all dead and between the turkeys and one lone boar hog they have raked my fields about clean.

I have a good stand of Chufa despite the weeds that came through after my initial Cleth/Milestone application. i walked through and spot checked plants and am please with the tuber production throughout the 2 acres. Should I care that the grass/chufa/weeds are calf to knee high? I don't know why but I really want to bushhog them. I can't see it hurting the chufa as they are about 120 days old now. This patch is probably the only patch in a 5 mile radius and probably one of the first ever in same radius. Turkeys have, I assume, no idea what or how to eat them. I want to help them all I can. Also to my knowledge the only other critter in the area that would eat them would be raccoons and crows(once plowed?) Thoughts?

Deer will eat them too, if they ever figure it out and get started on them. I don't know what bushhogging the field would accomplish, other than making you feel good because it looks better. I honestly don't know if the chufa tops help the turkeys located them better or not. If you have many turkeys in the area, once they find them they are gonna wipe out all the weeds and grass. The only time I've ever bothered to bush hog a field after it matured was when I once had a big crop of sicklepod and I wanted to take the tops off before it made seed. But that was before I started using Milestone; it zaps sicklepod.

If I were you, I'd be happy that the turkeys haven't found them yet. If they don't find them until later in the year, they might still be using the patch when the season opens.

thanks PCP. I'll hold off the urge. In the area, we have turkeys but not a dense population. I feel almost certain that it will require a disced strip to find them but I was gonna wait till later in the year or possibly January to do it and hope that they were still there in the spring.

I'm not saying this is a good idea or not but this year (sometime this winter) I am going to burn off my Chufa fields. The turkeys around my place come running to smell of smoke (or at least it seems). I planted more chufas this year than I have turkeys to eat. Like PCP mentioned I made a bumper crop of chufas. One new field (approx. 3 acres) is loaded with chufas, I am seeing 8 hens and 2 gobblers daily in there now.

I am hoping once I burn all of my fields off the turkeys will be in heaven for several months.

interesting idea...

I planted some about that time and they are done. I'd leave them alone for now. If the turkeys don't figure them out you can disc a couple of strips. Once they start on them, they won't leave them alone until they are gone