Chufa Damage

I decided to go all out with this little chufa patch:



It is only 1/4 acre - I took time to actually measure it and figure it down to the square foot. I put 150 lbs of 17-17-17 on it and 16 bags of pelletized lime, then used a whole 50 lb bag of seed. Anyone would tell you that was too much of everything except the lime, but I don't think they are too thick. I have seen regenerated chufa fields that were too thick, but I don't think I have ever seen one grown from seed.

There are just too many critters in the woods that love to eat chufas. The turkeys dug up a lot of the seed before they came up, and there were coons in it too. Both will dig up small chufa plants to get the tuber, and they got a lot out of this field. But the varmints still aren't finished with them. I checked today and I am still getting damage. There are a lot of places that look like this:
pic upload

I've always thought this type damage was done by crows. There are no visible tracks, but I can't think of anything else that could do this. I thought I'd ask the aldeer experts.

You're the go to guy on chufa on here and I have no business giving you advice but
600 lbs per acre trip 17 and 200 lbs chufa per acre is a whole lot. I've always thought you want 1 chufa plant per sq foot.
I plant 40-50 lbs chufa per acre and soil test calls for 60 lbs nitrogen per acre. 150 lbs trip 17 would be 102lbs n per acre. That might not be your problem but you can get too much of a good thing

I know you are right, but this soil is really poor. And the thing is, I don't think I will have any more than that one plant per square foot by the time the varmints are finished. You can zoom in on the picture and tell that I don't have that many in a lot of places even now.

50 lbs per acre is what I have always planted, but I have never had a planted field to have a solid stand. And I have found that I lose a lot higher % of the plants to varmints in small patches like this one. This patch is an experiment to see if I can get better production with higher rates of seed and fertilizer. I wouldn't try this on good soil, and it would be too expensive on a larger scale. The pH is real low and even with all the lime I don't think a very high % of nutrients will be available.

Do you agree that crows are causing the damage in the pic?

I've had a bigger problem with coons than crows but every place is different. Crows are evil creatures though and most problems I've had with crows was right after planting

put out a little golden malrin mixed with your favorite soda.

Have you ever laying chicken wire down? It's a lot of trouble but it will help with critters digging it up. Then once it gets established roll it back up--again a lot of work.

If crows are doing this current damage, then chicken wire won't help, of course. It would certainly keep out other critters, but like you said, a lot of work. That's the reason I planted way more seed than normal. I can afford to lose a lot of the plants and still be ok.

So does anyone have an opinion on whether it's crows doing this damage? I have always blamed crows for this type damage, but I've never actually watched one do it.

Made this picture today:



Whatever is doing this isn't slacking up any. They have wiped out every plant in some areas. The worst damage is around the edges of the field, and that makes me wonder if it is really crows. If they would go through the field and take out plants here and there, it wouldn't hurt anything. But they are just focusing on one area at a time and leaving the whole area bare. Could it be squirrels? It is something small enough that it doesn't leave any tracks that I can see.

A shotgun and a case of beer could figure out what it is.

Any change it's turkey?

I had similar damage before and accounted it to squirrels. It never got over 10 yards from the tree line. Completely wiped it out in that zone.

Got a trailcam?

It's squirrels! I see that same damage around the edges of mine PCP and always see squirrels in them digging in those areas. They'll pick up the easy ones like that then you'll see narrow holes at a 45° about the size of a golf ball as they start digging deeper.

Thanks, I am starting to think I have falsely accused the crows.

Hojo, it isn't turkeys. They scratched up some of the seed before it came up and got some after it came up. But turkeys scratch in a very distinctive manner that is easy to spot, and this isn't done that way. Whatever it is, the critter is small enough that it doesn't leave tracks and it digs the tubers out and leaves a cone shaped depression behind. I would take a shotgun and guard the patch, but squirrels are under state protection.

Well, that solves the mystery. I don't have a trail camera here at the house, but we will convict the squirrels without a trial anyway. If only there were something I could do about them.

Preacher-
We planted a patch a few years ago and the turkey got it just like crows in corn. When the sprout came up, they pulled it up and ate the tuber. Just walked down the row, didn't scratch anything but you could see the tracks and got them on camera. I was a good and bad feeling- it was good to know I had enough turkey to eat a 2 acre plot to dirt, but bad feeling not knowing how to make them grow.

That was one of the reasons I quit planting them in rows; turkeys would just walk the row and get every tuber. Of course, the other reason was that my planter was junk and I got tired of fooling with it.

So the crows may have been innocent after all, but 3 of them took a dirt nap anyway this afternoon. If only those squirrels weren't under government protection.

I noticed 5-7 crows in one of my chufa fields on Sunday. The last couple of years they have worn my chufas out when they are 1-4' tall. The only thing that has done more damage to the chufas at times is the 250lb lone boar I wandering around. In 3 yr we have only gotten 3 pics of him but there is always sign in random places of him but he is very smart.

My ol Pappy told me that if you hang the dead crows up by their feet in at the edge of the field, it would stop other crows from coming in.

What about one of those squirrel traps that Wilborn outdoors advertised? Just "relocate" them.

Koro traps and peanuts! You'll catch several a day if you're there to remove and reset the traps.

That definitely works. My dad had a pecan orchard and crows would come in by the hundreds when they were mature. He would have a big hunt every year and hang the ones we killed by limbs and they would abandon the place.

My little patch has grown a lot in just 4 days. It also serves double duty as my redneck sporting clays range. I was shooting this morning and a crow had the nerve to fly over and see what the shooting was about. He was about 50 yards and only dusted him with #9 shot. Gotta believe I at least ruined his morning.

I bought a squirrel trap years ago when I had squirrel dogs and tried to catch one to use for training. I never could get one to go in it. Then a neighborhood kid stole it and I didn't try again.

I'm thinking the chufas are getting big enough that the nutrients in the tubers should be about gone. Turkeys usually give up digging them when they get over 4" high; maybe the squirrels will give up soon.

I think this is a learned behavior by the squirrels, and they will pass it on to the next generation. I probably need to eliminate this generation come squirrel season.

Squirrel season is just for dumpling squirrels. You've got nuisance squirrels. That season runs year round in Marshall county.

12 month season on nuisance squirrels, coons, possums and feral cats

The little experimental chufas patch continues to do well. It could use a good rain now, but the plants are still pretty healthy:



They aren't gonna get real tall in this poor soil, but should still make a lot of chufas. They are around the 60 day mark now and some plants are flowering. I pulled up a flowering plant just to see what it looked like and was surprised to see it already had a lot of tubers:



I have seen chufas that looked really healthy not produce a single tuber until they hit the 90 day mark, so I have no idea why this plant has produced some so early. I think there is still a lot we don't understand about chufas. If I ever get my appointment as the Turkey Czar I am gonna give Auburn a billion of taxpayer dollars to do a chufas study. And I am gonna blackmail Monsanto until they produce a RR chufa.

60 days, That's great!

Could it be they are producing lots of tubers early due to being stressed ? Similar to drought stressed oaks producing a bumper crop of acorns ?

Could it be they are producing lots of tubers early due to being stressed ? Similar to drought stressed oaks producing a bumper crop of acorns ?[/quote]

I don't think so. They aren't really stressed all that much. It's been a decent year for rain, and all the lime and fertilizer has made the field reasonably fertile.

I've had years when they were stressed far more than this and still didn't start producing this early. They are gonna make a decent crop even if it doesn't rain in the next month, and should make a great crop if it we get rain

The heavy seeding rate seems to have worked out well because of all the seed I lost to varmints. On a larger field, I think they would have been too thick.

They look good Mr. Steve. Watch the varmints now that they're putting on. We've had some smaller patches like that dang near completely wiped out by coons and squirrels. Seems like there's a cut off between when they start putting chufas on and maturity that the critters actually leave them alone then all of a sudden they'll hit them really hard.

Trust me you do not want RR chufa. Nutsedge is already giving us enough trouble as it is and gly isn't the answer.