Planting Chufas

I'm new to chufas so I need some advice...

I've studied up on them a little, and here's what I've gathered: 40-50 lbs. per acre from May-July at a depth of 1-1.5 inches with 400-500 lbs. of fertilizer.

I have a food plot that I'm planning on converting to a chufa patch. The field is roughly 1 acre in size and is currently a food plot (wheat, rye, peas, & greens) - this field is not very "weedy". We will be using a hopper-type spreader on the tractor (broadcasting) and will use a 4 wheeler drag (section of chainlink fence) to cover it with.

Here's what I'm wondering about:

When do I need to initially disk?

Do you think I'll benefit very much if I spray the plot prior to disking (since it's not very "weedy")?

What type of fertilizer is best suited for this (I've read triple 13 is ok)?

From what I've noticed, our drag usually covers the seed about .5-1 inch deep. Do you think I'll be alright if I drag it twice?

I am with you until the bottom.... I would spray just to kill any excess weeds there might be. I wouldn't drag more than once though. I think that might uncover more than just dragging it once.

Sounds like you are on the right track. A field that hasn't had a summer crop in it recently will usually get by the first year without herbicides; after that, they become essential. I put out about 300 lbs/13-13-13 at planting, and then add 100 lbs of ammonium nitrate after about 60 days.

Planting depth is not critical with chufas, a guy that grows seed for a living told my dad that its impossible to plant them too deep. I just cover mine lightly with the disc.

Won't hurt a thing to disc it several weeks in advance of planting and then again just before planting. The better shape the ground is in, the better the seedbed you'll have. I doubt that spraying the field in advance is gonna help much with weeds. If the weed seed is there, its gonna come up unless you use a pre-emerge herbicide.

The key with chufas is to get rain at the right time. I make great crops when it rains, poor crops when it doesn't. Last year was a bust, the year before was great. Good luck with it.

PM me. im in the chemical and seed business and grew the extensively years ago. I can set you up a program. TMI to type on here.

i agree i wouldnt drag it more than once

I tried my hand at planting chufas last season. I got them in thr ground a little later than I should have (late July), and within weeks of planting both fields were waste high in weeds. So I went back down and bushhogged both fields. When we planted winter crops I went ahead and disked up one of my chufa patches believing they didn't make because I saw no visible sign of them coming up. We planted our winter plot. When I made it to the other field, because it was so large I just planted around the part I put the chufas in. All winter long it lookes like a dead spot and not one turkey was seen in that field all deer season long (although I did hear them fly up with 100 yards of it several times). I went down to the club last weekend and the Hogs had been in the chufa section of my field rooting around.

I want to plant them again, but I don't want a repeat of the waist high weeds again. What do you guys spray that will kill the weeds but not the Chufas?

I'm getting the seed through NWTF, and I'll be using generic Roundup to spray it (probably Ranger, Gly-4, or whatever). We usually spray with a 4 wheeler sprayer - boom mounted to the back rack.

Aw come on...Lay it out there for us all to benefit and enjoy!!

Pre-emergent Treflan is an excellent start and 2-4DB usually works well for most weeds. Post and Fusilade work well for grasses.

If you have hogs on your land, you are wasting your time and money trying to plant chufa. Trust me.,

Muzziehead is sure right on the hogs. If I ever get hogs on my place, that will be the end of my chufa-growing. They will not only eat all the chufas, they will also destroy the field and make craters so deep that you can hardly get a tractor over it the next year. Ironically, the first chufas that were grown here in the US were for finishing hogs. I would have hated to have been the poor guy trying to break the field the next year with a mule.

Chufas are easy to grow in new ground - get the ground in good shape, plant the seed, put out the fertilizer, and forget it. But once you've grown a summer crop on the ground, chufas are a challenge. A good herbicide program is essential. Here's a field from 2009 where I used Command for the PRE and came back over the top with a mix of 2,4-DB and Aim. I got good rains and made a pile of chufas in every field that year, and fed a bunch of turkeys all thru the winter. They had pretty well abandoned them by the time the season came in, but that's normal:


The problem with that herbicide program is that it doesn't do well with sicklepod, and sicklepod, also called coffeeweed, will absolutely ruin a chufa patch. I decided to mix in a cotton herbicide called Cotoran last year. Here's the result:



You can see that the Cotoran did a great job of controlling the sicklepod, but it also severely damaged the chufas. Even so, this stand would have made a world of chufa if it had rained. From the time I made this pic, it went more than 30 days without a drop, then rained an inch or so, and then another 30 days of drought. The result was a yield of almost nothing. But look in the back right of this pic and you will see a narrow band of high weeds in the field. This was a spot where I made an error in putting out the herbicide and didn't overlap properly. The whole field would have look like this without the herbicides.

I've been planting chufas since the 60s, but if anybody has a better herbicide program, I'm all ears. I'm sure not gonna use Cotoran again. All I know to control the sicklepod is to just use the 2,4-DB several times. It won't kill it, but it will keep it stunted enough for the chufas to make.

The combo of command and cotoran might be your problem. Command is pretty rough on sandy soils, typical chufa soil. Cotoran can also be rough look at your labels and see your specific rate for coarse soils it is typically a lower use rate on that type ground. Just a starting point.

That's good advice, and you are exactly right. The damage was worse on the sandy fields. I had talked with the FMC rep before trying Command, and he warned me to use a lower rate on sandy soil. I had some slight damage the first year using Command alone, but a lot of damage last year when using the combo. I could not find anyone who had ever used Command or Cotoran on chufa before, so a lot of it had to be guesswork.

The only reason I used Aim was that he gave me some free. I was trying to control carpetweed with it; didn't work too well, though you can see some that is turning brown in that first pic.

I personally wouldnt try that again! Just holler sometime.

I just found this site and found all the info on chufa very interesting. Control of weeds is the number one problem with chufa, especially if you try to plant year after year. I have been planting for about 40 years, and still have not learned it all. My problem weeds are maypop (passion flower), and ground cherry. If anyone has successfully eliminated these weeds from chufa,please let me know.

Chufa's = Cheating

Chufa is only cheating if you use the plot as a harvest tool, just like feeding corn. I use it to keep turkeys on my land so that they can be hunted. If it were not for chufa, I would have lost about 20 years of turkey hunting when my land was severely clear cut. I personally think that using decoys are cheating, but I lost that battle. I also think "double bull blinds" is cheating, but lots of people use them. I also think super full chokes and 10 gauge guns that can kill a turkey out to 60 yards, is cheating, but I bet you have one. My criteria is to call the turkey into good shooting range and harvest him. The fact that I have chufa on my place somewhere on my place is not cheating.

Can't be too many Selma vets that grow chufas, so welcome to aldeer! There also can't be too many chufa-growing preachers with farms in Perry Co that were dumb enough to have tried Cotoran on chufa, so that tells you who I am.

Don't pay any attention to Yekrut; he's a good guy, but he likes to shoot lost, baby hens in the fall in TN.

>>>Chufa is only cheating if you use the plot as a harvest tool, just like feeding corn. I use it to keep turkeys on my land so that they can be hunted. If it were not for chufa, I would have lost about 20 years of turkey hunting when my land was severely clear cut. I personally think that using decoys are cheating, but I lost that battle. I also think "double bull blinds" is cheating, but lots of people use them. I also think super full chokes and 10 gauge guns that can kill a turkey out to 60 yards, is cheating, but I bet you have one. My criteria is to call the turkey into good shooting range and harvest him. The fact that I have chufa on my place somewhere on my place is not cheating.<<<

Agree 100%! Decoys and blinds make turkey hunting a totally different sport from what it was when I was growing up. And those evil 10 gauges too; sure glad I ain't got one of them. As far as I know, Yekrut doesn't either, but he shoots those wicked Nitros, which is even worse.

I have a 10, but it hasn't been turned loose in a few years. With it and Nitro's the turkey just surrender.

chill, I was just ribbing you.

TSS is really cheating.

>>>TSS is really cheating.<<

Ain't that what n2deer shoots? Poor turkeys have no chance with you guys after them.

Don't try to use redirection to get out of this one, I know you have a stockpile of TSS the size of a 18 wheeler. I bet you even store it in a double bull blind next to your chufa patches

Yekrut, you are gonna give the Doc the wrong idea about me. OK, there might be a few rounds of TSS at my house, but I only use it for cleaner kills on those 15 yd shots I take.

And I don't even own a double bull blind.

And as for the chufas, I seem to have better hunting in years when the chufas don't make. Last year I had a complete failure of the chufas, and knocked out a limit pretty quick. The year before I had so many chufas the turkeys couldn't eat all of them, but they still cleared out about March 1 and I struggled mightily to get a limit. Chufas just feed the turkeys thru the winter and keep them in a safe place. I mainly enjoy the challenge of growing them.

But I'm no idiot about it; if the turkey gobbles in the chufa patch, that's where I'm headed.

Easy on Doc Yekrut ive known him my whole life. He's from the old school as my dad and most all of the older men around selma. They have killed more turkeys than most anyone around these days and killed them mostly before all of this modern technology we have today. heck my dad still says im nuts for shooting a 3.5 but thats his opinion. I know what Lee is saying about his land and we all have chufa patches down there. They arent blessed with the row crop and hardwoods like we have up here and have to maximize resources amongst all the pines now. He's just trying to figure out some weed problems and im gonna help if i can.

I would like to apologize to anyone that has known you their whole life. Lee must be a really good guy. I think I need to see some of these places ya'll are talking about the around the first week of the season this year just to make sure what we are talking about.

I was just ribbing him, I don't have a problem with food plots, 10 gauges, chufa, 3.5's, TSS, or killing hens in the fall. I have done them all but the chufa and TSS and I still have to time to do both before I die.

Its about time for you to make it rain again!!!! I mean last time we talked about it, it rained for two days. Belle Mina's gonna get tough if we dont.

I'll see what I can do.

You happy now? I got 2 showers here at the house this evening.

I'm not a saint , either. I had one old gobbler that stayed in a chufa patch that I passed each day coming back from hunting. I would try to call him down this road out of the chufa patch, but as soon as I called, he would run away out of the patch. Toward the end of the season I had had enough. I slipped around to the edge and shot his sorry butt. I even felt good about it. LOL

I can take good natured ribbing as good as anybody. Lets all have fun while turkey hunting and talking about it.

I've been turkey hunting a little over 50 years. I have killed turkeys just about any way you can kill them, but Calling one up is still the ultimate challenge and thrill.

I know this vet in Selma that probably kills nearly all (of the few he kills) out of chufa patches. The few others are killed at night out of roost trees on the neighbors land. He has also hunted around 50 yrs and owns land in south Dallas co. I am sure it is not you though Welcome to the site, hope you got a kevlar vest

Thank God they are blessed with pines, fire, and more turkeys than most of the rest of state though.

I wouldn't have any idea who that is. I would never hunt turkey at night LOL

I ain't never seen nothing like the turkeys in the pine belt. What's up with the pine comment?

Standard "pines are destroying our wildlife, hardwoods are optimum" comment?

Yeah, I wonder if these people are aware of the extensive longleaf forest and abundant wildlife that inhabited the south a couple hundred years ago?

NO