10/19/2019 Year #3 Throw n Mow in the books

I haven’t made it out to check on my field yet, but I will say this. The seed that accidentally spilt out in the back of my truck. Is growing good and looks awesome!!! I can’t hardly wait on checking my field in a couple weeks! I just know it’s gonna be looking good! And be up good by the time rifle season gets here!

I had planned to get the tractor to the lease this year and plant but never could get it there. So instead of seeding then disking over them to cut the thatch down and break up the soil some. I ended up dragging a big steel pipe over them after seeding no spraying or anything. They were up pretty good last weekend I had hayman at a loss when he saw them. He couldn’t believe they looked as good as they did. My camera on my phone is messed up so no pics but he took a few.

It was just some cheap mix... but I thought it was cool knowing it should be growing good at the club!

It'll definitely throw folks for loop when they see it with their own eyes. It has them start to question everything they ever knew about farming or planting food plots and it blows their mind. At some point you ask yourself...."So why did we go to all the trouble of doing all that other stuff to begin with?"

Ok they look like chit but there is a good bit of grass spouting up through all the stuff that should have been Bush hogged and disked in. There are also a lot of seeds that were starting to sprout. It’s kinda hard to see what’s going on because the grass hasn’t fully penetrated all the weeds and dead grass but in another week they will be much thicker and for a minimal effort they will attract deer.

T&M plots aren't supposed to be pretty. Looks like you have good thatch and germination. Give it 2 or 3 weeks and it will look like a disked greenfield

Whats wrong with them? That looks like great germination.....Are you saying they look like chit because you want them to look pretty and neat? All of that above ground vegetation will get incorporated into the soil without a bushhog and disk. That's what the microbial community does. Give it a month and lets see how it looks. As droughty as its been I'd be happy to have all of that moisture holding thatch on top of the soil and a disk having never touched it.

It’s just not what I’m used to seeing. I’m not saying that it’s not going to work because it’s definitely working. As a matter of fact it was working better than the plots we disked until we got some much needed rain. I might tinker with the idea on a plot or two but I am not sold just yet. I want to see how they look later in the season.

I well. I. I just can’t comment.

What do you anticipate could go wrong from this point? All he needs to do now is hit it with some nitrogen if he hasn’t already and put out some exclusion cages to show how much browsing pressure is taking place. I can go ahead and tell you what it’s gonna look like from having done this for 8 or 9 years now. All of that thatch is gonna continue to degrade and lay down on the soil surface. A month from now all you’ll see is green assuming the deer haven’t eaten it to a nub. That’s why an exclusion cage is important. A lot of times people assume failure when what really has a happened is that its just been eaten up.

Glad you killed one of our pigs lol. Mind me asking how big that front loader is so when I show this to the guys I hunt with I’ll know?

Just wondering what is going to happen to the seed that are not rooted in the ground yet. Will they fail and die or will the roots find something to burry into with nutrients? There were quite a few seeds that didn’t have a sprout of grass but had fairly long roots just exposed. In my mind those seeds are doomed. Hopefully I will Be proven wrong but time will tell.

Seed that has soil contact will send the root into the soil. Yes, any seed that sprouts and cant get soil contact will be doomed. So what? I add a little extra seed just for that reason. I don't need a $30,000 tractor and a $60,000 super duty truck to pull it with to have nice food plots, but apparently some need that. If I was farming for a living, I would have a drill like 257, but i'm not farming for a living and so i'm not about to spend the money on a drill. Let me ask you naysayers a question. Have you ever had a bald spot in your yard? How did you fix it? You probably went to the store bought some grass seed, put it down, covered it with hay and watered it, right? Well that's T&M in a nut shell.

We used to basically throw and mow cover crops from an airplane and just let crop fodder lay on it after harvest. After several dry falls that method left skippy stands and undesirable waste of seed. Now we spread after crop is off and cover with turbo tills for ensuring seed to soil contact. And the summer stuff I just couldn’t stand to see all the pigweeds and nightshade go to seed. That’ll present trouble on down the road. I do live by no till. Tillage has its place as said before to fix drainage issues. There’s extremes to everything I’ll keep no tilling my plots. Best of both worlds.

Take a hay bail and sprinkle some seeds on it and wet it down. The seeds will sprout and grow like crazy as long as it stays moist. Same concept. Some of those roots will eventually make it to the soil and then start searching out the soil for nutrients.

FEL is 5ft wide....He filled it up too. I had looked down for a second or two when it came out and when I looked back up I was like "Damn is that a bear?!?!"

This is just from personal observation but I think the presence of mycorrhizal fungi help play a big role in helping to get those seeds established. If you’re not already familiar with m. fungi then I’d highly recommend googling the term and reading some about it. I believe it probably took somewhere in the neighborhood of 4-5 years for them to return naturally to my field once I stopped heavy tillage. They actually make some products now though that allows you to basically inoculate your field with them without having to wait for them to return naturally. I think this is probably something that many folks would benefit from going ahead and doing instead of waiting. I think it would probably improve germination and productivity.

Something you need to ask yourself as well when looking at his field is…..”What are we comparing his results against?”……Are you looking at it as if he would have otherwise achieved 100% germination and 100% seedling survival had he just disked and made a nice seed bed?? In good strong dirt this might be the case….but in marginal and poor soils like many folks are dealing with its not. What I commonly see as I travel around tracking is very sparse stands in fields that have been disked. The reason why is not because of germination though. I suspect they achieved pretty good germination rates. What I attribute their sparse stands to is poor seedling survival rates. The seeds may germinate and start to establish….but because of the harsh conditions they’re trying to grow in…..a good portion of the liitle seedling die. Think about it….a field of plowed sand is nothing more than a small desert.

That, and people cover small clover seeds and brassica seeds too deep.

I got to thinking more about it.....I'm pretty sure that I've read somewhere about using dried molasses to boost the microbial activity. Basically giving them a dose of sugar. This might be a beneficial additive for that reason as well. Maybe it would cause them to mineralize a few more nutrients right at planting time or something....or help with the biomass thats about to be put to the ground. I believe it may be something worth trying. I'm gonna run by the feed store and see how much a 50 lb bag cost.