Going up to camp this weekend for a couple days, and have access to some sunn hemp seed. Was wondering if I could mow our existing wheat fields that are tall, and sew the sunn hemp into the bush hog wheat cuttings? Would this work well enough to benefit the deer/soil?

I would sew the seed, and then mow the wheat down over the top. I actually top sewed some sunn hemp, into dead thatch and was pleased with the germination rates.

I hope you have better luck than me. I planted mine the last weekend in June had two rains that weekend and three sprinkles since. What came up is either dead or the deer ate for the most part.

Sunn hemp is a slow starter, but comes on strong around the 30 day mark. I always plant my plots in May for 2 reasons. Spring rains, and to coincide with the spring greenup. This allows the woods to be full of food, and allows your plots to flourish with limited browse pressure. Habitat improvements to native forages will help food plots in the long run. If deer are wearing out your plots in May or early June, then your native forage is not where it needs to be. They typically don't start hammering my plots until after the 4th of July.

I wouldn't try establishing a plot this late in the summer. You're not setting yourself up for very high success rates planting at this time. Its really been hot and dry down here lately. Showers have been really hit and miss. I think I've gotten two half inch rains in the last month while some folks have gotten some decent rains.

So I need to rant just a little bit because there is something that’s starting to get under my skin concerning this method. Don’t anyone take it personal because its not directed at any one individual.

Although this method is very simple in the steps preformed…..the principles go much deeper and one needs to have a good understanding of those principles before just throwing out some seed and then proclaiming……”I tried it….It doesn’t work….I’ll never do it again.” Thank God people like Edison didn’t take that approach with things like the light bulb or we would all still be in the dark. (pun intended)

So far the success rate that I’ve seen from people trying this method is pretty good. Of course as to be expected, there are some folks who have failed or had minimal success. Again, I fully expect that to happen. Its just the way things go when doing something new and its perfectly acceptable. The part that gets under my skin though, is when the ones who have failed immediately jump to conclusions and say “This doesn’t work!”…..but if you start asking them questions like

What seed did you plant?….Is this the first planting following tillage?…..How is the soil surface, does it still have a hard crust?……Have you had a soil test?…..etc…etc..

Once you start asking these questions then you start getting answers like:

“Oh, I just broadcast oats for my first attempt on a previously tilled plot that has a hard crusty surface and I didn’t get good results”

So was it the method or was it the person driving the tractor?......


The first and most important step in this whole process is the ability to be able to look at your own individual plot and assess the situation through a set of eyes that can see the whole picture…..and the next step is to understand the tools that you have at your disposal. Cereal rye is a big one, especially in the beginning. From there you begin to turn the process around. It doesn’t mean that everyone will be able to plant the best plot of their lives on the first attempt. In most cases, we are working on fixing something that’s broken. Depending on what’s broken about your water and nutrient cycle…..it will take some time to fix it…..and the very beginning of the process will likely be the uglier and more trying times. If your soil surface is as hard as concrete due to past tillage, then its going to take putting down a good thick layer of thatch and giving it a little time before the soil surface softens up. After a little time though, you will notice that your soil surface will turn from hard and crusty…to soft and fluffy, very similar to potting soil. Once this happens, then your ability to germinate seed on the soil surface by merely broadcasting and covering it with thatch will increase. I got corn to sprout this summer so its hard for me to believe someone when they say they tried milo and this method just doesn’t work. The real culprit is they just didn’t understand the principles and simply went out to broadcast seed on top of the ground expecting 100% success.

Rant over.

Here's the paper towel like surface I'm now germinating my seeds in. Does anyone have an issue getting a seed to sprout between two paper towels?

Yea, what he said! Very well said, you took the time to explain it, to where everyone should understand it. People don't like change, they resist it.

CNC,

I'm thinking of taking this route for our plots in the future. Here's a quick run down of our plots current state.

-We typically plant a crimson clover, buck forage oats, Austrian winter pea, and wheat plot in the fall and an iron/clay pea plot in the summer.
-we currently have a sunflower and I/C pea mix in all fields
-our soil is a sandy loam that has been tilled for 20 years for food plots (low OM)
-I had a soil test conducted of all of our plots this past spring, but have yet to lime

Are my current plot mixtures throw and mow friendly? If not, do you have any recommendations on altering them?

Can I throw a fall mixture this coming October and mow my current I/C pea plot on top for thatch and expect decent results?

Should I spread lime this summer or wait a year or two to build some OM so I can retain the Ca?

Here is the same advice I gave someone else who asked a very similar question. For anyone wanting to start this method…..here is what I think is the simplest and most effective way of getting started. Looking back, its what I would have done back in the beginning if I knew then what I know now after experimenting.

I would start the method in the fall with a mix of 75 lbs cereal rye, combined with 10-15 lbs of a mixed clovers including red & white clover. So far I’ve found crimson, yuchi arrowleaf and durana to all be good. 1-2 lbs each of purple top turnips and diakon radishes, 3-5 lbs hairy vetch, and 15-20 lbs of Austrian winter peas. This is lbs per acre. This mix is going to serve as a “primer” for our soil or help to jump-start it. Its going to take time though because remember we have to feed this cover crop to our soil before it starts turning around. Go ahead for the first initial planting and lightly till one more time so to insure that you get this “primer” crop well established.. Use this time to incorporate any lime or fert amendments that a soil test may call for and plant your mix. If you have a pH in the upper 5’s to low 6’s then you can get by waiting a year before adding lime so that you will have more topsoil. It wouldn’t hurt a thing though if you wanted to go ahead and throw out a few hundred lbs of bagged lime per acre just to help the ship start to turn.

Next…..I would not plan on spending money the following summer on a big mix of summer “crops”. Instead, I would take that money and put it toward simply supplying the required amounts of nutrients to the plot to help begin bringing up the fertility….maybe in application intervals of every 2-3 months (give or take depending on soil) in small doses. When spring comes, I would let the mix completely mature….. mow it….add a little more fert….then let it do whatever it wants to do for the first summer. Mow maybe once during the summer if need be to keep it under control and to keep it young and tender. Don't mow during drought periods. You should have a diverse mix of weeds, clovers, and grasses. If you want to mix in something, then just throw in something cheap, very browse tolerant and something with a small seed. Milo is a good option.

The reason I think its probably just as well to let it go for the first summer is because you are still going to have bare soil at this point underneath your canopy of green rye, hairy vetch. etc. following the previous fall's tillage. This bare soil surface is still not going to be an ideal environment for a seed to germinate on and not the crop you ultimately want to “judge”. The standing mature crop that will be mowed down in spring will be the first layer of thatch across the bare soil. Just allow it to do its thing for the first summer and allow nature to grow a summer cover crop that is much more suited to the degraded bare soil environment. By the following fall, your soil surface should start looking a lot different. It should start softening up and becoming more like a potting soil or a paper towel. Once this happens and you start forming a layer of topsoil on the surface, then it will be much easier to get seeds to sprout by broadcasting and mowing. If my soils were degraded and nutrient poor, then I wouldn’t bother trying to grow “finicky” summer crops until fertility and soil function have been turned around. Take the mentality of using your time and $$$ toward growing long term fertility and not just toward growing one summer crop in 2015. This is summer two for me and I’m seeing what I would describe as a motor that we’re rebuilding just starting to spit, sputter and try to fire up. I think next summer she'll sound a whole lot better. Again this will vary from person to person but I would say year 3-5 is a very reasonable goal for starting to actually grow good "crops" that don’t require so much luck, hope and $$$ to get good results.

BTW.....I probably should have added that next fall you will begin your first true throw and mow planting. Make sure if you do mow any next summer to do so early on and well ahead of fall planting. You want to have plenty of time to allow for regrowth before you plant. I would probably just let it go and not mow it unless you anticipate it getting over chest high. It will be this summer crop that will be your hay covering for the fall throw and mow planting. A little over waist high is about ideal if its not thin. You should be able to cut way back on next falls seed rates. You can always add in more depending on how things looked in the summer but you shouldn't have to reseed the hairy vetch or the clovers. They should have went to seed and come back on their own....durana being a perennial. You never see anyone reseeding crimson clover on the road sides.

I'm going to play around with not spraying before fall planting but to be safe...for now plan on spraying your summer weed cover crop a few weeks before next fall's planting with gly to nuke everything. At planting broadcast 75 lbs rye and 2-3 lbs of brassicas into the thatch, then mow it down. From that point on just keep transitioning from crop to crop by broadcasting more seed and fert followed by mowing adding any new plants along the way that you find useful. Time your mowings to work with the crops. Let your clovers go to seed before mowing so that it provides you seed, wait for the rye to mature so that mowing terminates it, etc. Good luck!

I’ve been playing around with several different kinds of plantings just to see what all we can do with this method. This powerline has been my “do nothing” area this summer and its very similar to what you probably want your field to look like the first summer instead of trying to grow “summer crops”. I only used cereal rye and durana in this area so you will likely have a little more diversity….but for the first summer the most important thing to do is to get your soil covered. You can see what’s left of the cereal rye stalks. When the seed heads matured and dried out, the deer absolutely hammered them, The reason you see the rye left in patches like that is because the deer beat trails everywhere in it to get to the seed heads.



By the deer coming in to virtually “mob graze” the seed heads, they beat down a lot of the stalks and grass and allowed the clover to come through. I still have lush clover in this area in the heat of July. Sometimes all we need to do is get out of nature’s way.

You need a good herd of hogs to help with that clover. Finally got a chance to mow mine after spraying a few weeks ago. Now it's full of hog crap. At least they are not rooting in it.

Did get a chance to put a little 4-12-12 on it. That's only thing feed store had in a low N fertilizer.

They're only about a mile from me by the way the crow flies...maybe even closer....and there's a creek drainage coming straight from them to my property. I havent seen them yet but I suspect that one day I'm going to have some wander in here. Its going to be ugly for them when they do.

Something else I guess I should have mentioned about those last couple pics.....the wabbits are lovin the powerline area right now and all those clumps of rye. I'm seeing them around the edge going in and out pretty regularly.

I've been keeping up with you post here and the other site. Bit the bullet yesterday. Spread 250 lbs of buckwheat and 50 lbs of sun hemp in to my plots that were planted with wheat/oats/cereal rye/crimson/arrowleaf/durana last fall. I was waiting for my arrowleaf to head out and die to do this. I would have preferred to use more desirable "deer" crops but I wanted to use something that grows in poor soils/conditions to help my chances for the first round. Spread it all yesterday and its raining now....so I am waiting on a window with no rain today to bush-hog everything down on top of it. I put out 0/20/20 with it....thought was not to use N for fear I would promote weed growth. Let me know your thoughts on what I'm doing and feel free to recommend/critique things. I know I am late doing it....one more reason I chose the BW and SH. Thanks.

Note added..my primary goal is to improve the soil for my Fall planting. If the deer will eat the sun hemp that is a bonus. Don't know if they will touch the buckwheat.

Did you spray to nuke everything? My concern with trying to plant right now without doing so would be getting regrowth from the already established summer weeds and grasses and it out competing the new seedlings.

What kind of soil are you dealing with? What’s the current conditions of the soil like on the surface and as you dig down? Have you had a soil test done yet? Have you ever dug a hole to look at the soil profile? How deep do you have to go before hitting a solid clay layer? Some good things to begin to look at.....

You know now that people have starting trying this….I have kinda been rethinking how I think an agronomy system like this should be used or how we should approach implementing such a system.

Up until this point it has kind of been randomness I guess you could call it….. folks trying this and that with all levels of success. One person saying….”I’m going to try an EW screen with it”…..another person saying “I’m going to try such and such BOB mix on the back 40 plot”…..etc……What I’m getting at is that the majority of people have moslty had the focus on one “test run” instead of being focused on an overall step by step plan of action for this planting, the next one, the next one, and the next one. If you want to use a system like this then you need to have a game plan that extends well beyond just a single initial planting. You need to assess your soil’s current state and then develop goals from that starting point that address current needs and then future needs. You want decide what do I need to accomplish in the first year, the second year….in 5 years…..and finally in terms of general long term maintenance. Ask yourself questions like, why am I planting this crop (or not planting) and what will my transition into the next one look like? Your goals for starting out will be much different than those 3….5…and 10 years down the road. Set realistic goals for years 1-3 that are geared toward fixing and improving the soil.

I sprayed two weeks ago, with the exception of one field that I didn't plan on doing. Spur of the moment added sun hemp to plan for that field when buying everything yesterday. Not ideal but I may spray it right after I cut it....better than not doing at all??

Soil varies. Fields that have been planted in the past are decent. Some are new fields I am establishing which are old logging decks and soil stinks. Need a bunch of lime but can't get dry enough to get spreader truck in. Using pelletized lime but it's a drop in the bucket of what I need. Need to dig down in soil haven't done that.

I would definitely encourage you to dig a hole and check out your soil profile. The more you know about your soil and the more familiar you are with it, then the better informed decisions you can make. Get to know its capabilities and limitations.

Good luck with your planting. Take some pics if you can. It always helps to be able and see what someone is describing. Hopefully we'll stay in a wet pattern and you'll have success. I'm proud to finally see some rain again. We were bad dry.

On the idea of making a long term plan…..one of the more important things to take into consideration when deciding what to plant is the ratio of grasses, broadleafs, and legumes in your mixes. Grass species are what provide the majority of the carbon that feeds the soil. Carbon is what eventually turns into the black topsoil that we want to see present. You need to make sure that overtime, grasses make up around 70% of the total crop rotation. This is what helps us achieve a net gain of OM over time. As an example, if all you are growing on a plot is clover, then you aren’t producing enough carbon to keep up with the rate of decay in the soil and over time you will get a net loss of OM content. Just think about the physical difference in a stalk of clover as compared to something like a stalk of corn. The corn stalk is nearly like a small stick of wood, providing the soil with sustenance in terms of long term organic matter…meat and potatoes. Clover does have its place though, once things are running right then it becomes like a catalyst that fuels the system with organic N.

So that being said…..long term, I would consider doing something more than just a buckwheat planting or a only a clover planting or even something like a BW, sunflower, cowpea planting. I’m not saying I wouldn’t plant them…..BW is actually something I’m wanting to try too…..I think what you need to do is sit down first though and figure out what you want to be your summer “grass” specie. Buckwheat is a warm season broadleaf. Clover a legume. Sunflower a broadleaf, etc. If you only grow this type of plant species then you are missing the most important component that’s suppose to make up 70% of the mix….a warm season grass specie....or really most importantly, a specie with a high carbon to nitrogen ratio (C:N Ratio). When you plan your mixes and long term rotations you need to think….warm season grass-warm season broadleaf-warm season legume……cool season grass-cool season broadleaf-cool season legume. things like buckwheat are good crops and play their role in the mix but we don’t want to ignore having a right mix of all three needed components.

So far the most important plants that have played a roll in turning my soil around have been cereal rye (cool season grass) and crabgrass (warm season grass). It may sound odd to think that crabgrass is playing a vital role in my soil rebuilding process but if our focus in the first couple years is to simply get the ship turned around and headed in the right direction…..then crabgrass will work better for my summer grass”specie than pretty much any other crop type grass that I could try and plant in these degraded conditions…speaking of things like milo, corn, EW, etc. Most of these type plants have been bred for food production and cannot compete with things like crabgrass when it comes to doing a job like initial soil stabilization. Once the soil has been restored to a more fertile and functional state, then “crop” plants will be able to compete. Then it’s a matter of timing and giving them the head start.

This is just something to think about as well as an example of how in order to really be successful at something like this….then you will have to begin to think a little bit outside of the box from our traditional methods. It will require that you have an open mind and see things like a field full of crabgrass, weeds, and clover as successfully achieving our year one summer goals instead of the negative view we normally take with such sights.

Here is a good read on Sunn Hemp. Its considered a legume with a high C:N ratio that produces a significant amount of biomass. This is one of the reasons its becoming popular. Its helping to accomplish several goals in one plant.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/64200500/csr/ResearchPubs/price/price_12b.pdf