What (if anything) will you plant this summer? How much $$$ will you spend?....On how many acres?

What are your goals for this planting??.....or in other words....What do you hope this planting will accomplish?

Some type of mix with peas or lab lab as the back bone. I only have a 1 1/2-1 3/4 at the house and will spend around $100-120. My goal is to keep more deer frequenting my fields and giving them a little more protein.

Considering corn and/or beans. Probably spend $300. Around 2 ac. My sole goal is to let it stand for fall to keep deer around. I won't be planting enough to affect deer herd health or antler size.

Undecided. Need something fairly inexpensive and the goal would be to keep the deer around the fields. Any suggestions are welcome.

Sunflowers-dove/deer
Soybeans-deer
Corn-deer/turkeys
Sunn hemp-deer
Milo-deer/dove/turkeys

Considering some iron clay Peas....this will be first summer plot....will be between 1.5-2 acres and will spend approximately $160-180 if I calculated correctly....goal is to keep deee frequenting the plot and feel safer by eating there regularly

Our club usually does IC peas in all the food plots. We usually plant 8-10 acres of corn in 3 different spots.

There is a really good thread in QDMA about planting. Even if you don't adhere to the QDMA philosophy, the information is a good read.

http://www.qdma.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67322

These articles were written by a guy with a screen name of Lick Creek. He is now deceased and the people there condensed his information into one sticky. He did a lot of experimenting with different seeds, planted in different ways.
He uses a lot of mixes and Its a lot of information, but some of it is not for my growing zone. But you can adjust it to meet your needs.

I have 4 plantable acres on 120 total. I know we are the only ones planting summer crops for at least 500acre, if not more. I'm still trying to figure out what I need to do for a balance of health/attraction. Right now I've got clover established in 3 acres, but I don't know if I'd be better with something else mixed in.

Iron & clay peas
Sesame
Corn
Maybe Milo

Millet and sunflowers for doves.

IC peas for deer. We won't improve heard health with the little bit we plant but it won't hurt. Hoping to draw a few new deer in and keep them here for early bow season.

Will plant about 10 acres total.

Sun hemp and IC peas in 4 fields about 12 acres. We had good luck with the hemp last year and it stays ahead of the browse.

One acre of RR soybeans in my winter plot.

That will fit nicely with the 4 acres of Alfalfa that is 200 yards from it, in the same field.

I limed the winter plot and the alfalfa again this fall.

For those that want to try alfalfa, go for it. The RR varieties make it easy to grow. Be advised though, if you don't plan on liming early and often, no need to try it. I put one ton of lime per acre this fall. I planted it in the spring of 2013. I have now put 5 tons of lime per acre on the plot starting in the fall of 2012.

Fur, what causes the demand for that quantity of lime? What is your PH? I'm interested in trying my hand at growing some.

Piss poor soil. The soil had a pH of 5 when I started. I'm trying to keep it between 6.5 and 7.0

I didn't test before the last application, I just put some on the alfalfa patch because we were liming the rest of the field. I don't think it's possible to over lime anything on Sand Mountain.

I think I’m going to keep it pretty simple this summer. My main goal is to have the deer just continue to frequent my field during the off-season and have that pattern of use be a routine part of their life. To take that a step farther, a more specific goal is to recruit young bucks to my plot and bedding areas and allow them to grow up with my plot being a central part of their core area and daily life. I’ve learned over the last few years that in order to make happen I can’t let every doe in the neighborhood take up residence on my plot and in my sanctuaries or there will be no vacancies for the dispersing little bucks to stop and make their core area here.

Right now I have what looks like an excellent crop of crimson, yuchi arrowleaf, and durana clover. I’m going to let it grow through the end of May and then I think I may just broadcast some buckwheat and some turnips/radishes into the field….mow it…then let it go the rest of the summer like that. I think if I can provide it with a little shade the durana clover will persist through June and July. I had it grow all summer last year in moist areas. I may try to double crop the buckwheat later in the summer.

My end product will hopefully be a well balanced mix of grass, broadleaf, and legume that will continue to build fertile productive soil as well as keep the deer using the field. The grass will come in later with some encroaching summer crabgrass. I’m not going to be planting full rates of buckwheat so one 50lb bag with be thrown out over my 2 acre field for a rate of 25 lbs/ac along with around 2 lbs/ac of brassica mixed in. Total cost should be around $30-$35 per acre for seed plus however much it costs me to mow two acres. I may end up mixing in 25 lbs/ac of cowpeas as well. If so that will take my seed cost to $50-$60 per acre.

if you have many deer, you better fence the peas or you will be wasting time and money. The only thing I can grow in less than a 3 1/2-4 acre plot is grain sorghum and in some places Sunn hemp

We had a club member a few years ago ask if it was ok to come in and do some summer plantings on his own. He spent hours and hours spraying, disking, cultipacking, and then finally bringing in a drill to drill in around 10-12 acres of plots with all kinds of chit. Planted our biggest 3 acre field in nearly pure soybeans I believe it was. I bet he had more invested in that summer planting than in his membership. It sprouted and looked great after a couple weeks…..a couple weeks after that though it was like……

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJxCdh1Ps48

You might as well have just thrown a stack of $100 dollar bills out the truck window and saved the wear and tear on the tractor. It was all gone within 4-6 weeks after planting and our fields were left with bare eroded soil. The trip a couple weeks after planting was the highest of highs….the trip two weeks after that was a bunch of drooping heads. You live and learn though.

Below is a picture of one of the plots just after planting. Can you see the soil erosion occurring? Any fertility the plot might have is also washing away with that soil when this occurs. In situations like this you will be far better off during the summer to forget about expensive, elaborate plantings of just “deer food” and keep your main focus on improving the soil conditions for your fall plantings. These plantings that just get completely wiped out in short order aren’t accomplishing any substantial goals and are actually setting you back long term from a soil health perspective.

I'm going to try and either fence mine or use some deer stopper on my fields to give them time to produce.

3000 AC - we plan to spend a little over $1000 which is a drop in the bucket compared to what I'd like to do. We currently have about 4-5 acres in Yuchi and Durana clover. We'll keep that sprayed with herbicides and fertilized with triple phosphate and potash. We'll plant about 10 AC in sunn hemp. My last objective is to strip disk thoroughly across 900 AC that recently had a thinning completed in the planted pines. My goals have nothing to do with plot utilization, it's simply to provide the deer with as much available forage as possible.

I would plant something like peas, corn, soybeans or sunflower. Although if you have a good deer population, the crop maybe eaten down before it matures. Something is always better than nothing.