I know that I am way ahead of the game right now, but I've been talking about doing for years, but this is the year I actually do it. I have about 3-5 acres that is off limits to cows so it's not much but it has produced many good shoots in the past.

My questions are:

Which crop is more resilient to the Alabama heat and can last trough a dry summer before fall comes around?

When do you plant?

Does the soil pH matter?


Any and all comments welcome. I'm in Lowndes county, if that matters

Let me preface all of this with I am far from a crop grower like many of these guys here. Just going to give you my experience...

Millet by far is easier and less expensive to grow. If you have a deer population of any kind they can, and will, wipe out your sunflowers. You will also need to pour the N to them, and have pretty decent weed control for sunflowers. For millet we just do a burndown prior to planting with a heavy dose of gly. Our millet is somewhat grassy, but it hasn't mattered in the past. We also fertilize post emerge, usually several weeks after planting.

With that said, if you can get a crop of sunflowers ready for dove season...look out! There is not a more preferred food for those jokers.

I'd shoot for sunflowers to be planted by the first or second week of May. Most varieties are going to list a 120 day maturity date. Millet can wait until June to be put in the ground as it is normally a 75-90 day maturity.

Search North40R's post from two years ago in the wingshooting forum. Lot's and lots of great information there.

Good luck with whatever you try! Planting for doves is my favorite of all!

I agree with everything he said. Some millets mature in as few as 60 days. Having tried to grow both, the millets is definitely easier. My sunflowers were eaten by deer for the most part. The ones that survived were picked clean by tiny songbirds that were small enough to land on the flower and pull seeds off.

One thing about millet though, in my opinion, it needs more prep work to provide a good shoot. The first year I did millet, I just cut it and left it laying on the ground. There were millions of seeds on the ground, but most of them were covered by a thick mat of thatch that was spit out by the bushhog. If I'd known or had more time, I would've burned the field after cutting or gone over the field with a hay rake. You can't just cut the millet and leave it like you would corn or sunflowers.

I've been growing millet for years and find it to be the easiest crop to grow. It comes up fast and quickly shades the ground so that weeds aren't much of a problem. Doesn't require a whole lot of rain to make a crop. I've had the same luck as others mentioned on sunflowers - the deer are really hard on them.

Not trying to hijack your thread, but I suspect you'd be interested in this too. I've done some experimenting with growing millet with other crops, with some reasonable success. I planted corn in with it in places last year and made a decent crop of both. However, after 3 straight years of growing corn, the deer are zeroed in on it and clean it up as soon as it dries. I didn't have an ear left by bowseason last year. I've also had little luck in getting doves interested in corn in the early season, and that's the reason I planted it. If you can keep some corn until the 2nd season, they will flock to it, but I don't think I can do that anymore.

Last year, my millet seed must have had a few sunflowers mixed in it, because I made several stalks of sunflowers out in the middle of the millet. I'm thinking of mixing millet and sunflowers in some of my patches this year. Anyone ever tried it? I talked to one guy who said he did it with success, but didn't get much from him in the way of details.

I was thinking of planting the sunflower/millet mix in May, realized that the millet will mature and be pretty much gone by dove season. But I'll have another patch next to it that I'll plant in late June and it should mature about the same time as the sunflowers. I've found that drawing the birds into your place in August is a good thing if you can keep food there for them until the season.

So has anyone tried a sunflower/millet mix?

Here is what the corn/millet mix looked like at one point; I put a pure millet stand around the borders of the field:

Curious why no one uses sorghum?? I'm guilty also because I prefer RR crops and if sorghum is RR I'm not aware of it.

We planted a couple acres of it last year but it just wasn't as preferred as the other sources. Made a beautiful stand; the doves just never got into it with regularity.

Must be location. We have had some great dove shoots on sorghum. Turkeys love it. I have seen places where deer love it and places where deer didn't eat it.

Not sure...we planted it right next to our millet. The one thing I don't like about the sorghum is the amount of "thatch" that is mowed down with the seed. It grew super easy and turned out beautiful but the birds never showed any real interest. I'd plant it again in a second if we had and proof showing it was preferred. Our deer will fool with it a little but don't browse it heavily.

I do like it planted as an "edge" around bigger fields and would use it for that purpose.

I'm planting 8 acres of sunflowers. Not mixing in millet or sorghum that way I can control grasses in it. I'll put down Treflan pre. As my sunflowers dry down I'll disk strips and sow wheat. That outta be a barrel burner.

I plant it almost every year. It's very drought resistant and does well in poorer soils. We can make a heck of a crop even in dry years.

Have you done this before?? I have seen it done before with great results. I would like to know how it turns out, especially how the treflan works late into the summer.

Just so happens I'm free opening weekend.

Yes I have Treflan or Trifluralin is one of most overlooked basic residuals and cheap. It'll control my pigweeds and grasses then I'll spray clethodim over the top for and escapes on grass. I also spray Spartan right behind the planter for morninglories.

I'm assuming you plant them in rows so you can spray later if they need it? My planter is too worn out to use anymore; you think I can make a crop by broadcasting them? Putting out the Treflan would not be a problem. My thinking was that the millet will quickly cover the ground and the sunflowers will quickly get above the millet and other weeds wouldn't be such a problem. Think its a bad idea to mix them?

Treflan will prune the roots of the millet. You might consider top seeding the millet in a month or so later. That way the Treflan will have had time to break down plus millet will mature later. I'm broadcasting my sunflowers too then cultipacking in.

Here is a 5 ac patch we planted a few years ago. Best I remember they were mycogen brand. Very expensive but they turned out very good. The thing with this type is that we had other herbicide options

Pretty field!

I believe some sorghums are high in tannins which the birds don't like. Might explain why it hasn't worked for some people.

There is a roundup ready sunflower out there but they are pretty expensive I believe.

I have been planting for doves many years. Brown top millet is by far the easiest grain to plant and most drought resistant but about every 5 yrs you will have to spray for army worms. They LOVE millet in the early part of the season and if you don't watch it close when it starts heading out they will eat it ALL. I gave up on sunflowers because of deer eating them up. I plant about the 2nd to third week of June. The big secret is to spray your brown top with gly to kill it after it heads out and has not fallen over, then wait a couple of days and bush hog then wait for a few sunny days and plow around it and burn about 5 - 7 days before the season. If you have doves in the area (and some places just are NOT dove places) they will wrap it up. I plant 4 acres in the center of a 10 acre Bahia field and have the bahia cut for hay and strategically place the bales for stands. My field has a small powerline on two sides which helps draw them a lot. After the first shoot, I legally disk lightly and overseed with wheat and usually have another very good shoot. I only have about 8 to 10 close friends and everyone really looks forward to the annual shoot.

I broadcast about 25 lbs to the acre and LIGHTLY disk and a drag would be good. I put out about 250 lbs/acre of fert. An easy mistake it to put too much seed out and it won't make worth a crap. I tried strips of pop corn one year and when I burned after bush hogging some of it actually popped on the ground!

I plant the NK clearfield variety like rst87 said it gives another herbicide option if need be. It's a row crop variety not just some off the wall variety. Broadcast at 8 lbs per acre.