The light green you see is a very wet area normal winters and springs. It is also rye grass that i cant get rid of. There is no clover in that area. It is a little weird how this field grows. Some areas grow great while areas 10' away are very thin. Thats the reason i went to throw and mow to try and fix these areas.

Mowed my backyard greenfield of wheat, oats, turnips, and rye to the ground and planted KY 31, Creeping Red, and White Dutch for the spring greenfield. Only mow tolerant Spring planting I can find is the White Dutch....

Fescue isnt good for throw and mow if thats one of your goals.

Turkey……I was looking at your picture and something that I think would really help you out is to start adding a bag or two of 34-0-0 (nitrogen) per acre every 6-7 weeks…..pretty much year round right now. You’re not pushing out enough biomass growth yet to really get you out of the hole. Your soil is constantly processing organic matter……it’s the process of rotting basically. It’s still working no matter what we’re doing. If we’re not producing biomass then we’re going backwards…..we’re running a deficit. It’s rotting away faster than we’re feeding it. Right now is when one of those biomass crops is produced.

We’re about to begin another cycle where we'll end up producing a second crop of biomass by the end of summer. Adding N periodically with help increase biomass yield…..it’ll also help keep everything lush and GREEN for the wildlife. Basically what we want to do big picture is keep things like P, K, Ca in proper balance like having a carb tuned right and then add N to step on the gas. Over time its also good to begin to incorporate plants that will naturally produce some of the N for us…..hairy vetch would be a good one to add next fall in addition to your clovers.

I may do that since im going to be planting summer stuff mid may. Give it a good boost before i plant.

Once the cereal grains start going to seed then they're pretty much done. Ideally, you would really want to time a spring application when things first start warming up, It would be an application around Christmas and then roughly 8 weeks later around March 1 or somewhere in the neighborhood.....the next one would come in May when summer stuff starts taking off.

Another weeks of growth on the rye……..

One week ago…..



Here it is today overtaking the 4 ft basket. You can barely see the orange flags. Lots of seed heads now………

Mine is barely knee high yet but the deer were still hammering it a few weeks ago.

Ok, what should I be doing to my throw and mow field right now? What I planted last year is now getting tall, small seed heads(don't look mature) and clover has red flowers. Let it grow or mow it down? Fertilize?

I wouldn’t do anything right now. Let all of the seed finish maturing and start drying down. If you need to lime and add fert then wait until toward the end of May when everything from this crop is completely done and summer forage is coming in. You could mow if you wanted to at that time.

Here is where I’m sitting now……4ft baskets???? What baskets???? I’m actually holding the camera over my head in this pic.

Mines about chest high now. Just hope we get a decent rain now.

Yep, it's getting dry quick. We've gotten a little bit out of this system but nothing too significant. Just enough to settle the dust a little.

It rained all morning at my house.

Mine is 4-5 feet tall. We received about three tenths yesterday, it layed a good portion of some fields down. I was wondering if I should bushhog it or leave it alone? Seed heads are not mature and clover under it.

Finally took a picture of my Throw and Mow field thats become one of my white clover fields. I haven't tilled this field in a couple of years and the clover never leaves, even in last summers drought it held up. I top sowed wheat and oats into it this year with alittle more white clover seed. it has a few weeds in it but I'm not really worried about them. the second pics is what it looks like around the edge of field close to tree line

No. Let it be for now and let your seeds go ahead and mature. The deer will very likely tromp down the cereal grains when the heads dry out. They hammer the seed heads here.


That looks awesome Turkeymaster!

Thanks for the info! That's what I'll do.

No problem. Now would be a good time to pull a soil sample and get a game plan together for lime, P, & K in another 3-4 weeks if needed.

The rain and wind from the storm system the other day started knocking a lot of my rye down. It's beginning to brown now too. The dinner bell will soon be ringing for a lot of critters…..turkey, deer, songbirds, mice, snakes, yotes, foxes, etc….this field of grain will feed the whole cycle. I got something waiting for the yotes when they show up. It’s too bad this doesn’t mature early April instead of early May…turkeys wouldn’t stand a chance.