What's your favorite summer mix and ratio? Saw a plot this fall that looked really good on some coarse sandy soils. For several years a mixture of Buckwheat/Sorghum/IC Peas/Alyce Clover was grown.

Pretty sure it was drilled not T&M.

We have been planting IC peas only for several years

Ic peas and black sunflower seeds. Put them in the spreader and disc in.

Add 7 lbs per acre of WGF sorghum to that and the deer will have food all the way thru fall. On our place, the sunflowers are the first thing to go even in 4 or 5 acre plot, then the peas. Deer don't mess with the sorghum until the seed heads mature and dry out

What I'd plant would depend on the soil conditions........If the conditions were favorable enough I would plant something that provides attraction and nutrition to the deer while at the same time adding diverse biomass to the soil to feed it as well.....The mix you mentioned would work well in good conditions. If I were in the beginning process of rebuilding soil I would look to a more grass dominated mix

CNC, have you done a warm season milo throw and mow?

I have with mixed results. But I’ve got too much thatch at the moment causing some issues I need to address.

That looks good!

Sunnhemp, diakon radish and grain sorghum (milo) , sun flowers. we are trying to build up our soil.

I havent in a long time. It was the first thing I ever experimented with......It did ok but like I said I was just getting started. I'm sure I would have better results now that I've been building soil for a decade. Millet is gonna be one of your easiest summer grass crops to get established and grow. I'd probably use it in the beginning until your soil becomes more conditioned....If you use milo then use it in a mix......A mix is usually gonna be your best bet......However, there are times when you may be needing carbon much more than nitrogen or vice versa and you may want to look at growing either a pure grass crop or a pure legume crop to balance things out. This would be situations like where there was no topsoil at all (need grass/carbon)......or situations where maybe an old pasture is overgrown with a monoculture of bahia grass (need N to balance decomposition) .....Each situation would need a different prescription.....When everything is nicely balanced and on a productive path then a seed blend of several species will serve you well as it brings in a balanced mix of carbon and nitrogen, etc......It gives you the diversity you're looking for so that things stay balanced and the soil working efficiently.

Never thought about planting radishes/turnips in the spring. What are the chances it bolts and re-seeds itself

Very high

Ive got some growing right now i planted last fall. They have bolted twice

Go on the web and look up LabLab seed. This has everything you need or want and it grows in most any soil. Again, look at the mixture of seed in one bag and look at pictures of fields planted in it. Also, great for the soil for winter planting

My deer wouldn't let the LabLab grow. They mowed it down and killed it. I no-tilled some Roundup ready corn, split the middle of the corn rows with milo and criss-crossed with Red Ripper cowpeas and black oil sunflowers. Deer wiped out the sunflowers when they got about a foot tall. For some reason they would let the peas climb up the corn and milo and just ate the new tender tops.

Im going with 75% ironclay peas 25%sunhemp this year.

Iron clay peas and soybeans

I’m really considering that.

I like that if you can get it to outgrow the browsing pressure......There needs to be excess in the end to see the soil benefits

Ironclay peas generally hold up pretty good around here. Theyll let it get up about knee high before they set in on them. Last year i planted 1/2 acre of sunhemp the deer kept mowed down from the start. I was thinking if i mixed the sunhemp in the peas it might have a better chance. The deer here wont destroy a patch of ironclay peas untill right before cold weather. I been planting them for a few years and they always do it about the same. Peas get to knee high and deer keep them ate to that height. When acorns drop deer leave the peas alone for a while and they get about chest high. One night the deer will come in there and eat them to the ground.

Be careful with the sunhemp. A little goes a long way.

I had success last year with 50lb cow peas, 10lb hemp, 25lb sorghum, 10lb buckwheat

Thanks! This was exactly the type of info I was looking fir

That per acre?

Surely not that’s a ton of seed unless he was expecting most of it to disappear

Thats what I was thinking

Ive done 50# icp, 5# sunn hemp, and 10# buckwheat with good success.

That was per acre, It was getting scratched up the day it was planted. I over did it for that reason, and this is part of a long term plan to build the soils back so having it very thick was what I wanted.

100 lbs per acre is not that out of the ordinary for seed rates depending on what you're planting