Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Quality Deer Management Throw n Mow Q&A

Man I completely understand. The hardest part about all of this for most people is just getting over the mental hurdle of doing things a different way. Once you’ve gotten past that point and you’re on board with a new approach……the toughest thing will be leaving things alone. I’m horrible about it…..I’m always wanting to experiment with something. The more things I do though, the more I end up coming to the conclusion of….”Eh, I probably should have just left things alone.” If you remember back to the book I’ve referred to a lot about the Japanese farmer pioneering these methods…..He called his approach “Do-nothing farming”…..This doesn’t mean that we’re doing absolutely nothing. We’re just helping things along with what we do.

The crimson seed heads are fading to brown now…..This is when the yuchi clover really begins to shine.



It’ll continue to grow and feed deer through the end of May and likely into June.

my fields are loaded with crimson clover and white durana except for a few have crimson and Red clover in them. I'm going to wait until the crimson is ready to mow and then go ahead and plant my summer fields when I mow it. I'm going to mix my summer crops into the clover fields this year. I finally have a sprayer to control the weeds and keep the competition to just the perennial clovers and IC peas. interested to see how it works

Keep us updated on the progress. I like the idea of continuing to add white clover to these fields even if you're gonna grow summer stuff.

CNC, here's a question. In the two fields i tried this in, I used to have turkeys in them all the time in the spring. They don't seem to like that thick rye as much. Seems as though they prefer the fields with clover in them with wheat/oats eaten down by deer. I realize I needed to plant a lot of rye to get some organic matter down, but once the process is up and going, how do I go back to what the turkeys like in the spring? Thanks.

I suppose you could go back to using wheat if you want to…. or you could mow the rye around late March/early April. I mowed mine this year at the first of turkey season and killed one in it 9 days later. A grass select herbicide would be another option.......me personally, I'm trying to move away from spraying

But if you mow it early, (1) what does it do to your clover? (2) what do you use for biomass if you are doing a summer planting?

Also, wouldn't you know it - I plant and no rain forecast for two weeks. Ugh.

You’re gonna mow it after everything bolts but before it goes to seed. Since you’re mowing before it sets seed, then your clover and most of the cereal grains will just bounce back. It might not get quite as tall as what it would have originally but it’ll still put out some good growth and produce a seed crop assuming your soil is productive. If you mow around the end of March or first of April then that’ll buy you a few weeks to turkey hunt your more low cut open fields. You may even release a bunch of insects when you mow...that'd be like ringing the dinner bell. I like the idea of letting them grow up toward the end of the season though and produce seed heads. I’ve got one heck of a rye, wheat, and oat seed crop out here that’s about to dry out. I imagine that a field of drying cereal grains would be just right to hide and feed some young turkey poults in another few weeks. Most of my cereal grains are just now beginning to turn brown.

The spot we have is on top of a rocky limestone ridge. Not a deep soil base. Although the rye grass and clover we spread in the fall came up it didn’t really grow very thick. Since there’s so little soil (& laziness) I’m just letting things grow as much as they will. There’s a good amount of clover coming up now. The plan is to spread more clover seed each spring and fall, work on fertility and hope to grow soil. If grasses get bad spray clethodim but let any broadleafs and clover grow.

A couple young gobblers sho nuff putting on a show for me this morning……







They’re actually putting on a show for the two hens they’re following around. At first I thought one of them was a third gobbler…….and then I took a closer look..…it was a hen was a big beard….

There was one tearing it up this morning behind the house.

I called a couple times to those in the pic just to hear 'em gobble and they answered right back. They weren't really gobbling much other than that. They were struttin like hell though....

We’re getting into the latter part of May and the yuchi clover usage is really ramping up. I think it’s due to all the spring vegetation now being leafed out instead of fresh tender buds being all over the woods. It’s hard to show in a pic but if you’ll look close….the tops have been eaten out of every single plant. Notice also how the deer are stomping down the other old grasses and such in the process…..

It’s nearly June and we’re still feeding deer off of our fall planting………

Harold, whats the name of that weed with a square stem that deer hammer, that we talked about years ago. I got a lot of it in an overgrown field and they tearing it up. The leaves are pointed and serrated.

Purple vervain......they love that stuff.

Yea, that's it, thanks. Hell getting old.

Here’s some more yuchi growing in an area where the cereal grains were planted a littler thicker. The deer have beaten it back pretty hard but the understory is still full of yuchi stalks all through this area. To me, this is a pretty ideal situation for your plots at this time of year. In the process of hammering the yuchi…..the deer are helping to trample down the cereal grains. The deer love it, the turkey hens love it, the soil loves it........and the tractor stays idle.



Here’s your purple vervain……



Another one I see browsed a lot this time of year is sow thistle…..

The third clover of our trio…..the durana….. is starting to show itself in a few areas…..mostly around the edges where I have my walking trail mowed. There are small durana plants throughout the rest of the understory of our old fall mix that are just hanging out and waiting on a little sunlight. I’m just gonna let it occur slowly on its own rather than mowing down the overstory…….This should leave the durana in a semi-shade condition rather than full sun as the other plants peter out. The white clover will linger on well into the summer depending on how dry we get…..

Tried my luck at T&M summer plots for the 1st time Saturday. Sprayed 3 weeks prior, broadcast fertilizer, mung beans, buckwheat and wgf sorghum in 3 plots. Also, disked and planted 2 new plots with millet to create thatch for fall. Got 2 timely rains on Sun and Mon so it'll be interesting to see how they fair.

Good luck with it 270……

I’ve thrown in the towel on the idea of growing “summer plots”…..They just don’t stand of chance here without using milorgranite or an e-fence and I’m not interested in spending the time nor the $$$ in order to run deer AWAY from my field.

I was noticing earlier that they had mowed the tops out of these plants growing around the edge of my field. I believe this is young goldenrod. Every one of them had the tops eaten out.