If you want to plant beans on a 1/2 acre plot, you need to do a mix. Do buckwheat, sunn hemp and a mix of clay peas and soybeans. The buckwheat and sunn hemp provide the cover for the beans and peas to establish. When I have planted this mix, the deer cannot possibly eat it down. Below is a pic of a screen shot I took off a video of me mowing down the above mix on a half acre plot on my lease. I am driving a 1026R with a flail mower on the back.
Sunn hemp grows an inch a day. My deer absolutely pound it. Also a heavy planting of whitetail institute power plant will work. I'd put 50 pounds on half an acre. You need to wait until soil temps are 65 degrees. Next fall, come in and plant some durana or whitetail clover with your fall crops.
![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/BjVVk9u.png)
I have got a place that needs a good bedding area to block the North wind in the winter. Does the Sunn hemp create a thick barrier when it dies off in the fall?
That's a good question. I haven't ever tried it to see. My first time using it was in Whitetail Power Plant. And then I came back and added about 10 pounds of it. What I saw it do in the fall was lay over. It blooms at the very top and I guess that creates some top heaviness. But in that field, I just left the powerplant, and bush hogged a few lanes in it, and then broadcast cereals and brassicas onto the whole field. So there was never a time there wasn't something there for the deer to eat.
Normally I just plant it for biomass, although the deer eat the crap out of it. Then bush hog it and plant cereals, clover and brassica's in the fall.
We are going to plant some corn this year, and probably switchgrass to create some bedding/screening.
