Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk AL Wingshooters Seed in the ground!

Drilled 3 acres of black oil sunflowers. Rain in the forecast early next week.

good deal, I am going to have to invest in an electric fence setup. The deer will not leave my sunflowers alone

Last year the deer hammered my standing sunflowers during the winter. I hope they didn’t develop a taste.

I was okay the first year I got the place but ever since then it has been an issue. I have only planted brown top and proso millet the last 2 years with some top sown wheat. Please keep us updated with the progress

This is 4th year planting. Not going to say anymore to keep from talking a non issue into an issue. Lol. I’ll be sure to update.

Once deer get a taste of sunflower well it’s not good. They’ll walk the rows and devour. I’m gonna plant sunflower interspersed with corn I have left over and plant proso millet beside it. Should have something to hunt over.

Gonna plant into standing cereal rye and then leveled ground. See if hiding the sunflowers from the deer in the rye helps out

Maybe they don’t know what they look like before they are brown and crispy

I think I am going to try some corn as well this year. Have y'all tried any sesame? I was thinking it may be a good late season crop

Poor country preacher did. I think there’s a thread about it.

I’m looking for spurge seed
I’ve got some along the roadside at my house

I’ve planted sesame but it seemed like it was late to really produce hardening seed when dove season came. Now I just go with a millet blend and cut and burn it in strips and add top sown wheat in strips to try and get 4 good weekends of hunting and maybe a late season hunt

I planted about an acre one year, and also an acre of the Dove Magnet mix beside it. Then I top sowed wheat beside that. The doves preferred the sesame over anything else, but the problem was that I just didn't have many in the area. We killed a few, but it wasn't worth the trouble.

If I were in an area with a lot of doves I would plant sesame every year. I didn't have a problem with it not maturing before the season, but I planted early and hit strips with gly, then would bush hog the strips the next week. It put a tremendous amount of seed on the ground and the doves used the field for weeks.

I have planted sunflowers several times over the years, usually in a mix like the Dove Magnet, but I have never seen a single plant bloom and produce seed. The deer eat it as soon as it comes up. Good luck to all trying to grow a dove field; I sure wish that I could.

Same here. No need to get fancy.

I tried sesame but it grows in a really hard shell that they can’t get to until it’s matured and that takes forever.

I bumped the thread on my sesame to the top for the benefit of anyone interested in growing it. I see that by using gly and then the bush hog the ground was covered with seed on September 3. It's more trouble to grow than browntop, but we have found that doves prefer it in the first season over most anything. My uncle has grown it every year since I did and we've had some great hunts over it.

It used to not matter a lot, but now there is so much competition in our area that you need a crop they really like.

Thank you poorcountrypreacher and all the others! That is the info I needed to give it a try. I will keep y'all updated

Not to hijack your thread yella but shine some light on the black oil sunflowers! Got some buddy’s that only plant clear field but my pockets ain’t that deep lol how do you keep your weeds under control or do you? Never planted a field and planning on it this week. Just got everything disked up!

I do a burn down with Gly. Had these drilled two weeks later. Once the sprout I go over with a pre emergent before a rain. Can’t really control the broadleaf weeds but I’ll will spray select before they form a canopy to kill grasses. I’ll also fertilize when I spray the pre emergent. The label says I can apply pre emergent when I plant but my application process isn’t 100% accurate so I’ve been hesitant to try

I do a burn down before i plant. I just plant the regular seeds because of the cost. Sometimes i do grain sorghum and millet. I think corn around the edges really helps

Corn looked good today sunflower seeds are just coming up

Bought some sesame today. Just waiting on some rain now