Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Quality Deer Management Let's take a walk around the farm...

This is my second season using joint vetch with interest. Last year it was a portion of a mix that didn’t get planted until July 10 and I never really noticed it being browsed. This year I bought seed as a stand -alone and also in a mix with Alyce clover. I planted throw and mow style in May and got a great response. Fast forward to last month and I noticed the grasses were getting quite tall so I sprayed some Arrest on the plot. Came back two weeks later and the grass was brown but I didn’t see any of the 8-12” tall joint vetch that had been visible prior, at first. But it was there. Just eaten down to 3-4 inches and struggling under the grass. So I mowed the plot at 5.5” and there was my joint vetch. This is a quarter acre plot with 5 does in it almost every night and also every few days.

Great information! Those does are getting what they need from it. I've got a couple of spots that are an acre each and about 3/4 mile apart. I think I'll try it in them. We have a high deer density so I'm under no illusion that it's going to get chest high.

The first 2 years I planted joint vetch, it was chest/head high in September, but you could see it was being browsed. Last summer and this year, its been browsed so hard, none of it has gotten above shin high.

Another vetch update as many here seem to be interested in it. Still looking great inside the cages despite the lack of rain I have had since early July. I did get a good 2 inches last week, so very thankful for that.

Outside of the cages it has been browsed so heavily that you have to look for it. It's there, but very small. I will definitely be killing several does this fall and also tripling the acres of vetch next summer.

First two pics are inside the cages. The last pic is the best looking spot outside of the cage. The majority of the fields are much more sparse at this point.

The deer are hammering it. I bet there are some good bucks hitting it too.

What's are you planning to do with it this fall?

I’m going to throw and mow clover and grains into it. I’m going to leave a section of just vetch to see how long it stays palatable into the fall as a test for future planting

Judging by that cage, you have grown a lot of good forage for them this summer! It will be interesting to see how long it stays palatable. Thanks for continuing to update us

Vetch still holding up very nicely in this hot, dry weather. I couldn't be more pleased with it on my soils. It's going to pain me to terminate most of it in a few weeks. I'll hold off on planting these fields as long as possible to keep from completely cleaning the table. I'm going to leave around 1/2 an acre through the Winter and will continue to monitor it.

Vetch still looking good, in fact I think it's growing better now that it has all summer.





Browse pressure has been intense:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2sBUNZP]



I mowed the plots today down to about 6 inches. The crab grass and volunteer millet were starting to get out of hand. I'll be interested to see if the vetch can make a jump with the competition knocked back a bit.

Kudos for not spraying out the crabgrass......

There were other areas that were not so lucky!


To be honest, I'm not real strong on my grass identification skills, I'm not 100% sure if it is crab grass?

How did they fair in comparison? ......Are those areas fairly bare of vegetation now??

Post a pic of the grass leaf......I'm not a great grass ID expert either