Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Drilling Eagle Brand Soybeans into fall food plots this spring

Ok... we're going to do an experiment. Your opinion?

Last summer, we soil tested our food plots and properly limed them before the fall planting. We disked and properly leveled our soil before broadcasting seed and dragging or spike harrowing-in the seed.

Location: Extremem NW Clarke Co.
Deer pop: Moderate deer herd. It's not like we see deer every time we go out and our large 4.5 acre food plots planted with Tecomate mix of cereal grains, AWP, etc... performed fairly well and were not browsed-down when I saw them in Feb. Harvested deer weights are good.

In late April, we're going to drill Eagle Brand Soybeans into our existing 4 and 5 acre food plots that we planted in the fall and are still doing well. Once our beans have bifurcated two or three times and reach several inches, we're going to spray the food plot with gly. We hope that the dead matter will provide a "mat or barrier" so to speak, for soil moisture retention as well as organic matter as it decomposes.

Because we're hoping for enough browse availability both in the food plot as well as general area and, the soybeans will not be growing in a field in the wide open and "exposed", we will be able to get the beans to sufficient forage production before we spray and then, the deer will not be able to overbrowse the beans at that point.

There is, however, suspicion that the deer will still browse through and pick through the lush green food plot and single out the bean shoots for consumption.

Anyway, after the beans have established themselves, and we're sprayed, we'll then broadcast sufficient fertilizer.

If we were planting a 10 plus acre field, we'd spray before drilling.

OK, thoughts? Suggestions? Think this method will work?

Great point. We were talking about that same thing this morning and the suggestion of one of those rope herbicide applicators. Ya know... the PVC pipe and rope for application to higher, I.E. Johnson grass.

I, like you 3FFarms, look forward to Aldeer's best and their thoughts and suggestions.

3FFarms... you deleted your post! Where'd you go?

Tried to edit it and it disappeared like the plane!

Here it is again...

My thoughts? Sounds like a good way to get the beans established without overbrowsing early on. The question is, can we get them established before the johnson grass and broadleafs completely take over. I'm very interested in hearing others opinions as I would like to do the same thing.

This might just work. I'll hang up and listen

I would say amount of sunlight would be a concern.

I would bush hog first. Depending on what it looks like mid-April, you may have to spray pretty early. Unfortunately, you will not get maximum results without tillage. Is it a Great Plains drill? If it is like the one we used, it's not gonna perform well in compacted dirt. Also depends on soil type.

I'm staying in Dixons Mills. Can't be too far from here. I'm sure y'all got turkey hunters, but if not, I could buy some of that seed for you, for a turkey.

What Bucktrot says is a great plan. Tillage is waste of time, fuel & organic matter. I no-till hundreds of acres every year basically exactly like he describes

Riverwood - what kind of drill do you have. What kind of dirt?

I would think Bucktrot will be dealing with some heavy clay in this area. And if he has a Great Plains drill like I am familiar with, it may not be a good combo.

Notice I use words like maybe and if. Every situation is different.

hallb, my postings on here are too damn long anyway so I tried to not be too long and cover everything. So, with that said, I think you're 100% right and we thought about that. If we get some pretty warm and sunny days, our cereal grain and noxious weeds are going to jump up there pretty good and we'd like to plant as early as we can. I'll be contacting the county agent and see what he says... but chime in with an opinion for that area.

I want to have enough "other" browse to make the deer not focus on the beans but yet have enough sunshine to stimulate germination and bean growth. But, you're right and somebody else said it.... we may have to rotary cut the food plot before drilling.

Drill in the seed... the beans come up and bifurcate and trifurcate and then we spray it with gly and everything dies but the beans and we fertilize it and the dead organic matter of cereal grains, AWP, noxioius weeds, etc... lays on the surface and protects the soil from high temps and keeps moisture in soil and the deer can't keep up the forage beans...!!!!!!! And, oh, the bucks add about 15-20 inches of antler growth than they would not have had without the beans... Man alive!!! And we kill 130"+ bucks during bow season and the hogs magically disappear and I win the lottery and buy the land...

"Wake up! WAKE UP, Rich!!! You're dreaming!!!" Sigh..... it's nice to dream the perfect scenario!!! HA! We'll see!!!

I'll take pictures before hand and measure the average height of herbaceous growth... I'll take good notes to be able to share results.

The cereal grains will be yellowing to brown and getting dead fast around here in late April - which will actually be a good thing.

turkey247, I love to turkey hunt but don't LOVE to turkey hunt like a turkey hunter does! I LOVE to crappie fish!!

Thanks for the offer.... but we do have some turkey hunters that do LOVE to turkey hunt and they'd string me up if I traded out such and I would not do that anyway to be fair to our members. However, do ya like to hog hunt?

Anyway, whatever we do, we'd have to get member approval BUT I HATE HOGS and I'd rather not have them at all. RE... I own a tractor and I hate running my tractor over food plots that resemble the moon.

Danny, you're the king down there in that area and I respect your opinion! What say you? Thanks!

Yeah, the turkey thing was a reach, but a man's gotta try.

Seriously - what kind of drill? Dirt?

I know I may catch heck from the guys that no-till plant for a crop, but what you are talking about has been tried before with failure. The standard rip, seed drop, and roll cover is marginal in compacted clay with all that vegetation sitting on top of the ground.

You may have seen this video before but it sounds to me like you're doing something very similar to what these farmers are doing in the video. Basically, you�re just transitioning from a cover crop to a cash crop. You can drill into green standing wheat or rye. I think I�d just let the plot grow up....drill into it, then spray immediately after drilling...terminating last falls plot. The cereal grains in your mix will use up a lot of water when they start going to seed. Its best to terminate them prior to that point and let your new seedlings have that moisture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWXCLVCJWTU

I really have no clue about all of this stuff, you already used some bigger words than I can understand I let someone that knows a lot more than I do handle our plots...I just know that when a young plant is growing it sure does love sunlight! I think either cutting them high or what CNC said above is probably your best bet, drill and then spray. I know on our plots though, I imagine it would be heck trying to drill thru them as thick as they get, especially this time of year.

Riverbottom with good pH. The food plot was disked hard and thorough and then leveled last fall. It ain't hard soil. The Tombigbee is 200 yards away.

Sound better to you? Turkey247.

And hey, gotta ask or you never know!

Ive got a 10' great plains. Spray, plant into standing wheat & fertilize all same day excellent results

I see your point. If I were planting 10 or 20 acres (enough acres where the deer could not over-browse the beans) then I'd spray and drill or drill and spray within a day or hours. I'm just afraid of spraying and having my beans exposed to deer over-browsing the beans as soon as they pop out of ground. My thought of drilling into an existing herbaceous growth would be to conceal the beans AND allow available browse to take on some of the browse pressure while the beans get up and "branch" and start producing foliage. Then spray.

The plan just may not work on a 4 acre food plot with moderate deer pops.

Yes, I am a fan of Archulta (sp?). He's got the right idea and it makes perfect sense and science backs him up. I used to think that disking my soil to lleh and back and then smoothing out the food plot soil was the best!! By doing some research, I found out that I was killing my soil and in the long run, costing me more money. Seed drills are just so expensive and unless you own one or have access to one close by, they're a pain to transport. Easy to use but lleh of a time getting it to a location that demands travel.

Yes, as soon as you drop off the hill to the river, the soil change will make all the difference in the world in this situation.

But I have to agree with CNC here. Spray earlier than you plan. I re- read your original post, and by the time the the beans start coming up, what else will they be browsing in these plots anyway?

Hmmm... recs are coming in. I'm really getting hit hard to fertilize and spray before I drill at a spacing at 7.5". And, several people have said that with a moderate deer pop, which we have, a 4.5 acre food plot should be ok.

The only unknown... is a 4.5 to 5 acre food plot large enough to overwhelm the deer from over-browsing which was why I'd drill into live growth in the first place and kill the green later.

I may just chance it and see if a 4.5 acre f. p. is large enough to plant Eagle Brand Soybeans and spray it ten days or so before I drill. I really didn't want to drill into live plants and let the existing plants grow while the beans established and then spray as some posters on here made good points about sunlight getting to the beans or in the case of not spraying until the beans were established... the sunlight NOT getting to the beans b/c of the existing growth of fall plantings.

We'll see.

I think I remember reading somewhere that you want to either drill into green stuff or really, really dead stuff. If I remember correctly, there's a stage in there where the dying thatch gets really tough and doesn't drill well. Come to think of it, it seems like they talk about that in the Undercover Farmer video. I haven't watched it in awhile though so it may have been a different video. Its worth taking the time to watch for anyone who hasn't seen it.