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

LOL. Looking for solution to planting a given acreage (min of 4 acres) of soybeans without the deer over-browsing the newly germinated shoots, effectively, ruining the effort. As all of us know, soybeans have been the victim of such destruction.

I thought about drilling into herbaceous growth from last years fall/winter food plots to "conceal" the beans and not clean the deer's table of available browse in that food plot if I sprayed first.

So, drill the beans in green growth... wait until the beans have established themselves and "then" spray. (Beans are RR). Cons: Would the beans get sufficient sunlight?. Would the existing plants use up available moisture? And other cons...

I'm now to the point where I'm going to spray ten days before I plant and drill in the beans and hope for the best!

Maybe setup a waterproof radio in the middle of the beans with a timer on it and solar panel and marine battery and have it set to play Rock Music from 5 p.m. til 7 a.m. I'd play country music but I'm afraid they'd like country music and throw a party!

All good info and I've been tuned in since early on. I think you'll be ok on a 4.5 acre field with moderate deer pressure. Those eagle forage beans are the cats meow. We just can't spring to do 20 acres in them. I ordered the NWTF seed that's RR but it's not a forage bean, hence why I was very interested in getting as much growth out of them as possible before letting the deer in. Some good points made thus far. Still got my listening ears on.

Rich

CNC has it. I've planted Eagle every way but just throw and go with different levels of success. You don't want to wait to terminate the original crop or you will starve the beans for moisture. If you do have heavy compacted soils some drills don't do well under dry conditions. Wait until you have decent soil moisture.

Feel free to give me a call if you have questions. I still do some support for Eagle Seed. You still have my #?

Thanks J!! Let's see... last three numbers 087?

Just watched the video CNC linked. None of those farmers planted while their cover crop was standing. All of them terminated the cover crop either before or during planting. One said he preferred waiting until the cover crop died. I realize they have slightly different goals, however, soil moisture retention was a key element - that's why they were rolling the cover crop down, to create a mat.

They were actually doing certain things as an alternative to just drilling into standing dry cereal grains. Their goals were soil moisture retention, soil temp decrease in hot weather, and nitrogen fixation from cover crop.

For a small plot, you could possibly lay down the standing vegetation with a drag on a 4 wheeler, which would be cheap and fast. Maybe even use a 4 wheeler sprayer and some type of light drag together. Then drill.

Bucktrot, one of the reasons people fail, planting beans, is they plant them too early, before the deer have a ton of food around them. Make sure the deer have plenty of food, in the woods before you plant. With a lower deer density, and planting 4-5 acres of forage soybeans and not ag beans, i think you'll be fine, they respond well to browse pressure.

Nope. Pm to you.