anyone planting yet?

I have been resisting the urge at home. All 3 plots are worked up and fertilized, but I haven’t planted yet. I see the farmers all around me putting their crop in, but last year I got over excited and planted too early and it bit me in the backside. Had to replant most of my beans due to a late frost/cool nights.

I am heading up to the farm tomorrow morning to turkey hunt, plant trees and hopefully get the corn in, but I think I will hold off until next weekend to put the beans in.

It’s been tough to resist, but I am going to hold off until next week to do any planting at home.

I’m headed up on the 7th to plant some of my fields. Might wait off on the corn as I’m up in Roseau County but want everything to be ready.
DT

I ran the disc over last year’s brassicas plots, but as far as planting, I’m holding off. Sticker, as you say, once bitten, twice shy.

Now to provide the full picture to those who may not know, Sticker plants a lot of soybeans. Which are a great food plot crop, but as an annual and a relatively frost-sensitive plot crop (compared to many other common plot crops), he has some different planting concerns.

For those who can and want to get rolling, you CAN plant non-frost-sensitive crops like clover or cereal grains now. I have a blend this year that I’m planting next week, it’s called All Fall Blend and it is a blend of cereal grains, forage peas, and red clover. This blend is not frost sensitive and can be planted either as a spring crop to provide all year food, or as a fall seeded crop to provide tender food for fall and into winter, with an added bonus that when fall seeded, it comes up again in the spring and the deer go crazy on it.

While there is a lot of hoooo-ha against spring planting of clover, most of that is from too much thinking like a farmer. Yes, you can potentially get more weeds in spring planted clover and yes, in the south and arid parts of the country you don’t want to spring plant, but that’s not MN/WI or any of the northern tier states for that matter.

For a farmer, getting 200 acres of weedy clover is a big issue because it causes more work. For us, the deer just eat the weeds AND the clover and say thank you very much. You can always spray down the grasses later on, but for many of us, the extra growth time and spreading our workload out is worth risking a few weeds.

I planted a beautiful plot of Monster Clover Plus last spring and the deer are hammering it now. My father was in a ground blind on this plot turkey hunting this past week and he was pinned down by 10 deer that surrounded him in the blind.

In thinking about it, the bottom line on planting depends mostly on what and where. If you only have time to to work when frost is still a risk, there ARE good options, you just have to match the plot seed to the conditions.

Grouse

Got my 2 spring planting plots worked up and ready for seed. Going to run through it one last time with GLY and then put the seeds in the ground 2 weeks from now. (pending weather).

Got 2 acres of that plot screen mix , so going to try that out this spring. This area is ready for seed. Supposed to grow to 12ft. tall and its going to be 16′ wide by about 1/2 mile. Try to shield my late season plot from the road and neighbors, and protect my entry and exit to the north side of the property. Anyone had any luck with the PLOT SCREEN products?

My Late Summer , early fall plots are still untouched (hay ground currently). Going to get at least 1 cutting of hay off them before they get worked up. Would rather have the grass all summer than battle the weeds. Will break the ground sometime in June. This includes my large soybean field. The agriculture beans should be popped up and be yummy to the deer by the time my seed goes in on my plot. Hopefully they will stay off them a little bit so they can grow.

Been fun so far preparing things.

You can’t plant twice if you don’t plant early.

sktrwx2200 wrote:

Got my 2 spring planting plots worked up and ready for seed. Going to run through it one last time with GLY and then put the seeds in the ground 2 weeks from now. (pending weather).

Got 2 acres of that plot screen mix , so going to try that out this spring. This area is ready for seed. Supposed to grow to 12ft. tall and its going to be 16′ wide by about 1/2 mile. Try to shield my late season plot from the road and neighbors, and protect my entry and exit to the north side of the property. Anyone had any luck with the PLOT SCREEN products?

My Late Summer , early fall plots are still untouched (hay ground currently). Going to get at least 1 cutting of hay off them before they get worked up. Would rather have the grass all summer than battle the weeds. Will break the ground sometime in June. This includes my large soybean field. The agriculture beans should be popped up and be yummy to the deer by the time my seed goes in on my plot. Hopefully they will stay off them a little bit so they can grow.

Been fun so far preparing things.

I have never tried the plot screen, but keep us posted on how that works. I’d like to see pics later in the year. That sounds like a cool idea.

Got all my corn in over the weekend. I really wanted to start the beans, but I am waiting until next weekend. I need that soil to warm up a little more and this weeks weather should do it.

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Assuming that the weather forecast is accurate and it stays dry, I mag try some clover on Saturday. Its just so wet in my area even a week of no rain may not be enough to allow safe tractor access.

Grouse

Here are a couple of the plots worked up ready for beans. Grouse, I think you jinxed me. I found 4 rocks in one of these plots and 2 in one other plot. That means I had to get off the tractor 6 times

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sticker wrote:

Grouse, I think you jinxed me. I found 4 rocks in one of these plots and 2 in one other plot.

Whaaaaat? I took all that time to plant 30 nice, sharp, tiller busting rocks in your plots and you only managed to find 6 of them?

Grouse

Corn and beans are in and cultipacked at home, just have the beans left at the farm and hope for some rain.

I hate it when the pic turns sideways

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Beans are in at the farm. I tried something different this year. I went from 20″ rows for my beans to 13″. I set the planter up at 26″ rows then planted between the rows. There are several reasons for this. One I get more food in the ground, two I get a quicker canopy on the beans so they shade out weeds faster and shade the ground to hold moisture better. It did double the planting time and made me have to concentrate more on what I was doing, but in the end I am hoping it is worth it. Hopefully the dang ragweed can’t get started up thru the beans now. All the spring planting is done, now we just need some rain in a bad way.

I was going to plant some beans in with one of the corn plots I planted last weekend, but when I went to plant I notice the corn was already coming up. I thought that was very quick, but as I walked the rows in several of the plots I planted last weekend they all had perfect rows of what I have to assume is corn popping up 1/2″ – 1″ already.