Looking for food plot strategies for a newbie

A few years ago my uncle and I had a company come out and opened up 4 areas we wanted to do food plots in, each are about 1/2 acre give or take a little, then with an atv and a drag harrow we cleaned up as best we could without having a heart attack, we are both over 60, the ground is pretty rough, we planted Real Deal G2 seed mixtures and more than likely planted way to much but ended up with a great looking smorgasbord of multi variety clover, turnips, brassicas, peas and wheat. Now other than the clover we now have several types of weeds like sedge, thisle, ferns etc.

After reading some posts here we decided it’s time for weed killer but now we don’t know if we should level it, what to kill with and when and what to plant so we only need 1 type of herbicide without harming the crop, we also have clover growing on the trails interconnecting the food plots.

The good news is after several years of not seeing any deer we are now seeing alot of very healthy looking bucks and does. If this helps the property is located just east of Sand Stone.

Thanks in advance for any advice,

Tom in Blaine

Here are a few thoughts. BTW, my farm is just a few miles from your place.

First off, because I’m about 3 miles from you, you can forget the soil test. I’ll flat out TELL you that your soil is acidic. Your PH will almost certainly be 5 to 5.5. Have you spread lime and if so how much?

If you have NOT spread lime, get on the wheeler and hook up the spreader. You need to lime the bejeezus out of those plots. Spread at least 500 pounds on each plot if you can. Do ‘er ASAP because lime takes time to work. If you get it on now, it’ll be working for you for the next 6 months, where if you wait until spring, you’ll get no benefit next growing season.

I haven’t heard of that real deal seed, but most of the varieties you mention are annuals, meaning they grow for 1 season and die. So I’d guess what you have left is some red and/or white perennial clover mixed with a whole lot of weeds.

I very much doubt there is enough clover left to be worth the chemicals it would take to spray it. Do you by chance have a picture? Clover-safe herbicides are expensive and control is not easy to establish if sedge is present, which it almost certainly is in this area. IMO, you should consider starting over, but doing so in a way that will be more long-term strategy.

Time for a strategy discussion.

First, what equipment do you have available? For my thoughts on must-have equipment, see my replies on this thread.

Next off is when do you hunt? Bow? Rifle only? Both?

We have high deer densities in this area, so the main consideration IMO is to maximize the amount each plot grows. 1/2 acre plots are really small, I say this not to be condescending, but just to point out that your main consideration has to be putting out a crop that can stand up to browsing pressure.

IMO, here’s what I’d think about:

Clover is always good, but you need a high-quality blend that contains PERRENIAL northern clovers like our Midwest Monster Mega Clover Plus, not the southern softie annuals that come in mixes from the south. Also, clover MUST be protected with a nurse crop. I use oats. Oats protect the young clover from being over-browsed and torn out in the first season.

I’d recommend at least 2 of your 4 plots be clover. Clover is the gift that keeps on giving because a good stand of Mega Clover Plus lasts 3-4 years. So it reduces your workload and deer simply love clover, all the time. That leaves the rest of your time to focus on annuals.

I love soybeans as you may have gathered, but I don’t think they are right for you because of plot size.

I’d look at doing at the remaining plots in a summer planting of a brassicas, like our Brassicas Bender. Brassicas are a family of plants that include sugar beets, turnips, forage radish (daikon) and rapeseed. These are high protine, high-sugar plants that the deer love in late October through early November.

Brassicas in our area must be planted in late June or early July at the latest! I shoot for June 20th, but I want to be in absolutely no later than July 5.

How’s that for a prelim plan?

Grouse

Hi Grouse I was hoping you would chime in, my uncle and I have talked about a kill off and start over, we have a polaris 400 sportsman a drag harrow heavy duty, a swisher 44″ brush cutter which we also mow with, a northern tool 25 gallon atv mount sprayer single boom, northern tool atv mount spreader, between last year and the year before we spread 150-200lbs pelletized lime on each plot and a couple of bags of 10-10-10 on each plot every other year, I would be going up this wknd but our duck hunting trip got screwed up so I’m leaving this tuesday till next tuesday.

we usually rifle hunt and we take turns harvesting a deer, we both carry firearms just in case the buck of a life time shows up, I also black powder hunt and have my uncle using my BP gun if its his year to shoot, bow hunting is usually given but the last several years duck hunting has gotten in the way. I’ll check into that ground hog atv disc asap. our property is at the south end of Clark road in the plot book under the name Crooks. Thanks again Tom from Blaine

Hello Grouse a huge thanks for the great input, we’ve decided to make 3 of the plots clover and the biggest plot brassica’s because thats where the main hunting condo is and the other plots have ladder stands. we decided we should back drag all the plots to smooth them out and we’re hoping that should remove a fair amount of the vegetation as well, the atv ground hog disc is in our future, my question is this, after back dragging should I disc first then put down the lime and spray GLY at that time or wait until early early spring then spray, also from what I’ve read gly doesn’t do much for sedge so I’m thinking something along the lines of “Sedge Hammer” or it’s equivelent,, right now we still have a strong multi species crop with the same species as the mega clover including the chicory and want to hunt over it this year. At this time we are looking to get someone with equipment/bobcat in to do the back dragging after rifle season, hopefully after the first weekend. Any further thoughts on your end would be highly regarded. we are going back up in two weeks for final shooting lane clearing etc, also hoping the fence guy will show up : )

Thanks again

Tom

Tom, I’ll send you a private message with my contact details. I may be up at my farm in 2 weeks, so it might be possible for me to stop by.

As far as the order of operations goes:

1. After this hunting season, have all the dirtwork done that you can to smooth things out.

2. There is no point in spraying gly this year. Glyphosate can only work on green, actively growing plants, so save the gly treatments for the pre-planting steps sometime next year.

BTW, there is kind of some misinformation out there about Glyphosate. Gly has no residual effect. It only kills what the spray touches and only if the plant is green and actively growing. There is no effect after that, it won’t stop seeds from germinating, etc.

For me, the type of sedge grass that I have does die if I hit it with my “killoff” dose of gly (3 ounces per gallon). The problem is that you can’t spray that dose of roundup once a clover plot is established because it would kill the clover too.

Clethodim is the main grass killer that is clover-safe, but it does not kill sedge grasses once they are beyond a certain stage.

I do NOT know if Sedgehammer is clover safe so do your homework if you plan to use it. I hear of it being used on turfgrass, but I don’t know that it can be used on clover. I’ve never seriously looked into it just because of cost, even a half gallon is outrageously expensive. Personallyl next spring when it comes time to kill the plots, I’d try glyphosate first and see what kind of kill you get. Gly is cheap and if that solves the problem…

3. Lime can be added as soon as possible after your plots have been dragged. Lime is neutralizing soil acid through a chemical reaction that takes time. Winter does not hurt this process, I just like to get the lime down on top of soil, so if we get snow before you can spread it, I’d hold off.

Grouse