New food plot, seeded just in time.

Finally, after weeks of clearing a new food plot out of the jungle, we planted the seed yesterday. As you can see from the pictures, this plot is 1/4 acre, cut out of pure jungle. We were in hurry-up offense mode this year just to get one plot in.

Actually, I’m surprised by how little rock there was. Also, since I’m the second documented owner of this piece of land in the history of MN and there’s no sign that the first owner ever moved onto the land, this ground has never been broken. So the fact that we managed to disc it up to a pretty reliable 4 inch depth, was pretty amazing to me.

The last time I was out working, I didn’t quite get enough done to seed it. So yesterday, we laid down the seed. And just in time! I disked up the plot one last time yesterday afternoon and the dust was FLYING. The surface 3 inches was powder dry. But we had to get the seed in the ground sometime…

We had terrific luck as the rain started falling about 2 hours after we got done seeding. Not a huge rain, about 1/2 inch fell, but that will hopefully be enough to get things germinated.

Since this was virgin ground, I spread 300 pounds of lime and 50 pounds of 10-10-10 fertilizer, all of which was disked in two weeks ago. I went with a winter forage mix of peas, buckwheat, and radishes for this plot, hoping to provide a good standing plot of late season goodies.

Everything is a fun experiment and a learning process at this stage in developing this property. I’m really enjoying the whole thing, even though it is a lot of work. It will be interesting to see how this plot comes along.

I had another “learning opportunity” yesterday when I learned that the gas gauge on a Polaris Sportsman isn’t worth a hill of beans. It SAID about 1/4 tank left… And then the machine died just as I was winching the last big rock off the plot. Some use of strong language did ensue. Luckily Mrs. Grouse was coming out with the boys, so I was able raise her on the radio and get an emergency fuel drop. Note to self, refuel before leaving town every time.

C’mon rain! We could use a little more.

Grouse

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Sweetness.

#lovekillplots

That’s awesome!
You guys will definitely be rewarded for your hard work. Maybe each year make it slighly bigger and add another one on a different area of the property.
Was everything done with the wheeler??

If my land didn’t already have established food plots, I would love to carve out a nice seculded food plot in the jungle. I’m sure the deer will hammer yours!
Good luck this year.

I cut down all the undergrowth, brush, and saplings up to about 2 inches with a Stihl FS 310 brush cutter. This is an extra-heavy duty straight shaft trimmer and it’s amazing the amount of work that can be accomplished with this machine. Since buying it last fall, I’ve put over 5 gallons of fuel through it.

Then the chainsaws came out to play and we cut down all the trees that were left. Actually, there were surprisingly few as this area of the property has thinner, larger trees. So we cut off only about 5 trees. All were popple and birch and we just cut them off at ground level and left the stumps. They’ll rot in just a few years.

Next came the ATV with the spray rig. I custom built a spray boom with 3 nozzles on an old 25 gallon hand-spray rig that a relative was getting rid of because it was too small for his farm use. I zapped the whole plot with Tractor Supply’s 40% gly + surfactant. And WOW, did this mix zap the trash. Everything on this plot was deader than a doornail 5 days later.

Next I started working it with a King Kutter ATV disc that I bought from another member here. The King Kutter had a custom weight rack already installed with about 100 pounds of weight. That makes a big difference. I worked the plot and as the rocks were exposed, we pried them up.

This area of Pine County has LOTS of rock and to my mind it’s incredible there’s any farming at all. We had relatively little rock on this plot, we only had to move 5-6 larger rocks and then a bunch of bowling ball and smaller rocks. But relatively speaking, this is pretty good ground.

The ground was softer because of the record rains this spring, so the disc worked better than I expected. Especially considering the thousands of roots that were present from the brush we cut down to make the plot. Obviously an ATV was the only way to fly, there’s no way that bigger farm equipment would work back in the boonies because there isn’t room to turn around.

Next year a bulldozer will be coming in to clear 2 more plots and expand this plot to make it much larger. There simply was no time to go this route this year because first I needed some planning time to get to know the lay of the land and focus on cutting access roads and a camp area. I have 80 acres and by this time next year I hope to have 3 plots totaling about 10-15 acres.

I enjoy the process, I’m sure we’ll get results because the varieties I’ve planted were selected to fill a “food gap”. Since there are plenty of hay and alfalfa fields in this area, the deer are going to feed there until that food becomes scarce as harvesting and cold weather take them out of the mix. That will hopefully make my plot very appealing in the late fall as firearms season gets going.

Grouse

Awesome! I don’t think I will be as lucky with the rain as you were. I’m sure you know, but Polaris has a reserve on the tank. Just turn the knob to the down position. unless you are like my buddy and always run it on the reserve setting.
DT

deertracker wrote:

Awesome! I don’t think I will be as lucky with the rain as you were. I’m sure you know, but Polaris has a reserve on the tank. Just turn the knob to the down position. unless you are like my buddy and always run it on the reserve setting.
DT

Funny you should mention the reserve. The Sportsman’s owner’s manual has some very confusing language. It says the reserve position is not used on the Sportsman 500 and it should only be run in the “on” position. I should have tried it, I never even thought about it. I read that and then thought that’s funny, why have the reserve position if its not used. Well, now I know.

Hopefully the half inch will be enough to get things going because nothing’s in in the forecast for this week as far as rain. We couldn’t buy a sunny day in June, now we can’t buy a drop of rain.

Grouse

Looks like a very nice spot, hope it grows well for you!

It is a lot of work building and maintaining a food plot. But it is so much fun to see what your efforts can yield. It is so addicting, once you got the “plot bug” you’ll never stop. I planted a 1/4 acre plot many moons ago by hand. Now I am planting 15+ acres with ATV harrow, tractors, and heavy machinery. Yesterday I finished cutting the grass root mat with a TD-8 dozer on an acre & a half that has never been plowed. I found that removing the top two inches of root mat makes it easier to disc up with the ATV disc harrow. Good luck to you this fall!

Update. Here’s a picture taken on Tuesday of this week. This is from the other end of the plot compared to the previous picture posted above.

This is after about a half inch of rain. Luckily, it rained .4 again on Wednesday up there, so hopefully things will keep sprouting.

Overall, that’s more green-up than I expected given how dry the plot was when I disked it up just before planting.

Grouse

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Awesome. I’m anxiously awaiting pictures from my buddy up north to see my plot.
DT

Of course they are shipping calves this week so I have to wait to see pictures of my plot and trail cameras.
DT

I’m laughing with you…. My old man gets really busy this time of year and I have to patiently wait…

Those Stihls are incredible machines! I bought one when we first got our land and it paid for itself in one weekend.
That looks great!

belletaine wrote:

Those Stihls are incredible machines! I bought one when we first got our land and it paid for itself in one weekend.
That looks great!

Yes, IMO a heavy-duty commercial-grade brush cutter is a necessity. There’s no comparison between a real brush cutter and a homeowner-style “trimmer” and a real commercial brush cutter. Everything on the brush cutter is bigger, heavier duty, and longer lasting.

I can work a full day with the Stihl and be none the worse for wear from it. The harness is so comfortable and the bicycle handles drastically improve the ergonomics and leverage you have when sawing. Awesome.

But I will say that the FS 310 is the WORST when it comes to being fuel fussy. It is HYPERSENSITIVE, to what I’m not sure, but it will outright refuse to run if it doesn’t like something about the fuel.

Honestly, the damn thing is like a wine snob, it sniffs every tank of fuel and turns up its nose and sulks at anything but the best of the best of the best and ONLY if that fuel was distilled less than a week ago from the finest distillery.

I’m using Stihl’s highest grade oil that comes with fuel stabilizer and it was in non-ox premium fuel, so neither oil or phase separation should be an issue. And even then, the gas cannot have been that bad because I have turned around and ran it through my Husky chainsaw and Stihl blower with no issues, but the FS 310 wouldn’t stay lit for love or money on the same fuel. Buying new primo no-ox from a different station and the fussy thing was singing like a (primadonna) opera star. I’ve had it happen twice, once where the Stihl would not run and once where it ran but would not rev up smoothly.

Grouse

Forgot to bring my cell phone yesterday, but the plot is completely green and everything is looking good.

The mix I planted was Buckwheat, forage peas, raddish, and turnips. I can see all species present and everything is 3-5 inches high.

The deer are doing their best to ignore it at this point. I had no signs of browse activity, but then there’s still LOTS of other food around. I’m confident that they’ll find it when the time is right.

Hopefully the plot keeps growing fast because the cool weather is headed our way. Forecast at my property for Friday is a low of 33. Yikes! Low ground frost almost certain if it gets that low.

Grouse

Sounds great Grouse! They will find it no doubt.