Shopping list for 2019

So I’m more determined than ever to get into food plots. I don’t have any AG equipment yet, but plan on finding the things I need before late spring. The main location I have available for planting is rumored to be 4 acres or so. It is on our property. I will measure it before seeding calculations. My neighbors have a tractor that I can borrow, but the only attachment they have is a large deck mower for trails. The field hasn’t been worked in at least 25 years if ever. It used to have sheep way back when. The ground has a lot of clay and gravels in neighboring fields. I’d plan on putting in about 5 stripes of differing plants. Maybe a clover/rye, beans, clover/rye, corn, clover/rye. What do the “experts” think, and what equipment do I “need” to obtain. Used and or cheaper is better for my budget, so if you know any places to look in Central MN, that would be great also. Thanks in advance.

This is my “field”.

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Eagle beans! I’m sure grouse or sticker will chime in. They are great at growing plots!

A couple of thoughts and some experience to share. I manage my own 120 acres and then through my company I have a lot of contact with other food plotters, so…

General stuff you can do now:

1. Measure your plot as you say. That doesn’t look like 4 acres to me. Most people cannot eyeball acerage and be even within 20%.

2. Get 2 soil samples taken. You want to do a ph test on both. “Central MN is a large area, more specifics would help. My guess is you will be 5 to 5.5 PH, so you are acidic and will need to apply lime.

3. If you need to apply lime, get after it now. Lime takes time to work, so sooner is better.

Equipment. Don’t get hung up in tractor porn and get hung upon tactors. Just starting out, you need to focus your money where it will do you the most good.

You don’t say if you have a 4 wheeler, so that would be nice to know. In order, here are what I consider the most important pieces of necessary equipment.

1. Sprayer. Weed control is absolutely critical to plot success. I use my sprayer more than any other piece of equipment, and it’s more important that this piece runs well because spaying is time sensitive. Buy the best ATV sparyer you can afford and make sure it has a 100% duty cycle rating. Anything less is useless as you’ll be sitting around for hours waiting for the pump to cool.

Personally, I have a 25-gallon spray rig, 100% duty cycle pump, and I have a 9 foot boom with 12 feet of coverage per pass. AND I wish it were more!

2. Tillage. IMO you either need to invest in a good ATV disc or a full on 3 point disc for your neighbor’s tractor. Heavier is better and discing takes time, so go as wide as you have the power to pull. You will use the disc a lot.

I started out with an ATV disc and they work fine, but they are SLOW. To work up a single acre can take an hour or more with a 36 inch ATV disc. On the ATV side, I’ve been impressed with what plotters can do with the Grondhog ATV dics. Buy the widest one you can get.

3. ATV spreader. You use this for everything from pelletized lime, to fertilizer, and sometimes for large seed like oats or soybeans.

You want the WIDEST stance you can get. Little lawn spreaders are useless, they tip over when loaded and that creates a messs and can kill part of a plot dead if you spill fertilizer. Find the really wide Agrifab ATV spreader and you’ll see what I mean. Wider is better.

4. You also really, really, really need a shoulder bag hand crank spreader too. Why? Because clover seed and other seed types are like spreading pepper. The ATV spreader won’t give you the fine control you need and you don’t want to waste expensive seed or risk overplanting which stunts growth.

There are other things you need eventually like a mower, but the 4 above are the most important for getting started.

Plot strategy / what to plant is a whole other conversation and we can kick it down the road a little.

Just a few thoughts. First timer plotters overwhelmingly spend a LOT of time worrying that they will “plant the wrong thing” and no deer will come.

What REALLY will happen 99.3% of the time is you will plant it and the deer will pile into your plots and hammer it to the ground! Your biggest challenge with small plots like you have will be maximizing tonnage so that your plots don’t look like the parking lot of an abandoned strip mall.

First, forget corn. You don’t have the equipment or the acerage to make corn successfull. Corn is expensive and the tonnage per acre is very low compared to other crops and the workload is high.

The best and most beneficial crop you can plant is a good stand of perrenial clover. Clover is the food plot equivilent to having a good ground game in football. There is NEVER a time when deer won’t eat clover. Do NOT buy the buck on the bag sporting goods store brands, those are mostly southern annual clovers that die after 1 season. In Minnesota you want a blend of PERRENIAL CLOVERS. Don’t get hung up on what your buddy tells you about which one clover is best. He’s wrong. The best thing is a blend approach that will work in a variety of soils and conditions.

Assuming you have 4 acres, do at least 1.3 acres of clover. Clover is the gift that keeps on giving, because do it right and it lasts 3-4 years, giving you time to focus on other parts of the plot.

Next we can talk about soybeans, but you have a lot of work to do first.

All the best!

Grouse

Grouse, all your info is like gold to me. The majority of what I “know” about food plots is from reading yours, stickers, and deer trackers posts, and a few others.
Our property is in southern Todd county. The field has been named the 4acre field for the last 25+ years, we’ll see what it really amounts to.
I have a Polaris 500 4 wheeler. So whatever that can handle I’ll use.
If you say no corn, then corn is out. I’ll get some soil samples this week. Do you have a test you’d recommend? I’d prefer to leave everything alone till the snow melts, any ground work or spraying back there could rough things up for bow hunting. Not much activity in our woods, so tractors and such would be like moving LA out there I would think. I know deer are curious critters, but my primary stands are near this field.
There are a couple hundred acres of AG around or property. 1 is always alfalfa-hay, 2 rotate corn, sunflower, beans. And 2 rotate beans, corn, hay. This year most are hay. Been pretty consistent for decades. Would’ve been a great year to have some beans…..
In the lime application, can I apply that over the dieing grasses now, or do I need to wait till I turn some dirt over?
I’ll have tons more questions, thank you for all your help.

You can absolutely apply lime now. It’s not like fertilizer, lime simply dissolves into the soil where it de-acidifies it. But it takes time to work, so anytime is a good time to lime if you need it.

In theory, it can be cheaper to have a local co-op come out and spread lime, but I have found this very difficult to actually pull off. Personally, I buy pelletized lime and spread it myself because it’s less hassle. Keep in mind, though, to move the PH 1 point, you may need to eventually apply over a ton of lime PER ACRE. Rome wasn’t built in a day, though. Generally, I’ve been applying about .5 to .75 tons per acre on my plots and I’ll keep doing it until I get the PH where I want it. This is about all I can manage each year.

If you can do 3 things this fall/winter you’ll be ahead of the game.

1. Get soil samples. 2 is enough. Test for Ph.
2. If your soil is below a 7 PH, apply lime.
3. Start looking at equipment and determine what you need and where you can get it. Then start watching for used deals or for sales.

One more word about equipment. You want the highest quality possible. This sounds obvious, but the reason is really time. Most of us, me included, don’t live on our hunting farms. Therefore, when we are at the farm and want to get work done, the last thing we want to be doing is fixing busted equipment. You will be surprised at how long it takes to get “just” 4 acres planted, so any time taken out to fix poor quality gear is time wasted.

In general, lawn and garden equipment LOOKS similar to the higher quality ag-specific versions of the same gear. Don’t be fooled. Buy the highest quality gear possible. This takes judicious bargain hunting which will take time, but NOW is actually when some of the best deals happen so keep your eyes peeled.

Grouse

This is all good stuff!

For now, I would focus on finding 2 pieces of equipment. Both of these are for your ATV, both will be needed as soon as you want to start working in the spring.

1. ATV sprayer. Your first task next spring will be to spray Roundup several times to kill off the old vegetation as you start to prep the plot sections.

I also have a Polaris 500 ATV. I use a 25 gallon sprayer so I know the machine can handle the weight.

I built my sprayer from parts because I couldn’t find exactly waht I was looking for. I like a folding boom sprayer that covers as much as possible. As I said, I have a 12 foot coverage swath and I wish it were 16.

2. Spreaders. To me, this one is pretty easy for the food plotter who uses an ATV. AgriFab’s 175 pound ATV spreader is the only one I’ve found that is even close to tough enough, wide enough of a stance, and big enough capacity to work well. I have spread tons of lime and fertilizer with mine and so far it’s worked great. The only complaint is the flimsy gearbox cover needs to be zip tied on so you don’t lose it.

I have not tried the newer hitch mounted electric spreaders from Moultrie and other sources, but my main concern with these spreaders is the “fill height” of the top of the spreader is very high. I would almost need a ladder to get product up above to load it, and lifting 50 pound bags of lime that high for a 1 ton spreading day seems pretty hard work to me compared to dumping them into a broadcast hopper.

Grouse

I am not ignoring this thread, but Grouse has pretty much hit the nail on the head with his replies. If I think of something else of value I will chime in.

I have used this website to measure my plots and it is quite accurate. http://www.geosq.com/geomeasure/

I get my soil tests done at https://www.plantbiologic.com/images/document/soiltest.pdf