New to all of this

Alright guys. The farmer that I bow hunt on gave me permission to plant a 1ish acre food plot this year in the back of one of the fields. He is going to be disking the field any day now then after that we will go in and plant. We are planning on putting half in clover and the other half in brassicas this summer. Are there any secrets I should know about? This year the plot will butt up to a corn field so there will be plenty of food so they won’t just rely on the plot. I’m just a newby when it comes to food plots. I’ve done a ton of reading on them and feel confident we can pull it off. Just wanna hear from the pros on what they would do lol

I am by far not a pro, but I will throw out my 2 cents.

Spring planted clover always scares me. Spring is when everything start to grow including weeds. Clover will start slow and doesn’t grow very high, so it gets choked out early by weeds that are tough to control. My suggestion to anyone who wants to plant clover in the spring is plant it with a cover crop like oats of rye. About mid July the cover crop can be mowed down and the clover, which now has established under the cover crop, will flourish.

I would also add a cover crop to the area you plan to put brassica later in the year. Anything to keep the weeds at bay. the deer will use that cover crop in spring and early summer. Then about mid July mow down the cover crop, disc and plant the brassica. I would also add some nitrogen to the brassica portion of that plot. Brassica loves N just as much if not more than corn and without will barely survive if at all. Without a soil test I would just add 100lbs per acre of urea(46-0-0). That will give your brassica a good jump. Good luck!!! It’s addicting

Every situation is different so it’s not really about what the pros would do, it’s figuring out a good starting point for you.

A couple of questions:

1. When and how do you intend to hunt this property? Bow? Gun? Very late season bow/muzzleloader?

2. Where is the property?

3. Do you have any equipment of your own? Even hand equipment like a backpack sprayer, hand tiller, ATV, etc counts.

This is a great opportunity and you’ll love it.

Grouse

I am located in SW Iowa and I only bow hunt. Sometimes I will Late Muzz hunt into early January. And we have all the hand equipment you mention. But due to the main crop we can’t get anything bigger than an ATV in there.

I was thinking along the same lines as Sticker. Double cropping this plot.

The problem is that 1 acre is not a huge plot to begin with and then cutting it in half with 2 separate crops makes it even smaller and the deer will probably eat both sides of the plot down to the nub in no time.

For your situation and location, I’d be tempted to double crop the whole plot. I’d plant a cover crop of oats or rye, possibly mixed with clover. Let the deer have at that until mid-July, then terminate the whole plot with roundup, lightly disc, and plant the whole thing in a brassicas blend in mid July. And pray for rain.

The problem with double cropping it is your access and equipment. Do you have the gear to get it done once the other crops are in?

Grouse

Once crops are in we would be limited to hand tools. And if weather permits row crops should be in by May. Since this is the first year we were planning on using it as a trial run. We have a pretty good deer population. But not near what it used to be. So I’m not really worried about over grazing. If that’s a problem I guess it would be a good problem to have lol. But I think I’ll take your advice and do clover and a rye mix to start and see what happens. What kind of cover crop do you guys recommend?

If you’re going to split the plot in half, here’s what I’d do:

Before planting, spray anything that’s green on the plot with roundup. Disc the soil if needed to break up any clumps.

Plant a good clover blend and then use about 30 to 40 pounds of rye or oats as a nurse crop to minimize the grazing pressure on the young clover and to suppress weeds. This will be an excellent summer and fall plot, there is never a time when deer won’t eat clover.

On the other half of the plot, plant 50-65 pounds of oats or 56-70 pounds of rye. This will produce a thick/lush plot and will keep weeds at a minimum.

At the end of June, mow the plot and terminate the rye or oat half of the plot with Roundup. Wait for a kill, then disc or till and plant with a high-quality brassicas blend. Plant no later than mid-July, preferably with rain in the forecast. Fertilizer per Sticker’s comment above or get a soil test to be more exact.

All seed weights above assume the plot is really one acre. Measure with GPS to verify.

Best of luck. Take pictures and post your progress.

Grouse

Thanks for the help guys. Turns out the area that I can plant is only a half acre. Looked bigger in person but I measured it online and it’s right at a half acre. So would you guys just go with clover and a rye mix?

Jeff Schomaker wrote:

Thanks for the help guys. Turns out the area that I can plant is only a half acre. Looked bigger in person but I measured it online and it’s right at a half acre. So would you guys just go with clover and a rye mix?

That is what I would try with only a half acre. Maybe even mix some crimson clover with some jumbo ladino white clover for variety and use rye as your cover crop. I only plant ladino now, just because it has worked so well for me, but a lot of guys like to mix clover types for variety.

Yes, I would go with clover for a plot that size and then add a cereal grain as a nurse crop to protect the young clover. Personally, I use oats in clover, but I doubt there is much difference between oats and rye for this use.

Unless you know what varieties of clover work well in your specific area, I would plant a blend. SW Iowa is going to be significantly hotter and potentially also significantly dryer than most of MN.

Final thought. Get planting as soon as you can! As Sticker mentioned, clover is a fall-planted crop from the midsouth on down. You are borderline for spring planting in SW Iowa so my advice would be get going on it.

In SW Iowa, you’re weeks ahead of where we are up here in the frozen Tundra. Clover is not frost sensitive, in fact, frost aids germination, and grain will take a mild frost, but you are probably out of the frost danger altogether down there by now anyway. Get your clover growing while the moisture is there and the weather is relatively cool. You want that stuff well established with good roots before the heat and dry weather hits.

Grouse

I’m gonna get it planted as soon as the field gets disked. Problem is they are talking rain off and on this week so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get in there. Hoping soon. I would have planted it a long time ago but I just got the OK from the land owner last week.

Get it in as soon as you can, you will be fine. Good luck and keep us posted

Well there’s no seed going in the ground this weekend unfortunately. Total washout. What a waste of a weekend. But looks like things should dry out this week so I should be able to get it in the ground. Planning on planting clover and either rye or oats as a nurse crop. Fingers crossed it works out well.

Jeff Schomaker wrote:

Planning on planting clover and either rye or oats as a nurse crop. Fingers crossed it works out well.

It’ll work out great.

Clover doesn’t get a lot of love these days in food plot circles, mostly because the high maintenance “glam crops” tend to dominate the conversation because they need so much time and attention.

Clover is the steady performer and, to be honest, it’s pretty hard to screw up. Think of it this way, when you’re spreading tens of millions of seeds per acre PLUS nurse seeds, odds are in your favor that things are going to grow.

AND if you maintain your clover plot, you should be getting 3 years out of it at least! So there’s one more reason why we don’t talk about clover that much. If you’re doing it right, it’s just there.

Like others, I may spend more time talking about the “glam” annuals, but 33% of my plot acreage is clover at all times.

Grouse

Well I finally got to get in the field and get the plot planted in oats and clover on Sunday. And like clockwork we got a perfect rain last night and into today. So it shouldn’t be long before things begin to sprout. Question about the oats. Would you guys try and get in to mow it or spray it once the clover get established?

Perfect timing Jeff. I was going to ask the same thing. Fingers crossed we get some more rain today on my clover and rye I planted Monday.

I am thinking we can just mow the rye/oats before it seeds out to allow the clover to take over… assuming the clover has established itself by that time. Hopefully someone will correct me if I’m in left field with that assumption.

Spraying is a little tricky because, in a new clover stand with a oats nurse crop, the only thing you can spray for is a grass killer. Which will kill the oats.

With spring planted clover, I’d keep an eye on it and mow if needed. That is if the clover gets tall enough to start flowering out. I don’t worry too much about the oats because most of the time the deer keep them mowed, but even if they mature and head out, so what? You just get a few more oats.

Oats will eventually die out in areas with hard-kill winters.

Also, it’s likely with spring planted clover you will want to spray a grass killer either in the very late summer or when things green up next spring. That grass killer will also take out any remaining oats.

Grouse

I have never sprayed my clover/rye plantings, but then again I haven’t done a spring plant of that combo. When I fall plant them I just mow the rye off the following July. I never cared if they seeded out. Like Grouse said, it’s just more food if they do seed out and regrow.

That’s what I like to hear… less work! Plenty of fishing to be done before deer season rolls around.

Plot update 5/28/17: Well the rye came up pretty good and the clover is just starting to pop up. We only have a weed problem in one small area. I have two questions though. Due to hard rains and the plot being planted on a small slope the bottom side silted in slightly. Do you guys thing the clover will still come up? There were a few barely popping up but not many. And the second question is do we need to wait and let the clover grow more before we spray the weeds with 2-4-DB? Just a small patch of pig weeds. Thanks for all the help guys!

Jeff Schomaker wrote:

Due to hard rains and the plot being planted on a small slope the bottom side silted in slightly. Do you guys thing the clover will still come up? There were a few barely popping up but not many. And the second question is do we need to wait and let the clover grow more before we spray the weeds with 2-4-DB? Just a small patch of pig weeds. Thanks for all the help guys!

Clover seed is very light and washes away easily, so you may have to reseed that washed off area. This has happened to me before as well, it doesn’t take much to float clover off the soil and wash it away.

On my only hillside plot, I set my 3 point disc ganges straight and then after planting I use the disc to create a “corduroy” pattern across the slope of the hill. I’m NOT “disc-ing in” the clover, I’m just creating small furrows that stop the seed from surface-washing down the hill too easily. It works! My hillside plot that got rained on last fall just after I planted it looks like I used a seed drill because the clover is growing in neat rows now.

I’d read the directions on the 2-4-DB. I don’t know if there’s a minimum time after germination that you have to wait to spray.

But make sure you kill that pigweed stone dead. That crap is already roundup resistant so don’t take any chances with it, soak it good and make sure it kills dead-dead.

Grouse

The plot is looking good. The oats came in great and the clover is coming slowly but surely. Finally got some good rain on it. Need to spray a few areas but it’s not to bad at all! This view is from my camera. I also have a question. There are a few spots where the clover didn’t come in very good due to hard rain and washing. Would you fill it in with clover this fall or throw some brassicas in there for this year and frost seed clover in the spring?

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I would seed in more clover now. A little rain will get the seed into the soil and it will start growing. I am going to do this next month on a plot that had some bad winter kill. I didn’t have any seed or I would have done it last time up.

The plot looks great!!

Yes, reseed the spots with clover now. Ideally, if you can time it before a pending rain or week with strong chances of rain in the forecast.

If it still needs a touch up in the fall, frost seed then as well. But there’s no sense giving up growing time by not spreading some seed now.

Great looking plot. Don’t be discouraged by any perceived lack of activity on that plot now. Deer have lots and lots of choices in summer, but they will know it’s there and when the ag crops start drying up, they’ll be all over it.

Grouse

Thanks guys! Knew you guys would know better than me lol

I think it’s safe to say they like the food plot! One pic he was standing there and the next he’s laying down. Can’t wait to see what both of these turn into. So far in a little shy of 2 weeks I think I’m up to 9 different bucks on this one camera.

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Hey, a set of antlers is growing out of your oats.

Good work. Looks really nice.

Grouse

Finally got in to mow the plot! Grass had really taken it over while I was gone for a couple weeks. Plan on spraying and broadcasting more clover in the next week or so. There is good clover coming in closest to the camera but thanks to heavy rains after planting most of the plot is very spotty. Any recommendations on what I should do? Will over seeding be worth it right now?

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I would do just like you are going to, get some more seed in there while you have all that thatch to keep it in place. Late summer/ Fall seeded clover does really well for me.

Yes, overseed with clover in late August. It’ll be fine as long as you get rain.

Grouse