Cereal Grains and cover crops

[dbltree]

Welters is awesome, placed my order over the phone and had the seed sitting at my house the next day. Very easy to work with.

Hard to beat Welters for price and outstanding service!

February 14th, 2011

Deer still keep digging around for every last morsel of winter rye

as they always do they eat the rye literally to the dirt leaving one to wonder how the stuff will ever survive!

Not only do the eat it but they paw the dirt furiously further damaging what is left of the rye

I can't say that ALL of the rye survives but I do know there seems to be plenty of it that springs to life when the weather warms

You know you are successful in holding whitetails on your property with year around cover and food when you find sheds!

While this one was dropped in an alfalfa field, they haven't been foraging there but instead are feeding in the clover, brassicas and winter rye....always fun to find the first shed of the year1

Winter rye, oats, peas, radish and red clover....great combination mix to add to your habitat plans.... :way:

 

[dbltree]

The following are some examples of crop rotations that can be used in almost any size plot and doing so will provide year around food sources and adapt whitetails to using that plot and the trails leading to it ALL the time

This is an example of adding soybeans to the rotation and sugar beets could easily be planted in place of one of the brassica strips.

Corn and soybeans are normally used in slightly larger fields of at least several acres or more and often work best with fencing

Very easy and practical to start subdividing your plots instead of planting brassicas in one field and clover in the back 40...doing so causes deer to change their patterns and that is the last thing we want them to do....

 

[One Big Buck]

DblTree,
The option of corn and soybeans in rotation would make the most sense for my farm. Is there a reason you recommend the rye and radish in the soybeans only? Could you plant it on the corn side as well? Since the turnips wouldn't get planted until mid/late July, do you initially plant that space in soybeans and then till under for the turnips?

 

[dbltree]

DblTree,
The option of corn and soybeans in rotation would make the most sense for my farm. Is there a reason you recommend the rye and radish in the soybeans only? Could you plant it on the corn side as well? Since the turnips wouldn't get planted until mid/late July, do you initially plant that space in soybeans and then till under for the turnips?

Yes...you can overseed into corn if it dries down soon enough and you haven't used heavy amounts of atrazine. It's not as easy to spread seed obviously but it can and does work.

Yes...I'll probably just till under a narrow strip of soybeans for the turnips....

 

[waylonb19]

I planted part of a plot to peas,rye,oats,radish,clover last fall. Is there anything I need to do to it this spring as far as the rye goes? I am planning on tilling this under in the fall and planting brassicas.

 

[jawelch]

Where on earth did you learn so much?
How big is this place that you are managing? (quite successfully)

 

[dbltree]

I planted part of a plot to peas,rye,oats,radish,clover last fall. Is there anything I need to do to it this spring as far as the rye goes? I am planning on tilling this under in the fall and planting brassicas.

You'll want to clip the rye off this spring either that or spray it with clethodim before it gets 12" or so high and then just watch the clover grow! Till the clover under in mid July for your brassicas. :way:

Where on earth did you learn so much?
How big is this place that you are managing? (quite successfully)

The School of Hard Knocks....a lifetime of farming, hunting and an intense passion for building better wildlife habitat.

I have 175 acres and help a few other landowners manage their habitat as well....

 

[jawelch]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Ill admit that I have only read a few of your posts but you can bet that if I ever buy any land Ill be on here searching for any post you have made.

 

[waylonb19]

One more question dealing with rotations. I am planning on putting in a 2 acre plot of soybeans this spring..then come leaf drop broadcast brassicas into it. What options will I have as far as planting the following spring? I don't have a planter so corn will not be an option at the moment. Should I just plant it into clover/oats and use that as a manure crop for brassicas in July..then soybeans again the following spring? Which would be 2 yrs from this spring.

 

[dbltree]

One more question dealing with rotations. I am planning on putting in a 2 acre plot of soybeans this spring..then come leaf drop broadcast brassicas into it. What options will I have as far as planting the following spring? I don't have a planter so corn will not be an option at the moment. Should I just plant it into clover/oats and use that as a manure crop for brassicas in July..then soybeans again the following spring? Which would be 2 yrs from this spring.

Yes...that would be the best suggestion but one thing I would encourage you to consider is dividing the plots up so you have more then one crop in each. Your on the right track with good rotations and they will work fine if the plots are very close to each other. If not consider dividing them in the manner shown in my previous post so that you have year around food sources in each field.

 

[SDHunt24/7]

What kind of spring oats

Dbltree: what kind of spring oats are in the mix that you have listed? There are several at welters. Also, I could not find the 6040 field peas. This looks like a good plot from the pics you have posted over the years.

 

[dbltree]

Dbltree: what kind of spring oats are in the mix that you have listed? There are several at welters. Also, I could not find the 6040 field peas. This looks like a good plot from the pics you have posted over the years.

Almost any common oat will work well but I use mostly Jerry oats in my mix. I usually use 4010 forage peas from Welters, 6040 peas will also work well if you find a supplier in your area who carries them but you don't need both.

4010 peas

Peas are the candy in the mix and will be eaten quickly if there are very many deer so no sense spending anymore then you have to on them....

 

[SDHunt24/7]

Great thanks again for all your info in the different threads I have posted questions on!

 

[dbltree]

March 23rd, 2011

The winter rye is already greening up here in SE Iowa now that we've had a few sunny days

Rye grows rapidly at the first hint of spring, providing a lush food source for winter weary whitetails

and rye's effectiveness is apparent as whitetails flock to it

they appear to be feeding in a spent brassica strip in this pic but in fact they are feeding on rye I overseeded into some brassicas that had been decimated by heavy grazing.

and to follow the rye....the baby red clover is already well on it's way!

Red clover will feed my soil and deer from very early spring until we plow it under for more brassicas this summer

The right combination's of crops all planted in one field keep em coming back every day, year after year and adapted, predictable whitetails are far easier to kill....

 

[DE2IA]

dbltree, is there a difference in using red as opposed to white clover in an area where you just need a cover crop until fall planting?

 

[DH1]

I was thinking about this last week, when I was doing some frost seeding in the plots I started working with, I couldn't help but observe all the left over traces of deer activity (seemed like a pile every couple of feet walked in some areas).

http://www.poultrywaste.okstate.edu/files/f-2228web.pdf

I put it here, since rye is considered to be a good scavenger of P & K as well. Between the 2, maybe I'll get a brake this year on fertilizer cost. Not sure how much to adjust just yet.

 

[dbltree]

dbltree, is there a difference in using red as opposed to white clover in an area where you just need a cover crop until fall planting?

Red clover is slightly less expensive to seed and produces more biomass per acre but otherwise there is not a substantial difference.

I put it here, since rye is considered to be a good scavenger of P & K as well. Between the 2, maybe I'll get a brake this year on fertilizer cost. Not sure how much to adjust just yet.

It takes time but continued use of the right combination of cover crops such as rye and radishes that have followed a legume plow down (clover) will lesson the need for synthetic fertilizers. Building organic matter helps hold the nutrients and keeps them from leaching away as well.

Your on the right track!

 

[Boz]

Not sure this is the right thread to post in, but does anyone have the bag label / "Ingredients" of Whitetail Institutes' No-plow?

 

[dbltree]

April 15th, 2011

The winter rye is really being grazed heavily right now!

I think I found the worlds smallest shed!

I overseed winter rye into the decimated brassicas last fall where it happily lapped up the nitrogen not used by the brassicas.

On the left is the overseeded rye while on the right is the "planted" rye mix

I also overseeded the rye at 150#'s per acre so it is not only greener/lusher from the high N rates but also thicker

The winter rye sown with oats, peas and radish was sown at only 50#'s per acre so it's not nearly as thick and done so to insure there wouldn't be too much competition for young clovers sown with it. In this case I didn't add red clover because I knew it would be killed early on for corn.

I looked at a friends rye/red clover plots and the clover was looking awesome and both were being heavily grazed. Great combination to feed deer until it's plowed under for July brassicas... :way:

 

[dbltree]

April 27th, 2011

This time of year I always get calls from people wanting to get their clover planted and here in SE Iowa we have had scarcely more then a few days when one could plant anything at all. Spring planting legumes is just asking for trouble, not that it can't be done very successfully of course but even if you get it planted you'll then face the daunting challenge of dealing with a flush of weeds that love cool wet spring weather.

One way to avoid all of that is to establish clover with winter rye in late August (giver or take a week depending on where you live) when the weather is normally much drier and any weeds that sprout end up being wiped out by frosts. When I suggested this to a good friend of mine he said "I duuno about that rye...doesn't that spread and take over the whole farm?!" Oh boyyy....I still have a lot of work to do!

He was of course thinking of ryegrass which has nothing to do with winter rye which is a cereal grain and will never spread or take over anything.

These are pics of winter rye and white clover from about a week ago

The white clover is growing rapidly and the rye was being heavily grazed

These are recent pics of rye and red clover...minus weeds and no worries about the incessant rainfall!

A local seed dealer told another friend..."I never sell red clover cause deer don't like it"...oh really? Guess someone forgot to tell the deer!

White clover is of course a better option for a perennial clover plot, because it is easier to manage but for a cover crop to plow under as green manure to add some nitrogen and biomass to the soil for the brassica crop to follow, a one cut red clover like Alta-Swede Mammoth red clover is perfect and deer feed heavily on it during that interim period that would otherwise be an empty barren plot!

Use a combination of winter rye, oats, peas, forage radish and the clover of your choice this fall as a part of your food sources and you'll be setting pretty next spring without the stress of trying to establish clover. Let it rain...my clover is growing like crazy while your wishing you could get yours planted....