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WI Shedhead

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I have 2 parcels close together that I want to put into food plots in the spring. They are both 1/2 acre and are easily accesible. They have not been tilled in at least 10 years and are currently covered in CRP type cover. The farmer lives 1/2 mile from my house. I don't have any equiptment to till the ground but will broadcast seed,fertilizer, and spray myself. I have access to a deck mower that I will clear the fields with. How much should I expect to pay to have the farmer come over and work the 2 1/2 parcels?

This is my first try at foodplots and I want to do it right and not waste any money if possible.

Should I have him disk it or deep fork it? Or just ask what he thinks?

Thanks for any advice

WI Shedhead

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I'd expect to pay a bit more than custom rates for 2 plots of 1/2 acre. Depending on his equipment it can take longer getting turned around and situated than actually putting iron to the ground. As far as what to do- it depends on what you want to grow and other plot prep. It will make a difference on how you plan to kill existing sod and keep weeds down.
 
I agree with Pharmer, it might be tough to get someone to do an acre or two for the custom hire rates but you can at least use the Iowa State numbers as a starting point. Some farmers might not consider it worth their time. You might get lucky and find a local farmer who likes deer/deer hunting who might plant it for free. A neighbor was kind enough to do that for me years ago.

Ideally, the sod should have been sprayed with 2-4D/round up last fall. This kills it and gives the root mass some time to decompose (the bacteria that decompose vegitation steal nitrogen from growing plants). Unless you want to go with a round up ready variety of corn/soybean/???, you will have a tough time with weed/grass control unless you do some type of deep tillage (chisel plow, moldboard, etc.). Even with deep tillage, it is amazing how long seeds can remain dormant, just waiting to sprout when brought to the surface with the plow.

What would I do? Apply a 2-4D/RR burndown two-three weeks before you no-till round-up ready corn into the sod. You might contact local seed dealers to see if they have any partial bags of RR seed on hand from last year. They can't resell it and RR corn is not a problem for deer to eat. This at least gets you a food plot this year and you can change what you plant next year after the sod is gone. For a foodplot, I would buy the cheapest glyphosate I could find (Thiesens, Orschelons, Farm & Fleet, etc.).
 
I would like to plant a clover blend for sure and possibly an annual (RRcorn, brassicas, oats) in the other. I was told today that you can rent discs at the inplement dealer that you can pull behind a 4 wheeler. Any one had any succes with these?

WI Shehdhead
 
You mentioned that it had existing "CRP" type cover. What exactly is it seeded to now? Switch grass can be much tougher to transition out of than brome/orchard.


The discs that a 4 wheeler can pull aren't likely to do the deep tillage necessary to kill the root mass of the existing cover. For clover, I would burn off the area as soon as you can this spring to remove the thatch build up. This will blacken the soil so it warms up and dries out quicker. Then I would disc as soon as you can get in there this spring without compacting the soil or making dirt clods. For half an acre, you could buy a hand broadcast seeder and spred the clover seed over the disced up field. Best if done right before a rain so that the rain washes in the seed. Clover and alfalfa should be planted shallow, about an eighth of an inch. This might work for non-switch grass CRP. You might want to get in there and mow the top off the grass regrowth when the clover is short. It might be a good idea to delay fertilizing, as the clover will make it's own nitrogen and fertilizing early will just make the grass and weeds grow better. This route would limit the amount of herbicide you would use, more of an environmentally friendly approach.

I transitioned some switch grass to alfalfa in this fashion. Switch grass does not like to be constantly mowed, so over time (two-three seasons of mowing three times a year), the switch was giving up. This is hay mowing though, mowing short and before the grass/weeds have set seed. You might not want to do this for a food plot as you want forage for the deer to browse and the last thing you most likely want to do is bale hay
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Sorry, reading back over this there are a lot of "mights" but that's the way it goes.
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JNR has a good plan for this year if you need to get the clover down right away. Another option may to burn them off early, then no till some RR beans into the plots, follow up with the spray and then next winter frost seed clover into the bean stubble. There are lots of ways, may none "right" more than others. If you contact the local extension guys they should be able to help. The other option may be to talk with local Pheasants Forever chapter and make some new contacts. Good Luck
 
We had the same problem last year. We wanted to put food plots on some of our CRP ground. Our CRP is 10-15 year old brome grass. We thought we could just mow it and then disc it but we found out how tuff the root sytem for brome is. We also found out that very few of our neighbors turn their fields over. They have all gone to no-till.

We ended up having our neighboring farmer spray the new fields with Round-up and then he used his planter to drill the Round-up ready corn seed into and through the remaining weeds. The fields were sprayed two more times once the corn was tall enough. There were almost no weeds left in the fields after the third round of Round up.

As far as cost, our neighbor charges $15/hour for his time, $7/hour for his tractor, and $3/hour for his disc. So were usually in the $22-25/hour rate. Which I think is a great deal and we're lucky to have him as a neighbor. Since most of his ground is in CRP he's usually looking for some work to stay busy. He's 80 years old going on 40 and likes to stay busy, plus he wants the darn deer to stay on our property and off his.

A good thing to remeber when planing your future food plots is to start the year or at least the fall before.

Tim
 
Not that I know everything related to agriculture by any stretch, but I agree with PYBucks that long established brome can be tough to defeat in a short time. I am personally still a newbie on all things food plots, but on the advice of "in the know" neighbors I did the following:

I made an arrangement with a local farmer who in late August mowed the CRP/brome fairly short.

He sprayed, I believe with Roundup or something close to it, about 10 days later when the mowed grass started to show some green shoots. The two approximately 3-4 acre plots were and are definitely dead/browner than all the surrounding brome.

The intention is to plant this spring then, after tilling the now dead for 6 months brome. He was definitely of the opinion that this would be good because the roots will have decayed, etc.

We'll see, but it sounds sensible to me.
 
Could probably be a whole other post about prepping ground. Killing brome in the fall is fairly easy with deep tillage or mowing followed by roundup. It is a bear to kill in the spring either way. If you kill it in the fall with spray it is better to use no till in the spring because of the dormant seed bank, if you start turning dirt over you are activating more unwanted seeds. The extension office can tell you what works best or what they have had good luck with in your area.
 
Found out some more history about the proposed area. It used to be a sheep pasture and has not been worked in 20+ years. What would you guys say about this approach.
-Mow first thing in the spring
-Roundup when first green up appears
-keep at the roundup as needed throughout the summer
-till with my rear tine tiller (18" troybulit 6HP It's an animal) throughout the summer to kill and decompose the weeds
-then about the end of august broadcast clover blend before a good rain for a fall crop

I would reduce to 1/2 acre cause I could't get all that ground worked in one year with the tiller. Could work on the other plot in 05'.

Would it be better to plant a cover crop such as Buck Forage oats in the fall, till it under in the spring and then go for the clover?

I know the procedure of eliminating the weeds will work on this ground as I did this for my 45'x45' garden plot very close to this area. It took two seasons but thier is not a weed in this plot and the soil is black as coal. As a result of this I went to raised beds in my garden this past fall and will have them from now on. Unbelievable yields from these type of gardening practices!!!!!!!!!

WI Shedhead
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Tilling all summer sounds like a lot of effort and expense. If you can till it this spring, you might check into planting rye. Supposedly it has some weed suppression activity. Hopefully it wouldn't suppress clover come fall though. That's way I suggest checking into it
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Some plow rye under in the fall for "green manure" to boost fertility for the next crop.
Also if you plan to rototill it, why no go ahead and plant clover this spring? Then mow it before any weeds set seed all summer. Late summer the weeds should give up and you can let it grow up a little before fall. You won't have a lush food plot, but you'll have a start.

I still think you ought to burn off the thatch but maybe I'm just a pyro at heart
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. It really helps the soil warm up/dry out and there is less to till under.
 
Fire and chainsaws- tools of REAL men!

Really though, it you are planning on multiple tilling passes- I would save money on spray. If you are going to spray- then I wouldn't till and stir up the dormant seeds.
 
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