Spraying/plowing/burning Question...

[bowhuntr311]

Hey all,

I have learned a great amount of knowledge about foodplots since I started hanging out on this website.

Thought I knew enough to take care of my food plots but now i have run into a dilema.

I have a friend that has a farm and has several tractors and pieces of equipment. My food plots are all about 1 acre to 3 acres in size. I have a ATV, brushhog, and peg tooth drag aswell.

These are my problems:
1. Old pasture area about 1.5 acres all sod. I was going to try to burn it, spray it when it started to green up, disc it and plant. Problem; burning ban went on 2 days ago and it will be on till it is green out, so my idea of burning it is out. Grass is long and Im worried about wasting my roundup; or spraying too early in the year. I can only disc it ONCE. I only want to borrow the tractor and disc ONCE although Im sure I could take it more than once I dont really want to.

2. I have a 2 acre chunk of clover (planted 4 springs ago.) Its starting to kill out, and I wanted a better mid-late fall feed source so I thought this year I would plant a mix of rape in that spot. How should I kill this out?
What do I do?
Disc it, let it start to green up and spray it; and then try to drag it with my pegtooth behind the atv and plant.

Or.

Do I want mow it, spray it, disc it and plant it?

I have read multiple posts on this forum and they kinda go both ways. The best way (as it looks to me) is to burn, disc, spray, disc again and plant.

Any ideas would be great.

Dean

 

[dbltree]

[ QUOTE ]
1. Old pasture area about 1.5 acres all sod. I was going to try to burn it, spray it when it started to green up, disc it and plant. Problem; burning ban went on 2 days ago and it will be on till it is green out, so my idea of burning it is out. Grass is long and Im worried about wasting my roundup; or spraying too early in the year. I can only disc it ONCE. I only want to borrow the tractor and disc ONCE although Im sure I could take it more than once I dont really want to.

2. I have a 2 acre chunk of clover (planted 4 springs ago.) Its starting to kill out, and I wanted a better mid-late fall feed source so I thought this year I would plant a mix of rape in that spot. How should I kill this out?


[/ QUOTE ]

If you can't burn, then you need to mow, let it green up, nuke it, then till it.

if you can't mow either...yikes!

Goodluck discing sod once!

The clover plot - just mow it in mid July, nuke it, till it and plant your brassicas the first of August.

Some clover may come back but...it sure won't hurt anything in your fall brassica plot

 

[FarmlandQDM]

1. I would stick with your original plan and wait for the burn ban to end. There seems to be a misconception with prescribed fire that once things green up you can't burn. If you have thick sod pasture there should be plenty of dead material to carry a fire throughout the summer well after green-up. Just pick your days with some wind, low humdity, and full sunlight and you will be able to burn.

2. If it is just clover with a few "weeds" I would disc it, spray, drag it and then plant.

 

[bowhuntr311]

Ok...

I was thinking about leaving the clover and planting it in August. But Im really scared that:

A: my clover will look awesome and I wont want to kill it and I will leave it and then be in the same boat I am now.

B. I will kill my clover and plant brassica's and they wont turn out becuase of lack of rain. Last year 2 different friends tried doing fall plots and got burned becuase we didnt get any rain from Aug.10 to Sept. 15. and then we got a frost in Oct. And it stopped growing.

A friend has been planting the dwarf essex rape and it seems pretty hardy (sp). Drought and heavy foraging earlier than usuall and it really kept growing pretty well. He plants in the spring and it gets almost knee high big leaves and the deer really hit it hard after a few weeks of frosts.

When would be the ideal time to mow the sod? Before it greens up, when it starts to green up?

Dean

 

[bowhuntr311]

I have another question aswell:

I have one food plot that is only about 1/3 of acre. Last year I just ran the disc over it and planted it to a turnip mix I had in the garage. We had a really dry July and August last year and the thisle came up chest high across most of the plot. Turnips didnt do worth a hoot. My idea was to plant this down to a good clover mix this year.
--Should I burn the thisle or will it just spread the thisle seeds?--

Dean

 

[nannyslayer]

[ QUOTE ]
I have another question aswell:

I have one food plot that is only about 1/3 of acre. Last year I just ran the disc over it and planted it to a turnip mix I had in the garage. We had a really dry July and August last year and the thisle came up chest high across most of the plot. Turnips didnt do worth a hoot. My idea was to plant this down to a good clover mix this year.
--Should I burn the thisle or will it just spread the thisle seeds?--

Dean

[/ QUOTE ]

Kill the thistles with round up, and if your ph isn't to high, 1/2 pint of 2-4-d. You will want to spray them by at least the first few week of May. After that, they are a booger to kill. You really want to get rid of them, those things spread like crazy, given the conditions are favorable.