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Cereal Grains and cover crops

Next year when I plant my 1 acre plot of oats, rye, peas and clover should I fertilize it with triple 13, triple 19 or 46-0-0 urea? I currently have it in oats and rye. I will be bringing in some lime this spring.

The best bet is to send in a soil test and see what is required for growing clover and fertilize accordingly.

If you have heavy grazing pressure you can add 100-150#'s of 46-0-0 to spur a flush of growth from your cereal grains but usually it's not needed, again it depends on your soil fertility but winter rye will grow quite well on pretty poor ground.

You can find more info on soil testing and fertilizers here:

Soil testing

Without a soil test I would probably apply at least 200-300#'s of triple 19 but a soilt test takes all the guess work out of it...;)
 
When I post the following fall seed mixture, the only question or thought on the minds of most landowners is “will deer eat it?”…the answer of course is yes but there is so much more to this combination the just attracting whitetails.

Winter rye 50-80#'s per acre (56#'s = a bushel)
Spring oats 80-120#'s per acre (32#'s = a bushel)
Austrian Winter Peas 20-80#'s per acre (or 4010 or 6040 field peas)
Red Clover 8-12#'s per acre
Oilseed/Forage Radish 5#'s per acre

That combination also happens to have tremendous soil building power in addition to providing high quality, high protein forage literally year around.
Let’s break this seed mixture down a bit and explore a little bit closer exactly what each contributes from a soil perspective as we have already covered the crude protein attributes.

In most of the upper Midwest and northern states the oats, peas and forage radishes will not survive the winter, with exceptions in mild winters. All three however will have made a significant contribution during the 3- 4 months growing period each fall.

The roots systems of oats also have the capability to hold some nitrogen, they cannot however hold it as long as winter rye. Still this is a plus as the oats do provide a lush source of forage until severe winter weather freezes them out.

Peas of any kind are legumes and they are the “candy” in this mix, irresistible to deer they often don’t last long unless planted at higher rates. Peas are capable of fixing 100-120#’s of N per acre in a normal growing season but they will produce significantly less in the short fall growing season …any N production however is a plus and cannot be ignored.

Forage or tillage radishes are one in the same being used first by organic farmers to break up hardpan soils, recycle nitrogen and provide natural weed control via their allelopathic chemicals. Following a crop of forage radishes the soil will often be completely free of weeds for several months or more. Forage radishes have proven to be extremely palatable to deer that often eat them despite ignoring other brassicas, yet do not have the large leaf canopy that typical brassicas such as rape and turnips have, making it less competitive in a combination planting.

That brings us to the “survivors”, the two that will assuredly survive brutal winter weather and provide both lush early spring forage and tons of dry matter to improve our soils.

Winter rye is king, able to grow from northern Florida to northern parts of Canada and coast to coast, not only surviving but thriving on the poorest sandy dry soils to hardpan clay sub soils. Rye will grow under the most difficult of conditions including low PH levels and poor soil nutrient levels.

Feed it nitrogen and it will force root systems even deeper pulling up potassium and scavenging the nitrogen into its root systems to be released later as the killed plant breaks down. Rye's allelopathic chemicals help control spring weeds along with rapid spring growth that further shades and slows weed growth. In spring rye explodes to life and in 30-45 days can be 4-6 feet high so we have to be prepared to clip it at a height that will not leave so much residue as to smother the red clover.

Red clover…is the sleeper in all of this, of no use to deer the fall before it has quietly been establishing its root systems in the warm days of autumn then sleeping away the winter months. Protected by the winter rye and dead oat mulch it is prepared for spring like a race horse at the gate, springing to life at the first warm days of spring.

Springtime…a time when landowners often ignore the needs of their whitetails but it is now they are often desperately in need. Bucks, gaunt from the previous breeding season but yet starting new antler growth. Does heavy with fawns that are at critical stages of development and soon lactating, search out sources of high quality forage.

Fall planted red clover is like the calvary rushing to the rescue at the last moment, just when deer need it most it is there like a cool drink of water on a hot summer day. Of course both white and red clovers along with alfalfas can all provide an awesome source of spring time protein, the point here is to show the benefit of adding red clover to your fall mix…both to deer and to improve your soils.

Even if you have other clover plots(and you should) by adding red clover to the fall mix you now have no reason to be concerned about spring tilling wet fields…your work already done for you. Clipping the rye and later the red clover, to keep it blooming and fixing nitrogen is all that is required, yet every single day your clover is working for you, like money in a savings account….you do nothing but let it work for you.

All summer it works, growing rapidly producing up to 2 tons of dry matter per acre, not only are it’s roots now rich with nitrogen fixing nodules but it is suffocating weeds, extending a rich root system that loosens soils and pulling up nutrients into it’s leaves and stems. At the same time it is providing high quality high protein forage for your deer herd.

Eventually the time comes to collect the “interest” so to speak, time to plant brassicas or repeat the fall combination, so if we are wise we choose to “reinvest” every ounce of nutrients and dry matter the clover has built up.

How best to do that? The roots contain the lion’s share of the nitrogen but the plant itself also holds all of the key elements along with this wonderful organic matter that can improve our soils.

Landowners with small equipment will most likely need to mow the clover (shred it if possible) then immediately incorporate the still green clover into the soil by disking or tilling until the plant matter is thoroughly covered.

Another option, perhaps the best one to quickly, efficiently trap every shred of nitrogen and organic matter is to plow the clover under, instantly trapping all of its treasures that can then be slowly released for the next crop.

Long term use of plows is detrimental to most soils and not recommended simply to plant a crop when minimal or no tillage would suffice but for incorporating cover crops on soils that are not highly erodible a plow can still be a highly beneficial tool.

I have the luxury of using a large heavy disc to incorporate my red clover albeit with several passes…

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On smaller plots I use several passes with my tiller to incorporate clover without mowing

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Effectively trapping most of the clover beneath the soil however anything left on the surface will dry and as the water leaves the plant residue, so does any nitrogen…lost now to the atmosphere FOREVER.

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Red Clover Cover Crops

Alta-Swede Mammoth Red Clover

For those who will follow this fall annual crop with corn or milo I would consider substituting hairy vetch for the red clover as it can produce more N in a shorter time frame in the spring. Plant the corn or milo as late as possible and killing the rye and vetch with glyphosate is recommended and then either till or no-till.

Despite this very long post, it is only the tip of the iceberg in learning more about both feeding your whitetails and your soils in a way that improves the quality of both, lowers your fertilizer and herbicide needs and saves you money.

If you have not, I would urge you to spend some time exploring the links and detailed information at the begining of this thread.

There you can learn more about the individual and combined attributes of each component in the combination I recommend and better understand how you can use them in your own habitat program…;)
 
What a great post. You are The King. You make it so simple to read, so simple to understand. Have you ever taught elementary school? Thanks for all your research and communication skills. You have made understanding this food plot business a lot easier for novices such as me.
Thanks.
 
Thanks TMHC :way:

November 10th update on comparison between Winter Rye and Winter Trticale and Austrian Winter Peas verus 4010 Forage peas
Winter Triticale and 4010 peas

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The 4010 peas have been mowed to the ground despite being planted at nearly 100#'s per acre!

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Winter Rye and AWP...grazing about identical

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Some of the AWP are slightly taller then the 4010's but basically the same

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You can't go wrong planting any of those in any combination but winter rye and 4010 or 6040 peas are easy to get and less expensive. I can see no substantial difference in grazing preference or repsonce to the grazing...;)
 
This time of year is when we start to evaluate how our cereal grain stand worked out and what we need to change for next year?

If grazing was heavy then perhaps higher seeding and fertilizer rates are needed while the opposite may be required if grazing pressure was light.

Here are a couple examples of plots on one of my farms compared to identical seeds, seeding and fertilizer rates on a friends farm. Mine with very heavy grazing and his with light grazing pressure.

One of my plots...

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The fertilized side is greener but otherwise there is little difference

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with the unfertilized side grazed just as hard with deer showing no preference

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My friends plots are all being grazed but this farm just has more feed available and plenty of crops so grazing is not as intense.

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The lightly grazed rye is much taller with this being the fertilized side

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and this the unfertilized area

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Now I put on 200#'s of urea on a 1/3 of mine, 100#'s and zero and it made no difference to the deer but it certainly helped push growth as much as possible although still impossible to keep up with grazing.

If your rye looks like my friends at this point in the fall, then fertilizing to push growth is really counter productive and I'm talking about nitrogen, P&K levels can be brought up to par but cereal grain is going to grow rapidly if nitrogen is used.

If grazing is light then why force growth to a point where it becomes unpalatable? One can also see in both situations with heavy or light grazing, heavy or no nitrogen applications...there is no noticable preference by deer.

Grazing height is the same with or without fertilizer so don't apply nitrogen based on the myth that deer may "like it" better, apply it soley based on the need for more growth to keep up with heavy grazing.

Winter rye is perfectly capable of growing without added nitrogen so if it isn't needed then your better off building P&K levels to feed the new red or white clover seeded with the winter rye and allow the clover to furnish the nitrogen for the next crop of brassicas or rye...... ;)
 
Here's an example of mature oats versus fall planted winter rye and spring oats. I tilled under oats and berseem after mowing it first to plant brassicas and of course the oats all sprouted. (late July planting) The oats are now fully mature and nothing more then "straw" that is unattractive and nutritionally poor at this point.

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Deer aren't touching the mature oats but are foraging on the lush fall planted rye and oats (planted early September)

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The deer on this farm want for nothing with more then they can eat so the early planted, now mature oats are not really a big deal one way or the other.
If however grazing pressure was intense and competition from other landowners with lush food plots was also a part of the picture...early planted cereals could leave one very dissapointed right about now...;)
 
Winter rye and September planting are perfect for starting either red or white clovers! Weather is usually not a problem as it can be in the spring and any annual weeds that emerge will quickly die with the first frosts of fall, leaving the clover to grow with out any competition.

On good soils where PH and soil deficiencies have been corrected the clover will thrive and grow quickly during the warm days of early autumn.

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These are pictures of clover where we still have some soil improvments to make this winter and growth is a little slower

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I start white clover that will be a 3-5 year plot this way and red clover that will be used for a green manure plowdown the following year, all in the fall. In the spring I clip the fast growing winter rye when it gets 12-20" high and then clip as needed to maintain any clover plot.

I disc or till around September 1st, broadcast or drill the cereal grains and peas and any fertilizer/lime, cultipack, then broadcast the tiny clover and forage radish seed and re-pack to cover.

I usually use some combination of the following clover varieties and Welter Seed is a great place to learn more about these clovers and compare prices with local sources.

Welter Seed - Clover Seed List

Alice White Clover 2#
KopuII White Clover 2#
Jumbo Ladino Clover 2#
or
10-12#'s or Mammouth Alta-Swede Red Clover

and I plant them with the following grains and forage radish that provide all winter quality forage along with great soil building attributes.

Welter Seed - Cereal Grain and Pea seed

Winter rye 50-80#'s per acre (56#'s = a bushel)
Spring oats 80-120#'s per acre (32#'s = a bushel)
Austrian Winter Peas 20-80#'s per acre (or 4010 or 6040 field peas)
Groundhog Forage Radish 5#'s per acre

Those combinations work well in my 3 way plot rotations that include seperate strips of clover, brassicas and cereals in each plot.

Avoid fighting the weather and weeds in the spring and establish clovers in the fall with your winter rye... ;)
 
This is winter rye I over seeded in late September into heavily grazed brassicas that deer are feeding heavily on here in mid November.

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Obviously thick uneaten brassicas wil not allow rye or anything else to grow becuase of the thick canopy but if deer start hammering the brassicas early in the fall as they do mine, winter rye broadcasted at 80-150#'s per acre will save the day and provide grazing all the way until spring...;)

Couple more pics from my hidden winter rye/pea plot from during the rut...usually they just blast on thru but this one stopped for a bite! :)

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as did this one

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Winter rye is so easy to grow even in semi shaded plots where PH is poor and it can be sown even in remote areas by just scratching things up with a rake if equipment can't be brought in. :way:
 
A few people have commented that their winter rye and oats were turning"brown" or "purple" and that deer were not eating it. This year it is because the plants are drowning in saturated and soggy soils that never dry out. Water replaces air normally in the soil and it struggles to "breathe" not unlike we do under water.

I have some winter rye and oats planted on the side of a waterway that most years is dry, however this year it has remained wet even during dry periods simply because saturated upland soils adjacent to it continue to seep water into the low area.

Here's what it looks like up close...notice the purple tops of the leaves and notice how high it is.

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This is the plot itself, notice the closer it is to the corn (the ground rises slightly there) it's grazed shorter

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Only 10 yards away, the soil there while no higher, is adjacent to sod and trees and water is not seeping from it in the same manner as the corn field. The rye and oats are a healthy green and there deer have grazed it nearly to the dirt!

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Sometimes some subtle things can affect plants/crops that we may not even be aware of, especially on lands that are away from home and the landowner only visits it occasionally.... ;)
 
My friend Scott Prucha plants many of the same clovers, brassicas and winter rye/oats/peas combos that I do on his south central Iowa farm and he appears frequently on Midwest Whitetail.

The Nov 30th video shows bucks feeding in his rye and Scott shares some thoughts in the video for those that care to watch it.

Episode 20 Nov 30th

The December 10th show features a doe being harvested in Scott's rye but of course there are more exciting things to see in that edition. ;)

If that link fails, just go to the main page and navigate from there, lot's of things more interesting then winter rye on MW so it's worth checking out regardless.

Midwest Whitetail
 
We got blasted with 8" of snow and bitter cold right in the middle of Iowa's first shotgun season which of course affects deer movment....the weather and the shooting....;)

I checked on some winter rye/pea/Groundhog forage radish plots just before dark on the 12th of December and they had been busy, scraping snow off to get at the green forage beneath.

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Where they cleaned off the snow, they had eaten the rye almost to the dirt

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and they had grubbed the forage radish right down to the root top
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all this despite having freshly harvested corn stubble to forage thru, combined only two days prior...

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When you can plant something this inexpensive that improves your soils and draws deer even after snow falls and cold weather sets in....well. it's just doggone hard to beat winter rye!

Very interesting sitting and just taking pictures in the strip plots the other night! I have already posted pics in the brassica thread of deer focusing on the turnip roots on 12-18-09...but what about the winter rye mix in these strips?
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They have grazed perhaps 3 acres of winter rye/oats/peas and Groundhog forage radish pretty much down to the dirt!
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Still some grazing there but they have really been hard on it!
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You have to look really hard to find a pea plant left!
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The Groundhog forage radish are grazed to the root
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and now there are working on the roots themselves...apparently coughing up some corn as they did? Odd...but there was a couple kernels by this eaten forage radish
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They did spend quite a little time foraging in the winter rye mix
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This was an unimproved old pasture that was 8' high weeds last year and the rye portions had no lime or fertilizer applied except for some urea on the right 1/2 of this strip. Obviously, it made no difference to the deer...
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For the most part the mature bucks focused on the brassicas where they could get the biggest bang for their buck!
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At this stage of the game the bucks are worn down and hungry and interested only in gorging themselves...not nibbling for leftovers!
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The does covered all bases and fed in numbers across the winter rye and brassicas and all were rolling fat!
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The advantage of the strip plots is having multiple food sources growing in the same plot with out compromising yield by mixing incompatible crops. In this case, they concentrated on the winter rye and peas early on allowing the brassicas to be "stored" so to speak until later in the season.
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The plots looked like this as summer turned to fall and then to winter
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The strips make it easy to rotate crops to both improve soils and lower disease problems and the need for herbicides and fertilizers but they also allow us to have plenty of high quality, high yielding food sources all in one field or plot.
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Next year the clover plots will appear having been seeded with the winter rye, the brassica strips will be planted to winter rye/oats/peas and GH radish along with red clover and the current winter rye strips will be left in red clover thru the summer and then tilled under to plant brassicas.
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These deer walked thru both standing and harvested corn to get to these plots and the came from all directions so there is no doubt that they preferred the high quality forage we provided via this type of planting.
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<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com
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12-22-09</st1:date> update on winter rye at one of my farms where grazing is intensive to say the least...they are still feeding on it.<O:p</O:p
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Scratchin through the snow to feed on it<O:p></O:p>
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They actually pull some of it right up by the roots as you can see by the small clump in the upper part of this pic<O:p></O:p>
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Already found my first shed in the rye patch too!<O:p></O:p>
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Winter rye just keeps em coming despite heavy grazing and they'll keep feeding on it all winter....and I'll keep shed hunting in the rye patch!:way:<O:p</O:p
 
How well would your cereal grain combo work in a small (1/2 acre or less) wooded plot?

Perfectly! This plot is not a 1/2 acre but just a small hidden plot where I planted only winter rye and they hammer it!

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A friend of mine commented that he is seeing 40-50 deer in his field of standing soybeans and they are filig into an adjacent field of standing corn but not touching his plot of winter rye and oats. He said a friend of his has a field of rye and deer are pounding it....what gives??

Since this has been brought up here as well I just wanted to comment on this subject.

Standing corn, soybeans and milo provide a source of high energy grain that deer need desperately this time of year. The energy expended to feed on standing soybeans is far less then that needed to dig thru snow for cereal grains.

Many of us cannot grow soybeans or corn in small plots simply because deer will murder them long before hunting season, so a combination of clover, brassicas and cereal grains are a viable subsitute for most landowners.

If you have a large enough field to grow soybeans then a better alternative is to grow beans and overseed winter rye into the standing beans in early September.

Even though I advocate winter rye over other cereal grains please don't think for a moment that it or any other food source can compete with standing crops because you will be very dissapointed.

Why not just plant soybeans then? By all means if you can I would urge you to do so, but again you may find yourself dissapointed when deer wipe out the beans by the end of summer.

I have had them wipe out 6 acres of either corn or soybeans, planted and fertilized to the max sparing no expense to do it right and then left with no choice but to till it all under and plant winter rye.

Winter rye has many more positive attributes then other cereal grains but it will never hold a candle to soybeans and corn, so be aware of those kinds of problems and neighboring competition when planning out your plantings...;)
 
I'm looking for a cover crop to plant in an area that has been milo for the past two years. I plan on planting it to rye, oats and red clover this fall but was looking for something to help suppress the weeds until then. I thought about the greenfix chickling vetch but would rather have use something I can broadcast. Any suggesstions?
 
I'm looking for a cover crop to plant in an area that has been milo for the past two years. I plan on planting it to rye, oats and red clover this fall but was looking for something to help suppress the weeds until then. I thought about the greenfix chickling vetch but would rather have use something I can broadcast. Any suggesstions?

Berseem or crimson clover and oats will work well and is what i usually use.

I'm going to broadcast the chickling vetch but not with a large mechanical seeder. I'll use a bag seeder and just be gentle with it.

The only reason they say to drill it is because mechanical spreaders at hi rpm's can chip the seed and lower germination.
 
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