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Cereal Grains and cover crops

I clipped my temporary oat / berseem clover plot about 3 weeks ago, I have had great success with the clover in there.
Question is when I go to cereal grain plot in about 3 weeks should I spray the clover a week before or just till it before planting?
 
I clipped my temporary oat / berseem clover plot about 3 weeks ago, I have had great success with the clover in there.
Question is when I go to cereal grain plot in about 3 weeks should I spray the clover a week before or just till it before planting?

Just till it under unless no-tilling then spray
 
Is there any downside to plant cereal grain mix this weekend. With the chance of rain next week I thought I could get it in before. I know it has been recommended middle of august. Just hate to miss a chance of rain if it starts to dry out again.
 
Is there any downside to plant cereal grain mix this weekend. With the chance of rain next week I thought I could get it in before. I know it has been recommended middle of august. Just hate to miss a chance of rain if it starts to dry out again.

The grains will grow to fast and get rank and unpalatable so best to wait
 
Today is last day of July. The temp was 51 at 7:00am. It looks like an early fall is coming, so how will this effect the plant date of the end of August? Should I plant earlier say the 15th? We are very close to the same latitude as you in the SE Iowa so I am using all dates you have posted for your location for my location.
 
Today is last day of July. The temp was 51 at 7:00am. It looks like an early fall is coming, so how will this effect the plant date of the end of August? Should I plant earlier say the 15th? We are very close to the same latitude as you in the SE Iowa so I am using all dates you have posted for your location for my location.

August 23rd-Labor Day is best
 
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August 23rd-Labor Day is best

Thanks for the help. Have marked my calendar and will plant the 23rd weather permitting.
 
forum
Dbltree,

Im a long time follower but first time poster. Ive got 40 acres in Northern Utah and trying to food plot these Mule deer out here like i would a Whitetail back east. Ive had hit and misses, but recently July 26 planted winter rye with some peas and beans thrown in the mix. Im fortunate to have water but dont want to irrigate the rye too far into maturity before fall. I have to plant a little earlier than normal because my bow season starts Aug 16. At what point would you stop watering the rye to keep it from maturing too far past palitabilty?
 
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So a couple days ago I disced up some red clover & oats from my Dbltree rotation. Due to rain (great) I was unable to get the new seed down. (I was going to plant the winter rye / oats / etc... ).

I went back today and spread the seed (Spread it a bit on the heavy side...). And then due to a problem with the tractor, I was not able to cultipack it. Now it looks like we're getting more rain on the plots. Do you think I'm OK to leave it as is, or should I go back and try and cultipack it in a few days????

Thanks....!
 
With soils plenty moist and temperature's 85-90 degrees it does not take long for seed to germinate.



Jess mowed earlier then sprayed glyphosate and notill drilled the rye mix



Everything is coming up great including the forage radish and red clover.



His goal is to provide all the nitrogen needs via legumes like clovers and hairy vetch. This will allow him to skip expensive and time consuming tillage and build up organic matter. Minimum tillage is another option, it's not pretty but pretty is as pretty does
 
I drilled in rye, oats, radish, peas & some clover Monday before the rains. This was in areas I had flooded out and washed out before (it was a 5" rain in a few hours that had washed out some areas I planted with disc & cultipacker & had not had a lot of time to grow & get established- they had maybe been growing a week or 2). I haven't experienced this level of fast flood rain time after time. Got 4-5" last night but nothing had germinated obviously as I had drilled just a day before. I drilled around 3/4" deep or so. I'm going to assess damage asap. More rye is my back-up plan.

What's your thoughts on this seed I drilled in these bottom areas that had previously washed away? My concern is maybe a little on seed washing but it was drilled decently deep but then being waterlogged really bad since it's low ground (not standing water, it's just your typical wetter low ground with good soil), I don't know what to think or what an opinion might be on this one, thoughts?
 
I'm not sure what to think Skip, we nearly 5" too on waterlogged soils. I don't have a warm and fuzzy feeling about the situation but all we can do is wait and see. We need sunny weather but cool temperature's and more rain forecast for Friday.
Keep us posted
 
Thanks Paul for all the knowledge you share with us on here! Here are a few pictures from our "doubletree mix" we planted this year.

I picked a spot on a remote ridge for the plot. The ridge had a lot of cedar trees to be cleared and also the problem of needing an access route.
It all started in April. After a couple of days of tree clearing, I took the skid loader and started pushing a path.
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Even though everyone seemed to think I was nuts, I made it all the way to the top of the ridge.
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The next time I visited the ridge was mid July with a tank full of round up.
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With severe weather threatening we came back on labor day weekend to put the seed in the ground. It started with a burn of the killed grasses.
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As lightning pounded the ground in all directions and rain moved closer by the minute it became a pretty rushed project from there. We did our best to follow Dbltrees directions and ended up coming off the ridge in pouring rain.
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Two weeks later we came back, trail camera in hand to check the plot. Much to our delight, everything that was planted was coming up.
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I made a mock scrape on the edge of the plot and left the camera pointing toward a narrow lane of the plot in hopes of catching any deer cruising through the plot. Judging by the tracks already present, I believe there will be plenty of action on the camera when I return.
 
I drilled in rye, oats, radish, peas & some clover Monday before the rains. This was in areas I had flooded out and washed out before (it was a 5" rain in a few hours that had washed out some areas I planted with disc & cultipacker & had not had a lot of time to grow & get established- they had maybe been growing a week or 2). I haven't experienced this level of fast flood rain time after time. Got 4-5" last night but nothing had germinated obviously as I had drilled just a day before. I drilled around 3/4" deep or so. I'm going to assess damage asap. More rye is my back-up plan.

What's your thoughts on this seed I drilled in these bottom areas that had previously washed away? My concern is maybe a little on seed washing but it was drilled decently deep but then being waterlogged really bad since it's low ground (not standing water, it's just your typical wetter low ground with good soil), I don't know what to think or what an opinion might be on this one, thoughts?

I think you may be ok. I drilled in peas about Aug 1 in the same bottom ground which has got rain after rain after rain on it. They have done fairly well considering the amount of rain. About 2 weeks ago I broadcasted rye and clover on the peas. Shortly after we got a 5" rain on it. I didn't even bother going down to check out the damage. I was down this weekend and pleasantly surprised. All plots that I assumed took a swim were doing well. The rye was even a few inches tall. Needles to say I was very pleased. Please keep me posted on how it turns out.
 
September 17th, 2014

Jess sprayed the annual clovers and weeds (where we had brassicas last year) to prepare for the winter rye mix. He notill drilled the cereal grain mix the very end of August.





He didn't have time to mow but other then looks it really didn't matter. The drill knocked it down anyway.





Lacking a drill one could spray the clover (assuming the oats had been mowed earlier ), spread the large seeds, disc, cultipack, broadcast small seed and cultipack again. That would be minimum tillage which leaves more organic matter on top.





The more "trash" we leave on top, the better in term's of improving soil and increasing the percentage of organic matter.





Whitetails are not going to care one way or the other but they will care if there is nothing there because drought caused it to fail



The oats are faster growing then rye so provide a lush, highly palatable food source to help keep whitetails from decimating brassicas to soon.



Each plant in the various crop species is going to be effective at different time's and overlap each other. This insures that we always have year around food sources that keep whitetails adapted to coming to one place



Crops like corn or beans alone don't provide year around attraction although in some cases they can be used as part of a crop rotation. They are hard on soils and intolerant to high deer densities however.



Soon we will have cam pictures to share and we hope you will share yours as well.

Plant ALL in one plot in strips or blocks

Alice, Kopu II, Durana (or comparable) white clover 10% of plot, sow at 6#'s per acre with the rye combination in the fall or in the spring with oats and berseem clover. Correct Ph and P&K with soil tests

Brassicas in 45% of plot

Purple Top Turnips 3#
Dwarf Essex Rape 2#
GroundHog Forage radish 5#

Plant in mid to late July in most Midwest states, or 60-90 days before your first killing frost, Use 200#'s of 46-0-0 urea and 400#'s of 6-28-28 per acre. Follow the dead brassicas with oats and berseem or crimson clover in mid spring at 60#'s oats and 12-15#'s berseem clover and/or crimson and/or 50#'s of chickling vetch)

Cereal Grain combo in 45% of plot...we use 50# each rye, oats and peas along with radish and clover seed all planted in half of each feeding area

Winter rye 50-80#'s per acre (56#'s = a bushel)
Spring oats 50-120#'s per acre (32#'s = a bushel)
Frostmaster Winter Peas or 4010/6040 Forage peas 20-80#'s per acre

Red Clover 8-12#'s per acre or white clover at 6#'s per acre (or 20-40 pounds hairy vetch and 20-30#'s crimson clover on sandy soils)
Groundhog Forage Radish 5#'s per acre

Plant in late August to early September, if following well fertilized brassicas use 100 - 200#'s of urea, if starting a new plot add 400#'s of 6-28-28 but for best results soil test and add only what is necessary.

Rotate the brassicas and rye combo each year
 
First off, I must thank Dbltree for all the great information. Our plots look awesome and the deer usage has far exceeded expectations for our first year of doing our own plots.

I planted the cereal section (SW WI) on Aug 29. Growing conditions have been very strong. It grew a lot in the last week and it's got to be 6" or so already. The deer are in there every night. Question is does the growth slow down at this point or will it continue at that rate? Wondering if I should clip it because the 10 day forecast has 70's for highs throughout? Or if the deer are going to be hitting it hard now and keep it at an attractive height?

Here is a pic of the cereals from last night...

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Here are some pics of deer using it...


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Here is a different plot from a week ago, you can see how much it grew in one week from the first pics...


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We have never had to mow, generally deer keep it under control but monitor growth and clip if necessary. Excellent job on the plots!
 
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