7 acres of Chufa, Rye, Oats & Peas

[deer farmer]

I decided to clear about 7 acres out of 27, next to a good size creek, it has water yr round (pools) in August. So there are supposed to be some turkey in the area but I think the 27 acres where I'm mulching 7 is so thick, no turkeys hang there. So I am thinking of planting Chufa in this 7 acre's along with rye, oats, and winter peas. This 7 acres will be mulched in the next two weeks with a game plan of making 3 different plots along with opening trails for the deer to get to the 3 plots. Trails will be in a circular design around the fields, and hope to make the fields hour glass shaped, hoping to separate each so that 3 dominate bucks would stay and will not compete against each other. The plots design comes from QDMA forums and I am hoping Turkey will come to roost. I am asking if anyone in E. Texas has any experience with Chufa and Turkey and Deer in E. Texas, area around Caddo Lake. Thanks for any information u might have.

[Boomerang]

Trails and design sound neat. It is much easier to maintain and plant with square or rectangular fields.

[jkelbe]

Are these acres covered in tree's right now, or is it a CRP feild?

[deer farmer]

it is 7 yr growth of cutover now and so thick it is almost impossible to walk through it. By opening it up, I hope to have an area where turkey and a larger herd of deer might want to take up home. I'm still leaving 20 acres of the thick stuff for heavy cover and hardwoods surrounding the thick stuff, for the big bucks. Just wondering if you guys have any experience with opening up and doing Chufa. I already have 6 to 7 acres in 1 and 1 1/2 acre food plots on other parts of the property with food plots for about 10 mo of the yr. And by expanding a new plot for 7 additional acres hope to keep yr round food plots. Thanks again for any imput u might have experienced.

[jkelbe]

I have no experience with Chufa. Just getting started in the planting myself. But I do have nasty thick fields that makes it tough to clear out to plant. So I understand how much work you are in for.

Good luck.

[deer farmer]

The Mulcher arrived last week and after 3 days of mulching in the thick stuff I have about 4 acres done. I have a 2 acre spot with a group of 15 Pin oaks in the middle with a 60 yard trail leading to another 2 acre plot with a trail leading to another upcoming plot. This all runs along a bayou with yr round water. My plans are to offer about 7 acres of food while leaving 20 acres of some of the thickest stuff nature can provide to E Texas. Also borders 100 acres of hardwoods. Mulcher is down for repairs and should start back to work soon. Amazing how it eats up the 3 and 4" sweet gum trees and he took out a 15 or 20 foot white oak and I was not to happy about that, but the stuff is so thick he has trouble seeing where he is going when cutting. I walked up on a Big Big Black Snake when walking the trails he is cutting between the plots. Not sure but I think it was a Blue Racer. I think this plan is going to make some really nice food plots for this fall. Thinking 1 plot of white clover and chickory, 1 plot of Rye grain and Winter peas. Not sure what I will do on the 3rd, thinking Chufa for the Turkey but read where it attracts Hogs and I really don't want to do that. But I like what I see. After this work is done it will give me about 13 acres of yr round food plots on a 175 acre property. More work to do after all of this I really like this stuff.

[Anvilheadtexas]

Very cool. I have a contract out on some timber on my place.... 6 month pay as cut contract (so with my luck they will roll in around October). I plan to invest some of the timber money into some mulcher time and clean up the debris, clear off sets/decks and put a firebreak around some of the land. I plan on putting food-plots in the areas that are cleared off for logging decks. Hopefully all the sweet gums will be on a truck and wont have to be mulched. I am following your posts and would like to see some pics.

[deer farmer]

I will try to get some pictures out, will need help doing it because I'm pretty slow with technology on posting pictures. But for an update the mulching is going pretty slow. The started five days ago and I may have 3 partially completed of the 7 acres I want. The slow down is they work 4 hrs a day and the first day the mulcher was down 30% of the time. They got things going the 2nd day and put in about 6 hrs. the third day back to 4 hrs and then pulled the unit to go do a thing for clearing an area for Baptism. Returning yesterday, the mulcher was down again and had it working for about 2 hrs when they tore something up again. I'm glad I'm in no hurry lol. Will start back to mulching on Monday ( I HOPE)