Any Panhandle food plotters out there?

[Jethro]

Any of you guys been running food plots up here in the Panhandle? I have fiddled around with it for several years on a small scale but am going to start getting more serious about it this year. Gonna start using rye/buckwheat in combination with herbicides to start building my soil (sand) and reduce my weed seed bank so that I can step it up in a couple years to better forage species. I am sending my soil samples off today to see what I am starting out with. I have had some pretty good luck with chicory, seems to stand the summer drought and grazing pressure well, and for me has been utilized pretty heavily during the summer stress period on the small test plots I have run.

What planting have any of you had success with up here? I am especially interested in the winter stress period from say Dec through March or so. I plan on running mixes for the most part, and a combination of annuals and perinnials. I have 120 acres of irrigated alfalfa right next to me so summer stress period is not very critical. Mainly I want an attractive species for late summer/fall for hunting, but then some good species for winter stress period to carry the deer untill spring greenup.

[Dc78]

Jethro, We bought a used atv disc are to give it a whirl around our feeders this year. Thanks to your kinfolk he plants wheat on part of our places which is nice. Not sure what we are going to plant yet.

[canny]

Its really hard to beat a good oat/rye and clover plot. both species types can produce alot of tonnage and are highly browse resistance. This is one of the primary combinations used at the ranch I worked on in NY.

I would recommend staying away from mixes due to the amount of trash (weeds) that can be found in alot of them. You get more valuable seed for your money to purchase the pure seeds seperately and plant them seperatly that way both seed types are planted at their recommended planting depth.

I usually plant my oats/rye around 1-2" deep and then drag it with a harrow, I then topseed it with clover, and sometimes cow peas followed by another dragging because those seeds don't need to be planted that deep.

[Jethro]

DC78, you talking about Mr Ellis? He is a good man, cares about the wildlife quite a bit, even though he does not hunt himself. You should see some of the things he does down along the river where he manages some land for a couple of doctors. He has some pretty interesting watering setups put in on some of them. One place has a 10,000 gallon water tank on a hill that is hooked to a 1/2 to 3/4 mile buried PVC pipe that runs down through the pasture. Every couple hundred yards it is hooked up to a gravity flow waterer for quail buried up in the cover. Pretty neat.

I think I have settled on my plan for the next year. I still have some cleanup and dirt work to do, I'm gonna get that done and then let the first crop of weeds come up. I'll spray them, and then around the first of June plant buckwheat as a green manure crop. It also has some allelopathic qualities which should help with the weeds. As it matures in late summer I will shred/disk it under to raise the organic matter in the soil.

For my fall plot I am going to spread my fertilizer and disk, then broadcast 60 lbs/ac of rye grain with 30 lbs/ac Austrian winter peas. I will disk them in lightly and cultipack. Then over the top I will broadcast 6 lbs/ac of Alice white clover, 1 lb/ac Tecomate Chicory, and 2 lbs/ac of some type of brassica. Drag it with a drag and then culitpack again. Pray for rain. That should do it. I do have some oats I can throw in the mix as well if I decide to, my BIL has a whole trailer full of the seed in the barn right behind the shop here.

The AWP and clover should help fix N to the soil to help boost the growth of the other elements in the mix. Rye helps build the soil much more than the other cereal grains and will release the accumlated N the following spring, as well as improving the soil structure and providing an additional allelopathic effect on the weeds next growing season. The chicory and clover can be left for the next year if they look good and weed competion is reduced, or they can be turned back under for green manure if I decide my plot needs anther year or two of soil building and reducing weed competition. Thats the plan anyways, we'll see how it works.

[Bowtech32]

I am going to give it a try this year. I done well on some plots in Kansas, but have not tried yet in that area. Most of our place is in wheat, but I was wanting to do something a little different around my hunting areas.

[wellingtontx]

Summer - Red Ripper peas.

Fall - Oats & Wheat