Food plot question

[SEmnBowHunter]

I am going to be putting in roughly 5 acres of new food plots this spring. Right now there is over grown grass and crp in the areas i intend on planting. My question is, what makes more sense and would be more beneficial to growing the plots. Mowing the grass and crp down with a brush mower than spray it all with round up, when dead work it up? Or burn it off, when new growth starts, spray is all and than work it up? Or burn it all, and than work it up?

[Bucky]

What are u planting?

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[BassBoysLLP]

Best option is to burn, spray with gly after green up, allow to die, and work the soil. Assuming you've addressed pH issues, I'd also plant roundup ready soybeans for the first crop for 3 reasons:

1.) Soybeans flourish on freshly burnt ground.
2.) You'll be contending with a tremendous seed bank of weeds and the roundup ready option will allow you spray as needed to take out the weeds.
3.) Deer love soybeans! You'll have an early and late season food source.

[Bucky]

If the fields are 2 acres + RR beans are best bet

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[SEmnBowHunter]

Im going to have for sure 2 plots that are 2 plus acres. I was thinking of doing corn and beans. Unless you guys are thinking all beans would be better. Than a couple smaller plots around a half acre than im planting a late season blend that contains radish's rape seed's, and turnups.

[BassBoysLLP]

With 4 acres to work with, id do all soybeans. Better season-long food source.

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[Bucky]

All beans.... if heavily over browsed by july 4th.... broadcast turnips in the heavily browsed areas prior to heavy rain

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[BassBoysLLP]

All beans.... if heavily over browsed by july 4th.... broadcast turnips in the heavily browsed areas prior to heavy rain

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X2. Plus Daikon Radishes.

Also, soybeans are cheaper to plant than corn.

[Bigburner]

The good thing about burning is that ash is alkaline and will aid in fixing your ph. More than likely your soil is acidic. Ash especially wood ash is an instant fix more so than lime because it takes lime a long time to straighten things out. Make sure you get your soils tested before you start planting so your not throwing your $ out the window.

[DEERSLAYER]

I think the best option is to mow then spray with round up (any brand glysophate will work) and a month or more later work the ground. If you need lime put that on before you work the soil. I would add fertilizer when you plant.

The reason I don't recommend burning is even though burning produces excellent easy to use nutrients for the plant (much better fertilizer than you buy in the store), you also lose a significant amount of the nutrients from those plants you burn in the smoke. So much of your fertilizer literally goes up in smoke. If you turn the dead plant material into the ground then you not only add more nutrients than burning will give you, but you also add more organic matter and you can never have too much organic matter. Burning it gives you a quick burst, but turning it in gives you a slow release fertilizer and much more.

If your going to plant soybeans I would also use roundup ready beans as already mentioned above. Being able to spray the weeds will not only give you a more productive crop, but being able to spray the crop multiple times for weeds will give you a nice weed free seed bed that you can plant a good perennial mix into later. Soybeans also grow well in acid soil so you can still have a good crop while your waiting for the lime to change the pH and it will also leave a good dose of nitrogen for the next crop.

Im going to have for sure 2 plots that are 2 plus acres. I was thinking of doing corn and beans. Unless you guys are thinking all beans would be better. Than a couple smaller plots around a half acre than im planting a late season blend that contains radish's rape seed's, and turnups.

That would be good for broadcasting into the thin areas like Bucky was talking about.

[HoosierG5]

Burn if u can. So many benefits if you know how safely.

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[cbay]

You got to be careful with the soybeans. If you have a lot of deer in the area it may not provide anything other than summer forage. We have tried a couple times on a 4 acre field and it has ended up low skeletons (no leaves at all) by august.
Corn, radish, rye and clover all work well for us. If it weren't for the corn we would let our 4 acre field go for the summer except for spraying and go with turnip, radish and rye in late august. Even with the corn we interseed brassicas and rye between the rows in the fall. You could do the same interseeding with the beans as insurance as well.

[Arki]

I would use RR beans as mentioned above but I would stretch it to 2 years back to back. I assume the ground isn't irrigate and that throws out corn for me, beans will produce much better on dry land than corn. I would think about adding sunflowers or clovers in the sparse areas as these both are nitrogen fixing and would help soil. I would start off burning because you will be dealing with a extensive seed bank, burn on a day with little or mild wind to get a better burn down rather than a fast burn across with high winds. You may try bush hogging the ground with the mower up high to get the plant material closer to the ground making a hotter burn. Two years of back to back RR beans will help a lot. Make sure to really get good coverage and don't let the weeds get too big between spraying to develop resistance. Developing resistance will open a whole new bag of worms. Your main battles will be your soil and your existing seed bank. If you begin disking deep you are burring those seeds deep and will be protecting those seeds to come up years down the road.