WesternNY

Wowser! That is a fantastic Buck! That is first and foremost AGE, Good Soil, and good Habitat, followed by good genes. Good luck with him!

The Goals of this chapter are to spread the word and principles of QDMA, not to push anything on anybody. The decision to pull the trigger is yours. I will say we advocate on passing on 1.5 year old bucks for experienced hunters. We want to increase awareness, support and improve the habitat and get hunters to become managers instead of just consumers.

Updates: Banquet/Event Committees hard at work and making progress via email. Same for the Educational Committee. We have a facebook page if you are interested in follow us! https://www.facebook.com/#!/GRSTQDMA Thanks, Mike

Thanks Fletch. I only plant apples in the Spring... late april is best. The trees are dormant and the ground has moisture. Pears are on the to do list.... from what others have told me pears are easier than apples and disease resistant asain pears are best.

Thanks Culver for coming and being a part of the branch. Wnybuckhunter... keep Monday or Tuesday after Turkey day clear on the calender! We are in the works on getting a facebook page started... I will post details as they come. Thanks again! Mike

Anything around the base of the tree I weed by hand, then I carefully spray gly (generic Round up) around the ground out to the drip line. Ussually 3 sprays during the growing season keeps it very clean. I use stone for mulch, this helps as well. avoid weed mats and wood mulch... mats invite mice and voles and wood mulch does the same as well as fungual problems. I use alluminum window screening around the tree to protect it from pest.. mainly apple bores, rabbits, anything that may girdle the tree.

Just a quick update from work...this morning We had 23 people show up... this is outstanding for a first Charter meeting. Guys are committed to making this a successful branch. For those of you who are interested but could not make it please email your contact information to [email protected] please include Name Phone Email Address How you would like to help. Currently we need a Branch Secretary and committee members for the following: Banquet/Events Education We are looking at having our next meeting on Monday or Tuesday after Thanksgiving... Nov 26 or 27 We will in the meantime work via committee subgroups via email to hammer down details to bring to membership. Future events 1/14/13 Educational Seminar by Kip Adams, QDMA Certified Wildlife Biologist and our drawing of the Winter Gun Raffle tickets. Details pending committee actions Banquet/Event date TBA for 2013. Details pending committee actions Thanks everyone who took the time to come to our meeting. I look forward to meeting the rest of you that have an interest. Mike

TONIGHT Monday 8/20 7 PM Henrietta Gander Mountain!!!!! Hope to see you there! Mike

A Reminder... Monday 8/20 7 PM Henrietta Gander Mountain!!!!!

Thanks Growalot.... I will have to give the feed corn a try.

Thanks Fantail... and no problem with sharing info... I will help anyway I can. I have had to battle both... each year it is different.... for the weekend warrior I would get seven and read the lable. Every habitat manager should add soft mass!!!!!

Bonide has captan and I think mathalon (sp??), but the does of insecticide and fungicide is so low it is almost useless. For Jap bettles I would use liquid seven, read the lable... but it works better than bonide for pests. Good Luck.

Love those super tall brow tines... good luck this fall!

Growalot... that looks great.... How did you prep your seed bed?

captan is a fungicide you need pesticide for Jap bettles... You could use sevin, just dont use it when the fruit is 10mm to the size of a 50 cent piece because it is also used to promote fruit drop for chemical thinning. Plot looks great, your apple trees look good to, got any close up pics? That spot will be awesome in a few years!

Another good thing to do is to plant corn over your legume plots. Legumes produce their own N, part of my corn plot this year is in an old clover field that was starting year 5, it was fine for clover but getting grassy and more corn is better. The area where the clover was has outgrown any other section of the 4 acres of corn even though they got the same Fert rates... Make sure you work on getting your PH above 6, 6.5 preferred. Good Luck!

Get a soil test........ you can do it now for May planting if you want... I use mossy oak biologic soil testing. even though I dont use their seed. Here is a link http://www.plantbiologic.com/images/document/soiltest.pdf They give you easy to understand results... it is alot better unless you have soil science or farming in your background. You want to collect 6 small samples with in your field, about 1 inch wide and 6 inches deep, mix them all in a clean bucket and send the soil in dry, but let it air dry. You only need to send about a 1/2 cup. They will email a pdf to you in 3 days after receiving it. Here is an example of page 1 of the report. Page two has fertilizer recomendations based in the soil data from p 1. It offers several options so you can use what you can find in your area. I used triple 19, so I did some math.. it is easy really. 19-19-19 represents N P K of the bag in percetage so a 50 pound bag of triple 19 has 9.5 pounds of each, look at page one it gives you the actual poundage of each. I also only use about 50% of p2 recommendations... otherwise I couldn't afford corn plots. Corn only needs a little N to start, it needs P and K though. Around week 4 it really needs nitrogen so I then broadcast before heavy rain Urea, urea is 36-0-0 so it has 18 pounds of pure N per 50 pound bag. I put down 200 pounds or Urea per acre for this plot. Urea is around $17 per bag, triple 19 around $16. I think I put down either 150 pounds or 200 pounds per acre of triple 19 at seed planting... it is expensive!!! RR seed is around $150 a bag, a bag is around 45 pounds of seed. Generic Round Up,( Gly) is cheap now. The corn you run over spraying and spreading urea generally rebounds... I just calibrate everything so I can make only one pass for the area I am treating. Here is a chart showing N uptake needed by corn

This is the new upper plot that is in it's first year of clover chicory, last yr it was oats. This is after mowing for the first time Thursday eve... since I have gotten 1.5 inches of rain... I try to never cut my clover below 6 inches and never when it is hot and dry.

This is how the soil looks before I seed and after I seed, fert and then redrag When the corn started Corn is a great draw, it is expensive, and I would plant as much as you can.... but come October it will be insane to hunt around the plot.

Thanks Pav! I had my mind set on a corn planter until I tried this method 4 years ago... it works great. I get the soil worked up very well.... spread my Fertilizer, usually 19-19-19 and then I spread 20 pounds per acre... I mark off 1/2 acre sections and put 10 pounds of seed in my spreader. I then use a drag with the harrows all the way down. Corn likes to be between an inch and 2 inches deep. At week 4 to 6 I spray Gly ( I use RR Corn) and then spread a high dose of urea before a heavy rain. I am sure I lose some seed from crows, etc and some doesn't germinate, a few seeds dont get covered... you use more seed by broadcasting than a planter but it works great. I have alot of rocks so this is another reason to avoid a planter. When winter arrives and the corn is gone and the snow is low enough I will brushhog it down and let it break down until I plow down again in Late May.

Some Loaded Goldrush trees.... these are 4 year old trees.. I hand thinned these about a month and half ago a view from a stand on the south side of the orchard... I almost didn't want to leave this stand today,.. nice cool summer day

I called too... if you don't have them by Thursday next week then something is wrong.... also you do not need your lifetime tags to get your dmp's on the 13th.

You wont burn the brassicas... and the ones you run over will rebound... just try to spread it without running back and forth.. limit your passes and split is right do it before a rain right before... this is so you dont lose N to the atmosphere... Those brassicas will take off with some urea! It is look great though.

Pav that plot looks great! You gonna put some urea on it in a week or two?

I love enterprise and liberty.... liberty is easy to grow IMO You want to look at ripening charts... ussually an apple will hang 2 weeks past prime ripening stage.. but some will hang well into Jan. Try to plant some that will drop from Sept through... your hunting season!