Official 2022 Fall Plots Thread

[corydd7]

I saw that Rob. I didn't get much rain at all for the first five days after seeding, so I just hope the seed held strong. WTI seed is the best I've tried so I'm confident it will workout. I'm late but I have winter greens and destination to plant on Monday. Weather looks good hope it stays the same until after planting. 

[LET EM GROW]

Checked mine yesterday and was kinda saddened lol. Im going to give it a few more days and re check and stop being so worried lol. Feels good to plot again though.. Would have thought to have more germination than i saw yesterday. Todays sun should help. They could have been there and just covered in brown soil kind of hiding them or just starting to pop. I probably should have waited longer to check, but I'm freakin ancy this year! lol. 3" of rain since Tuesday, got another half inch yesterday as i pulled up from a tiny cell.   

[Five Seasons]

15 hours ago, Lomax said:

I have been doing this a while now and learned that patience is a virtue and believe it or not some of the best plot years have been dry ones  

My spring clover was going gang busters. Now it's still green but barely getting by. I am not sure I agree that patience is a virtue haha. 

[Five Seasons]

14 hours ago, corydd7 said:

I saw that Rob. I didn't get much rain at all for the first five days after seeding, so I just hope the seed held strong. WTI seed is the best I've tried so I'm confident it will workout. I'm late but I have winter greens and destination to plant on Monday. Weather looks good hope it stays the same until after planting. 

you're not late at all. They say 7/20-8/20 and it hasn't rained anyhow so I think you'll be just fine. 

[LET EM GROW]

56 minutes ago, Belo said:

My spring clover was going gang busters. Now it's still green but barely getting by. I am not sure I agree that patience is a virtue haha. 

In terms of clover, patience is a must lol. Slow growing to start and no going during the droughts. lol 

[Five Seasons]

13 minutes ago, LET EM GROW said:

In terms of clover, patience is a must lol. Slow growing to start and no going during the droughts. lol 

you can say that again. it was my first ever plot. It took a long while to get going so I thought I f'd up bad. Then bam it was going great till August. Now ugh... At least I can frost seed it next year without a complete do-over. 

[LET EM GROW]

4 minutes ago, Belo said:

you can say that again. it was my first ever plot. It took a long while to get going so I thought I f'd up bad. Then bam it was going great till August. Now ugh... At least I can frost seed it next year without a complete do-over. 

Rains and cooler moist soils this fall will have your clover slamming again. And a mow early to Mid September to control broadleafs and your golden 

[dbHunterNY]

i never end up getting plots in that aren't ag fields for our farm or one i hunt. works out okay though. just means no staging/kill plots.

[Five Seasons]

35 minutes ago, dbHunterNY said:

i never end up getting plots in that aren't ag fields for our farm or one i hunt. works out okay though. just means no staging/kill plots.

I am surrounded by corn and soy as well as apples. My whole goal with plots is some winter stuff and mostly to draw them in to range aka the kill plot. So failure for me is more personal than anything haha.

[Five Seasons]

I'll add that my wife's 86 year old grandpa things I'm re&*$*$ for planting more "food" haha

[dbHunterNY]

13 minutes ago, Belo said:

I am surrounded by corn and soy as well as apples. My whole goal with plots is some winter stuff and mostly to draw them in to range aka the kill plot. So failure for me is more personal than anything haha.

if it means anything the last couple plots i did got hammered to dirt before the season even started. used some antler king honey hole years back and grew great. deer never touched it until after the season. shoulder and standing room only in my small staging plots. helped with inventory that made it through the season i guess. everyone fails in food plotting at some point. lol

[LET EM GROW]

45 minutes ago, Belo said:

I am surrounded by corn and soy as well as apples. My whole goal with plots is some winter stuff and mostly to draw them in to range aka the kill plot. So failure for me is more personal than anything haha.

Half our lease is situated in complete AG fields, but theyre typically harvested and nothing is left for colder weather. besides the clover/hay fields and sometimes some sloppy harvested corn fields. This is part that has sevreal un picked green bean fields that are getting absolutely hammered right now.. so im hoping these seeds take off between the rows. if i had the ability id go and mow an acre or two to help them out. 

The other half of my lease next door to my camp is all organic farmed, and it literally has limited food sources on it, besides a neighbor who has soybeans this year. Also this half of the lease is surrounded by several neighbors who all compete for better bucks and plant food plots as well. So to out perform them is crucial imo. I want the deer on me, and not them.. Dry years like this, most wont go above and beyond to produce good plots. So i try me best to.. 

[phade]

Since we changed our strategy a few years back, I think we're at a happy medium with plotting.

One season we spent entirely too much time, effort, money on plotting and didn't get done the other things we needed to get done like stand prep, moves, glassing, etc. 'Twas a crap season.

After that we agreed to keep plotting to a minimum of days/time investment. I believe this year we'll have 4-5 work days into plots across May-August, with 2 of them being "full days." In alot of instances we touch a plot 2x and are done, and sometimes it's a 1x of seed, fert, spray, or disc seed fert. We've had no noticeable drop in plot performance or huntability. I still think in alot of instances the plotting efforts are not an overall positive ROI. Hard to really determine whether we make a difference or not in success. Without a doubt there are times, like early/late, but it's not a magic button. We hunt in higher ag areas so that likely is a factor, too. 

I went over my wall - I have one buck shot on a plot. That's it. Late regular season I think. Looking at misses - my FIL missed a 5.5+ on a plot 2x (I was with him in the blind), and at passes - several encounters with 2 and 3 year olds. So I guess it does help, but certainly a tail off of encounters with 4.5+ bucks that I can recall over the years.

Edited August 19, 2022 by phade

[Robhuntandfish]

2 hours ago, LET EM GROW said:

Rains and cooler moist soils this fall will have your clover slamming again. And a mow early to Mid September to control broadleafs and your golden 

we were wonderign if we are gonna have to mow trails again before season.  But without any rain its looking like we may not have to. We have clover in a lot of the trails that was looking pretty good. 

[Judoka95]

I had a local farmer stop by Tuesday night and ask about planting alfalfa in my fields. Looks like I my have a free food plot for 2023. This would allow me to focus time and resources to smaller plots in the woods.

[wolc123]

5 hours ago, phade said:

Since we changed our strategy a few years back, I think we're at a happy medium with plotting.

One season we spent entirely too much time, effort, money on plotting and didn't get done the other things we needed to get done like stand prep, moves, glassing, etc. 'Twas a crap season.

After that we agreed to keep plotting to a minimum of days/time investment. I believe this year we'll have 4-5 work days into plots across May-August, with 2 of them being "full days." In alot of instances we touch a plot 2x and are done, and sometimes it's a 1x of seed, fert, spray, or disc seed fert. We've had no noticeable drop in plot performance or huntability. I still think in alot of instances the plotting efforts are not an overall positive ROI. Hard to really determine whether we make a difference or not in success. Without a doubt there are times, like early/late, but it's not a magic button. We hunt in higher ag areas so that likely is a factor, too. 

I went over my wall - I have one buck shot on a plot. That's it. Late regular season I think. Looking at misses - my FIL missed a 5.5+ on a plot 2x (I was with him in the blind), and at passes - several encounters with 2 and 3 year olds. So I guess it does help, but certainly a tail off of encounters with 4.5+ bucks that I can recall over the years.

I have yet to kill a deer in wmu 9F, that didn’t have a belly full of corn, however the one year I didn’t get any planted at our place (2019), was the year that I killed my best archery season buck here (on a two year old clover plot).  
 

I have not killed a deer here since then, despite some pretty good-looking plots.  They definitely keep deer around, and hunting is a lot more fun, when you are seeing some.

Edited August 19, 2022 by wolc123

[corydd7]

Well powerplant was destroyed but fed lots of deer. Definitely draws them in. Brassicas are coming in pretty well, I'm going to overseed bare spots and fertilize after this cold beer it's hot up here!

Six bucks in the half acre plot the last two weeks, at least one shooter.

Tomorrow I'll seed two loggings trails I usually have luck with. Both already sprayed and will be no till plots to make LETEMGROW proud. 

Very dissatisfied with the new camera I bought. Quality of pictures is crap.

[land 1]

radar finally shows i got some rain

[corydd7]

My first and only apple lol. Five years and it's all worth it.

[Robhuntandfish]

radar finally shows i got some rain

We had a pretty good storm up here finally!

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[land 1]

yeah i was on the boat just missed me

[UpStateRedNeck]

Going up to check and cut a load of firewood.  There was a flash wood warning last night not too far away, I'm thinking the seed finally got a good solid drenching!

Edited August 21, 2022 by UpStateRedNeck

[stubborn1VT]

Just checked the plot after almost 7 days.  Guess the .20" of rain wasn't enough.  Almost no germination.  There's 3 days with a chance of precipitation this week (same as last week) so there's hope, I guess.  Looking back, I should have planted earlier, but it's hard to put together a plan when the forecasts are so inaccurate.  I'm confident the plot will be ok if I get germination.  The dews will keep it going.  But I have to get it to sprout first!  Seems like I shouldn't need irrigation, but it's certainly drier than it used to be.  Oh well.

[Robhuntandfish]

This is a good sign! Got a pretty heavy tstorm yesterday and another shower about midnight. Tomorrow looks like a real good rain. If my seeds and germinated areas didn't get crushed with last week's lack of rain then I should be good.

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[Lomax]

It stormed and has been raining most all morning at my place.  This will be good for the plots the wildlife and the farmers much needed.