Late Soybeans

[NYBuckHunter27]

Going to be planting soybeans tomorrow, is it too late for a successful plot? i have read that a soybean plot under 2 acres will get eaten before successfully growing. This is an experiment plot so not expecting much but just wondering if anyone has had any success with small soybean plots. thanks guys!

[Culvercreek hunt club]

cage a section in so you can see what it would have been like...lol

 

You have time. Farmers around me just got theirs in about 2 weeks ago. 

[wolc123]

The best use I have found for them is adding to a broadcast mix of winter wheat and white clover, planted about mid-August.  The sprouting soybeans are very attractive to deer, but ripe pods not so much.   That way you get some of that attraction during early bow-season.   If you plant them now you are wasting all that prime attraction at a time when you can't hunt.   Soybeans also do not keep well, so there is usually an abundance of free seed at the end of normal spring planting time.   

[growalot]

I have successfully grown much much less then that.. it depends on if they have ever experienced them andwhat is planted around and in them...for example plant a very fast growing plant thatvwill protect them... I have used buckwhest for this and sudan grass. Watch the amounts though. Also surrounding the beans with clovers sorghums buckwheat alfalfa. Scare crows moved around and or flashing road contruction lights.

[stubborn1VT]

Deer don't like ripe soybean pods?  I don't know where you get this stuff.  Deer don't feed on soybeans when they first turn yellow.  That's the only time they don't eat either the leaves or the pods.  I have kept soybeans for years in sealed containers, and they stored just fine.  

As an experiment, I planted 1/4 acre of regular ag beans in July last year and they matured.  I never hunted over them, but I can see the plot from my house.  I fenced them off, along with a few newly planted apple trees, until the end of September.  If I hadn't fenced them, they wouldn't have stood a chance.  I tried that once before, and had does and fawns chewing them down at all hours of the day.  An exclusion cage would be a good idea.  

Good luck.  If they get chewed to death, you can always put in a fall plot like brassicas or cereal grains.  

[LET EM GROW]

What maturity group soybean did you plant? I planted 4s and 5s at the end of May. They should be timed perfectly with fall frost.. I also just planted group 1 and group 0 this week to overseed brassicas into the summer

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[NYBuckHunter27]

I am not sure, I picked up the seed from Rhinehart Seed Mill in Middleport, NY it appears it is a blend that they package themselves.

[NYBuckHunter27]

I also planted Biologics blindspot in same plot, it is a sorghum blend to conceal plots etc...hoping it will hide the young soybeans at least for a little while.

[Nomad]

I don't know beans about beans, but there is a little 14 acre field that runs  off the back of my woods, to the East is a thicket, South often wheat or corn and West of it beans or corn .

I have a few stands that are along it or can view it , and the deer are in that field  till they're cut, and then they're picking stuff off the ground  through the winter.

I've had guys tell me all kinds of when they won't eat them , brown , yellow after a frost, on days that end in Y, there maybe times they prefer I guess , but they certinly don't abandon it from what I've seen .

[wolc123]

The time the deer like soybeans best is just after they sprout, until they start to turn yellow.  That is why it makes sense to time your planting such that you can capitalize on that a little bit during early archery season.   With global warming, our fall frosts have been getting later, so mid to late August plantings can easily get you that.    Their draw is so strong during that "green-growing" period, that the deer may be drawn out of heavy cover (including corn), even if a little hunting pressure is detected.  

My only reason for planting foodplots is to make it easier and cheaper to fill my freezer with venison.  That is the main reason all of my spring foodplot budget goes into corn.   That is the only plot that has the cover to hold deer on my ground thru periods of heavy hunting pressure.  Corn plots continue to provide as long as there is a little corn left on the stalks.   As deer are killed, others move in by night to fill the vacancies.  

Any money that I could be spending on spring soybeans, or fencing so they can produce pods, would be better spent on more fertilizer for or acres of corn.  Soybeans do bank some nitrogen, but not nearly as much as 3-5 years of white clover, so that is also not a real good reason for planting them in the spring.            

Edited June 15, 2017 by wolc123

[stubborn1VT]

I don't know what maturity group my soybeans are.  The seed was free from a friend of mine who plants 90 acres to sell.  My soybeans and fence didn't cost me a dime.  I did burn a bit of diesel, but I would do that no matter what I planted.  I know corn draws deer, but the costs and difficulty of planting it doesn't work for many people.  

No, deer don't abandon soybeans.  I've seen them take a break from them when they first turn yellow.  The Drury brothers have a specific hunting strategy for when their beans turn, and they count on them as a late season food source.  

Wolc and I are never going to agree.  Corn works for him.  He has tractors and a corn planter.  A 2 acre plot of beans will provide more food for more months than a 2 acre corn plot.  They take less from the soil, bank nitrogen, are easy to plant, and deer love them.  They definitely aren't ideal, but many experts consider them one of the very best food sources for whitetail. 

[wolc123]

My biggest issue with planting the soybeans in the spring is that they draw does out into the open during fawning season, making the fawns easy prey for the coyotes.   I experienced that first hand 2 years ago, and If I can save a few folks from making the same mistake, it will be well worth it.   I don't know if you have ever happened across a coyote den with neat little piles of fawn skulls next to the openings, but it is something you won't forget if you ever do.  

Another thing that was memorable was the way the momma coyotes would fake injury, trying to draw me away from the dens when I got closer.  If NY state would ever consider removing the restrictions against killing coyotes over the summer then I would change my tune on spring planting of soybeans as a deer plot.   Those coyote pups would be easy pickings when they are out playing on the cut hay fields.  

[stubborn1VT]

No closed season on coyotes here in Vermont.  I'm not sure I get the connection between soybeans and coyotes.  I'm pretty sure coyotes eat fawns no matter what.  

[wolc123]

1 hour ago, stubborn1VT said:

No closed season on coyotes here in Vermont.  I'm not sure I get the connection between soybeans and coyotes.  I'm pretty sure coyotes eat fawns no matter what.  

Green growing soybeans are extremely attractive to deer (that is why you needed those fences to get smaller plots to make pods).    They also provide very little cover, especially the ag varieties.   Normally, a doe will stick to heavy cover when she has fawns, The attraction of the green soybeans is so great, that it may draw her out of that cover.  The fawns then become easy pickings for the coyotes.   If the doe and fawns stick to the heavy cover, the coyotes will not eat as many.    I prefer to make it harder, not easier for the coyotes to kill fawns.   

It is good that Vermont has no closed season on coyotes.   That would certainly make it much easier to keep them in check.  In Western NY, it is very common to see pups out at all hours of the day thru the summer.  By early fall they always wise up and become mostly nocturnal.            

[stubborn1VT]

I understand that you believe the soybeans are to blame.  I'm pretty sure discbines kill more fawns than coyotes this time of year. So planting hay crops should be avoided, because it draws out does to feed and the fawns gets killed by mowers.