What's best for my situation.

[mowin]

I'm thinking about asking a client about doing some sort of food plot in one part of his fields. It is cut and baled for hay twice a yr. 

My plan is to prep a 200yrd by 100yrd area for some type of planning that will attract deer. Since it's cut for hay, I need to plant something the guy who bales it can still get something out of it, hopefully???

So what implement would work best? A disk or spring harrow? I know the landowner is not going to want it plowed under. 

So what's everyone's thoughts?  

[dmandoes]

Talk to the farmer before u do anything.

[Farflung]

just a thought. We have a lot of old hay meadows that get cut twice a year in our vicinity. They always attract deer. New seedings of hay really bring them in especially if they are limed and fertilized. I have had good luck checking the  pH, liming if necessary and then fertilizing it. Use a regular Co-Op Extension or similar soil test and then fertilize to  the  upper range of the reccomended fertilzer levels. I've done it and it works pretty well.

[mowin]

2 hours ago, dmandoes said:

Talk to the farmer before u do anything.

Well thats obvious.   Just not sure which implement would best suit my needs or what to plant.

Edited June 27, 2021 by mowin

[dbHunterNY]

i agree to hash it out with him. it depends on what he's doing with the hay. feeding it out to his own livestock or selling it. we sell hay to people with anything from goats, to horses, to petting zoo animals. if it's older ground something even like straight alfalfa would even work. deer won't eat forage rye and something like sorghum might not be something he wants planted. heads would get cleaned off anyway leaving nothing for the deer other than screening if that's useful for whatever your situation is there. all our hay fields are just timothy, brome, and alfalfa mix. not sure what you could do other than maybe plant cereal rye. he could still bale that and mix it in. if storing it in small bales the mice tend to wreak havoc on natural twine vs synthetic string.

[dbHunterNY]

15 minutes ago, mowin said:

Well thats obvious.   Just not sure which implement would best suit my needs or what to plant.

spray and many passes with discs or drags. plows of any size will just pull up crazy amounts of rocks unless you're river bottom. then it being a hay field you'll have to pick them all baseball size or bigger. maybe that's what you were getting at with plowing. small 4' tiller if you have access to one would work too.

[land 1]

no matter what you plant you got to get soil contact, oats, rye grain , clover , alfafa would all be stuff he could cut,,,,i would plant oats or rye after last cutting, 

[mowin]

Landowner does give a crap what happens as long as he gets his tax credit that it was cut for hay. He doesn't do any of the cutting.  Local farmers does the cutting/ bailing. I just want to plant something after the second cutting that he can cut the fowling summer if possible.  If not, what implement would work best? A disk, or spring harrow 

[wolc123]

In that situation, I might be inclined to try frost seeding some tall white clover over the 100 X 200 area, sometime around next March.  As long as the spoil ph is not too acidic, that might do ok, and deer like it more than any other type of hay.  It wouldn't hurt to spread some lime, good and heavy, over the area this fall 

Obviously, that isn't going to help you this season, but should surely improve the draw next year. Being a real cheapskate myself, I would just go with white clover from a local co-op (Rineharts is the cheapest place I have found it in NWNY), but this might be a good place to spring for some expensive stuff like that from Whitetail institute.  They have spent a fortune developing a clover blend that is most attractive to whitetail deer.

You dont need to worry about tillage for frost seeding, and a little local research should help you locate a lime spreading service for reasonable cost.  Any of that effort will have the side benefit of improving the quality of the hay that the farmer cuts next year. 

If your soil ph is ok now, you could get a thicker clover plot, and possibly some deer action on it this fall, if you tilled and planted the area with white clover, around August 15. Tillage could be accomplished with a rototiller, if the ground ain't too rocky.  A spring tooth harrow like this would only work if you sprayed the area with roundup first, to kill off the existing vegetation, or plowed and disked.  It doesn't sound like that would be an option for you.

 

Edited June 27, 2021 by wolc123

[G-Man]

A spring harrow or rake to remove dead grasses after.cutting then  a seeding of clover , alfalfa, birdsfoot trefoil.  Good luck

[greensider]

6 hours ago, dbHunterNY said:

i agree to hash it out with him. it depends on what he's doing with the hay. feeding it out to his own livestock or selling it. we sell hay to people with anything from goats, to horses, to petting zoo animals. if it's older ground something even like straight alfalfa would even work. deer won't eat forage rye and something like sorghum might not be something he wants planted. heads would get cleaned off anyway leaving nothing for the deer other than screening if that's useful for whatever your situation is there. all our hay fields are just timothy, brome, and alfalfa mix. not sure what you could do other than maybe plant cereal rye. he could still bale that and mix it in. if storing it in small bales the mice tend to wreak havoc on natural twine vs synthetic string.

If deer won’t eat rhy why is it in most throw and grow plot mixes 

[land 1]

deer dont eat rye grass, they will eat rye grain, most throw in grow stuff is poor choice and they do put rye grass as a filler  to make the buyer think they grew a good plot, some have rye grain  , all the seed types are listed on bag

[mowin]

Thanks guys, lots of good info.  

Going to look for a small set of disks, as it sounds like spring harrow isn't the best choice. 

[crappyice]

Thanks guys, lots of good info.  
Going to look for a small set of disks, as it sounds like spring harrow isn't the best choice. 

My buddy disked a hay field a few years back then planted pumpkins just cause he wanted a pumpkin patch for his family and friends. Great crop the first year then weed choked ever since (he doesn’t want to spray any weed killer). His hubby has now become an obsession and now he has this



Fenced with fishing wire to keep most the deer away until after then pumpkins get picked then they have at them pretty good. Only patch in the area so he’s playing the “variety is the spice of life game” after having fun with the family.



Rows are wide enough for a brush hog to mow the weeds in between- put clover in the rows too but too late and two weeks of drought after seem to prevent them from coming up ….after pumpkins are done we are going over it with a winter rye


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[UpStateRedNeck]

I've been using a disc harrow to convert some old hay fields, lot of passes but it busts up the sod pretty good.  No spray, fertilize, disc again, plant, roll.  Been doing oats + clover.  Our land is in the Ag program too, it'll get cut the end of July after the oats get chowed down.  There's still plenty of Timothy's head and trefoil in it.  The cut will leave most of the clover underneath, but they won't be hitting it as hard in the fall as they are now.  I think if you did the same thing August post-cutting you'd have a good plot for October?