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Post by Dutch on Apr 20, 2014 19:04:44 GMT -5
Here is a pic of my one plot from last year. Here it is now, from the opposite angle. I have never seen a brassica plot this clean in the spring. Barely any weeds. I think the brassica smothered the weeds, and the snow cover and digging by deer just finished it off. Lots of turniips left, but they rotted up and dried up.
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Post by bawanajim on Apr 20, 2014 19:11:03 GMT -5
Looks like a great place to broadcast some buckwheat.
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Post by Dutch on Apr 20, 2014 19:16:55 GMT -5
We are actually thinking of putting some soybeans in over the summer, followed by buck forage oats, that I won, and clover seeded in with the oats.
The oats will be a nurse crop. Might throw some winter wheat in with the oats for quick food in the spring.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2014 19:22:54 GMT -5
The gas companies have been planting clover on the gas lines they have installed and the animals are loving it. If only I had a place to call my own. Maybe one day.
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Post by bawanajim on Apr 20, 2014 19:27:30 GMT -5
Good luck with the soy beans, I'm betting they won't last a week from the day you see the first blossom, those little white flowers draw deer like donuts draw cop cars. not that that's a bad thing, just don't expect any thing but forage from planting beans.
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Post by Dutch on Apr 20, 2014 19:32:47 GMT -5
I'm hoping to find some expired soys this week.
They will just be a forage crop until I can get the oats/wheat/clover mix in.
I hate to see bare soil on a slope like this. It washes all that the lime and nutrients out.
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Post by bawanajim on Apr 20, 2014 19:44:08 GMT -5
Turkeys luv buckwheat, and its great for the soil. Cheap n easy too.
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Post by Dutch on Apr 20, 2014 20:00:30 GMT -5
I've used Buckwheat and in one spot the deer hammered it, in the other they did not touch it. I had a mess dealing with it and have no tractor to mow it off if they don't eat it.
We have few deer, compared to back when I planted buckwheat last, so, not gonna chance it.
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Post by bawanajim on Apr 20, 2014 20:19:53 GMT -5
You won't have that problem with soy beans, I just won't plant them under 3/5 acres depending on the area because they just get hammered, if I plant them for customers I put a camera up or make them put one up, because at about 5 weeks or so those white blossoms come out and a week later all you have is 6 inch stems, most guys don't believe deer can wipe out beans so quickly, if you don't plant enough of them.
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Post by Dutch on Apr 20, 2014 21:46:51 GMT -5
We planted about 3 acres of string beans in the middle of a 2600 acre lease in Potter, 1999. I mean a TON of deer. That field was nothing but stems.
At one time, there were 50 deer in that filed and the adjacent 4 acres of clover. The farmer that planted all of it never could understand why nothing grew in that field, that had been fallow since 1958. Heck, the deer ate everything that came up. Never in my life had I seen such a distinct browseline around a field.
Two years later a bad winter came and many starved to death. Never could convince the guy that had the lease there were to many deer.
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Post by fleroo on Apr 21, 2014 7:14:39 GMT -5
I lost a field of Buckwheat to a hard freeze somewhere around May 15th if you can believe that. Everybody said wait til Memorial Day, but I figgied I was well in the clear from a hard frost/freeze.
You mention no Tractor. I have a Tractor, and implements, but also a 680 Rincon, and last year bought a Trailcutter to mow behind it. I wanted something a bit more "sleek" for mowing other than the cumbersome Tractor. It's faster, and gets in some places a Tractor can't. Just a thought. BUT, I see many folks trying to use an ATV like a Tractor for turning dirt. FORGET IT. Don't cornfuse the ablities of an ATV, and think it's a Tractor.
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Post by Dutch on Apr 21, 2014 10:27:25 GMT -5
Buckwheat is very suseptible to frost kill.
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Post by bawanajim on Apr 21, 2014 11:06:48 GMT -5
There's a full moon May 28, keep that in mind.
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