September 3, 2025 • 44 mins
You put in the work, planted the seed, and waited on rain - but your food plots just aren’t producing. Now what? In this episode, Jake Hofer brings the question to Steve Hanson, Don Higgins, Skip Sligh, Mark Kenyon, Jeff Sturgis, Thomas Mlsna, Bobby Kendall, and Bill Winke. When your plots fall short, is the season ruined or is there still time to pivot and salvage your strategy? The panel of experts share what they do when plots struggle or completely fail, from quick fixes and alternative food sources to shifting the way they hunt the property altogether. If your plots look rough heading into fall, this episode gives you a clear path forward.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you do that mix, it's some form of that mix.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I have never seen it in twenty some years in
any state in any form where the dear don't need it.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Well, the first question I'm going to ask myself every
time is why did they fail? What can we learn
from this failure to prevent it from happening in the future.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
Welcome back to Back forty.
Speaker 5 (00:19):
I'm Jake Koefer, and we're here with another episode where
if you are a white deal hunter and you plant
food blots or attempt to, this is an episode that's
going to help you out right now for this upcoming
season before we get into anything more. The Back forty
podcast is brought to you by land dot com, the
leading online real estate marketplace to find your perfect rural, recreational, agricultural,
(00:41):
or hunting properties here in the United States. If you're
new here to the Back forty, I'll give you the
cliff notes. Each episode we dive through a white tailed
dilemma or question that more than likely we all have
faced up to one point, or potentially facing right now.
So we've done five other episodes here previously. If you
haven't seen those, go check those out. But right now,
where are you going to talk about how to potentially
(01:03):
salvage your food plot. Maybe you're so far behind and
you have a better weeds right now, and you want
to know how can I get a food plot in
for this fall to get potentially some more hunting opportunities.
Helped to hear good throughout the winner and anyone that
has planet food plots understands that stuff breaks down, Things
don't go right, you don't.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Get the weather you need.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
And the guys that are helping answer this question have
experienced probably every curveball that you can imagine. So we
are going to get in with our panel of experts
and ask the question, my food plots look like crap?
Speaker 4 (01:33):
What do I do now?
Speaker 5 (01:34):
And we're going to kick things off with skip slide.
All right, it's September third. I just went and looked
my food plot. It looks like the dust bowl may
happen any minute or it is just jam packed full
(01:55):
of weeds and everything I planted is a garbage.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
My food plot failed. I am nervous. It's September. What
do I do?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Oh? This is easy?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Beg borrow, plead for somebody again just to use a
drill or go get your bag seater. A million ways
to do this, but that's the perfect timing to plant
that mix. You know, if you're like, hey, I'm more
of the broadcast guy, Okay, quickly kill it off, even
(02:27):
like glye glye and ammonium sulfate. Quickly kill it off
if you can, and you really do want to. If
you can add a little fertilizer to it, it sure would
be nice. And I can there's probably a time when
I can get into far more detail on this too,
But I mean, that's a perfect time.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
To go plant.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
If you got a drill, rye, piece, oats, critical, maybe
a little bit of radish in there, some clovers, get
your clovers established for next spring. So now you're ahead
of the game because next spring all those things will
be luscious clover and then you're set for the next
suning season in so many other ways. So yeah, that's
always a rescue plan, is that mix. And if you
(03:12):
do that mix, it's some form of that mix. I
have never seen it in twenty some years in any
state in any form where the deer don't need it. Now,
if somebody's like I just planted rye, maybe I've seen
cases where they don't eat it. Or I just planted oats,
it was okay, and then the oats winter killed when
(03:34):
it got real cold. Fine, Or I just did Somebraskas
and they didn't touch Nebraskas for like three or four
years until they got used to them.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I've seen that.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I've seen all those things, but I've never seen it
where if you plant a diverse mix, like around late
August to early September, even mid September, and heck, you
can plant rye into October, that stuff germinates that like
whatever thirty four grease, it'll still pop up.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Now it'll be real small and it's not going to
do a whole lot.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
But you know, late August through any time in September,
you still could go do this and have food there
period and a story. Just put a diverse blend there, oats,
winter piece, win or I, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
And what's the seating rate for that? Because you've texted
me that much before.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I pretty heavy on it, and I don't see any downside,
especially later in the season when you just want more stems.
I don't see any downside. And that example of going
heavy and somebody's like, holy cow, dude, you put fifty
pounds of oats fifty pounds apiece, fifty pounds awry fifty
pounds a winter week.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
That's a lot of seat.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, it will not have a downside.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
I haven't seen a downside.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Rather, and then if somebody would be would be like,
what do you put in your drill? And I might
tweak it a little bit. Hey they didn't have this,
and I'll sub this, and it's not that big. But
my for sures are like, for sure, I'm putting oats
in there. For sure, I'm putting peas in there. For sure,
I'm putting rye in there. And then I if I
want clovers there, which usually I do, I'll put the
(05:11):
clovers in there, like ten pounds of clover break. Yeah,
and I'd put a mix of like whites and reds.
You could do some alfalfa. I do like Alice White,
and you know, we talked about that at a gazillion times.
I might put some like Crimson Crimson in there and
go a little higher rate there, but like some clover
(05:33):
examples really really quick Alice white red. You could do Ladno,
and it's going to be similar to Alice White. So
you're kind of split nairs. I just like alice white
a little better. If you're in a dry region, I'd
run duranic clover, you know, dust bowl type situation, and
definitely run duronic can handle drought. And I also would
run red clover and alfalfa if you're in a dry region.
(05:54):
You know some other things you can mess around with.
Probably don't do it here a sandpoint if you're in
a really dry region, h and that probably covers it.
For clovers, Crimson, frosty, bersine, balanza, those are annuals. Probably
wouldn't worry about those as much. I would do Crimson
and run that. And you could go higher on the
(06:15):
clovers too. You could be like, hey, I bumped it
up to fifteen pounds, especially if you're adding some higher
rate clovers like Crimson. So just run that higher and
you will not get hurt doing that. Will the deer
will absolutely eat that. There's not a scenario I can
think of, And I've seen this from the East coast
all the way to like are near the Colorado border
(06:39):
where they will eat this. So like universally, I don't
think there's a spot in the country that the deer
won't eat that mix. So it is always a great
last resort mix. And the dude that iineered that mix
to this day is still Double Tree back in the
day that really got that mix down.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Taught me that mix and maybe you have tweaked it
a little bit. Ah.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
And I remember talking to him like twenty years ago
and I'm like, deer don't like rye. He's like, that's
not true. I'm like, but I planted just some rye.
He's like, yeah, you got to do it in a blend.
This was like twenty years ago. And I'm like, I
don't think so. And then he's like, watch this, and
then we did a diverse blend. I'm like, now they're
(07:23):
hitting the rye and they're hitting all these other things.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
It was.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I'm like, oh yeah, monoculture of rye, maybe not, but
doing this blend is insane. And then there's all the
other benefits of that blend. What it does for your soil,
how it feeds the deer into the winter into the spring. Yeah,
that turns into a year ound food source. So here's
another answer. You're trying to rescue something because because you
(07:49):
were lazy and or you're just got too busy, or
it just got out of control. It happens all the time.
But if you plant that blend and you do add
the clovers and I would go higher or eight and
you do, I would for lies and linemen and do
all that good stuff too at the same time, which
isn't that hard. Then you're set up for a year
on food source. Now, now you're set. You're set for
(08:11):
next year too. If you get lazy next year, you
get busy. Now you have clovers growing, and ideally you'd
spray it or clip it or something to maintain it.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And I definitely would do that. But now you're set.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
For like long term, so that one planning can really
fix a lot of problems and really advance your farm
long term. One day can make your farm different for
years ahead. And I've had clover stands that have been
there for like five, six, seven years, and I could
make them go in perpetuity if I'd frost seed them
(08:41):
and do proper weed control or whatever, so you really
could have food there forever.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Now.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, it's a no brainer, easy, easy, Or if you're
in if you're in a bait state, just throw a
giant corn piles.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Don't trucks, don't trucks at corn piles drives me insane.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
That's what Skip has to say. He has saved a
lot of food plots. He's helped a lot of people
that text him, Hey, what do I do? And so
now you got to hear exactly what he would do
if you're in this situation. Next up we have Jeff Sturges.
Jeff has a whole catalogue on salvaging food plots on YouTube,
but you get to hear what he has to say,
point blank on what he would do to get something
(09:21):
green and lush or October, November, December, tech January, depending
on where you're at. So here's what Jeff has to
say on how you'd fix food plots.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
You know, there's still a lot you can do if
you have soil exposure. That's the first critical aspect. And
the reason I say that is if you have soil exposure,
you can kill weeds and you can get your seed
on the ground. And so as long as you have
soil exposure, you can get your seeds on the ground
and you can get germination with some September rains. And
a good thing about August and September, in October and
(09:54):
November is typically anywhere in the country. Not everywhere, but
most areas fall rains increase throughout that time period, and
so you can expect ever increasing moisture patterns. Weeds are dying,
not thriving that time of year, and so you can
use something like you know, glyphasate does pretty good on grasses,
really poor. It's the weakest service side you can use.
(10:16):
It gets the most press, but it's the weakest service side.
Doesn't live in the soil, which is a good thing.
Something like Liberty is really strong on broad leaves and
does marginal on grass, but it does kill grass. You
take something like two and a half quarts break or
of Liberty ultra, add two pounds ammonium sulfate to it
(10:39):
per acre, mix one court break or of glyphasate with that,
just combine that all together, and then I'll smoke out
just about any weed that you have a problem with.
And the really cool thing about Liberty and glyphasate is
there is no residual, so it's not going to live
in the soil. You can literally put the seeds down.
We did it with fourteen acres of buckweat this year,
but the seeds down first and then sprayed that combination
(11:02):
right over the top of the seed, soaking the seeds
with the chemical, and we have one hundred percent germination
in beautiful fields. And there's no residual. So that means
that you don't have to use like two four D
to kill out pigweed, water, smartweed and all this nasty stuff.
And you don't have to use something strong like that
that has a residual of two weeks and wait two
(11:23):
weeks to throw some seed down. You can spray throw
the seed down immediately. The other aspect is to either
hire someone with a tiller disk or do it yourself.
Disk everything up, knowing that you eats, you set your
weeds back, try to get a kill on it. If
you can, first wait ten days, then disk everything up,
even wait seven days and then plant. And when I
(11:47):
look at planting, if you're around September first in the
upper Midwest, a mix of one hundred pounds apiece per acre,
fifty pounds of oats, fifty pounds a rye goes a
long ways, and then I'll come in the end of
September add another one hundred, one hundred and fifty pounds
of rye. Right over the top of that rye because
it's very temperature soil pH tolerant more than anything else
(12:10):
weat can be working a pinch. Alts will die out
during December January. At some point I want something green,
So that's why i'm adding that total green layer. If
it's more closer to October, and if you're not in
the Upper Midwest, you could look at well, I'm in Kentucky.
We'll just move these dates back about two three weeks
(12:31):
something like that. If you're in Louisiana, move these dates back.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
A month that I'm talking about.
Speaker 6 (12:36):
So let's say you're in the Upper Midwest, it's the
end of September. Then I'm going to go full and
you're just throwing seed down, maybe getting a good kill,
maybe you're tilling whatever, but you're getting set on the soil.
Speaker 7 (12:48):
That's critical.
Speaker 6 (12:49):
I'm going to go about three hundred pounds of rye
per acre and enjoy the season. If that's closer to September.
First you want to just use rye, I probably go
one hundred and fifty pounds and two hundred pounds. But
as that win it gets closer, you're not looking in
total height for volume of your food plot. You're looking
at horizontal growth and number of stems to create volume
your food plot can always save a food plot even
(13:12):
into I think I planted a new food plot in
the up of Michigan. We probably had frost that year
first part of September, which was normal. It was the
end of September. I had a new food plot, put
down a bunch of rye and line fertilizer. We had
snow on opening day of bo season. This would have
been about two thousand and two, two thousand and one,
(13:34):
at about five inches wet snow to the point where
geese landed on the field and start picking up the
rye they're forced down due to weather. Within a week
we had temperatures in the sixties and seventies, sunny days,
and that riot germinated and I had a beautiful, nice
low crop lush. That's pushing it in the up of Michigan.
But the point is is that it's not too late
(13:56):
to get food plots salvaged and enjoy the season. You
know what, he didn't have the perfect food plot you wanted.
Who cares it's green? Just forget about it. Things happen
and enjoy the seeds.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
Next up we have Don Higgins Don owns the seed
company and has helped a lot of people throughout this
exact I'd be scared to guess how many emails he's
had of my food plots don't look like they should.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
What do I do?
Speaker 5 (14:19):
And you get to hear right now on how he
would potentially look at maybe broadcasting, drilling, what blends does
he increase the seed rate? And here we go, this
is what Don has to say. My food plots look
like crap?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Now what?
Speaker 5 (14:31):
And maybe this is a spring food plot that didn't work,
or maybe I planned my food plot too early.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
So what do I do now?
Speaker 8 (14:39):
Well, September first, throughout most of the country, you've still
got time to replan. And what's that mean? I mean
it made me the first time. I don't know what
your mistake was. Maybe you're planning the seed too deep
or whatever. Come back in and start over. I'd start
over with a bear plot if need be. Maybe your
(15:02):
spring plot just got browsed having maybe it was a
soybean plot that there's still some soybeans, But those plants
are only about a foot high where you was expecting
them to be three feet high because of the deer
browse pressure. But yet there's still some beans on that
foot tall plant that you don't want to destroy. Maybe
you can just go over and oversee that with some
oats and and uh, you know, some braskas, some turnips
(15:24):
or adish something like that and produce more tonnage of
food on that plot than by just leaving the soybeans
or even that. That would be a better than just
a start over plan. You don't want to start over
if you've got some quality food there. So each situation
is going to be a little bit different. But you know,
(15:44):
early September is not too late to get a good
plot in.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
The later it gets into september.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
How important in your opinion is that to add to
up the amount of seeds you're putting out or like
an oats or something like that.
Speaker 8 (16:02):
Well, I don't think increasing the seeding rate is that
important at all. If it's going to germinate, it's going
to germinate. You're not going to lose germination into the fall.
I mean you will at a certain point, but it's
going to be more due to the species instead of
the amount of seed you're putting down. So you might
(16:24):
have to be a little more selective about what you're
planning later in the fall. But you know, oats is
one of the easiest plots to grow. You can throw
oats out in your concrete driveway and you get a rain,
it's going to turn green, sprout same way out in
the woods. You know, you can throw oats about anywhere
and you're going to get a stand of oats. Nebraska's
are not. You know, turnips and radish are not that
(16:45):
hard typically to get started either, because you don't have
to cover with soil.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
That's why they're so easy.
Speaker 8 (16:52):
The bigger seeds, you know, like you get into the
Austrian winter peas, and some of those bigger seeds they
need to be in the soil to get them to grow.
But some of these other seeds you can happen right
on top of the soil. We get a good rain,
they're going to grow.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
Next up, we have Bobby Kendall, and maybe you've wondered
as a worth overseeding into a road crop field. Here's
what Bobby has to say, encompassing everything else that all
boils down to trying to get something established for fall.
Here we go, it's September first. Either I didn't get
my food plots in yet or I plan in something.
They look like garbage, It looks like a weed patch.
(17:27):
Where do I start?
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Is there anything I can do?
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Oh?
Speaker 9 (17:30):
Yeah, So I mean you're definitely not a game. I
mean most people the way these falls have been. At
that point, your stuff's not even grown anyway, because it
hasn't rained in three weeks. So anyway, for the you know,
for that September, what you're looking at basically is out
is is cereal grains like rye and wheat and oats
(17:52):
or blends with them in it, and then.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Clovers.
Speaker 9 (17:57):
So those clovers obviously are not going to really produce
any food or much food that year, but it's going
to establish it for next year. So which brings me
to another point in kind of a side tangent, thinking
about the future, you really want to have, like I
want to have like sixty percent of my farm in
perennial greens, clover and alfalfa because it beats the droughts
(18:18):
that we get.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
It's food all year long. It's really good nutrition.
Speaker 9 (18:23):
And that way you don't run into that problem because
if only if you're only trying to plant ten or
fifteen percent of your your food is you know, Nebraska's
or fall plant stuff. Well, then you're only out of
a game ten or fifteen percent if it doesn't rain.
So you're going into September, you know, cereal grains, And honestly,
at that point, I'd wait because the worst thing you
(18:45):
can do is plant cereal grains too early and then they,
I mean they shoot up and if you get a
rainy September, they'll pass the palatability where they really want
to eat them win or rye, you know, mixes with
them and rye, and it'll germinate down into the thirties.
I planted it before, and I mean there was people
last year who all of a sudden their turn up
plots were coming up in November that it hadn't done anything.
(19:06):
So it's definitely not too late. The cereal grains are
key at that point, but I personally like to if
I'm putting clovers in them, I might scoot it a
little forward, like you know, September twelfth to the sixteenth.
But if I'm just doing straight cereal grains and maybe
winter peas or something, I'll probably.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Do that like September twentieth.
Speaker 9 (19:25):
Every year it seems like it's later and later.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Can folks who don't have a drill, don't have a tractor,
maybe they don't even have a four wheeler. Should they
feel confident broadcasting it at this time of year those
types of plans.
Speaker 9 (19:36):
Yeah, So that those little seeds, you know, the cereal
grains like winter rye and wheat, you can do it
and turn ups and rape and even rash all those
little seeds. I mean, you can go that's when you
overseed the corn and the beans. Let's say it's the
beginning of September and you just got this farm.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Like it happens to me all the time.
Speaker 9 (19:55):
I'll go in there and I'll mow off this junk
and then I'll take my bucket sometimes and I'll push
it off because it's just too much, and then I'll
get it down to nothing, and then i might wait
a week and come back in and spray it. And
then you know, at that point, if you wait into
the end of September before a big rain, you could
oversee it into it and you.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Could have food there. So so don't panic.
Speaker 9 (20:18):
No, And the other big thing for people to be
thinking about this is kind of a different deal than
the food. But for next year, if you want to
do food pots, now that is the time to be
prepping for next year. That's when the weeds are pulling
the root reserves. That's when you kill stuff stone dead.
So the next spring with stuff starts growing, you know,
and it's like this, and you spray it. In a
few weeks it looks like this Again. The stuff you
(20:39):
spray in the fall still looks like this dirt. So
that's when you want to prep for next year, especially
like switch grasses and stuff like that. So don't overlook
that at that time of year either.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Great tip.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Next on the docket we have Thomas Milsna. Thomas works
on a ton of farms, and when you work on
a lot of farms, things can't always be optimally timed.
For a guy that maybe has one food plot, he
can time the rain as perfectly as he put actually can.
But the biggest question is for you to find out
on what he has to say to this question. I'm
not going to spoil it. Here's what Thomas has to
share when it comes to failed food plots and what
(21:08):
do you do well?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
The first question I'm going to ask myself every time
is why did they fail?
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Right?
Speaker 3 (21:13):
What can we learn from this failure to prevent it
from happening in the future. You know, if I get
the phone call someone asking me if why my food
plots fail, usually I'm on the chopping block, right. So
we're always trying to analyze or analyze the situation as
much as possible. But that's why we look at first
it was a bad prep you know, did you not
(21:34):
have a soil test, was a bad seed was it
bad timing, you know, bad seed bed, whatever it might be,
there's a there's a million things that can go wrong
when you're trying to create life, you know, especially late summertime.
It's just not the perfect conditions for stuff like that.
So timing is a big one. You know, if that
(21:54):
was the timing, maybe you planted a little bit too late.
You should have planted a week or two earlier to
get that rain. Or maybe you planted a week or
two too early again when there wasn't rain, or a
little bit of rain and a drought. You know, it's
a it's a crap shoot in the fall. It can
really be a struggle. There's things that you can do
to mitigate those issues. Retain more soil moisture, better food
(22:15):
plot practices, all of those things but I'm going to
look at why it failed. Maybe it was deer browse pressure.
Get utilization cages out. I've had that happen in form properties.
A client calls me, food plots look like crap.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Blow.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
We did everything right. Why did they not work? The
deer browse pressure was so high that they were nipping
almost every plant off right at ground level before they
could even grow, you know, establish themselves at all. So
all these things we need to learn. Why. Now, if
you failed, what can we do short term to make
the most of this season. It is never too late
to plant cereal rye. A cereal rye. It's going to
(22:49):
do a couple of things for you. It's going to
first and foremost, it's going to provide a green food
source for those deer as long as there's moisture in
the forecast. Cereal rye with Germany at like thirty seven
degrees fahrenheit, it'll grow as soon as it hits the forties.
If there's any moisture in the forecast, put down cereal rye.
You can't put too much, and you can't put it
(23:09):
down it almost can't put it down too late. The
second thing that's going to do is. It's going to
help improve your food plot for the following year. Next spring,
it's going to come back, it's going to green up again.
It's going to help retain soil moisture. You can roll
it down, you can mow it down, you can burn
it off, you can do all sorts of things. It's
going to help reduce weeds. That's going to help you
reduce your chemical input. That's going to help improve the
(23:29):
soil microbiome. That's going to help retain soil moisture. That's
going to help you know, all of these things come
into play. Obviously, I keep on circling back in the
moisture thing because I would say that's usually the biggest failure,
and it's it's not us. I mean it is in
some regard, right, It goes back to the timing thing.
But we are farmers, right, we have to deal with
mother nature. And there's a reason why you don't see
very many farmers planting crops in July or August. Right,
(23:53):
So you can save it, can salvage it, but really
focus on better long term food plating practices, and ultimately
all this stuff comes back around and just having a
good plan, A good plan you know, and I'm guilty
of this myself, where you're prioritizing other things. I'll be
food plotting all all of July, and then oh, I
(24:13):
should probably still do something with mine, right, So it's
kind of low on the priority list for me a
lot of times. But that's a big one. And now
the second thing, which is maybe a little bit abstract
from the question itself, is you shouldn't be relying on
food plots that much anyway. You really shouldn't. You know,
there's a lot of guys that half the property is
food plot and half of it is either unmanaged or
(24:36):
it's just some type of peer cover, right, And then
you really really are relying on the food plot to
hold deer on your property. It's like having a bird feeder.
If the bird feeder is empty, the birds are gone.
What you can do to get ahead of that is
add a lot more.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Perennial food on your property.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
I think it's a good philosophy to always have some
type of perennial food plot in there, even if it's
just a ten or twenty foot buffer strip of clover
around your food plot or along the edge of the
woods or whatever it might be.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
But bar none.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
You should focus on native habitat as much as possible
because there's always going to be some level of food
there for those deer that mother nature prefers, right, And
we're not fighting mother nature to establish versus a food
plot that is an annual thing, and you know, one
week without rain could be a major failure. So folks
(25:29):
on the perennial food sources, don't rely entirely on your
food plots. And if you need something in there that's
green and easy, cereal rye works. It works really well.
You know, if you're a little bit earlier, maybe you
can even get oats or something in there, but cereal
rye is a good go to. The biggest thing with
cereal rye is once it gets about four to six
inches tall, the deer don't want to eat it so much,
so you don't want to put it in too early,
(25:50):
but you can almost never put it in too late
as long as it's thirty seven degrees and warming.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
Next up we have bill Winki And maybe if you're
this far, you're saying, is it even worth to do
all of this work and try to time the rain
and figure out and buy the seed, buy the spray.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Take the time to do it.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
I asked, build that question on top of the basis
of what to do next. So let's see what Bill
has to say in regard to is it even worth
all this effort. We haven't had any rain, and I
planted my food plots. I planted my braskas. My food
plots simply look like crap. I'm starting to panic. What
do I do now?
Speaker 4 (26:25):
At September first September one, no food plot.
Speaker 10 (26:30):
Gosh, if there's rain in the forecast, you know you
still have a chance, but you're probably gonna have to
plant something now, more like a rescue type of plot,
something that will grow really fast. You know, hot will
come up and grow really fast, like fallwry true to
kay winter wheat. Those things will germinate and pop out
(26:53):
of the ground super fast. So ideally, you know, if
you have access to a no till drill, I would
just go and drill right into those areas where you
planet to grow the crops that are you know, lagging behind,
and that way you get a quick hit of something
green when you get that first rain. Because let's say
that was prossifense in prossts, I really need a few
(27:15):
weeks you know, even when they're growing good to get
up and get going and you know, produce any for
it at all. You know, they're awesome ones. They do
what they're supposed to do. There's a lot of tonnage there,
but it takes a while. Whereas these more grain type
you know, cereal grain type plantings you can get. They
(27:37):
grow so quick that you can have something there that's
fairly attractive in pretty short the order. So that's probably
the best way to save those spots, I would say,
is to try to get cereal grain planted and then
hope for a rain because it'll.
Speaker 7 (27:54):
Pop up quick.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
Are they worth trying to save?
Speaker 10 (27:57):
I mean put it this way. You don't need food
plots to be successful during the rut. So if you're
only planning to hunt the rut, then no. But if
your agenda is bigger and you're thinking, Okay, I've got
an earlier season hunts, I've got my late season hunts.
This is land that I hold, you know, so I
(28:17):
want my deer to be as healthy as possible, you know,
I want to hold deer out here. So there's sometimes
there's a bigger reason to plant these than just to
be successful. I've always said, you don't need food plots
you killed a nice buck during the nut you sure don't.
But during the early late season it really helps. And
(28:38):
then again, like I said, just for the overall help
the deer.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
Now we have Steve Hanson, and if you ever have
gone and shopped to buy oats, I know this is
just one seed, and all these guys are talking about
different blends. But there's oats that allegedly can germinate and
wistand and grow a little bit colder temperature, and they're
usually called like buck forge oats, And I've always wanted
it as a worth the extra money because they are
more expensive. And this is what Steve has to say.
(29:03):
Is it worth to spend a little bit extra money
to try to get a couple extra growing days in
the fall, depending on if you're getting a late start. So,
without further ado, let's get into what Steve Hanson has
to say for anyone that feels like they're behind the
eight ball and they need every single growing day possible
before we get a really hard frost. My spring food
pot looks like crap. My beans got over browsed. I
(29:24):
feel like I missed a third week of August rain event.
My food pot's like, look like crap, I'm behind sure,
what can I do well?
Speaker 11 (29:32):
At that point, you know you're you're gonna if you're
talking first week is September, you still have some opportunities.
You know you're gonna be more limited now to cereal grains.
That's gonna be your best your best food source chance
for sure. And they're almost failure proof because they will
grow into the cooler periods the later that you get
(29:53):
into the month of September. The only the only way
you can accelerate one of the only ways you can
really excel rate the growth of your food plots like
that you're gonna need like rye, wheat, tritcal, You're gonna
probably want to pick from one of those. And then
this is one time where I think it's a big
benefit to work the ground. So if you're dealing with
(30:14):
a failed food plot, you know of whatever, say it
was a failed turniplot due to drought or high deer
pressure or whatever. By working the ground and making it darker,
it's gonna absorb more heat, so you're gonna get more
heat units later into the year, which is going to
encourage that growth and allow that plot to be more
attractive later on. I would also up the seating rates
(30:35):
because each plant you're planting at this point isn't going
to have the ability to get as tall, so you
need more plants to create the same amount of biomass.
Speaker 5 (30:48):
What's an example of a seating rate for We'll pick
tritacale because I feel like a lot of people don't
receive triticale.
Speaker 11 (30:54):
Yeah, I mean tritacal. You're gonna want to You're gonna
want to run maybe one hundred pounds, you know, which
would be quite a bit. I think if if we
were doing just a pure cover crop rate, it could
be thirty or forty pounds. If we were planning is
at a crop for a harvest, we'd probably plan about seventy,
and for a food plot situation, I would probably go
closer to one hundred.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
So you shouldn't necessarily panic if they look like junk.
There's still fail proof. I don't say bailproof, but safeguards yep.
Speaker 11 (31:23):
Those would be your insurance policy plots, you know. Having
something like rye tritecal or winter wheat would be like
a last and you could put in some clovers with it.
You could try some other stuff because you have no
guarantee of the weather. You could have an abnormally warm
fall where things keep growing. So maybe throw a few
radishes back in, just kind of like candy, you know.
(31:43):
But the true ones that are going to be your
bread and butter that's going to get you through and
have a good food plot, are going to be the
cereal grains of some variety. I would stay away from
oats because they're going to frost kill. You know, they
grow fast, so you would get some you know, some height.
But depending on the latitude and where you're located, I
would stay with those three trit to cow rye or
winter whek because they're more frost tolerant.
Speaker 5 (32:05):
Do you have any experience of the buck Ford jotes
that are supposedly more cold cold tolerant.
Speaker 11 (32:10):
Yeah, And you know, if you just like anything, you
could do and I've done it, a deep dive into
oats and then each you know, they have a cold maturity.
There was a seed dealer in Minnesota and they used
to have a great breakdown of each one of their
oats and the cold heartiness. You know, Buck fourge oats
are definitely in the top of the cold hardy ones.
(32:32):
But what you learn is it really isn't that much
of a you might get they may it might be
three degrees different, but it gets you know, fifteen degrees
in the ground freezes.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
They're all dead.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
That's it.
Speaker 11 (32:43):
You know, You're not there. Buck Ford isn't going to
survive that, you know.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
So yeah, that's a question that I people ask all
the time of is it worth it because it's a
lot more expensive.
Speaker 11 (32:52):
It is a lot more expensive, and if you're doing
a smaller plot, I would say it is.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Is to get a couple extra growing days.
Speaker 11 (32:57):
Absolutely, just a little more lush little you know, stay
is a little more palatable, you know, because we get
a lot of that late October weather where you get
a twenty degree night sometimes and it'll freeze. But and
that shouldn't take out the buck four joke, where it
may take out some of the other ones.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
So and to close things out, we have Mark Kenyon.
You know what the question is. But Mark has actually
a really funny story on this exact scenario. Like I said,
if you plan the food plots, things typically don't go
exactly right. More likely you're using an old tractor or
you're trying to scramble together a game plan on the
fly as a pop up shower comes up in September
(33:34):
that wasn't in the forecast two days ago, one day ago,
or a hex six hours ago. Let's hear what Mark
has to say. I think you guys will enjoy this.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Here we go. We just missed labor day and I
was out of the farm.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
My food plots look like I'm growing noxious weeds or
it looks like the dust bowl rain.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
It could happen any moment. My food plots look like crap.
What can I do? Yeah?
Speaker 7 (33:59):
Unfortunately, I am someone who's been in the situation myself
a handful of times over the years, many times over
the years, and I have historically all the advice of
another one of our guests on this podcast and someone
who's helping. So I've called this guy like, Hey, what
do you have to do in this situation? How should
I handle the situation? So I am of the Jeff
(34:21):
Sturgis camp, So I've called him in the past and
be like, Hey, here's my situation, how would you tackle this?
What should I do in this situation? And what that
has meant for me in the past, and what I
would do again? Now is that I would go in
there and depend on Rye to save the day for me,
hundreds of pounds of Rye cereal, Rye praaker, pray for rain.
(34:43):
I'm just broadcasting this over top. And the thing about Rise,
it's it's so easy to get going.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
You'll Germany like the I can't.
Speaker 7 (34:52):
It's Jeffrey's South. It's end to your truck. You'll you'll
German in the back of your truck. And so I've
always remembered that, and that has been the case. If
you if you brought cast topsy, the whole ton of
Rye out there, it's very likely that you have something
green and growing and that'll be enough to get you through.
You know, get some attraction. Certainly deer utilize it. So, Yes,
(35:13):
I've had many failed plots saved by Rye. What was
the root of some of the failures of your plots
if you had to yes, is it is it poor
prep when you say a failure, is it just weeds?
Or did was the pressure to the rouse pressure too high?
What was the root of some of the failures that
you've had to face where you had to call on
(35:35):
the rescue plan? Yep, So the the root is twofold.
One is that I am like the most hillbilly sheep
food plotter. I don't own a tractor, I don't have
any farm implements. I do everything historically has been done with.
First was an a TV and a little tiny groundhog
(35:55):
max who plot disc if you remember those, Oh they're
still run, but that I've graduated to a UTV. So
I have a u TV with a sprayer in the
back of that. And then no till is what I
to know. And so by doing that, though I'm literally spraying,
broadcasting smashing, so I'm not you know, you're getting very minimal,
(36:17):
you know, at least not as good of seed to
soil contact as you could get if you had a
drill or if you were disking the whole thing and
then getting your seat.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
In that way.
Speaker 7 (36:25):
And so when that has when I've done it that way,
you are very dependent on rain. And so if you
do not get the rain that was forecasting heavy, Yeah,
if you don't get that heavy rain, you're gonna have
a significant challenge dealing with getting germination and not having
you know, also concurred to all this is like weed
stuff too, and so when I'm not destroying the field
(36:46):
and telling it all up, you're still gonna have weed
issues if you get one spray maybe in so usually
it's because of the challenging planting process mixed in with
rain not cooperating. That's when you have the failure.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
I have this.
Speaker 7 (37:01):
It was last year, maybe one other time. I found someone.
I decided I was going to pay for someone to
come out of the drill and get that, and that
has significantly improved, you know, my germination rate and gets
you through some of these food plot failure type situations.
You can get away with a lot more when you've
got your seed there at the right depth, you know,
(37:22):
in the way you want it. You can survive a
little bit more of those water issues when you have that.
But even even last year, I think when I did
have someone drill this stuff in, there was one section
in one of my plots that like, simply every year
August we're not getting rainly we used to, and so
I still say, jeez, I'm gonna need to fill some gaps.
Got to fill some holes, and so right stave with
(37:45):
to day again.
Speaker 5 (37:45):
So if you're in your food plot method, you know
you're broadcasting and it's people miss spots that. I think
that happens all the time, and so it's unlikely that
you have this beautiful plot with all these rows and
everything's perfectly covered. You might have some patches throughout the
food plot. Do you think it's a worthwhile effort to
go in and throw some rye grain or whatever kitchen
sink makes you.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Want just to fill it out?
Speaker 7 (38:08):
Yeah, I do think so. Like, if you have a
situation where you have, you know, if it's rethink this. Yeah,
I do think it's worthwhile as long as the risk
is not outweighing the reward. So if here's a situation
where it's like opening days in five days and you
realize this, you're like, oh man, my food plus don't
look perfect and opening days five days away. At that point,
(38:30):
I personally wouldn't. It doesn't matter that much to have
a perfectly filled food plot. But if you're still three
weeks out or you know, he's got plenty of time
and you've got this perfect rain coming and everything looks great,
you're like, hey, I go out there and you know
a couple hours, really approve things. If these are significant holes, Yeah,
go out there, do that. I think that helps. It's
low impact enough and high enough reward that in those
(38:53):
cases it does make sense. I one time had this
situation and I had my family out there at the
property with me that day, and I thought to myself,
you know what if I just.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
Go in on the UTV and.
Speaker 7 (39:06):
Run in there and get my kids to use the
shoulder broadcaster. I had my wife and my two kids,
and I was like, if they each if we all
had a shoulder broadcaster, and if we drove through, we
wouldn't even need to step foot off of the UTV.
We just go in there, hand broadcasts these, fill in
these gaps, and then get out of there and never
turn off the can am, never leave any ground sent
(39:26):
It'll be super low impact. It would fix this food plot.
It'll be perfect in it's worthwhile. And so before we
go out there, I tell the kids, I'm like, hey,
here's the plan. I do not want you stepping off
the can am. I do not want you making a lot.
We're just gonna go in. Everyone's gonna lean off the
sign and spread the seed, and then we're gonna get
out of there. It's gonna take like five minutes, ten minutes,
(39:47):
and the deer will never know and we'll fix the
food plot problems.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
And this was late.
Speaker 7 (39:51):
It was this was like a later closer to this season,
and that's why I was so worried about. I was like,
all right, let's do So we start going and we
get to the food plot, and right as we start,
like everyone's trying to do this, my oldest son starts
getting upset because his thing isn't turning around. So he
starts like, You're like, Dad, it's not working. I'm like, cool, forever,
(40:11):
gotta quiet, got be quiet. And then Colt spills his
bag and see that, so he starts crying, and I'm like, guys,
if you're making noise, don't make noise. And then all
of a sudden, the canam dies and I ran out
of gas. So I'm stalled out there.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
Both the kids are crying.
Speaker 7 (40:28):
I'm thinking, this is the guest disaster ever, So don't
do that. Yeah, But outside of that set of circumstances,
I think it's worthwhile. It usually can be relatively easily.
Speaker 4 (40:40):
That's a great METHODO.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
If it would have worked out, you didn't run out
of gas and have the other issues, that's a really great,
really great strategy.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
Well, now I think really really quick.
Speaker 5 (40:50):
If your food plot failed and you're nervous and you
feel like it's semi important to have a food source
on the farm, is it worth it? Is it worth
doing pulling pulling this audible and try to scrap together
at the last moment, or you're like, hey, it is
what it is, and I'm going to still have a
good season without messing with the fixing the food plot.
Speaker 7 (41:08):
I think the key thing goes back to how you
led that question, which is like how important is food
in that area to you or overall plant. I think
there's some properties where you know they're nice to have,
like it's a nice cream stand and these little food
plots are like, hey, it's nice. But honestly, if it's
not there, I still know I can kill deer X,
Y and Z ways because of other features or other
moving patterns. So if it's that case, then maybe it's
(41:29):
not worthwhile. But then there's other properties where really like,
a food source is the anchor of a property or
the anchor of a strategy, and if you don't have that,
then everything else crumbles around it, and you need to
know your property well enough to make that decision. I
have some properties that's that I have some properties where
it's the other one where okay, no big deal, we'll pivot.
You've got to make a judgment call over time perfect.
Speaker 5 (41:51):
Well, there was a lot of great solutions to this example,
and there was a lot of similarities. Once again, I
think there was some episodes just here that you know,
really address why maybe they're failing or and then also
a lot of the mixes, a lot of the strategies
was very very succinct, and I think that depending whether
(42:11):
you're a guy that's just going to use a bags better,
there's solutions for you here in this episode.
Speaker 4 (42:15):
And there was other examples where they're.
Speaker 5 (42:17):
Like bake, borrow and steel, get a drill, drill it in,
and so you have different options based off of what
you have available to you. So don't panic. There's ways
to make this work. You ry grain can save the
save the day. And hopefully everyone got a lot of
value out of this, because I know I did. There
was a lot of really good solutions, and unfortunately the
last few years we haven't really gotten a lot of
(42:39):
great fall rains, and so there's been a lot of
people in this camp and so now they have eight
really good solutions. Next week, we have a great episode,
one that is really not all that great because it's
a really catastrophic issue. But we're talking about EHD and
what do you do if you are facing this? This
is not a fun conversation, and some of these guests
(43:01):
that really hit home, and we're going to dive into
what can you do next week?
Speaker 4 (43:05):
There, you guys have it.
Speaker 5 (43:07):
Hopefully you have a good game plan now and you
have a couple of different seed ideas on varieties and blends.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
You have an idea on using.
Speaker 5 (43:15):
Clips and ammonium soul fate to help get a quicker
kill down and a more effective killed down.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
You're looking at maybe why did they not work?
Speaker 5 (43:22):
If you did plant spring food plots and they got
over browsed, or you planted them too early, and or
maybe mother nature just hasn't cooperated. But as Jeff Ster
just said, there is typically more rain as you get
deeper into falls, so there's plenty of time. There is
so much time not to procrastinate, but there is time
to put together a plan that is not rushed or
(43:43):
you feel like you're in a hurry and maybe you
don't make the best decision.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
There's time.
Speaker 5 (43:47):
All these guys said there's time, So take a deep
breath and realize, put together a game plan and you
will have a good fall food plot even if it
doesn't rain for the next two weeks, because you have time.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
So that is it.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
I hope you guys enjoyed this episode of the Back
forty podcast. Like I said, we've had a handful of
other episodes that are going to help you develop a
game plan with a panel of highly qualified experts. These
are all been hand selected of guys that have decades
and decades of experience, have gone through different hoops and
challenges depending on where they're at in the country, and
so there's just a lot of value in a short
(44:19):
amount of time in all these episodes, and I hope they.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
Don't seem repetitive.
Speaker 5 (44:22):
But the point of this is to potentially solidify what
all these folks believe and figure out what do all
these guys really agree on, and then what are the
nuanced different approaches that may succinctly fall into what your
ideology is or what your plan is.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
And so that is it.
Speaker 5 (44:38):
I hope you guys enjoyed this episode of the Back
forty And next week we're going to have a pretty
heavy topic that I hope doesn't hit home but it might.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
And I hope you see you guys next week.
If you do that mix, it's some form of that mix.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I have never seen it in twenty some years in
any state in any form where the dear don't need it.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Well, the first question I'm going to ask myself every
time is why did they fail? What can we learn
from this failure to prevent it from happening in the future.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
Welcome back to Back forty.
Speaker 5 (00:19):
I'm Jake Koefer, and we're here with another episode where
if you are a white deal hunter and you plant
food blots or attempt to, this is an episode that's
going to help you out right now for this upcoming
season before we get into anything more. The Back forty
podcast is brought to you by land dot com, the
leading online real estate marketplace to find your perfect rural, recreational, agricultural,
(00:41):
or hunting properties here in the United States. If you're
new here to the Back forty, I'll give you the
cliff notes. Each episode we dive through a white tailed
dilemma or question that more than likely we all have
faced up to one point, or potentially facing right now.
So we've done five other episodes here previously. If you
haven't seen those, go check those out. But right now,
where are you going to talk about how to potentially
(01:03):
salvage your food plot. Maybe you're so far behind and
you have a better weeds right now, and you want
to know how can I get a food plot in
for this fall to get potentially some more hunting opportunities.
Helped to hear good throughout the winner and anyone that
has planet food plots understands that stuff breaks down, Things
don't go right, you don't.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Get the weather you need.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
And the guys that are helping answer this question have
experienced probably every curveball that you can imagine. So we
are going to get in with our panel of experts
and ask the question, my food plots look like crap?
Speaker 4 (01:33):
What do I do now?
Speaker 5 (01:34):
And we're going to kick things off with skip slide.
All right, it's September third. I just went and looked
my food plot. It looks like the dust bowl may
happen any minute or it is just jam packed full
(01:55):
of weeds and everything I planted is a garbage.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
My food plot failed. I am nervous. It's September. What
do I do?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Oh? This is easy?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Beg borrow, plead for somebody again just to use a
drill or go get your bag seater. A million ways
to do this, but that's the perfect timing to plant
that mix. You know, if you're like, hey, I'm more
of the broadcast guy, Okay, quickly kill it off, even
(02:27):
like glye glye and ammonium sulfate. Quickly kill it off
if you can, and you really do want to. If
you can add a little fertilizer to it, it sure would
be nice. And I can there's probably a time when
I can get into far more detail on this too,
But I mean, that's a perfect time.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
To go plant.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
If you got a drill, rye, piece, oats, critical, maybe
a little bit of radish in there, some clovers, get
your clovers established for next spring. So now you're ahead
of the game because next spring all those things will
be luscious clover and then you're set for the next
suning season in so many other ways. So yeah, that's
always a rescue plan, is that mix. And if you
(03:12):
do that mix, it's some form of that mix. I
have never seen it in twenty some years in any
state in any form where the deer don't need it. Now,
if somebody's like I just planted rye, maybe I've seen
cases where they don't eat it. Or I just planted oats,
it was okay, and then the oats winter killed when
(03:34):
it got real cold. Fine, Or I just did Somebraskas
and they didn't touch Nebraskas for like three or four
years until they got used to them.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I've seen that.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I've seen all those things, but I've never seen it
where if you plant a diverse mix, like around late
August to early September, even mid September, and heck, you
can plant rye into October, that stuff germinates that like
whatever thirty four grease, it'll still pop up.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Now it'll be real small and it's not going to
do a whole lot.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
But you know, late August through any time in September,
you still could go do this and have food there
period and a story. Just put a diverse blend there, oats,
winter piece, win or I, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
And what's the seating rate for that? Because you've texted
me that much before.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I pretty heavy on it, and I don't see any downside,
especially later in the season when you just want more stems.
I don't see any downside. And that example of going
heavy and somebody's like, holy cow, dude, you put fifty
pounds of oats fifty pounds apiece, fifty pounds awry fifty
pounds a winter week.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
That's a lot of seat.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, it will not have a downside.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
I haven't seen a downside.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Rather, and then if somebody would be would be like,
what do you put in your drill? And I might
tweak it a little bit. Hey they didn't have this,
and I'll sub this, and it's not that big. But
my for sures are like, for sure, I'm putting oats
in there. For sure, I'm putting peas in there. For sure,
I'm putting rye in there. And then I if I
want clovers there, which usually I do, I'll put the
(05:11):
clovers in there, like ten pounds of clover break. Yeah,
and I'd put a mix of like whites and reds.
You could do some alfalfa. I do like Alice White,
and you know, we talked about that at a gazillion times.
I might put some like Crimson Crimson in there and
go a little higher rate there, but like some clover
(05:33):
examples really really quick Alice white red. You could do Ladno,
and it's going to be similar to Alice White. So
you're kind of split nairs. I just like alice white
a little better. If you're in a dry region, I'd
run duranic clover, you know, dust bowl type situation, and
definitely run duronic can handle drought. And I also would
run red clover and alfalfa if you're in a dry region.
(05:54):
You know some other things you can mess around with.
Probably don't do it here a sandpoint if you're in
a really dry region, h and that probably covers it.
For clovers, Crimson, frosty, bersine, balanza, those are annuals. Probably
wouldn't worry about those as much. I would do Crimson
and run that. And you could go higher on the
(06:15):
clovers too. You could be like, hey, I bumped it
up to fifteen pounds, especially if you're adding some higher
rate clovers like Crimson. So just run that higher and
you will not get hurt doing that. Will the deer
will absolutely eat that. There's not a scenario I can
think of, And I've seen this from the East coast
all the way to like are near the Colorado border
(06:39):
where they will eat this. So like universally, I don't
think there's a spot in the country that the deer
won't eat that mix. So it is always a great
last resort mix. And the dude that iineered that mix
to this day is still Double Tree back in the
day that really got that mix down.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Taught me that mix and maybe you have tweaked it
a little bit. Ah.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
And I remember talking to him like twenty years ago
and I'm like, deer don't like rye. He's like, that's
not true. I'm like, but I planted just some rye.
He's like, yeah, you got to do it in a blend.
This was like twenty years ago. And I'm like, I
don't think so. And then he's like, watch this, and
then we did a diverse blend. I'm like, now they're
(07:23):
hitting the rye and they're hitting all these other things.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
It was.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I'm like, oh yeah, monoculture of rye, maybe not, but
doing this blend is insane. And then there's all the
other benefits of that blend. What it does for your soil,
how it feeds the deer into the winter into the spring. Yeah,
that turns into a year ound food source. So here's
another answer. You're trying to rescue something because because you
(07:49):
were lazy and or you're just got too busy, or
it just got out of control. It happens all the time.
But if you plant that blend and you do add
the clovers and I would go higher or eight and
you do, I would for lies and linemen and do
all that good stuff too at the same time, which
isn't that hard. Then you're set up for a year
on food source. Now, now you're set. You're set for
(08:11):
next year too. If you get lazy next year, you
get busy. Now you have clovers growing, and ideally you'd
spray it or clip it or something to maintain it.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And I definitely would do that. But now you're set.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
For like long term, so that one planning can really
fix a lot of problems and really advance your farm
long term. One day can make your farm different for
years ahead. And I've had clover stands that have been
there for like five, six, seven years, and I could
make them go in perpetuity if I'd frost seed them
(08:41):
and do proper weed control or whatever, so you really
could have food there forever.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Now.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, it's a no brainer, easy, easy, Or if you're
in if you're in a bait state, just throw a
giant corn piles.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Don't trucks, don't trucks at corn piles drives me insane.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
That's what Skip has to say. He has saved a
lot of food plots. He's helped a lot of people
that text him, Hey, what do I do? And so
now you got to hear exactly what he would do
if you're in this situation. Next up we have Jeff Sturges.
Jeff has a whole catalogue on salvaging food plots on YouTube,
but you get to hear what he has to say,
point blank on what he would do to get something
(09:21):
green and lush or October, November, December, tech January, depending
on where you're at. So here's what Jeff has to
say on how you'd fix food plots.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
You know, there's still a lot you can do if
you have soil exposure. That's the first critical aspect. And
the reason I say that is if you have soil exposure,
you can kill weeds and you can get your seed
on the ground. And so as long as you have
soil exposure, you can get your seeds on the ground
and you can get germination with some September rains. And
a good thing about August and September, in October and
(09:54):
November is typically anywhere in the country. Not everywhere, but
most areas fall rains increase throughout that time period, and
so you can expect ever increasing moisture patterns. Weeds are dying,
not thriving that time of year, and so you can
use something like you know, glyphasate does pretty good on grasses,
really poor. It's the weakest service side you can use.
(10:16):
It gets the most press, but it's the weakest service side.
Doesn't live in the soil, which is a good thing.
Something like Liberty is really strong on broad leaves and
does marginal on grass, but it does kill grass. You
take something like two and a half quarts break or
of Liberty ultra, add two pounds ammonium sulfate to it
(10:39):
per acre, mix one court break or of glyphasate with that,
just combine that all together, and then I'll smoke out
just about any weed that you have a problem with.
And the really cool thing about Liberty and glyphasate is
there is no residual, so it's not going to live
in the soil. You can literally put the seeds down.
We did it with fourteen acres of buckweat this year,
but the seeds down first and then sprayed that combination
(11:02):
right over the top of the seed, soaking the seeds
with the chemical, and we have one hundred percent germination
in beautiful fields. And there's no residual. So that means
that you don't have to use like two four D
to kill out pigweed, water, smartweed and all this nasty stuff.
And you don't have to use something strong like that
that has a residual of two weeks and wait two
(11:23):
weeks to throw some seed down. You can spray throw
the seed down immediately. The other aspect is to either
hire someone with a tiller disk or do it yourself.
Disk everything up, knowing that you eats, you set your
weeds back, try to get a kill on it. If
you can, first wait ten days, then disk everything up,
even wait seven days and then plant. And when I
(11:47):
look at planting, if you're around September first in the
upper Midwest, a mix of one hundred pounds apiece per acre,
fifty pounds of oats, fifty pounds a rye goes a
long ways, and then I'll come in the end of
September add another one hundred, one hundred and fifty pounds
of rye. Right over the top of that rye because
it's very temperature soil pH tolerant more than anything else
(12:10):
weat can be working a pinch. Alts will die out
during December January. At some point I want something green,
So that's why i'm adding that total green layer. If
it's more closer to October, and if you're not in
the Upper Midwest, you could look at well, I'm in Kentucky.
We'll just move these dates back about two three weeks
(12:31):
something like that. If you're in Louisiana, move these dates back.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
A month that I'm talking about.
Speaker 6 (12:36):
So let's say you're in the Upper Midwest, it's the
end of September. Then I'm going to go full and
you're just throwing seed down, maybe getting a good kill,
maybe you're tilling whatever, but you're getting set on the soil.
Speaker 7 (12:48):
That's critical.
Speaker 6 (12:49):
I'm going to go about three hundred pounds of rye
per acre and enjoy the season. If that's closer to September.
First you want to just use rye, I probably go
one hundred and fifty pounds and two hundred pounds. But
as that win it gets closer, you're not looking in
total height for volume of your food plot. You're looking
at horizontal growth and number of stems to create volume
your food plot can always save a food plot even
(13:12):
into I think I planted a new food plot in
the up of Michigan. We probably had frost that year
first part of September, which was normal. It was the
end of September. I had a new food plot, put
down a bunch of rye and line fertilizer. We had
snow on opening day of bo season. This would have
been about two thousand and two, two thousand and one,
(13:34):
at about five inches wet snow to the point where
geese landed on the field and start picking up the
rye they're forced down due to weather. Within a week
we had temperatures in the sixties and seventies, sunny days,
and that riot germinated and I had a beautiful, nice
low crop lush. That's pushing it in the up of Michigan.
But the point is is that it's not too late
(13:56):
to get food plots salvaged and enjoy the season. You
know what, he didn't have the perfect food plot you wanted.
Who cares it's green? Just forget about it. Things happen
and enjoy the seeds.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
Next up we have Don Higgins Don owns the seed
company and has helped a lot of people throughout this
exact I'd be scared to guess how many emails he's
had of my food plots don't look like they should.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
What do I do?
Speaker 5 (14:19):
And you get to hear right now on how he
would potentially look at maybe broadcasting, drilling, what blends does
he increase the seed rate? And here we go, this
is what Don has to say. My food plots look
like crap?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Now what?
Speaker 5 (14:31):
And maybe this is a spring food plot that didn't work,
or maybe I planned my food plot too early.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
So what do I do now?
Speaker 8 (14:39):
Well, September first, throughout most of the country, you've still
got time to replan. And what's that mean? I mean
it made me the first time. I don't know what
your mistake was. Maybe you're planning the seed too deep
or whatever. Come back in and start over. I'd start
over with a bear plot if need be. Maybe your
(15:02):
spring plot just got browsed having maybe it was a
soybean plot that there's still some soybeans, But those plants
are only about a foot high where you was expecting
them to be three feet high because of the deer
browse pressure. But yet there's still some beans on that
foot tall plant that you don't want to destroy. Maybe
you can just go over and oversee that with some
oats and and uh, you know, some braskas, some turnips
(15:24):
or adish something like that and produce more tonnage of
food on that plot than by just leaving the soybeans
or even that. That would be a better than just
a start over plan. You don't want to start over
if you've got some quality food there. So each situation
is going to be a little bit different. But you know,
(15:44):
early September is not too late to get a good
plot in.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
The later it gets into september.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
How important in your opinion is that to add to
up the amount of seeds you're putting out or like
an oats or something like that.
Speaker 8 (16:02):
Well, I don't think increasing the seeding rate is that
important at all. If it's going to germinate, it's going
to germinate. You're not going to lose germination into the fall.
I mean you will at a certain point, but it's
going to be more due to the species instead of
the amount of seed you're putting down. So you might
(16:24):
have to be a little more selective about what you're
planning later in the fall. But you know, oats is
one of the easiest plots to grow. You can throw
oats out in your concrete driveway and you get a rain,
it's going to turn green, sprout same way out in
the woods. You know, you can throw oats about anywhere
and you're going to get a stand of oats. Nebraska's
are not. You know, turnips and radish are not that
(16:45):
hard typically to get started either, because you don't have
to cover with soil.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
That's why they're so easy.
Speaker 8 (16:52):
The bigger seeds, you know, like you get into the
Austrian winter peas, and some of those bigger seeds they
need to be in the soil to get them to grow.
But some of these other seeds you can happen right
on top of the soil. We get a good rain,
they're going to grow.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
Next up, we have Bobby Kendall, and maybe you've wondered
as a worth overseeding into a road crop field. Here's
what Bobby has to say, encompassing everything else that all
boils down to trying to get something established for fall.
Here we go, it's September first. Either I didn't get
my food plots in yet or I plan in something.
They look like garbage, It looks like a weed patch.
(17:27):
Where do I start?
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Is there anything I can do?
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Oh?
Speaker 9 (17:30):
Yeah, So I mean you're definitely not a game. I
mean most people the way these falls have been. At
that point, your stuff's not even grown anyway, because it
hasn't rained in three weeks. So anyway, for the you know,
for that September, what you're looking at basically is out
is is cereal grains like rye and wheat and oats
(17:52):
or blends with them in it, and then.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Clovers.
Speaker 9 (17:57):
So those clovers obviously are not going to really produce
any food or much food that year, but it's going
to establish it for next year. So which brings me
to another point in kind of a side tangent, thinking
about the future, you really want to have, like I
want to have like sixty percent of my farm in
perennial greens, clover and alfalfa because it beats the droughts
(18:18):
that we get.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
It's food all year long. It's really good nutrition.
Speaker 9 (18:23):
And that way you don't run into that problem because
if only if you're only trying to plant ten or
fifteen percent of your your food is you know, Nebraska's
or fall plant stuff. Well, then you're only out of
a game ten or fifteen percent if it doesn't rain.
So you're going into September, you know, cereal grains, And honestly,
at that point, I'd wait because the worst thing you
(18:45):
can do is plant cereal grains too early and then they,
I mean they shoot up and if you get a
rainy September, they'll pass the palatability where they really want
to eat them win or rye, you know, mixes with
them and rye, and it'll germinate down into the thirties.
I planted it before, and I mean there was people
last year who all of a sudden their turn up
plots were coming up in November that it hadn't done anything.
(19:06):
So it's definitely not too late. The cereal grains are
key at that point, but I personally like to if
I'm putting clovers in them, I might scoot it a
little forward, like you know, September twelfth to the sixteenth.
But if I'm just doing straight cereal grains and maybe
winter peas or something, I'll probably.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Do that like September twentieth.
Speaker 9 (19:25):
Every year it seems like it's later and later.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Can folks who don't have a drill, don't have a tractor,
maybe they don't even have a four wheeler. Should they
feel confident broadcasting it at this time of year those
types of plans.
Speaker 9 (19:36):
Yeah, So that those little seeds, you know, the cereal
grains like winter rye and wheat, you can do it
and turn ups and rape and even rash all those
little seeds. I mean, you can go that's when you
overseed the corn and the beans. Let's say it's the
beginning of September and you just got this farm.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Like it happens to me all the time.
Speaker 9 (19:55):
I'll go in there and I'll mow off this junk
and then I'll take my bucket sometimes and I'll push
it off because it's just too much, and then I'll
get it down to nothing, and then i might wait
a week and come back in and spray it. And
then you know, at that point, if you wait into
the end of September before a big rain, you could
oversee it into it and you.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Could have food there. So so don't panic.
Speaker 9 (20:18):
No, And the other big thing for people to be
thinking about this is kind of a different deal than
the food. But for next year, if you want to
do food pots, now that is the time to be
prepping for next year. That's when the weeds are pulling
the root reserves. That's when you kill stuff stone dead.
So the next spring with stuff starts growing, you know,
and it's like this, and you spray it. In a
few weeks it looks like this Again. The stuff you
(20:39):
spray in the fall still looks like this dirt. So
that's when you want to prep for next year, especially
like switch grasses and stuff like that. So don't overlook
that at that time of year either.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Great tip.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Next on the docket we have Thomas Milsna. Thomas works
on a ton of farms, and when you work on
a lot of farms, things can't always be optimally timed.
For a guy that maybe has one food plot, he
can time the rain as perfectly as he put actually can.
But the biggest question is for you to find out
on what he has to say to this question. I'm
not going to spoil it. Here's what Thomas has to
share when it comes to failed food plots and what
(21:08):
do you do well?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
The first question I'm going to ask myself every time
is why did they fail?
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Right?
Speaker 3 (21:13):
What can we learn from this failure to prevent it
from happening in the future. You know, if I get
the phone call someone asking me if why my food
plots fail, usually I'm on the chopping block, right. So
we're always trying to analyze or analyze the situation as
much as possible. But that's why we look at first
it was a bad prep you know, did you not
(21:34):
have a soil test, was a bad seed was it
bad timing, you know, bad seed bed, whatever it might be,
there's a there's a million things that can go wrong
when you're trying to create life, you know, especially late summertime.
It's just not the perfect conditions for stuff like that.
So timing is a big one. You know, if that
(21:54):
was the timing, maybe you planted a little bit too late.
You should have planted a week or two earlier to
get that rain. Or maybe you planted a week or
two too early again when there wasn't rain, or a
little bit of rain and a drought. You know, it's
a it's a crap shoot in the fall. It can
really be a struggle. There's things that you can do
to mitigate those issues. Retain more soil moisture, better food
(22:15):
plot practices, all of those things but I'm going to
look at why it failed. Maybe it was deer browse pressure.
Get utilization cages out. I've had that happen in form properties.
A client calls me, food plots look like crap.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Blow.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
We did everything right. Why did they not work? The
deer browse pressure was so high that they were nipping
almost every plant off right at ground level before they
could even grow, you know, establish themselves at all. So
all these things we need to learn. Why. Now, if
you failed, what can we do short term to make
the most of this season. It is never too late
to plant cereal rye. A cereal rye. It's going to
(22:49):
do a couple of things for you. It's going to
first and foremost, it's going to provide a green food
source for those deer as long as there's moisture in
the forecast. Cereal rye with Germany at like thirty seven
degrees fahrenheit, it'll grow as soon as it hits the forties.
If there's any moisture in the forecast, put down cereal rye.
You can't put too much, and you can't put it
(23:09):
down it almost can't put it down too late. The
second thing that's going to do is. It's going to
help improve your food plot for the following year. Next spring,
it's going to come back, it's going to green up again.
It's going to help retain soil moisture. You can roll
it down, you can mow it down, you can burn
it off, you can do all sorts of things. It's
going to help reduce weeds. That's going to help you
reduce your chemical input. That's going to help improve the
(23:29):
soil microbiome. That's going to help retain soil moisture. That's
going to help you know, all of these things come
into play. Obviously, I keep on circling back in the
moisture thing because I would say that's usually the biggest failure,
and it's it's not us. I mean it is in
some regard, right, It goes back to the timing thing.
But we are farmers, right, we have to deal with
mother nature. And there's a reason why you don't see
very many farmers planting crops in July or August. Right,
(23:53):
So you can save it, can salvage it, but really
focus on better long term food plating practices, and ultimately
all this stuff comes back around and just having a
good plan, A good plan you know, and I'm guilty
of this myself, where you're prioritizing other things. I'll be
food plotting all all of July, and then oh, I
(24:13):
should probably still do something with mine, right, So it's
kind of low on the priority list for me a
lot of times. But that's a big one. And now
the second thing, which is maybe a little bit abstract
from the question itself, is you shouldn't be relying on
food plots that much anyway. You really shouldn't. You know,
there's a lot of guys that half the property is
food plot and half of it is either unmanaged or
(24:36):
it's just some type of peer cover, right, And then
you really really are relying on the food plot to
hold deer on your property. It's like having a bird feeder.
If the bird feeder is empty, the birds are gone.
What you can do to get ahead of that is
add a lot more.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Perennial food on your property.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
I think it's a good philosophy to always have some
type of perennial food plot in there, even if it's
just a ten or twenty foot buffer strip of clover
around your food plot or along the edge of the
woods or whatever it might be.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
But bar none.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
You should focus on native habitat as much as possible
because there's always going to be some level of food
there for those deer that mother nature prefers, right, And
we're not fighting mother nature to establish versus a food
plot that is an annual thing, and you know, one
week without rain could be a major failure. So folks
(25:29):
on the perennial food sources, don't rely entirely on your
food plots. And if you need something in there that's
green and easy, cereal rye works. It works really well.
You know, if you're a little bit earlier, maybe you
can even get oats or something in there, but cereal
rye is a good go to. The biggest thing with
cereal rye is once it gets about four to six
inches tall, the deer don't want to eat it so much,
so you don't want to put it in too early,
(25:50):
but you can almost never put it in too late
as long as it's thirty seven degrees and warming.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
Next up we have bill Winki And maybe if you're
this far, you're saying, is it even worth to do
all of this work and try to time the rain
and figure out and buy the seed, buy the spray.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Take the time to do it.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
I asked, build that question on top of the basis
of what to do next. So let's see what Bill
has to say in regard to is it even worth
all this effort. We haven't had any rain, and I
planted my food plots. I planted my braskas. My food
plots simply look like crap. I'm starting to panic. What
do I do now?
Speaker 4 (26:25):
At September first September one, no food plot.
Speaker 10 (26:30):
Gosh, if there's rain in the forecast, you know you
still have a chance, but you're probably gonna have to
plant something now, more like a rescue type of plot,
something that will grow really fast. You know, hot will
come up and grow really fast, like fallwry true to
kay winter wheat. Those things will germinate and pop out
(26:53):
of the ground super fast. So ideally, you know, if
you have access to a no till drill, I would
just go and drill right into those areas where you
planet to grow the crops that are you know, lagging behind,
and that way you get a quick hit of something
green when you get that first rain. Because let's say
that was prossifense in prossts, I really need a few
(27:15):
weeks you know, even when they're growing good to get
up and get going and you know, produce any for
it at all. You know, they're awesome ones. They do
what they're supposed to do. There's a lot of tonnage there,
but it takes a while. Whereas these more grain type
you know, cereal grain type plantings you can get. They
(27:37):
grow so quick that you can have something there that's
fairly attractive in pretty short the order. So that's probably
the best way to save those spots, I would say,
is to try to get cereal grain planted and then
hope for a rain because it'll.
Speaker 7 (27:54):
Pop up quick.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
Are they worth trying to save?
Speaker 10 (27:57):
I mean put it this way. You don't need food
plots to be successful during the rut. So if you're
only planning to hunt the rut, then no. But if
your agenda is bigger and you're thinking, Okay, I've got
an earlier season hunts, I've got my late season hunts.
This is land that I hold, you know, so I
(28:17):
want my deer to be as healthy as possible, you know,
I want to hold deer out here. So there's sometimes
there's a bigger reason to plant these than just to
be successful. I've always said, you don't need food plots
you killed a nice buck during the nut you sure don't.
But during the early late season it really helps. And
(28:38):
then again, like I said, just for the overall help
the deer.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
Now we have Steve Hanson, and if you ever have
gone and shopped to buy oats, I know this is
just one seed, and all these guys are talking about
different blends. But there's oats that allegedly can germinate and
wistand and grow a little bit colder temperature, and they're
usually called like buck forge oats, And I've always wanted
it as a worth the extra money because they are
more expensive. And this is what Steve has to say.
(29:03):
Is it worth to spend a little bit extra money
to try to get a couple extra growing days in
the fall, depending on if you're getting a late start. So,
without further ado, let's get into what Steve Hanson has
to say for anyone that feels like they're behind the
eight ball and they need every single growing day possible
before we get a really hard frost. My spring food
pot looks like crap. My beans got over browsed. I
(29:24):
feel like I missed a third week of August rain event.
My food pot's like, look like crap, I'm behind sure,
what can I do well?
Speaker 11 (29:32):
At that point, you know you're you're gonna if you're
talking first week is September, you still have some opportunities.
You know you're gonna be more limited now to cereal grains.
That's gonna be your best your best food source chance
for sure. And they're almost failure proof because they will
grow into the cooler periods the later that you get
(29:53):
into the month of September. The only the only way
you can accelerate one of the only ways you can
really excel rate the growth of your food plots like
that you're gonna need like rye, wheat, tritcal, You're gonna
probably want to pick from one of those. And then
this is one time where I think it's a big
benefit to work the ground. So if you're dealing with
(30:14):
a failed food plot, you know of whatever, say it
was a failed turniplot due to drought or high deer
pressure or whatever. By working the ground and making it darker,
it's gonna absorb more heat, so you're gonna get more
heat units later into the year, which is going to
encourage that growth and allow that plot to be more
attractive later on. I would also up the seating rates
(30:35):
because each plant you're planting at this point isn't going
to have the ability to get as tall, so you
need more plants to create the same amount of biomass.
Speaker 5 (30:48):
What's an example of a seating rate for We'll pick
tritacale because I feel like a lot of people don't
receive triticale.
Speaker 11 (30:54):
Yeah, I mean tritacal. You're gonna want to You're gonna
want to run maybe one hundred pounds, you know, which
would be quite a bit. I think if if we
were doing just a pure cover crop rate, it could
be thirty or forty pounds. If we were planning is
at a crop for a harvest, we'd probably plan about seventy,
and for a food plot situation, I would probably go
closer to one hundred.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
So you shouldn't necessarily panic if they look like junk.
There's still fail proof. I don't say bailproof, but safeguards yep.
Speaker 11 (31:23):
Those would be your insurance policy plots, you know. Having
something like rye tritecal or winter wheat would be like
a last and you could put in some clovers with it.
You could try some other stuff because you have no
guarantee of the weather. You could have an abnormally warm
fall where things keep growing. So maybe throw a few
radishes back in, just kind of like candy, you know.
(31:43):
But the true ones that are going to be your
bread and butter that's going to get you through and
have a good food plot, are going to be the
cereal grains of some variety. I would stay away from
oats because they're going to frost kill. You know, they
grow fast, so you would get some you know, some height.
But depending on the latitude and where you're located, I
would stay with those three trit to cow rye or
winter whek because they're more frost tolerant.
Speaker 5 (32:05):
Do you have any experience of the buck Ford jotes
that are supposedly more cold cold tolerant.
Speaker 11 (32:10):
Yeah, And you know, if you just like anything, you
could do and I've done it, a deep dive into
oats and then each you know, they have a cold maturity.
There was a seed dealer in Minnesota and they used
to have a great breakdown of each one of their
oats and the cold heartiness. You know, Buck fourge oats
are definitely in the top of the cold hardy ones.
(32:32):
But what you learn is it really isn't that much
of a you might get they may it might be
three degrees different, but it gets you know, fifteen degrees
in the ground freezes.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
They're all dead.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
That's it.
Speaker 11 (32:43):
You know, You're not there. Buck Ford isn't going to
survive that, you know.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
So yeah, that's a question that I people ask all
the time of is it worth it because it's a
lot more expensive.
Speaker 11 (32:52):
It is a lot more expensive, and if you're doing
a smaller plot, I would say it is.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Is to get a couple extra growing days.
Speaker 11 (32:57):
Absolutely, just a little more lush little you know, stay
is a little more palatable, you know, because we get
a lot of that late October weather where you get
a twenty degree night sometimes and it'll freeze. But and
that shouldn't take out the buck four joke, where it
may take out some of the other ones.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
So and to close things out, we have Mark Kenyon.
You know what the question is. But Mark has actually
a really funny story on this exact scenario. Like I said,
if you plan the food plots, things typically don't go
exactly right. More likely you're using an old tractor or
you're trying to scramble together a game plan on the
fly as a pop up shower comes up in September
(33:34):
that wasn't in the forecast two days ago, one day ago,
or a hex six hours ago. Let's hear what Mark
has to say. I think you guys will enjoy this.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Here we go. We just missed labor day and I
was out of the farm.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
My food plots look like I'm growing noxious weeds or
it looks like the dust bowl rain.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
It could happen any moment. My food plots look like crap.
What can I do? Yeah?
Speaker 7 (33:59):
Unfortunately, I am someone who's been in the situation myself
a handful of times over the years, many times over
the years, and I have historically all the advice of
another one of our guests on this podcast and someone
who's helping. So I've called this guy like, Hey, what
do you have to do in this situation? How should
I handle the situation? So I am of the Jeff
(34:21):
Sturgis camp, So I've called him in the past and
be like, Hey, here's my situation, how would you tackle this?
What should I do in this situation? And what that
has meant for me in the past, and what I
would do again? Now is that I would go in
there and depend on Rye to save the day for me,
hundreds of pounds of Rye cereal, Rye praaker, pray for rain.
(34:43):
I'm just broadcasting this over top. And the thing about Rise,
it's it's so easy to get going.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
You'll Germany like the I can't.
Speaker 7 (34:52):
It's Jeffrey's South. It's end to your truck. You'll you'll
German in the back of your truck. And so I've
always remembered that, and that has been the case. If
you if you brought cast topsy, the whole ton of
Rye out there, it's very likely that you have something
green and growing and that'll be enough to get you through.
You know, get some attraction. Certainly deer utilize it. So, Yes,
(35:13):
I've had many failed plots saved by Rye. What was
the root of some of the failures of your plots
if you had to yes, is it is it poor
prep when you say a failure, is it just weeds?
Or did was the pressure to the rouse pressure too high?
What was the root of some of the failures that
you've had to face where you had to call on
(35:35):
the rescue plan? Yep, So the the root is twofold.
One is that I am like the most hillbilly sheep
food plotter. I don't own a tractor, I don't have
any farm implements. I do everything historically has been done with.
First was an a TV and a little tiny groundhog
(35:55):
max who plot disc if you remember those, Oh they're
still run, but that I've graduated to a UTV. So
I have a u TV with a sprayer in the
back of that. And then no till is what I
to know. And so by doing that, though I'm literally spraying,
broadcasting smashing, so I'm not you know, you're getting very minimal,
(36:17):
you know, at least not as good of seed to
soil contact as you could get if you had a
drill or if you were disking the whole thing and
then getting your seat.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
In that way.
Speaker 7 (36:25):
And so when that has when I've done it that way,
you are very dependent on rain. And so if you
do not get the rain that was forecasting heavy, Yeah,
if you don't get that heavy rain, you're gonna have
a significant challenge dealing with getting germination and not having
you know, also concurred to all this is like weed
stuff too, and so when I'm not destroying the field
(36:46):
and telling it all up, you're still gonna have weed
issues if you get one spray maybe in so usually
it's because of the challenging planting process mixed in with
rain not cooperating. That's when you have the failure.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
I have this.
Speaker 7 (37:01):
It was last year, maybe one other time. I found someone.
I decided I was going to pay for someone to
come out of the drill and get that, and that
has significantly improved, you know, my germination rate and gets
you through some of these food plot failure type situations.
You can get away with a lot more when you've
got your seed there at the right depth, you know,
(37:22):
in the way you want it. You can survive a
little bit more of those water issues when you have that.
But even even last year, I think when I did
have someone drill this stuff in, there was one section
in one of my plots that like, simply every year
August we're not getting rainly we used to, and so
I still say, jeez, I'm gonna need to fill some gaps.
Got to fill some holes, and so right stave with
(37:45):
to day again.
Speaker 5 (37:45):
So if you're in your food plot method, you know
you're broadcasting and it's people miss spots that. I think
that happens all the time, and so it's unlikely that
you have this beautiful plot with all these rows and
everything's perfectly covered. You might have some patches throughout the
food plot. Do you think it's a worthwhile effort to
go in and throw some rye grain or whatever kitchen
sink makes you.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Want just to fill it out?
Speaker 7 (38:08):
Yeah, I do think so. Like, if you have a
situation where you have, you know, if it's rethink this. Yeah,
I do think it's worthwhile as long as the risk
is not outweighing the reward. So if here's a situation
where it's like opening days in five days and you
realize this, you're like, oh man, my food plus don't
look perfect and opening days five days away. At that point,
(38:30):
I personally wouldn't. It doesn't matter that much to have
a perfectly filled food plot. But if you're still three
weeks out or you know, he's got plenty of time
and you've got this perfect rain coming and everything looks great,
you're like, hey, I go out there and you know
a couple hours, really approve things. If these are significant holes, Yeah,
go out there, do that. I think that helps. It's
low impact enough and high enough reward that in those
(38:53):
cases it does make sense. I one time had this
situation and I had my family out there at the
property with me that day, and I thought to myself,
you know what if I just.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
Go in on the UTV and.
Speaker 7 (39:06):
Run in there and get my kids to use the
shoulder broadcaster. I had my wife and my two kids,
and I was like, if they each if we all
had a shoulder broadcaster, and if we drove through, we
wouldn't even need to step foot off of the UTV.
We just go in there, hand broadcasts these, fill in
these gaps, and then get out of there and never
turn off the can am, never leave any ground sent
(39:26):
It'll be super low impact. It would fix this food plot.
It'll be perfect in it's worthwhile. And so before we
go out there, I tell the kids, I'm like, hey,
here's the plan. I do not want you stepping off
the can am. I do not want you making a lot.
We're just gonna go in. Everyone's gonna lean off the
sign and spread the seed, and then we're gonna get
out of there. It's gonna take like five minutes, ten minutes,
(39:47):
and the deer will never know and we'll fix the
food plot problems.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
And this was late.
Speaker 7 (39:51):
It was this was like a later closer to this season,
and that's why I was so worried about. I was like,
all right, let's do So we start going and we
get to the food plot, and right as we start,
like everyone's trying to do this, my oldest son starts
getting upset because his thing isn't turning around. So he
starts like, You're like, Dad, it's not working. I'm like, cool, forever,
(40:11):
gotta quiet, got be quiet. And then Colt spills his
bag and see that, so he starts crying, and I'm like, guys,
if you're making noise, don't make noise. And then all
of a sudden, the canam dies and I ran out
of gas. So I'm stalled out there.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
Both the kids are crying.
Speaker 7 (40:28):
I'm thinking, this is the guest disaster ever, So don't
do that. Yeah, But outside of that set of circumstances,
I think it's worthwhile. It usually can be relatively easily.
Speaker 4 (40:40):
That's a great METHODO.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
If it would have worked out, you didn't run out
of gas and have the other issues, that's a really great,
really great strategy.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
Well, now I think really really quick.
Speaker 5 (40:50):
If your food plot failed and you're nervous and you
feel like it's semi important to have a food source
on the farm, is it worth it? Is it worth
doing pulling pulling this audible and try to scrap together
at the last moment, or you're like, hey, it is
what it is, and I'm going to still have a
good season without messing with the fixing the food plot.
Speaker 7 (41:08):
I think the key thing goes back to how you
led that question, which is like how important is food
in that area to you or overall plant. I think
there's some properties where you know they're nice to have,
like it's a nice cream stand and these little food
plots are like, hey, it's nice. But honestly, if it's
not there, I still know I can kill deer X,
Y and Z ways because of other features or other
moving patterns. So if it's that case, then maybe it's
(41:29):
not worthwhile. But then there's other properties where really like,
a food source is the anchor of a property or
the anchor of a strategy, and if you don't have that,
then everything else crumbles around it, and you need to
know your property well enough to make that decision. I
have some properties that's that I have some properties where
it's the other one where okay, no big deal, we'll pivot.
You've got to make a judgment call over time perfect.
Speaker 5 (41:51):
Well, there was a lot of great solutions to this example,
and there was a lot of similarities. Once again, I
think there was some episodes just here that you know,
really address why maybe they're failing or and then also
a lot of the mixes, a lot of the strategies
was very very succinct, and I think that depending whether
(42:11):
you're a guy that's just going to use a bags better,
there's solutions for you here in this episode.
Speaker 4 (42:15):
And there was other examples where they're.
Speaker 5 (42:17):
Like bake, borrow and steel, get a drill, drill it in,
and so you have different options based off of what
you have available to you. So don't panic. There's ways
to make this work. You ry grain can save the
save the day. And hopefully everyone got a lot of
value out of this, because I know I did. There
was a lot of really good solutions, and unfortunately the
last few years we haven't really gotten a lot of
(42:39):
great fall rains, and so there's been a lot of
people in this camp and so now they have eight
really good solutions. Next week, we have a great episode,
one that is really not all that great because it's
a really catastrophic issue. But we're talking about EHD and
what do you do if you are facing this? This
is not a fun conversation, and some of these guests
(43:01):
that really hit home, and we're going to dive into
what can you do next week?
Speaker 4 (43:05):
There, you guys have it.
Speaker 5 (43:07):
Hopefully you have a good game plan now and you
have a couple of different seed ideas on varieties and blends.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
You have an idea on using.
Speaker 5 (43:15):
Clips and ammonium soul fate to help get a quicker
kill down and a more effective killed down.
Speaker 4 (43:20):
You're looking at maybe why did they not work?
Speaker 5 (43:22):
If you did plant spring food plots and they got
over browsed, or you planted them too early, and or
maybe mother nature just hasn't cooperated. But as Jeff Ster
just said, there is typically more rain as you get
deeper into falls, so there's plenty of time. There is
so much time not to procrastinate, but there is time
to put together a plan that is not rushed or
(43:43):
you feel like you're in a hurry and maybe you
don't make the best decision.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
There's time.
Speaker 5 (43:47):
All these guys said there's time, So take a deep
breath and realize, put together a game plan and you
will have a good fall food plot even if it
doesn't rain for the next two weeks, because you have time.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
So that is it.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
I hope you guys enjoyed this episode of the Back
forty podcast. Like I said, we've had a handful of
other episodes that are going to help you develop a
game plan with a panel of highly qualified experts. These
are all been hand selected of guys that have decades
and decades of experience, have gone through different hoops and
challenges depending on where they're at in the country, and
so there's just a lot of value in a short
(44:19):
amount of time in all these episodes, and I hope they.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
Don't seem repetitive.
Speaker 5 (44:22):
But the point of this is to potentially solidify what
all these folks believe and figure out what do all
these guys really agree on, and then what are the
nuanced different approaches that may succinctly fall into what your
ideology is or what your plan is.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
And so that is it.
Speaker 5 (44:38):
I hope you guys enjoyed this episode of the Back
forty And next week we're going to have a pretty
heavy topic that I hope doesn't hit home but it might.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
And I hope you see you guys next week.
Host
Mark Kenyon
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