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Post by sd51555 on Sept 19, 2017 22:22:00 GMT -6
The cards are about dealt now for all of us as we transition into hunting season. I thought it'd be a good opportunity to look back and share what you learned this season. If you're so inclined...
What did you learn? What will you do differently next year?
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Post by riggs on Sept 19, 2017 22:37:59 GMT -6
Plant more alfalfa. A lot of deer left my place for the neighbors alfalfa right before opener. Also my regrowth is thick enough to start fine tuning travel corridors for the deer.
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Post by sd51555 on Sept 19, 2017 23:00:09 GMT -6
What I learned:
1. Grow more clover. Holy buckets did those deer turn on once I figured out how to fertilize clover.
2. Write the check and rent/hire the equipment you need. $500 and 8 hours with a tracked loader launched my habitat plan forward so far that I suddenly realized I didn't have a plan for what was next. Good problems.
3. Oats need to be part of my fall plot. I like a cereal heavy fall plot because the deer seem to use it last, or at least later, in the fall. The great struggle has always been getting food to last into November. I'm competing with nobody, and food gets harder to come by once October hits. Tonnage rules the roost in our neighborhood.
4. My shitpile project is gonna be a 2-4 year experiment to see if it will produce. I had hoped to see at least one specie (like raspberry) show up this year, but it didn't happen. The big benefit, despite not seeing what I seeded show up yet, is that just knocking down all that brush produced a lot of browse (I didn't expect tag alder and ash to be browsed like it was), and the regen is kicking on fast. If it's a complete flop, it'll create fantastic cover.
5. Don't seed so heavy. It felt like a good idea at the time, but for some reason I had to learn this the hard way one more time.
What I'll do differently/more next year:
1. Find a place to grow more clover.
2. Rent the skid steer again. I plan to keep doing it until I run out of ideas. Next idea is to keep fixing my trails, expand the plots, and add some small water holes on the edge of each plot.
3. Change my fall plot planting to a 40/40/10 (%) mix of rye/oats/brassica. I think I'll breath easier knowing I'd have little less mega thatch to deal with in spring, and boost the fall tonnage in the plot.
4. Broadcast oats into my clover at spring green up. Soon as the clover is up enough to hide the oats, I plan to toss some in to be the carbon link for the season. I am predicting right now that I will have ample rain to get a broadcast application to work. Come fall, I want to find a spot to do a clover plot in the sun and use Cat's awnless winter wheat as a nurse crop. I'd like to see if a solid grain co-seeding can help reduce the amount of summer mowing needed, and get some food points from the wheat.
5. I'm going for it with the boron. I know I need it. I will take a slow approach to it and just try my rate in a small spot first and wait to see if I kill everything. If after 2-3 weeks I haven't burned off my entire plot, I'll get it out there on the rest of the acres. Every test I've done has shown very low boron.
6. Chainsaw down as much as I can as soon as the rifle season is over and before the feet of snow fall. Missed that window by 9 days last year because of the third weekend 2 footer blizzard.
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Post by Tooln on Sept 20, 2017 0:48:50 GMT -6
1. Amish suck 2. Clover is king 3. Don't plant buckwheat to early.
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Post by sd51555 on Sept 22, 2017 5:30:33 GMT -6
A lesson I already knew, but witnessed first hand two years ago was to buy the beans you need. I think everyone knows we're operating on a tighter growing window in the fall. I've been trying to get my hands on the shortest maturity beans out there. I went out and talked by my Hefty Rep yesterday and ordered up a bag of beans. I'm not 100% clear on what I'm getting yet because the dude I dealt with didn't know if the ones I wanted would be put in paper bags. Either way, my beans are coming from Pembina, ND, a mere mile or two from the Canadian border. They'll end up being one of the two below. www.heftyseed.com/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/H005X8.pdfwww.heftyseed.com/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/H008R6.pdf
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Post by Catscratch on Sept 22, 2017 5:41:26 GMT -6
1. Do everything you can to keep herbicide resistant weeds out of your place, and never give an inch to invasives.
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Post by ogemaone on Sept 22, 2017 6:36:26 GMT -6
I learned that I am addicted to planting apple trees. Have 18 more on order for spring. Also realized I need to do some more hinge cutting.
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Post by Satchmo on Sept 22, 2017 7:53:04 GMT -6
1. Man-made waterholes are the bomb!
2. Brassicas will not last until Christmas at my place.
3. These rubbing trees/licking branches are for real. Great inventory tool.
4. I need more Spring/Summer planting to help build up my sandy soil and ward off weeds.
5. Glyphosate is my best friend!
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Post by Freeborn on Sept 22, 2017 7:55:40 GMT -6
1 - Whatever you plant make certain you know how to control weeds 2 - Weed Control in conventional corn is very limited and must be applied very early (less than a month) into the corns growth 3 - Herbicide and amendment applications on crops planted in narrow rows causes you to run over allot of crops. 4 - Rain makes an average food plotter look like a genius on sandy soil 5 - Summers are short in Central Minnesota so you need to spend time on your property during late winter/early fall working trees 6 - Sometimes your ambitions for planting trees out-paces your ability to get them in the ground. 7 - Quality equipment (expensive or not) is worth every penny 8 - Stand placement needs to be done early in the spring before the trees make it impossible for you to figure out what you want to do.
Things I need to figure out:
1 - Determine if I should continue to use narrow rows when planting. Its impossible to be in the field without running over allot of crops when spraying or adding fertilizer 2 - In order for me to keep narrow rows I need to find a way to apply herbicide and fertilizer without running over crops.
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Post by biglakebass on Sept 22, 2017 8:33:07 GMT -6
I need more time and more help. The rest would fall into place.
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Post by kabic on Sept 22, 2017 8:50:45 GMT -6
mowing smartweed just gets rid of its competition so it can spread more.
maybe it just a bad year for it, I have seen it other places around the farm I haven't before.
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Post by badbrad on Sept 22, 2017 9:46:21 GMT -6
1. Spring planted red clover can be done pretty well but you gotta mow it. Which really helps more than I thought it would. 2. a few mild winters really make a difference on bucks and amount of deer around. 3. hunting with a 10 year old is tough 4. too much rain sucks. 5. there are some hot horny teachers out there.
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Post by nhmountains on Sept 22, 2017 10:05:35 GMT -6
I learned that getting a soil sample should be a priority. I'll need to add several thousand pounds of lime to my plots and orchards.
The buckwheat with white clover after frost in the spring worked great on new plots we opened up. I then spread winter rye and more clover in early September and then mowed the buckwheat. The winter rye came in well and the deer and bear have hammered it.
I learned pruning old apple trees makes a big difference but they will also respond to more sunlight as well.
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Post by MoBuckChaser on Sept 22, 2017 12:36:50 GMT -6
1 - Whatever you plant make certain you know how to control weeds 2 - Weed Control in conventional corn is very limited and must be applied very early (less than a month) into the corns growth 3 - Herbicide and amendment applications on crops planted in narrow rows causes you to run over allot of crops. 4 - Rain makes an average food plotter look like a genius on sandy soil 5 - Summers are short in Central Minnesota so you need to spend time on your property during late winter/early fall working trees 6 - Sometimes your ambitions for planting trees out-paces your ability to get them in the ground. 7 - Quality equipment (expensive or not) is worth every penny 8 - Stand placement needs to be done early in the spring before the trees make it impossible for you to figure out what you want to do. Things I need to figure out: 1 - Determine if I should continue to use narrow rows when planting. Its impossible to be in the field without running over allot of crops when spraying or adding fertilizer 2 - In order for me to keep narrow rows I need to find a way to apply herbicide and fertilizer without running over crops.Maybe try a good pre emerge herbicide for your crops, may reduce the chance of needing to spray over the top, and with all the resistant weeds coming, you may need to use a pre anyways. Or maybe try planting more seeds per acre, the same amount you drive over with spraying. Maybe try UAN early, coated Urea, to eliminate the need for a late season fertilizer pass. Is it Ideal in sand ground? No, but it is being used, with good success. Edit: you can also plant corn and sunflowers in 60" rows with good success in sand ground. It would also give you access for spraying and fertilizing if you want to do it after the fact. I know it sounds crazy, but guys are doing it in SD as we speak.
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Post by Freeborn on Sept 22, 2017 19:38:22 GMT -6
1 - Whatever you plant make certain you know how to control weeds 2 - Weed Control in conventional corn is very limited and must be applied very early (less than a month) into the corns growth 3 - Herbicide and amendment applications on crops planted in narrow rows causes you to run over allot of crops. 4 - Rain makes an average food plotter look like a genius on sandy soil 5 - Summers are short in Central Minnesota so you need to spend time on your property during late winter/early fall working trees 6 - Sometimes your ambitions for planting trees out-paces your ability to get them in the ground. 7 - Quality equipment (expensive or not) is worth every penny 8 - Stand placement needs to be done early in the spring before the trees make it impossible for you to figure out what you want to do. Things I need to figure out: 1 - Determine if I should continue to use narrow rows when planting. Its impossible to be in the field without running over allot of crops when spraying or adding fertilizer 2 - In order for me to keep narrow rows I need to find a way to apply herbicide and fertilizer without running over crops.Maybe try a good pre emerge herbicide for your crops, may reduce the chance of needing to spray over the top, and with all the resistant weeds coming, you may need to use a pre anyways. Or maybe try planting more seeds per acre, the same amount you drive over with spraying. Maybe try UAN early, coated Urea, to eliminate the need for a late season fertilizer pass. Is it Ideal in sand ground? No, but it is being used, with good success. Edit: you can also plant corn and sunflowers in 60" rows with good success in sand ground. It would also give you access for spraying and fertilizing if you want to do it after the fact. I know it sounds crazy, but guys are doing it in SD as we speak. I’m thinking I might just plant rows giving me XX feet and then skip a couple rows making a 5’ width where I can drive the wheeler to spray. I would make the planting wide enough for my boomless sprayer to cover it. I would then plant rye in that 5’ space in the spring and keep it mowed until I plant brassica in late summer. My plot is much longer than wide so I might not lose too many rows and I would gain additional brassica. It shouldn’t be to hard to figure the spacing. The above would solve my herbicide problems but not my fertilizer problem as I can’t spread urea as far as my boomless sprayer would spray. I think your right and I would just go with putting all of my fertilizer down in the spring and live with it. I think most years this would not be a problem as we don’t typically have the rain we had this year so the urea won’t completely disappear.
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