BSK.......late soybeans

[AlabamaSwamper]

I read the article in QW last night about "honey holes".

I don't remember all of it but there was something about late planting soybeans to create a small honey hole during early season. He stated it would be a small window to hunt it but it sounded realistic.

What is your take on this?

 

[richmanbarbeque]

I think it would work great for bow hunters. Glad you brought this topic up, I was just going to inquire on how to plant soy beans without any equipment.

 

[Chaneylake]

no more that a bag of soybeans cost, you might want to try the following:

burn down spot with roundup, wait 10 to 14 days, sow soybeans and mow or weedeat to help cover beans with you dead grass, if you get any type of rain or rains it should work to some degree, if you buy roundup ready soybeans, you would then be able to spray roundup over the top after they start growning, go to eagleseeds.com and look at what they have to offer.

the main element in type type of plot is getting enough moisture to get the beans up. its not that expensive to try though

 

[RS]

I've planted soybeans in the fall for the last three years in some of my smaller bowhunting plots. I just mix the soybeans in with the rest of the seed being planted. After the first frost, it's gone, but as chaneylake pointed out, soybeans are relatively cheap.

If you don't bowhunt, it's not worth it.

 

[hard county]

Why not just go with winter peas? Deer treat them pretty much the same as soybeans (they like them better in my area)
and they will still be there after frost.

 

[RS]

Why not just go with winter peas? Deer treat them pretty much the same as soybeans (they like them better in my area)
and they will still be there after frost.

I plant them also. However, it seems the soybeans get up alot quicker than the AWPs and offer the deer a little something more for that short period of time.

 

[BoonerBucks]

I've had deer eat my soybeans way past the first frost...I've notice deer hammer it in it's early stages and the slack up some, and when the beans mature they hammer it again late season. Just my experience though...isnt this common?

 

[CopperHead77]

Do they sell soybeans in 50lb bags? What can one expect to pay for some?

 

[TS_13]

The year before last a bag was $12.00. Last year they jumped to $28.00 a 50lb bag. Unless they come down a LOT I wont be planting those this year...

 

[BSK]

I read the article in QW last night about "honey holes".

I don't remember all of it but there was something about late planting soybeans to create a small honey hole during early season. He stated it would be a small window to hunt it but it sounded realistic.

What is your take on this?

I love the idea for bowhunters. However, what to plant depends on how much other food plot acreage you have and what equipment you have. True oil-bean soybeans have the bad habitat of dying if deer bite off the terminal bud, hence one bite and the young plant is dead. Basically, young soybeans can be wiped out very quickly, especially if you have no other fall-season crops for the deer to feed on. In addition, without ground-turning or drilling, soybeans do not germinate well when broadcast onto the surface of the ground.

Without ground-prep or drilling, I prefer buckwheat for broadcast-only planting techniques in these late-season attractant plots. I often get as much as 70% germination from simple surface broadcasting (especially if there is some dead grass duff). In addition, buckwheat handles early browse pressure better than soybeans.

But IF you have the proper equipment, and have plenty of food plot acreage of other fall-season crops, then it is darn hard to beat the attractiveness of young soybeans. I'm not sure anything outdraws them.

 

[Boone 58]

I have put a pencil to what it costs to lime, plant, fertilizer etc and we are spending close to 1000.00 per season or maybe a little more per year. In areas where you must lime heavily and so forth if done correctly you can lay out some pretty decent money. But i have to say it is without a doubt ....worth it!!!

 

[BSK]

I have put a pencil to what it costs to lime, plant, fertilizer etc and we are spending close to 1000.00 per season or maybe a little more per year. In areas where you must lime heavily and so forth if done correctly you can lay out some pretty decent money. But i have to say it is without a doubt ....worth it!!!

And that's one of the reasons I tend to downplay food plots. They ARE very expensive. You can get more from proper habitat management, but if you want to truly maximize animal productivity and growth, food plots are a powerful tool towards that goal.

 

[AlabamaSwamper]

BSK,

We disk all our plots. Would BFO and wheat be a good cover crop for the soybeans?

Was thinking of putting them in small plots with the BFO and rape. Small plots that you can almost shoot across with a bow.

 

[BSK]

AS<

I would definitely plant them in a mixture with other cool-season crops, such as cereal grains. You don't want those plots to go "barren" after the first freeze.

 

[Boone 58]

BSK.....What do you do to the habitat improvement? Sounds very interesting!...Can you Elaborate further??

 

[BSK]

BSK.....What do you do to the habitat improvement? Sounds very interesting!...Can you Elaborate further??

That would take a book-length response, and would be very site specific.

But the gist of it is, I try to produce whatever key ingredients that the habitat is "missing." In big hardwoods environments, the habitat is generally missing high-quality cover habitat as well as large volumes of natural food sources. The best way to produce both of those in an expansive hardwood environment is through allowing the sun to reach the ground, i.e. timber removal. Although exactly the best way to accomplish that can be a long story.

But whenever I assess a property or design a long-term habitat plan, my goals are to provide everything from the natural habitat deer need and want, and that usually involves food and cover. When it comes to food, I want to see plentiful volumes of every type of natural food source the land is capable of supporting. Too often, hunters forget or don't realize the value of natural food sources such as summer broadleaf weeds. Deer were long-ago misclassified as "woody browsers." That occured because they were first studied in "big woods" environments, where woody browse was all they had access to. Deer are actually "weed eaters." When available, summer broadleaf weeds are the primary component of their diet, as these weeds are often highly nutritious and digestible. Deer only become woody browsers when nothing else is available, such as in winter. However, even then they prefer vining plants, such as greenbrier and honeysuckle, both of which are more nutritious and digestible than the stems of woody plants.

 

[Soybean Man]

Farmers are getting away from late maturing soybean, because they can yield just as much seed from earlier maturing soybean and harvest them much sooner. Therfore what you see most at seed stores is early maturing soybean sold to the local farmers. We saw this trend about 8 years ago and started breeding late maturing forage type soybeans for food plots. What does this mean for the deer? Longer growing season up to frost with just as much seed for winter feeding. We selected for larger leaves and taller plants for a micro habitiat within your food plot for cover. Add the Roundup Ready gene and you have a much simpler method of weed control. The forage types will outproduce standard soybean almost 2 to one in plnat biomass. Early browsing in soybean is when they are most prone to death as BSK mentioned on terminal feeding. It stands to reason if you have twice as much in your plot, then you can feed more deer or the same deer won't deplete their source as quickly. We then started working with the viny types, which some researchers say has the best browse tolerance. Very impressive at how they branch and run at each node. Soybeans are hard to beat for both their forage and seed nutrients. I am working with Dr. Craig Harper on a few studies around TN this year on your public land. I love talking soybeans, because that is my career.