Holy crap!
I'm seriously concerned we won't be able to get generic Wheat seed this fall.
If it was last year's seed, and was treated with inoculant last year, you won't have very good viability will you?Seed prices are going crazy. Bought generic Roundup Ready Soybeans for food plots at the local Co-op. I'm sure they were last year's seed, but only paid around $38 per 50 lb bag. They said the cost for the next shipment of same seed is going to jump to $118/bag. That's a 210% increase in one year. Crazy! Thanks Jo Biden.
Grew them last year, so there's bacteria already in the soil.
And that's why I went with the generic RR soybeans. Cost. We'll see how they do. They did pretty good last year, and deer weren't able to eat them all down. If deer browsing becomes a problem by late in the summer, I'll pay the extra cost for Eagle beans next year (because of their much greater growth and ability to handle browse pressure better).
For about five years, I was buying the rural king(Hoosier pride) $25 a bag rr soybeans, always went with their 4.7 maturity. They always performed very well here and handled browsing pressure well too. Year before last they were not able to get the 4.7, so I went with the 4.0. Huge difference in the results. Had very poor results with the 4.0, and ended up with a type of pigweed in two separate plots, a quarter mile apart. Never had that type of plant anywhere on our farm before. Hit the plots with gly twice and killed everything but the beans and the pigweed. Sure birds could have distributed it, but evenly only in plots seems unusual, and I read too that soybean growers are having more issues with pigweed in their crops. I won't use those beans again. I should have checked coop,I remembered your posting about their beans, but didn't ever check with them to see what they had available.
It will be an interesting experiment this year. Last year, I used a mix of RR soybeans, Cowpeas, and Buckwheat in my older plots. Because of the Cowpeas, I didn't use any Roundup on the plots. The soybeans grew quite well and were still growing when I turned them under in late August. And our low deer density in summer couldn't put much of a dent in them. This year may be different because I can spray them, hence their won't be other weeds/grasses to hide and protect the plants from browsing. And it appears our habitat changes have encouraged more deer to stay on the property during the summer. But the nearly 3 times higher seeding rate of soybeans might compensate. Plus I'm going to let the soybeans grow until late September before turning them under. So we shall see.
The volume of food produced from standing dead soybeans can't compare to our normal fall planting, and in a poor acorn year, our food plots are the primary draw to the property. I want MAXIMUM fall food resources. We see such a huge shift in deer density from summer to fall (few in summer, huge number in fall), that fall food plots take priority. Honestly, I'm only experimenting with summer plots to see if I can change this annual dynamic of very few deer using the property in summer. Although it will be difficult to tease out any changes in summer population due just to the summer food plots, as we produced a huge increase in summer native food and cover by cutting so much timber two years ago (100 of 500 total acres).
