diamond hunter
Well-Known Member
I have some extra soybeans because they were delivered late.Would i be able to plant them in September and see my deer utilize them?
Food Plots Soybeans
- Thread starter diamond hunter
- Start date
Young soybeans are great early season. But once it frost they're done
diamond hunter
Well-Known Member
Ok whats good to mix with it?
JCDEERMAN
Well-Known Member
I see you got word, just as I did, that the soybeans just arrived at Percy P. If I can't find cereal rye and at a descent price within the next 5-6 weeks, I certainly plan on using some in my mix this fall. They will come up and be a good early, tender crop.
This will be an unusual year for us, since we have several bags of stuff leftover from last year and I got some new stuff. Kind of a kitchen sink mix:
15-20 lbs soybeans (if I can't find cereal rye)
4 lbs buckwheat
7.5 lbs crimson clover
2 lbs rape
2 lbs purple top turnips
This is per acre and with a drill
This will be an unusual year for us, since we have several bags of stuff leftover from last year and I got some new stuff. Kind of a kitchen sink mix:
15-20 lbs soybeans (if I can't find cereal rye)
4 lbs buckwheat
7.5 lbs crimson clover
2 lbs rape
2 lbs purple top turnips
This is per acre and with a drill
BSK
Well-Known Member
Yup, the soybeans will act just like buckwheat - be a real magnet until the first frost kills them back.
diamond hunter
Well-Known Member
Thank you gentlemen
Somebody throw something at me that Uve had good luck with in fall my beans didn't get the rain and they failed .. I'm up for experiments as well I've heard winter rye is bar none
BSK
Well-Known Member
Last year, Army Worms wiped out my winter rye. Don't think I'll be using it again. I'll stick with Buckwheat, Wheat (or oats), Crimson Clover, and Austrian Winter Peas. Although I probably wouldn't recommend Austrian Winter Peas west of KY Lake. In the sandier soils, deer don't seem to like them as much as when grown in more clay/loam soils.
Plant them. Deer will continue to eat the pods and the plants on into winter.
Plant them. Those beans already been carried over 1 year. The germ is really really low 2nd year of carryover. Late delivery of those beans have caused me to seek other sources. Great price but late delivery does no good.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Only problem is, will they mature, flower, and produce pods before first freeze? Depends on their maturation period.
I'd try to plant them ASAP but the only problem is rain . Big farmer around here planted corn last Thursday, lots of it. Drill if you can.
Yes, it does depend on the beans maturity. Most will start producing relatively quickly though, and if enough are planted to withstand early browsing, a bean plot could do well even planted late. I just got my second soybean plot in this weekend. I want my soybeans to still be a draw after the area ag crops are coming out.
I planted the eagle beans in ky and have noticed they are 2 times as tall and still green when other neighboring ag fields are already yellow .. beans are the best for me
That's what I plant when I plant beans. I grew some in the worst dirt around and they did great
BSK
Well-Known Member
IF I decide to plant soybeans again next year, and I'm not sure I will, I will probably go with Eagle beans considering how high the price will be on generic RR soybeans (at least, that is what I was told at the Co-op; generic RR beans will be sky-high next year).
Popcorn
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I highly recommend the wildlife managers blend of beans. I have planted them many times and they do very well. This year they have survived western Ky's drought and with recent rains they took a big leap, now they are the most palatable food around and are getting hammered! They will try hard to continue growing till a hard frost kills them then the pods will be revisited later in winter. Just plant your winter wheat in the standing beans to continue a food source. Nonstop
BSK
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately, I have such limited acreage for plots, and fall-season plots are so critical to attracting and holding deer on our place in a poor acorn year, that every inch of ground is utilized for maximum fall forage, hence whatever is grown in summer is turned under for fall planting. Fall food is far more important to us than summer crops (we continue to see few deer using our property in summer, despite our summer food plot efforts). But I will ABSOLUTELY be using the Wildlife Managers Mix if I decide to plant soybeans again.
megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
What popcorn is saying is that you can drill or even broadcast your fall blend right into the standing beans a couple weeks before leaf drop. New fall crop gets plenty of sunshine after the leaves are off, plus natural fertilizer from decomposition of the soybean leaves...
Of course this assumes you got a good stand of beans which choked out competing weeds. On small plots, I doubt the beans would get lush enough due to browsing to outcompete weed growth.
I'm going to experiment with that technique on one of my plots this fall that is chock full of dwarf sorgham and millet. Going to drill fall crop right through the summer crop and let the game feed on the grain heads as the fall crop comes up through it.
BSK
Well-Known Member
My problem is, I need fall crops up and going like gangbusters by late September or at the latest early October. That's when deer are transitioning out of the bottomlands.
These are what I want my plots looking like by early October (pics actually taken late September):
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BSK
Well-Known Member
Just wanted to clarify that my actions are based on the VERY unique situation of my property. I don't want others following my lead unless they have a similar situation.
Because my ridge-and-hollow hardwood property is surrounded on three sides by massively large river bottomland agriculture (somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 acres), the local deer population lives in and around those bottomlands all summer. Once those crops are cut in fall (usually mid to late September), that huge deer population shifts up into the nearby hill country to access the acorn crop. From what I can gather from some preliminary summer census work I conducted last year, it appears I may have only 10-15 deer using my property during the summer months. However, by late October, my place can become flooded with 80-100 deer.
With such a massive disparity in deer density from summer to fall, I'm now questioning the time, energy and cost of producing high-quality summer food plots. Why spend that amount of time/effort/money when I'm not really feeding/influencing many deer? I may try a different technique for next summer. I may try to maintain my plots as just annual clover plots for the summer months. This would provide some food but also help keep the plots somewhat weed-free for the critical fall planting process. Because of this odd pattern of huge numbers of deer shifting into the property in late September and the remainder of the fall months, maximizing food production with our fall plots is absolutely critical. Most landowners are trying to feed deer high-quality nutrition during the fawning and antler-growing months of the summer. The local deer I have to hunt are already getting that in the neighboring bottomlands. My focus is on providing attractive and high-quality foods for the fall (hunting season) months, and then primarily only in a poor acorn year.
Because my ridge-and-hollow hardwood property is surrounded on three sides by massively large river bottomland agriculture (somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 acres), the local deer population lives in and around those bottomlands all summer. Once those crops are cut in fall (usually mid to late September), that huge deer population shifts up into the nearby hill country to access the acorn crop. From what I can gather from some preliminary summer census work I conducted last year, it appears I may have only 10-15 deer using my property during the summer months. However, by late October, my place can become flooded with 80-100 deer.
With such a massive disparity in deer density from summer to fall, I'm now questioning the time, energy and cost of producing high-quality summer food plots. Why spend that amount of time/effort/money when I'm not really feeding/influencing many deer? I may try a different technique for next summer. I may try to maintain my plots as just annual clover plots for the summer months. This would provide some food but also help keep the plots somewhat weed-free for the critical fall planting process. Because of this odd pattern of huge numbers of deer shifting into the property in late September and the remainder of the fall months, maximizing food production with our fall plots is absolutely critical. Most landowners are trying to feed deer high-quality nutrition during the fawning and antler-growing months of the summer. The local deer I have to hunt are already getting that in the neighboring bottomlands. My focus is on providing attractive and high-quality foods for the fall (hunting season) months, and then primarily only in a poor acorn year.
