What a difference some Forest Mulching makes!

[megalomaniac]

Curious how that summer blend works for you and what/when do you come back with for fall/winter??

So... summer blend is all about weed suppression and building biomass. The above combo works great. This year not as good due to no rain x2w after initial planting, so weeds got a bit of a jump before the sorgham and millet choked them out. But still worth planting.

Fall blend is usually wheat, clover, brassica. This year I used balansa plus crimson clovers, and ecotillo radishes plus purple top turnips as my brassicas. They didn't do well... .75in rain on them over the 10 weeks after planting.

 

[DeerCamp]

So... summer blend is all about weed suppression and building biomass. The above combo works great. This year not as good due to no rain x2w after initial planting, so weeds got a bit of a jump before the sorgham and millet choked them out. But still worth planting.

Fall blend is usually wheat, clover, brassica. This year I used balansa plus crimson clovers, and ecotillo radishes plus purple top turnips as my brassicas. They didn't do well... .75in rain on them over the 10 weeks after planting.

Hey mega... Curious why you don't use cereal rye?

I'm sure you have a good reason and I'd like to know more about it.

 

[BSK]

Hey mega... Curious why you don't use cereal rye?

I'm sure you have a good reason and I'd like to know more about it.

Not Mega, but I can tell you why I no longer use it. Army Worms LOVE it! I've lost entire crops of Elbon Rye to Army Worms, yet they hardly touched the Wheat.

 

[DeerCamp]

Not Mega, but I can tell you why I no longer use it. Army Worms LOVE it! I've lost entire crops of Elbon Rye to Army Worms, yet they hardly touched the Wheat.

I guess I have been lucky! They haven't found mine yet going on 5 seasons.

I'm trying not to overthink it too much this year, as the deer really haven't been in the plots much. Last week I went out and was able to collect 5 still very edible acorns the size of grapes from one foot swipe clearing the leaves... in late December!

 

[megalomaniac]

Hey mega... Curious why you don't use cereal rye?

I'm sure you have a good reason and I'd like to know more about it.

Just basically an input cost savings.

I used cereal rye 3y ago in my blend instead of wheat, at nearly 3x the cost of wheat (roughly $13 per 50lb vs $33 per 50lb). I didn't see any real change in deer usage of the plots compared to wheat, so I switched back to using wheat. I'm planting around 20 acres, so that's a $400 savings roughly just on that one component of the fall blend.

I'm not brave enough to claim seed/fertilizer for deer plots as a farming tax writeoff, so it comes right out of my pocket. If I get much over $1500 annually, my wife who doesn't hunt gets pretty pissy. Now IF I get a good stand of summer or winter plantings, I can chop for haylage, write off the cost of the seed/fertilizer offset by income from the haylage.... but then I lose all that organic matter and retained fertilizer in the haylage removed, making for poorer soils in the long run, as well as higher fertilizer input costs annually.