Food plot

Going to get serious this off season and put in a food plot. My place is NW of Quanah about an hour. I have acces to a tractor with bucket and brush hog, so I will have to purchase a disc and a spreader.

My thought is to push over the small trees and brush, leaving the larger cedars and mesquites for cover, and opening up about 1-1.5 acres.

Where do I start? Push over the brush, mow, then disc? The. What?

Would do as you are saying, do this about 6 weeks before you want to plant. Then about 3 weeks before you want to plant fertilize and disc it in. Then come back about 2 weeks later and spray a herbicide on any regrowth you have coming up to kill off any new growth.

Then broadcast seed and depending on what you plant you could disc it in lightly or run over it with a drag or just leave it on the soil.

Then pray for rain....try to seed just before a rain and that will help reduce any loss of seed to birds and help get good germination.

If the conditions allow, you might want to try to do a controlled burn in the area you want to plant. It'll make it easier to disc without the vegetation. Regardless on what you spend on fertilizer seed ext, try to time it to get rain, of corse that's always the tricky part.

A controlled burn would be out of the question per the land owner. And honestly, I don’t think there is a brush truck in the county that would make it to this spot. It’s very sandy, actually 100% sugar sand and hills to get to this spot. But the spot itself is a red sand, very easy to dig with a shovel

Shouldn't be to hard to disk than. Sand/ sandy loam is mostly what I have at my house. Do you know what your going to try to plant? Also, have you checked ph and all that? I had to lime for 3 years to really get anything to grow good, and it could stand some more.

sounds like when I am putting in new plots on my little place. shred high (looking for rocks & stumps), then shred low, plow deep, let set a week or two, fertilize & lightly plow in, let set a week or two then plow again (or use a herbicide) to remove new growth weeds, spread seed and lightly plow in or drag to lightly cover seed. The last step I usually wait until I can see some measurable rain in the forecast and plant the day or two before.

rain is the key really.

Haven’t really thought too much about what I’m going to plant. I see the winter wheat fields covered in deer in the drive out, but would like a blend of something. Will check PH after I disc everything in a time or two.

We have no rocks. First place I’ve ever hunted that I have yet to see a rock. I’m hoping after the first few plows I can drag the disc behind my SxS and use that mostly instead of the tractor.

First I would ask the landowner, if he farms and ranches he might get you set up for a small fee. He would also have the equipment and know how. If he doesn't work the place, then ask the person that leases the pasture grazing rights from the landowner, again he should have the equipment and the know how.

deer will hit winter wheat in the winter once everything had browned up, but once the spring green hits, they are off the wheat faster than speedy Gonzalez...

Beans tend to be a good spring/summer crop, although not sure they would do well in sandy soil. You could talk to the local feed/seed shops and find out what works best out there. They will know more than we will, unless someone is local to you and had experience with your terrain.

Also, take advantage of sending a soil sample to TX A&M, I think it's 10 bucks. They will be able to help more than most.

This order makes sense. Do not put the plot to close to your blind unless you are going to Bow Hunt.

good for you, I got lots of rocks and old cedar stumps at my little place in Burnet county!!! I usually shred as low as I can, chop the top of the dirt (when no rocks present), then a few weeks later, plow as deep as I can (pick up rocks and plow again, pick up rocks). The place in east TX is all white sugar sand, so I plow deep several passes to kill the weeds, then spread seed and lightly plow or use a drag (chainlink gate with a couple of cinder blocks works well in the sand) to cover up the seeds and pray for rain.

I can loan or my grandfather may sell you a plow and a disk to do this. I will have to look at them next time I am out at his place.

clearwater@crcom.net <- email him his name is Neil ask him if he is selling any good wildlife seed in the quantity you need he might or might not be selling in small quantities if he ask how you found him rodrod5 from agtalk

or look here

https://www.turnerseed.com/wildlife.html

https://www.bamertseed.com/product-category/project-type/wildlife-pollinator/

also SFA can often be faster with soils results

http://ag.sfasu.edu/index.php/idsa?id=25

Thank you Someone