Small food plot or food patchr tractor

Can a small food plot or food patch be prepped and executed with just a truck and pulling a rake harrow or disc plow with said truck as opposed to atv or tractor? Has anyone done this and how did it turn out?

How small. I think if large garden size, you would have better chance of getting the results that you wanted buy renting a walk behind tiller.

1-1.5 acre on one, probably 15-20 yards x 50 yards on the other, definitely too large probably for a walk behind tiller.

might try no-till seed ... not sure how you would pulled a disc behind a truck??? wait, I have seen some tow behind disc, seeder combo units. What type of soil are you going to try to put this into?

We used plant in an old field where we watched for a cool wet front to be coming and go out 5-7 days before the front was going to arrive, put our oats in a 5 gallon bucket and fill with water then let soak for a few hours, then toss out on top of the ground, then a few days later the rain would help continue to process and had pretty good luck as long as the rain did come as scheduled. As long as the birds didn't eat all the seed, we usually had a pretty good stand of oats within a couple of weeks. We always used Feed oats (not Seed oats) since they were about 1/2 the price and still had about 80% germination rate.

Okay, I don't have a clue if a chain harrow would work or not in making a food plot. You would have to go over it several times. I would spray to kill all the grass before hand.There are several videos on youtube about using one.

If the area is to small and tight you won't be able to turn the truck around or make turns to plow the area.

What stxranchman said...

What Russ said, STX said

DQ, is tractor rental out? Where in general terms is this, or county?

Problem with a 3 point disc is pulling without tipping, not to mention the wight of getting it off and on a trailer without a tractor at least for a small type 1-3, larger disc like a 18-24' tandem will need hydraulics to raise and lower the disc to use the wheels and I dont think your truck would pull one engaged with the ground, took all 150 hp on my tractor to pull my 24'.

Chain harrow may work with a lot of elbow grease on the turns if the grass is real short and you have time for a bunch of passes.

Turning around at each end without being able to lift the disk would be hard. Wouldn't take long to kill your equipment if you turned around with it still cutting.

I once drug a large cedar I cut down behind my truck to break up the ground enough to spread seed then drug it again to cover seed and it worked well lol

A lease I was on in Llano had several 1-1.25 acre prickly pear patches. During the summer, around August, we'd spread molasses on the cactus and let the hogs go at it. By September the hogs would have the entire area plowed up for us. Spread winter wheat just before a rain and we had some nice patches.
I've also gone the route of using a tiller to grind it up and prepare the soil. Best to kill all of the grass off the area and rake it if it's thick to make it easier on the tiller. After planting you can either toss the grass back on top or break up a bale of hay on top.

Call Zimmer Kubota you can rent trailer, tractor, disc, and spreader for the weekend. Or if you have the disc you can rent the tractor only. Depending on the type of ground you are trying to work a good rule of thumb is 10Hp for every foot of implement.


Good luck!

Lots depends on what the ground looks like before starting? grass, cactus, rocks, ever been broke before, etc. I've pulled chain harrows behind 4 wheelers and trucks in softer ground in ETX and also Eastland, Taylor and Shackleford counties, pulled 4x4 and old spring bed frames and even wooden pallets after broadcasting seed to lightly cover.

My recommendation is rent equip from Zimmer and do it right the first time which will make your plot areas easier to do next year if you don't rent equip. We have also rented Bobcat with a front end tiller which worked really well but takes longer and rougher than tractor and implement.

My buddy had me make him some super micro plots..like 50ftx100ft with my 34hp tractor and 5ft disc...wasn't too bad. No turning around, just make a pass then raise the 3pt and back up and make anther pass.They looked really good but the lack of rain and his horrible exclusion fence were the demise of his plots

DQ I did just that on two of my plots pst year just to see how they would do. On both I didn’t even mow I simply used the drag harrow and pulled it with my truck several passes until ground was loosened and then broadcast seed. I used a mix I got (I think it was some Pennington brand deer mix) but pretty much got the oats/wheat to come up and some of the brassicas but the lack of rain in the fall last year pretty much killed those off.

First pic is an area I couldn’t get equipment back to so just did the drag and throw seed method. It came up but wasn’t very pretty and you can see the lack of mowing, although the drag did remove quite a bit of the dead weeds.


Second pic is another area I did side by side with a plot I worked with a tiller and had mowed vs drag and throw. Again no mowing, no cultivating, just drag and throw seed. This area did receive fertilizer at the same rate as the area right next to it in the next picture below.


To contrast drag and throw vs mow, spray, cultivate, broadxast and drag over seed. The picture above was taken the same day this picture was taken, so there is a definite difference. The area of drag and throw is to the back and right in this picture


To give another example of how the Drag and seed method worked, this picture shows a scrape under the tree but you can see the green in the plot vs the bare dirt outside where there was no seed.
[image]https://texashuntingforum.com/forum/pics/...b7ab080b9d6.png[/img]

Overall, if this is the only method you can use, the drag and seed method will work. I didn’t spray any of the plots I used this method on, that could help, but honestly it was so dry last fall I didn’t really need to kill anything off. One thing is for certain, more rain would have helped my plots a lot last year. We had a good rain right after I seeded, and then didn’t get much for the rest of fall. The drag and throw plots germinated but probably would have been much thicker with more water. All my plots would have been. For the record the ground was quite dry when I tilled and seeded, but was expectthe no rain so seeded with the hopes of rain, it came that night. Had the ground been a little softer the drag might have penetrated better, but don’t know that it mattered much as you can pretty much throw wheat/oats/rye and they will germinate anywhere.

Thanks Buckeye, I've got the seed so I might as well give it a try and see what comes of it. As you said, the dryness has the native grass down as it is and if we don't get adequate rain, what really matter what kind of prepping I am able to do...

There are several tractor rental places around Graham. I looked at Mikes and his prices seemed very reasonable. A 60hp Kubota with a cab for 8 hours is only $275.00

http://www.mikesrental.com/product/ag-tractor-kubota-60hp-w-cab/

DQ do you have a 4 wheeler or utv? If so you might want to check out this disc. Groundhog Disc . I've got one and it's worked really well for me.

all gona depend on the soil... its so wet here now im just gona mow brodcast and drag this year.. no time to mess with it anyway and the ground will take the seed well with all the moisture

if its dry your gona need to disc cover and hope for rain

Yo,,, DQ Kid ---> Swisher CD 42 ATV disc

Update, went out today to "do the redneck cheapo" foodplot and to my surprise, the neighbor had plowed my field last weekend with his tractor, actually his wife had since his collarbone is broken. That made my job of seeding and dragging a rebar panel with my truck all the easier. By these pictures, I beat out the rain by a hour or so. Hopefully it will come up as it has previously and the deer will enjoy again.

Got to love good country neighbors that help without being asked. Looks like a great start to that food plot.

Small and tight, that could be a problem. Use the right equipment for the size of area or you will end up wasting time and money until you do it right. You pay either way. Don't ask me how I know this.