Been reading up on the high protein plant called Lablab. Information says it grew in Africa in dry conditions. If it will grow there, it should grow anywhere, right? I see where it's planted in south Texas as well as other parts of the country. Can anyone pass along some insight for a successful planting this spring. Location is Knox county, TX, about 100 miles NW of Jacksboro. Lots of clay.
I have a soil sample sent to A&M, waiting on results for recommendations as to what will be needed.

Please advise...

https://aggieclover.tamu.edu/rio-verde/

the links at the top give a bit of info

I'm in Coleman County about 2 miles west of the Brown County line. Planning on planting Lablab very soon. I also would like to hear from others on how to make the planting successful

It will grow in a lot of different areas but you need warmer soil temps. It is very slow to establish and after the first two leaves appear it will take another 14 days to root better then start to grow. So you need a lot of acreage or fence it to let it establish so the deer do not wipe it out. If they eat the first two leaves it will usually kill the plant. Planting that far north I would not plant it very early for fear of late frost or to cold of nights/soil temps. You need soil temps in the mid 60 or better to get it up and growing quickly. The warmer the soil the better it grows when it first comes up. If you are thinking of only planting an acre or two then I would not recommend it...but go with Iron and Clay cowpeas or Red Rippers. If you have any livestock that can get to the plot, I would not waste the money on planting anything at all. If you plant enough acres of it and get the rainfall/timely rains it is a great plant that produces the tonnage.
Here are photos of a field that was planted about 5 weeks before these photos on May 30th in Colorado County. That is way south of your area and I planted from 60-70 acres in the spring on this ranch. I used electric fencing to keep the deer off of it to get it established. In these photos it is waste deep. I was about 14 days late getting it planted due to rainfall but it was warm enough to get up and growing quickly. I was only about 7 days later than normal opening up the food plots that year.

I planted about half acre here about 7 years ago (Wise County) New to the deer so they didn't graze it much, they bed down in it tho. I can say it grows like crazy, at least it did for me, got over 4' high and even higher if it could catch a tree limb. My deer didn't use it, so by end of summer I shredded it, might have waited until frost and saw what happened but I wanted to get ready for fall oats.

From my limited experience, it is easy to grow, planted mine following their recommendations and standard practices for spring planting. BTW, I planted in a low area, sandy loam type dirt, grew so thick it was tough to walk thru.

Great information guys. I hear it’s good to mix in sunflowers so the lablab has something to grow onto.

Might check into Sunn Hemp...very high protein, rapid growth and drought tolerant. Gets tall quickly also so it gives Lab Lab something to vine onto. I think Tecomate has a seed mix with it in it. You can use white grain milo also in with lab lab.

I planted it a few years ago on my place just North of Tyler, and the deer tore it up. I've never had anything that compared to it, but at the first frost, it all died and wilted away. It was super sensitive to the cold and totally worthless by the time deer season started. I've thought about trying it again because of how much the deer liked it, but it's a gamble on when the first frost hits.

Had this happen to a friend north of San Angelo....but his deer actually ate it very well after the frost. It was more standing hay crop at that point. I have had friends bale it and use it feed as hay to deer in the winter months. The first year planting they are trying to figure out what it is. IME the second time you plant they will not allow it to get to a frost, unless you have enough acres planted.

I planted mine as a late Spring, Summer plot, grew outstanding. I think as STX mentioned, my deer just didn't take, or feel the need to eat it the 1st go around, if I had let it stay in place after it froze back, they may have showed some interest as the surrounding foliage also changed, similar to other plants that deer take better after top growth die back, idk.

I also wondered if the huge growth mine had was not as tender as the photos I see from STX, I had leaves that would cover my hand they where so large.

Those photos do not show the row spacing but it was on 24" or 30" row spacings and planted around 28#/acre. That area had a 36" average annual rainfall plus we had irrigation on almost all the food plots. At one month you could still see the rows and at 6-7 weeks the rows were covered.
These two photos are on the same day about 30 days after planting. First field is irrigated and the second one is dryland.



You are correct about leaf size and it growing up onto things. One year we had 58" of rain and had Lab Lab growing up over the top of Sicklepod, Senna Bean and into Live Oaks. The leaves were huge and they had tunnels up under the growth. They ate Lab Lab well into December that year and did not care how mature the plant was.

Yes sir, mine was dry land as well, but in a very low spot as compared to the rest of my sloping land. I did plant redtop with it, broadcast all, so no rows, took about a month and the redtop was non distinguishable. Deer may have browsed it, but it wasn't heavy enough here to notice it, not like when I have planted buckwheat. Buckwheat never gets more than 4" and it's eaten.

I tried it South of Bowie. About 5 acres of it. It grew great with huge leaves. Deer didn’t mess with it much. The dry summer hit and it started dieing.

I turned the cows in on it. Haven’t messed with it since.

I have grown Lab Lab around Duncan, Oklahoma which isn't far from where you are. The deer around the area liked the soybeans much better. I planted lab lab during the last drought about 7 years ago. It does do better in dryer conditions vs soybeans. You are little west of me and south, so Lab Lab may be a better bet for you. Like stated above, lab lab and soybeans require much warmer temps to germinate, so don't do too early. May 1st to June 1st is when I would plant it. And, Lab lab should grow in your area.

After sending a soil sample to A&M and SFA with both results comparable, a plan was put into action after consulting with our local ag extension agent. He recommended DAP fertilizer at a prescribed rate per acre. We purchased Lablab and cow peas from Turner seed. On May 17th, we disc, broadcast the seeds and fertilizer, then drug the fields. We got lucky! It rained 3/4" the next day. Two days later it rained over an inch. It rained again today. curious to see the results.
We also placed game cameras on the plots to monitor activity. I'll post pic if there is any interesting movement...

Iron clay peas and soybeans have always faired better for me. Plus cheaper seed.

How many acres and did you protect it with fencing from early grazing?

We planted two plots, both are one acre. This is an experiment. My buddy owns the property (app 1400 acres). The property has tons of cedar with scattered mesquite and cactus of course. Some areas have grass while other area are baron. I live in East Texas. It seems strange to me but I suppose its normal for Knox county. The deer population is low but there are several really nice bucks living on the property. Game cameras in place. we will see if fencing is necessary and if we need to enlarge our plots. This is about a $400 test....

If you are not over populated with deer, the fence will not be necessary (assuming you have plenty of natural groceries). During May/June when the soybeans/lab lab are young, I have so much natural groceries on my ranch that the deer stay away. I also have wheat/oats maturing this time of year and the deer/hog really love to eat them. Once you start drawing in more deer with the plots, you may have issues with the deer hitting your soybeans early. But, usually this happens because people let the deer out populate the carrying capacity (kind of like ethics, different for everyone). I personally like to invite others out to thin my herd because once you get over populated, that is when the disease starts hitting. All those big deer the Drurys, Kiskeys, etc harvest come at a price....they are usually way over their carrying capacity because they like to leave the deer alone to grow big, this means not thinning the herd. They do this on about a dozen different spots with the hope that 2 of those areas don't get affected by blue tongue, etc. Then, they like to cry to everyone about losing their target buck.....boo hoo. Just stating to let you know it can happen to us as well. Bad thing is I don't have a dozen ranches to roll the dice with. You can still grow big deer with a good harvesting strategy.

On an acre I would fence it. At the very least make sure you put a cage up to show what deer pressure did to the plot.

My issue with lab labs was deer knocked it out early and it never recovered. I was using in in northern oklahoma that probably had a lighter density then Knox and south eastern Erath county. Both places same result, just couldn’t get established unless you had a fence.

I personally would rather run alfalfa or soybeans. I’ve had really good luck using a brillion drop seeder in fall to lightly over seed some of the alfalfa with oats also

Are we introducing a new evasive species, like Johnsongrass?

Not much threat on a new species. Nothing much grows with out specific fertilizer on that dirt/clay. Two soil samples shows zero content of phosphors. We planted wheat last October, before soil sample and we didn't apply any fertilizer. Didn't know if anything would even sprout. The wheat came up and fizzled out. It looked terrible too. Besides - This stuff does not tolerate cold. Knox county has plenty of cold!

Well - it came up....