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Lab Lab disaster #8019267 10/22/20 02:39 PM
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Meant to post this earlier in the year. Hoping to have some feedback from others who have successfully planted lablab.

In 2019, I had a small plotmaster and planted several acres of Lab Lab. The seed store I bought it from didn't mention the need to innoculate - didn't find out the need for innoculation until after planting. Despite not having been innoculated, I still had a decent amount of growth though none of the plants got very big and the color looked poor (light green instead of green).

Earlier this year, I upgraded to a seed drill and planted lablab again. This time on 6 acres. I fertilized per A&M soil test suggestions, disced, cultipacked, and then drilled in the Lab Lab to around 3/4 inch. There was some growth but no-where near as noticeable as when I used a plotmaster on less acreage. Very small plants grew sporadically and disappeared fairly quickly.

My first thought was the local wildlife was eating it. Put up an acre of electric fence around one area I planted. There was better growth in the electric fence but that soon disappeared too.

Anyone else successfully plant Lab Lab? Do you think wildlife is simply eating it faster than it could grow? I have clay soil in some parts of my property and a mix of clay/loam in other parts. The results were fairly consistent no matter where I planted.

I've been able to successfully grow oats and sorghum even with very little experience. Debating on trying lablab again next year or switching to something easier to grow and more cost-effective.

Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: JDP Ranch] #8019270 10/22/20 02:41 PM
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Are you trying to attract or feed? We plant oats, and the deer hammer it from October to March. It may not have the protein that LabLab does, but it's easy to raise, hardy, and longlasting.


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Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: QuitShootinYoungBucks] #8019307 10/22/20 03:08 PM
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Originally Posted by QuitShootinYoungBucks
Are you trying to attract or feed? We plant oats, and the deer hammer it from October to March. It may not have the protein that LabLab does, but it's easy to raise, hardy, and longlasting.


Trying to feed. I plant the Lab Lab in the Spring to provide nutrition over the summer. Switch to oats in the fall to attract and feed. Oats are definitely much easier to grow and last through the spring until I mow/disc them in. Wish Lab Lab worked as well as oats do, heh.

Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: JDP Ranch] #8019865 10/22/20 09:44 PM
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I've had success with Lablab, using seed from several sources. Here in DeWitt County, I always try to get it in the ground in early April, timed with the green up because deer can decimate it as it appears. Also, I think it needs to go in deeper. Looking at Pogue's website, yep, 1" to 3". Tacomonte says 1" or deeper. I kind of gave up on it as in my reading you need approximately one acre of the crop for every three deer. It doesn't go a long way.


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Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: JDP Ranch] #8019904 10/22/20 10:10 PM
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I have planted over the last 15 yrs several times. I planted on one place where we had to electric fence the plots to allow it to establish. I waited to plant to soil and night temps were right. Plant to early and the plants struggle in the cooler temps. It is slow to emerge and slow to grow after it comes up. It puts out 2 leaves and then sits for about 2 weeks putting down a root system. I planted it dryland and irrigated with a 4 row planter and then cultivated it at about 3-4 weeks. I planted it on 2' rows and thicker than recomended.....they suggest 12-18 lbs/acre I did 27 to 36 lbs/ acre with inoculant and some fertiziler per soil test. We opened up the plots at 5 to 7 weeks when it was waist deep and filled in the rows. I planted it about 2-3" deep in sandy, to mix sand/gravel and some clay type soils.
Here are pics of some of the plots. Top pics are when it was about ready to take down the electric fencing...bottom 2 pics are about 3 to 4 weeks after planting.
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I planted it here on my place on 10 acres but with no fencing. The first year it did good when I drilled it with Red Ripper peas at rate of 20 lbs of Lab Lab and 25 lbs of peas per acre. I did inoculate but did not fertilize it. To many deer did not let it get over about 15" tall and then it got dry and they wiped it out after about 2 months total the first year. Second year it did not do as well due to lack of rain and deer wiped it out after about 6 weeks. No fencing and to many deer are not a good combo here with only 10 acres.
It takes soil moisture to plant and follow up rains to keep it growing. It needs to be planted as late as possible to take advantage of the warmer soil temps and May/June rains are key to success for me. It takes grazing pressure once it reaches the 7 leaf stage but it takes rains to keep new growth ahead of the deer or fencing to keep them off the plots till established.


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Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: JDP Ranch] #8020529 10/23/20 10:45 AM
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Very nice crop STXRM. Would you mind a brief description of your fencing? I have had to go with the double row with the cord height staggered on the rows to keep the deer out.


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Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: JDP Ranch] #8020951 10/23/20 03:46 PM
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Great info stxranchman! thanks for that.

I plant in the Coleman/Brown County area. I wonder if the lack of rain combined with the overpopulation of deer are making it difficult for me to grow. Also good to know about the seed depth. I have a Great Plains 3P600 - adjusting the depth is a bit of a pain. Might give it another shot in the spring at a deeper depth.

Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: Ranch Dog] #8021286 10/23/20 07:55 PM
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Originally Posted by Ranch Dog
Very nice crop STXRM. Would you mind a brief description of your fencing? I have had to go with the double row with the cord height staggered on the rows to keep the deer out.

That is Intellirope electric fencing from Premier1 Supplies. It is a larger poly rope with woven in strands of wire. We used five of those rope strands on each food plot fence. Pipe corners and then 3/8" x 5' fiberglass posts every 7 to 9 steps. Depending on the length of a side of the plot we might have a T-post with insulators to help hold the fence up in the wind or pressure. The top strand on the fence was about shirt pocket height for me or just over 4' tall. The others were spaced out every 10" or so with bottom strand about 10" off the ground. We did about 21 small food plots that totaled about 75 acres on that ranch. The electric fences worked very well if we got them up as soon as I finished planting Lab Lab or Oats/Winter peas. We left them up till the plots were established and could take lots of grazing pressure. We used 12v solar energizers sold by Premier1 also. The fences did their job keeping deer out of the plots, the only failures where when a battery was bad. If a deer got in a field it was difficult to get it out..we had to lower a whole side to the ground.


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Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: stxranchman] #8023740 10/26/20 02:36 AM
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Originally Posted by stxranchman
Originally Posted by Ranch Dog
Very nice crop STXRM. Would you mind a brief description of your fencing? I have had to go with the double row with the cord height staggered on the rows to keep the deer out.

That is Intellirope electric fencing from Premier1 Supplies. It is a larger poly rope with woven in strands of wire. We used five of those rope strands on each food plot fence. Pipe corners and then 3/8" x 5' fiberglass posts every 7 to 9 steps. Depending on the length of a side of the plot we might have a T-post with insulators to help hold the fence up in the wind or pressure. The top strand on the fence was about shirt pocket height for me or just over 4' tall. The others were spaced out every 10" or so with bottom strand about 10" off the ground. We did about 21 small food plots that totaled about 75 acres on that ranch. The electric fences worked very well if we got them up as soon as I finished planting Lab Lab or Oats/Winter peas. We left them up till the plots were established and could take lots of grazing pressure. We used 12v solar energizers sold by Premier1 also. The fences did their job keeping deer out of the plots, the only failures where when a battery was bad. If a deer got in a field it was difficult to get it out..we had to lower a whole side to the ground.

Thanks!

About the picture, one up from the bottom. Are you using a cultivator for weed control?


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Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: Ranch Dog] #8023858 10/26/20 10:08 AM
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Originally Posted by Ranch Dog
Originally Posted by stxranchman
Originally Posted by Ranch Dog
Very nice crop STXRM. Would you mind a brief description of your fencing? I have had to go with the double row with the cord height staggered on the rows to keep the deer out.

That is Intellirope electric fencing from Premier1 Supplies. It is a larger poly rope with woven in strands of wire. We used five of those rope strands on each food plot fence. Pipe corners and then 3/8" x 5' fiberglass posts every 7 to 9 steps. Depending on the length of a side of the plot we might have a T-post with insulators to help hold the fence up in the wind or pressure. The top strand on the fence was about shirt pocket height for me or just over 4' tall. The others were spaced out every 10" or so with bottom strand about 10" off the ground. We did about 21 small food plots that totaled about 75 acres on that ranch. The electric fences worked very well if we got them up as soon as I finished planting Lab Lab or Oats/Winter peas. We left them up till the plots were established and could take lots of grazing pressure. We used 12v solar energizers sold by Premier1 also. The fences did their job keeping deer out of the plots, the only failures where when a battery was bad. If a deer got in a field it was difficult to get it out..we had to lower a whole side to the ground.

Thanks!

About the picture, one up from the bottom. Are you using a cultivator for weed control?


Yes, an old Ford cultivator worked great. It was cheap, lightweight and small enough to work around the few trees in the smaller plots we had. I would turn the energizer off and then let the fence down lower to the ground. Drive over the fence and work a field. The stand or raise the fence back up and turn the energizer back on. Those fields really seemed to jump after cultivating them and it rained within a week or so. Those rows would close together and it made it difficult to walk down them. With the fences I should have been on 30" or 36" rows instead of 24".


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Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: JDP Ranch] #8026476 10/27/20 11:58 PM
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The cultivator for weed control is probably a big part of success. I say that because my best Lablab field was in Karnes County back in '91. I had a Cole MX-12 four-row planter and an old Ford cultivator that I used to keep the rows clean until the tractor interfered with the plants. The field was along the San Antonio River, downslope country so it soil moisture was good. 12 acres total. Approximately two acres wide and six long. I paid a guy to moldboard it with a large tractor and plow and then cultipack it. The seed plates did in the Cole planter did a great job spacing the seeds out down the rows. Wish I still had it, but I would still want all the equipment that came after it.

Here is a video of the Cole for those that haven't seen one. Mine was a row planter with row markers. The front bin is for fertilizer and the rear for seed. It did a great job of metering out the right amount of both at the right spacing.



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Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: JDP Ranch] #8026516 10/28/20 12:18 AM
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I did it many years ago and it worked great. And then, it didn’t rain for a couple of weeks in early summer. Game over.


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Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: Ranch Dog] #8026684 10/28/20 01:26 AM
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Originally Posted by Ranch Dog
The cultivator for weed control is probably a big part of success. I say that because my best Lablab field was in Karnes County back in '91. I had a Cole MX-12 four-row planter and an old Ford cultivator that I used to keep the rows clean until the tractor interfered with the plants. The field was along the San Antonio River, downslope country so it soil moisture was good. 12 acres total. Approximately two acres wide and six long. I paid a guy to moldboard it with a large tractor and plow and then cultipack it. The seed plates did in the Cole planter did a great job spacing the seeds out down the rows. Wish I still had it, but I would still want all the equipment that came after it.

Here is a video of the Cole for those that haven't seen one. Mine was a row planter with row markers. The front bin is for fertilizer and the rear for seed. It did a great job of metering out the right amount of both at the right spacing.


I bought 4 new but never used MF Flex Planters and the dealership build me a toolbar and mount them on it.Those planters were probably 50-60 yrs old just never used. I made my own row marker. I bought 2 old Ford 2 row cultivators and made me a 4 row cultivator. I had to buy or make my seed plates. I bought some out of Lincoln Nebraska that worked and they sold blanks so I could make my own to plant what rate I wanted. This is what those planters looked like...I think they were Model 37 or 38 IIRC. Same flex knife seed openers and same packer wheels. I did not have the fertilizer box though. They mounted a bit differently to the tool bar they made for me. Each planter also had it own chain drive adjustments and were ground driven. You could enter change sprockets to make them plant at different rates also. They were great for planting in rocky or gravel soils.
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Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: JDP Ranch] #8027146 10/28/20 11:40 AM
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Nice! I really like this old stuff and stop to look whenever I see something sitting in the weeds. I see machines that fed a lot of people and sent kids to college. I had bought several additional seed plates for the MX, even planted watermelons. The machine was exact, three-seeds per hill. The guy that bought my place paid me a premium for it. I thought I would buy another but never did.


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Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: JDP Ranch] #8041256 11/07/20 03:36 AM
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JDP you are close to me, I had good luck with Mung beans. Got up quick and very good germination, i did not inoculate. You might try an acre next spring.

Re: Lab Lab disaster [Re: glocker17] #8053738 11/17/20 04:37 PM
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Originally Posted by glocker17
JDP you are close to me, I had good luck with Mung beans. Got up quick and very good germination, i did not inoculate. You might try an acre next spring.


Interesting - haven't considered those. Going to try an acre or two for next year. Thanks for the suggestion!

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