When do the experts recommend?

13th-20th of August.

^^^ To the OP, nobody here knows more about sunflower fields than Stompy.

Kind words, Thanks. Been many many years of trial and error. Mother nature has a lot to do with it, my part is mainly timing.

Do you shred it in phrases? Like shred 1/3 Aug 20, then the next 1/3, etc? Or do you shred it all at once?

thanks sir!!

I mow about 25% then. 3rd week of September another 20-25% just before the northern birds start showing up. 2nd week of October another 20-25%. I may save the last 25% till after the December split.

Thank you very much

I went and checked on my sunflowers this week. A lot of them are starting to get ripe. And surprisingly there were quite a few dove hanging around the field already. We have not had very many birds in my county(Hamilton)
the last few years so I’m not getting overly optimistic, but it was hard for me not to get excited after seeing that. My field is about 10 acres, and the sunflowers did amazing. I just planted them this year. Native sunflowers planted the way Stompy says to in January and lightly disced in on well prepared seed bed. They did great with all this rain. I also fertilized them pretty heavily. I mixed the fertilizer with the seed when I slung it. Now if I just have enough birds come in🤞🤞 Picture above is from early June. They got to about 6 to 8 feet and are now getting a ripe.

Awesome!

If things continue to work out, that could be a heck of a shoot !

Good looking field Shalor, bet you'll have some birds this year.

we have about 15 acres, how wide do you cut your initial lanes, 40',
hex pattern or all in a horizontal pattern.

do you wait to cut until the majority of the yellow leafs fall off? I know some mature at different times.

We just disc up the group to have ours pop. how much fertilizer do you all put down per acre when you disc?

Looks great

Horizontal pattern, but either is fine. You're just putting seeds on the ground. If some flowers are yellow that's ok, they'll dry out and the seeds have already made. My lanes usually start out about 20-25' with about 40-50' between lanes. I test the soil for fertilizer but it's usually 60# per acre, and I only fertilize every other year.

Question for you guys. Is there anything you can apply to control the weeds this late in the game? If not what do y’all apply and when?

I don't do any weed control, I just let the weeds come in with the sunflowers.

As stated I usually start around and no later than the 13th.
This year I'm starting on the 7th. No rain in the forecast and HOT, might as well get it done in the ac of the tractor.

Weeds are good. Johnson grass and Bermuda make it tough to find birds but don’t keep the birds away.
If you have any cows graze the fields after the sunflowers get about 4” tall. I graze mine all year here at the house.

Is it bad to shred some strips before it rains? I was thinking about shredding tomorrow and looks like it’s going to rain on Sunday. I was thinking the seeds won’t sprout until spring? Thanks for your help Stompy!

Go ahead and shred, I'm doing the same tomorrow and Friday. It won't really affect the seeds, what it will do is grow grass in your shredded lanes. Sometimes I have to shred over my lanes in October due to johnson grass.

In stages best in my opinion

Best hunt of my life was in South Texas in a sunflower field.

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve shredded sunflowers. But I now remember it’s not very fun to shred 8 to 10 foot tall sunflowers in an open cab tractor. I’m going to take ski goggles next time. I had so much sunflower seed in my eyes even with wraparound sunglasses. But I got it done. And I saw probably 50 to 100 dove out there in the field already before shredding. Keeping my fingers crossed that they multiply.