Seeding Marathon!

On Sunday evening I finished an 8-day blitz of planting 10 acres in native grasses and 6 acres of food plots. I've been wondering if I would get it done or not as I've been running my wife and dad to doctor appoints for weeks (nothing local), but on the 17th I was told that I didn't need to drive anywhere until the 27th. I checked the weather, and it looked like there would be no rain until the 27th, but a very good chance after that, so I got busy.

The area to be planted in native grasses is my extended yard, from the highway up to and around the houses. Douglass King Seeds had suggested that I turn the soil back in October and plant a cover crop of oats that could be folded back into the ground as when I planted the natives. I think I posted a topic about this work. This area had been nothing but bahia, I was tired of mowing it and wanted something that tied into my work with The Nature Conservancy on the rest of my place. A bit of an intricate project, at least when dragging something in the ground, as I have water and electricity buried everywhere! Back when I had the work done, I specified a minimum of 24" below the surface, but I've had two contractors since, left unsupervised, did less, and that has led to some problems. Anyway, the native project is everything inside the white outlines.



The oats that came up were about 2' tall; I mowed them earlier this month.



I made a run up to Douglass King Seeds in SA, and picked up the seed mix, and used the LandPride seeder to put it in the ground. Before the seeding, I ran the Dirt Dog chisel plow through the stubble, then fertilized with 18-48-0 at 150/acre.







With the completion of that work, I moved right into the food plots. I had both Pogue's Spring Buck Buffet and WI's PowerPlant, similar products, so I blended them; 40 lbs of the Buck Buffet to 50% of PowerPlant. The mix would work out as follows.



Some of my senderos serve as fire breaks, so I take them to earth at the first of every year. These just needed the fertilizer and seed.



This plot had WI's Pure Attraction in it that was playing out, so I just mowed, fertilized and no-tilled the seed into the ground.



Plenty of goodies going back into the soil!



Total tractor time in the last eight days was 40 hours even. 19 hours with the native grasses and 21 with the food plots! I was tuckered out Monday but needed to clean both seeder and tractor.

This forum has been slow so I thought I would give you something to read. Now, I'm taking my dad to the VA Clinics up in AUS.

nice work

Very nice work

Thanks, as I was leaving the ranch for Austin it had started to rain!

well done

sounds like you timed it perfectly

I wish I had that drop seeder. I had an old 50’s model brillion and sold it and still regret 18 years later

I love seeing your progress and projects! Well done, sir!

As you may recall from our thread responses, we've been doing a lot of returns to native grasses and forbs at our place as well. Got 23 acres done last year. Working on creating firebreaks for the next step - controlled burns. My question is what are you using to create such nice firebreaks? Looks awesome! I know once you create them, maintenance shouldn't be as difficult...but for the preliminary work are you disking and then dragging/rolling? What's your go to for getting optimal breaks?

We have an older (probably 50's) JD Brillion that has been sitting for years that I'm looking to get back to working order this year. Can't wait! They are nice. Hoping ours hasn't sat too long

How do you like the WI Pure Attraction? Also I thought about trying Power Plant for this spring, have you tried it?

Nice project! I'm working on a native grass project with the NRCS this week. Luckily, I am able to borrow a no-till drill from TPWD to drill in the seed. 10 acres of switch grass, indian grass, side oats gramma, big blue, little blue, maximillian sunflower and sprangletop.

Thank you, guys, for you comments!


I started the breaks 13 years ago with a moldboard plow. Since then I disk them every year starting in late December as soil conditions permit. I pull a disk with a tooth harrow. I don't mind forbs/weeds coming up, but if grass appears, they get disced again. Honestly, they don't grow much of anything anymore unless I put it in the soil.



Even though some of the firebreaks are property fences, I going to start planting them in the Spring as food plots. As they play out at the end of the summer, I will reduce them to dirt to avoid fenceline hunters.

My next project is to plant the strip next to the fencelines in native grasses in late August and let them go in order to provide a barrier to the view into my place. The Natives can get up to 3' tall.

Oh, good luck on the Brillion rebuild!


I've been using PowerPlant for 13 years, yes I like it. I've always had a good crop with it, but I also follow the fertilizer requirements. I used Pogue's Spring Buck Buffet while in Karnes County, about 30 miles west of me, and it did well. I've tried it a number of times here in DeWitt County, but I've had mixed results. I would say, mediocre to poor. I've followed Pogue's recommendation of not fertilizing but this year will be different as it received the same fertilizer the PowerPlant has. I like the sunn hemp in PowerPlant, excellent cover for quail and fawns plus its food & protein value. On the flipside, I like the LabLab in the Pogue offering. If I get a good crop this year from the Pogue with fertilizer I will probably start using it as it is local, a 30-minute drive, and $1.90/lb vs. the PowerPlant at $2.30/lb.

You have done very well sir.

Sweet. My soil temps have not reached warm enough to get the power plant in the ground yet, and it will be a bit before I can now as the plots will be mud pits now with all the rain they have received. But that will also give me a chance to spray them good before playing.

I did get two plots planted, one with extreme and one with chic magnet, really anxious to se how well they come up. Caged those so I will be able to see browse vs failure of plots.

So does your no till seeder handle soybeans well? Is that a extra box that needs to be ordered or is it part of the standard set up. Would really like to get to no till farming, but really want the ability to do soy beans, specifically power plant if it comes in good this year...

Both of the food plot mixes I used had soybeans in them, seeds went out without issue.



Above shows the three boxes on the NTS2507. The Grass Seedbox, in the middle, has three setups; a high and low range that is easy to switch back and forth to accommodate grass seeds rates (not native grass seeds), and then a "low range reduction" that takes a sprocket change. Changing that sprocket takes about 30 minutes, but with that, the box becomes a "large seed box." The Small Seed Box on the Front handles just that. Being a food plot guy, I had my dealer set up the grass seedbox with the low range reduction gear and haven't changed it. As a note, all the seedboxes have lockouts or all can be used at the same time. For example, both large & small food plot seeds can be put out at the same time and at different seeding rates as each seedbox has there own rate controllers. The small seed box is split and can be used to put out different seeds on each side but they would need to flow at a similar rate.

If you are not going to do native grasses, this seeder would probably not be for you, as there are other models that don't have the native seedbox.

This is also a seeder, not a drill. A seeder just drops the seed where a drill uses disc openers to get the seed to a specific depth. I have owned two drills and wanted to get away from all the parts. Also, drills tend to be better suited for the larger seeds and seeders the small seeds and seed size mixes. Seeders are somewhat limited in seed depth, but appropriate for food plot seeding. Depth can be controlled a bit through the angle of the front spiked rollers. Increasing the agitation to increase seed depth.

all sounds pretty cool. I'm in Duval Co. i've had some mixed results with food plots in the past. I have a tractor/shredder/disc, i do not have a drill. i've cleared and broke up ground in the past and planted oats and turnips just with broadcast application. usually though if i get enough rain that hte seed does well it gets swallowed back up by the native grass and vegetation pretty quickly. i've invested in a 3-pt sprayer this year. going to try to kill out all the native veg and turn those fields over good and then try again to plant oats/turnips/rye maybe in the fall. see how that works.

Sounds like a plan Erich.

This is for all, a good way to actually seed food plots if the shape can accommodate a 50' broadcast width is with a rental fertilizer buggy from your local Farmer's Co-Op. I have used the buggies in DeWitt and Karnes County. They will blend your seed in with the fertilizer mix. Depending on the depth the seed needs to be planted, you can use a disk to get the seed deep or a drag or tooth harrow to keep it shallow. The buggy rental here is $15.

I was taking the 18-46-0 out to where I was going to seed the natives and my dad wanted some for his yard. I told him to bring his spreader out so I could figure out much it held and how many buckets it would need, plus the ladder. My dogs didn't like it, they thought it was stealing!



The buggies are big but I've actually fertilized/seeded on fairly solid soil using my Dodge 2500 4X4. Really fine soil or sand would be tough, same with rough. Just another idea thrown out on how to do things.

It also never hurts to ask. My Co-Op has a rental spreader/seeder and cultipacker on a trailer.

I have no Co-op in my area that rents equipment, but I have used the fertilizer buggies from two local stores to spread fertilizer on my plots. They do a good job but I always seem to underestimate how much I need for the given throw rate. I need to remember to over-estimate about +1/3 next time.

I called all around asking if anyone had a rental cultipacker and no one does in my neck of the woods (south central OK) so I just used a drag harrow to smooth my plots after discing with a rental tractor and disc. It did a pretty good job and my F250 pulled the buggy around quite easily on the terrain, but it was dry dirt, not wet. Would never try it in wet dirt with just my truck.

Question for ya Ranch dog, I was thinking of just broadcasting my powerplant on the plots after dragging the harrow over to stir up the dirt a bit and spraying with herbicide (if needed and would be done a week or two prior) . Given that you seeded with no real drilling, do you think I would get a good stand of the PP by just broadcasting the seed on stirred dirt or would you recommend stirring the dirt, then broadcasting and then dragging again to "cover" the seed?

I don't want to waste money, but time is limited too...dilemmas

I hear you on wasting time and money! The instructions for planting PP are quite simple; work the soil with a disk while you work in the required fertilizer, broadcast the seed, and lightly cover the seed with a disk or drag. It sounds like you have everything you need. WI recommends that a drill not be used to plant PP. The variety of seed sizes is the problem.

The spiked rollers on my seeder do pulverize the soil at least 3" deep, replacing the need for the disk. Here are some before and after pictures.



The spikes work the soil coupled with the weight (2800 lbs) and speed (3 to 5 mph) of the seeder.



For grins, I planted a strip of ground that was as hard as concrete with cracks. I will see how it does.



What I'm working towards is learning how much debris to leave on top of the plot before I start. My seeder works best with some dry debris on the surface, stalks about 3 to 4", with the ground covered by the dry cuttings. What the seeder guys are telling me is the debris is important to improving the soil but also a big consideration in reducing the heat units on the field especially in South Texas. They would like me to start leaving more trash on top. I saw this in play last year using the FarmLogs app, the heat units on my clean plots (waiting to be planted in the fall) were out of sight (solid red) vs. those with plant matter both growing and dead (still green). The plots with the high heat units failed. All the moisture was cooked out of the soil. I wander.

It’s the timing of the discing vs seed broadcasting that is the question for me...I already did the disc and fertilizer, now with these rains I know the ground will be more packed. I think I will refresh the dirt with the drag and fhen see how it looks, broadcast if stirred up some, then re-drag the seeds over a little to cover lightly.

Just need the ground to warm up and the skies to stay dry for a little bit so I can dry my plots out. Then rain as soon as I am done 😂

I am going to watch my heat units on my plots this year, see how the greenery shades vs open field vs low plots.
I have found my FarmLogs app to be slow to update rain and sometimes doesn’t log any rain at all when I know there was some up there. I would like to get a mobile weather station connected to weather underground so I can check it at anytime, but with the pace of the build going on up there it probably won’t be until August before I can get anything running with Wi-Fi and electricity. I like the concept you are working, trying to leave a little trash on top to protect and serve the young plants....

If I remember correctly this seeder is in its first use with the PP is that correct? Anxious to see how it works. May need to emulate your methods there as I like the pulverized action on front and packer action on the back.

If you can’t get it to work, I’ll take it off your hands.

It should be fine with a drag, anything to get the seed up to 1/2" in the soil once covered up. Next time, you might hold off on the fertilizer until you know the seed is going in.


The only place that I'm not willing to give up my bare dirt are some of my fire breaks. They have saved my place three times, two times the fire would have overtaken my house. One from some turd pulling a trailer type bar-b-q pit and the other a sharp tool pulling a trailer with a flat, two miles flat, sending sparks in the dry grass the entire time.


Yes, first time. This photo is from calibration, it looks like the various seeds from both mixes are dropping fine.



Once the rain passes and the soil dries enough not to cling, both seed outfits (DKS & Pogue) want me to run the Brillion Pulverizer back over everything to seat the dead stuff into the damp soil and seal the top. I will wait until the tractor tires don't leave much of an impression.

Oh I need to get me some type of packer...the beautiful seed beds they leave are worth the price of admission (for a used one )

Looks great. You hit the rain perfect also. How much did you get? I had 1.3" here and all went into the plowed plots. I am not seeding them this year for at least 3 more weeks this year to try planting later than I have in the past 4 yrs.

I think so. My Land Pride dealer wanted it bad as a trade in on the NTS2507; it would have durn near cut the purchase price in half. What I'm getting ready to use it for today was why I held on to it.




Thanks! I received a total of .85" over the 24 hour period ending yesterday morning. Two worries; that I would get too much as my friend's places saw more than 3" early on, and then none, as I had not received any as of 3 was yesterday! Everything was slitting as it approached me. Last fall, I received 3"+ immediately after planting and all my food plots where an acre or two downslope! I figured the good Lord took care of his land right.

I still have a pretty good stock of the Pogue Spring Buck Buffet and thought I might replant my irrigated plots again if the deer hit them hard. You're probably a Pogue guy, you fertilizer or go with their no fertilizer thoughts?

With this new seeder, I've been thinking of having them blend two mixes for me for both fall and spring rather than their current blends. Each season use both the small and large seedboxes, pondering the blends to use this fall.

I rent a buggy from H Brand every year and it works fine since it is only a food plot for deer. After I spread the seed & fertilizer I either lightly disc roll it in or drag a chain and bar behind it. I think their buggy rental is $25.00, if you buy ton or more of seed & fertilizer it is free.

The best looking crops I had came when I used a grain drill

I would have thought you got more than I did since it split me. Sure was a lot of thunder and lightening to my NW and N as it moved around me that direction. I priced fertilizer this morning and 18-46-0 was not as bad as it was 10 yrs ago when it was around $1000 per ton. I was quoted little over $17/50# sack and did not ask about bulk since I won't need enough to warrant buggy. Still need to check a couple of more locations to see what price they have. With the rain and warmer temps I am really having a hard time waiting to plant today but going to stick with my plans to wait for about 2-3 more weeks. I have a 50% chance of rain tomorrow night and 30% during the day with a slight chance end of the week.

Man, I was thinking maybe getting my power plant in the ground soon, but this week has me waiting for sure...was up there today to drop off some gear I needed to move from my prior lease, and it was a balmy 38 degrees. Temps all week supposed to be pretty low. Not freezing, but lows in the 30's and highs only stretching to 60 until friday when it starts raining again and temps climb next week. Will probably at this point spray my plots with some glyphosphate and then plant last week of april or first week of may. Hate to wait that long but temps are not helping.

I did see some good growth from my chicory plot. I hope it stays moist, until the plants get established at least. Will have to see how drought tolerant the WI chicory is. I am beginning to wonder if turkeys might have plucked up my extreme plot. Not seeing much growth in that plot. Going to shoot it with some arrest to get rid of some of the native grasses and then may reseed if nothing is growing after a bit. Time will tell.

Definitely a different climate in southern oklahoma than southern texas.

I never planted in the Hill Country north of SA till late April or into early May due to cool nights and the ground temps not being warm enough.

Looking good, Ranch dog.

How are you plots and grass seedings doing now?

The plots came up and kind of fizzled from lack of moisture and temperatures (?). On the irrigated plots, I no-tilled the spring/summer seed over the winter plots, but the agitation, irrigation, and the temperatures seem to have reinvigorated the winter plants. This week, the winter plants took a nose dive and the spring/summer plants are about 2", so what happens remains to be seen. Part of the nose dive on the winter plants is aphids, I was pondering what to do with them and a fellow rancher/farmer came out yesterday to advise, but nature, as it is, has stepped up. The plots are full of ladybugs, solid, they are taking care of business so I will forgo any chemicals or further soil manipulation. Every single plant is dotted with a ladybugs, 1 per 2 to 2 1/2" area.

The natives were no-tilled over the cover crop of oats that had been mowed down to about 4 to 5", the oats are up a foot and still going but only bare soil below. I suspect they are sucking the moisture that grass needed. I was following a recipe from DK Seeds so plan on talking to them about it this coming week.

Since planting, I've only received 2.64" of rain and 3.9" this year. Our average total at this point should be 9.8". Looking at my records, over the last five years I've averaged 13.9" at this point in the year. I suspect my area is in trouble.

Always something...

Like my Dad used to say..."nothing a good 5" rain wouldn't cure". This had been a very different year with cool night temps and spotty rainfall. I have had 5.31" at the house and 5.42" on the north side of my place this year so far, but no really big rains. Those rain totals were from 12 rains. So we are about the same on rains this year. I have not planted yet with the cooler temps and the lack of rains. I had prepared the plots in early March and got a decent rain on them but not much since. So I decided to wait till first of May this year. I am going to plant on Sunday and take a chance. I have some deep moisture and a little bit of shallow moisture so I am hoping to get some rain within a week or so after planting. My plots have been sitting there and started to get a few weeds in them with the last few small showers. So on Thursday I spot sprayed them with Round-up. I am afraid this year when we get into mid May we are going to go from pleasant spring like temps to August like temps and dry hot air in a week time frame.

I think you are right and I agree with your dad! Plus, there is always protein.

Maybe we will get a tropical storm, early. Waters are warmer than average.

Sorry to hear it Ranch Dawg. Was hoping to get on here and see lots of little soybean and sunn hemp and sunflower sprouts.

I finished my planting this saturday. Did 4 plots with power plant and added some extreme into the middle of two due to lack of seed (I always forget to double the recommended amount when I hand seed). Anyway, expecting some rains this wednesday into thursday. I did two of the plots a week and a half ago and they got about an inch of rain on them after a couple days, so I saw some sprouts coming up but nothing spectacular yet. I think after this round of rain they should grow better and get the new stuff I spread this weekend start. Still had some decent moisture in the ground despite some warmer weather.

I did a fifth plot in WI Chic Magnet, and it is coming along really well. Did that one back about a month now. Did another plot in extreme at the same time and thought it was gone due to bird eating the seed, but this weekend I did see quite a bit of the persist forb coming in, so all isn't lost on that plot yet. I do need to spray some grass herbicide on that one at some point. Maybe next time I am out.

I also topped off my protein feeders, two 1000# free choice, and also filled a second 350# free choice at one of the locations after reading STX recommendation to add multiple feeders to each site to allow non-dominant deer to feed as well. We will see how it all goes. Rain, all we need is rain. Just enough but not too much...thats the key.

Great stuff

Finally received some rain, .4" and .2", Sunday & Monday. Kind of dustbowl like here in DeWitt County. 5" total for the year, 10" behind. Personally, hoping for a tropical storm in June.

Not good on rainfall this year so far. I lucked out to get 1.3" to 1.5" on Sunday evening out of this in Goliad County. Nothing yesterday. I was sitting on 5.3" to 5.44" year to date also here. Bad things is the heat got hear like I thought it would....97 on Thursday and 98 on Friday and it really dried up last week. Brush was starting to show stress. Going to hit close to 100 by Friday this week is what they are calling for. Live Oak county is worse than here with only 4" total thru Sat. Had another .80"(Farm logs) on Sunday and yesterday but it has already hit 100 last week on a couple of days. Going to have to start feeding hay if it does not rain soon there.
What is really bad in all this is the crazy people riding around lighting pastures on fire. Happened in Feb when they started 5 fires in Live Oak county then 3 more in Karnes and 2 or 3 in Bee County. One Bee County fire burned up 320 round bales of hay. They lit 3 in Karnes and 5 more in Wilson 2 weeks ago and 3 in Bee County last Wed. The 3 in Bee burned up just over 800 acres. They did get some rain on those fires to help green back up. Still need to catch whoever is lighting them and make them pay for repairs and damages.

It's been a rough one, this year. All efforts previously reported have been lost. Native grasses and non-irrigated food plots failed. Irrigated plots made an initial success, but were overrun with activity. That's how it goes sometimes. About $4K in the food plot and native grass seed plus fertilizer.

So sorry to hear about the plot failure.

I was wondering how your grass seeding and plots had done with the really dry year. My plots that came up finally in May lasted 2 weeks with the deer chasing anything green. To many deer for 10+ acres was the big issue and timing. I gambled on a little later planting and it did not pan out this. With the great chance of rain I did drill some milo back over 6.5 acres of those plots last weekend. I got almost 9" of rain and it was coming out of the ground really well as of Friday. Even a few of the cowpea stalks have put on new leaf growth after the rains this week. That will give them something green to chase in the next few weeks once it starts to dry back out.

I only got 3.5" out of all the activity last week, everything was splitting and going east and west of me. Figures. I wanted to wait for the rain to see what came up over the next week or so. I'm going to talk to DK Seeds in the morning and The Nature Conservancy guy to see what the next plan for the natives are. About all that has come up from the native seed mix is Zapata Clammyweed. A funny little flowering plant with heavy seed ponds on it. Everything else seems to be volunteer growth. My alternative to all of this is a run to Pouge for milo providing I see some rain in the long-range forecast.

You mentioned FarmLogs, I've been using it for a couple of years but I'm switching over to Agrible, I like their weather product better especially the formatting of the morning email. I'm using their free account.

I'll have to look at that site. Farmlogs is still pretty accurate for my place. But I have not gotten a good even rain across my place in a long time. This last rain I had about .65" more on the north side than I did at the house. I mapped my whole place on Farmlogs so I do not see how it could accurately give me a rainfall based on that much difference. I guess if I just mapped the food plots it might do a better job.

In Farmlogs I had my whole place mapped, I think they have some type of average for rainfall across the acreage. When I set up Agrible, I divided my natives and food plots into two groups, and then within each group defined the individual plots and pastures (fields). The morning report reflects totals for each field with each group and rainfalls are different. Here is a screenshot from the morning email report.



I haven't added all my fields, just enough to see if it would deliver some differences in fields located about 2500' apart north and south. I started after the rain last week so not much has been captured but the north and south was different.

I also found an effort in their coding when special characters are used (the # in my screenshot). Once added these fields could not be edited or deleted. I contacted them via chat, they were very responsive and are working on the programming fix.

Under Agribles paid services they have some tillage tools that look nice, tells you when and when not to work a specific field. It seems to be geared to moisture content and temperature, the latter being the low side of temperature. I would pay the money for a tool that looked at the hot side of temperature, heat units, against upcoming weather and evaporation rates and tells me if it is worth tilling or if it will do more damage than good.

I found Agrible through their Pocket Rain Gauge app. I was looking for something a bit more mobile friendly than the FarmLogs presentation. This alone is worth the switch to the free account. Within in the presentation, there are some tools that you can "rate" the rainfall report, and I suspect that intelligence behind the app is learning from user reports.