Posted By: JDP Ranch
Sunflower plot fail? - 05/28/19 05:38 PM
I planted several plots a month ago - bulk of the plots were sunflower along with a small chufa plot and a medium sized lablab plot. Out of the 3 - I expected the sunflowers to work the best. Boy was I wrong.
Pretty sure the reason why the sunflowers failed was due to the seed depth. I mowed and sprayed the fields with glyphosate. Came back in two weeks later and tilled up the soil with a cultivator and then spreaded nitrogen fertilizer and then ran over with my Plotmaster (disc/seed/drag/cultipack). The Plotmaster was set to dig about 1.5 inches but it was digging in soil that had been tilled 5 inches deep or so.
I checked the plots last weekend (1.5 month since planting) and was shocked how small the plants were
Just for fun and as an experiment... when I was planting I ran my Plotmaster on the opposite side of the road where the sunflower plot was - so no meaningful tillage. Basically one pass that barely scratched the surface. It's crazy how well those sunflowers grew. Especially with no fertilizer. You can barely see in the pic the opposite side of the field where the sunflowers grew up 6 inches compared to the sunflowers in the pic where there was no meaningful tillage. Also, I missed spraying glyphosate in several areas of the field... had great growth in those areas too. Thinking that might be due to the existing weeds/plants preventing me from planting too deep.
Question for yall... I did get growth on the "failed" plot. Just no where near as much as you see where the Plotmaster barely scratched the surface. Can I expect the small sunflowers eventually grow this tall? or have I stunted their growth by planting too deep? Debating on whether I need to replant
Pretty sure the reason why the sunflowers failed was due to the seed depth. I mowed and sprayed the fields with glyphosate. Came back in two weeks later and tilled up the soil with a cultivator and then spreaded nitrogen fertilizer and then ran over with my Plotmaster (disc/seed/drag/cultipack). The Plotmaster was set to dig about 1.5 inches but it was digging in soil that had been tilled 5 inches deep or so.
I checked the plots last weekend (1.5 month since planting) and was shocked how small the plants were
Just for fun and as an experiment... when I was planting I ran my Plotmaster on the opposite side of the road where the sunflower plot was - so no meaningful tillage. Basically one pass that barely scratched the surface. It's crazy how well those sunflowers grew. Especially with no fertilizer. You can barely see in the pic the opposite side of the field where the sunflowers grew up 6 inches compared to the sunflowers in the pic where there was no meaningful tillage. Also, I missed spraying glyphosate in several areas of the field... had great growth in those areas too. Thinking that might be due to the existing weeds/plants preventing me from planting too deep.
Question for yall... I did get growth on the "failed" plot. Just no where near as much as you see where the Plotmaster barely scratched the surface. Can I expect the small sunflowers eventually grow this tall? or have I stunted their growth by planting too deep? Debating on whether I need to replant