Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 944: Back 40 - When Food Plots Fail: What You Can Do Right Now

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Ep. 944: Back 40 - When Food Plots Fail: What You Can Do Right Now · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If you do that mix, it's some form of that mix.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: I have never seen it in twenty some years in
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: any state in any form where the dear don't need it.
• 0:09
  Speaker 3: Well, the first question I'm going to ask myself every
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: time is why did they fail? What can we learn
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: from this failure to prevent it from happening in the future.
• 0:17
  Speaker 4: Welcome back to Back forty.
• 0:19
  Speaker 5: I'm Jake Koefer, and we're here with another episode where
• 0:23
  Speaker 5: if you are a white deal hunter and you plant
• 0:25
  Speaker 5: food blots or attempt to, this is an episode that's
• 0:28
  Speaker 5: going to help you out right now for this upcoming
• 0:30
  Speaker 5: season before we get into anything more. The Back forty
• 0:33
  Speaker 5: podcast is brought to you by land dot com, the
• 0:35
  Speaker 5: leading online real estate marketplace to find your perfect rural, recreational, agricultural,
• 0:41
  Speaker 5: or hunting properties here in the United States. If you're
• 0:45
  Speaker 5: new here to the Back forty, I'll give you the
• 0:46
  Speaker 5: cliff notes. Each episode we dive through a white tailed
• 0:49
  Speaker 5: dilemma or question that more than likely we all have
• 0:52
  Speaker 5: faced up to one point, or potentially facing right now.
• 0:55
  Speaker 5: So we've done five other episodes here previously. If you
• 0:58
  Speaker 5: haven't seen those, go check those out. But right now,
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: where are you going to talk about how to potentially
• 1:03
  Speaker 5: salvage your food plot. Maybe you're so far behind and
• 1:06
  Speaker 5: you have a better weeds right now, and you want
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: to know how can I get a food plot in
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: for this fall to get potentially some more hunting opportunities.
• 1:14
  Speaker 5: Helped to hear good throughout the winner and anyone that
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: has planet food plots understands that stuff breaks down, Things
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: don't go right, you don't.
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: Get the weather you need.
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: And the guys that are helping answer this question have
• 1:24
  Speaker 5: experienced probably every curveball that you can imagine. So we
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: are going to get in with our panel of experts
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: and ask the question, my food plots look like crap?
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: What do I do now?
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: And we're going to kick things off with skip slide.
• 1:44
  Speaker 5: All right, it's September third. I just went and looked
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: my food plot. It looks like the dust bowl may
• 1:51
  Speaker 5: happen any minute or it is just jam packed full
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: of weeds and everything I planted is a garbage.
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: My food plot failed. I am nervous. It's September. What
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: do I do?
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Oh? This is easy?
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Beg borrow, plead for somebody again just to use a
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: drill or go get your bag seater. A million ways
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: to do this, but that's the perfect timing to plant
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: that mix. You know, if you're like, hey, I'm more
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: of the broadcast guy, Okay, quickly kill it off, even
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: like glye glye and ammonium sulfate. Quickly kill it off
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: if you can, and you really do want to. If
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: you can add a little fertilizer to it, it sure would
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: be nice. And I can there's probably a time when
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I can get into far more detail on this too,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: But I mean, that's a perfect time.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: To go plant.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: If you got a drill, rye, piece, oats, critical, maybe
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: a little bit of radish in there, some clovers, get
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: your clovers established for next spring. So now you're ahead
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: of the game because next spring all those things will
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: be luscious clover and then you're set for the next
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: suning season in so many other ways. So yeah, that's
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: always a rescue plan, is that mix. And if you
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: do that mix, it's some form of that mix. I
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: have never seen it in twenty some years in any
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: state in any form where the deer don't need it. Now,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: if somebody's like I just planted rye, maybe I've seen
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: cases where they don't eat it. Or I just planted oats,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: it was okay, and then the oats winter killed when
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: it got real cold. Fine, Or I just did Somebraskas
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: and they didn't touch Nebraskas for like three or four
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: years until they got used to them.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I've seen that.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: I've seen all those things, but I've never seen it
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: where if you plant a diverse mix, like around late
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: August to early September, even mid September, and heck, you
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: can plant rye into October, that stuff germinates that like
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: whatever thirty four grease, it'll still pop up.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Now it'll be real small and it's not going to
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: do a whole lot.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: But you know, late August through any time in September,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: you still could go do this and have food there
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: period and a story. Just put a diverse blend there, oats,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: winter piece, win or I, et cetera, et cetera.
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: And what's the seating rate for that? Because you've texted
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: me that much before.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I pretty heavy on it, and I don't see any downside,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: especially later in the season when you just want more stems.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: I don't see any downside. And that example of going
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: heavy and somebody's like, holy cow, dude, you put fifty
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: pounds of oats fifty pounds apiece, fifty pounds awry fifty
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: pounds a winter week.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of seat.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it will not have a downside.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen a downside.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: Rather, and then if somebody would be would be like,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: what do you put in your drill? And I might
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: tweak it a little bit. Hey they didn't have this,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: and I'll sub this, and it's not that big. But
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: my for sures are like, for sure, I'm putting oats
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: in there. For sure, I'm putting peas in there. For sure,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: I'm putting rye in there. And then I if I
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: want clovers there, which usually I do, I'll put the
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: clovers in there, like ten pounds of clover break. Yeah,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: and I'd put a mix of like whites and reds.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: You could do some alfalfa. I do like Alice White,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: and you know, we talked about that at a gazillion times.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I might put some like Crimson Crimson in there and
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: go a little higher rate there, but like some clover
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: examples really really quick Alice white red. You could do Ladno,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: and it's going to be similar to Alice White. So
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: you're kind of split nairs. I just like alice white
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: a little better. If you're in a dry region, I'd
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: run duranic clover, you know, dust bowl type situation, and
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: definitely run duronic can handle drought. And I also would
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: run red clover and alfalfa if you're in a dry region.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: You know some other things you can mess around with.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Probably don't do it here a sandpoint if you're in
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: a really dry region, h and that probably covers it.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: For clovers, Crimson, frosty, bersine, balanza, those are annuals. Probably
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: wouldn't worry about those as much. I would do Crimson
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: and run that. And you could go higher on the
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: clovers too. You could be like, hey, I bumped it
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: up to fifteen pounds, especially if you're adding some higher
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: rate clovers like Crimson. So just run that higher and
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: you will not get hurt doing that. Will the deer
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: will absolutely eat that. There's not a scenario I can
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: think of, And I've seen this from the East coast
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: all the way to like are near the Colorado border
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: where they will eat this. So like universally, I don't
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: think there's a spot in the country that the deer
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: won't eat that mix. So it is always a great
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: last resort mix. And the dude that iineered that mix
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: to this day is still Double Tree back in the
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: day that really got that mix down.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Taught me that mix and maybe you have tweaked it
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Ah.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: And I remember talking to him like twenty years ago
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, deer don't like rye. He's like, that's
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: not true. I'm like, but I planted just some rye.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, you got to do it in a blend.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: This was like twenty years ago. And I'm like, I
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: don't think so. And then he's like, watch this, and
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: then we did a diverse blend. I'm like, now they're
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: hitting the rye and they're hitting all these other things.
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: It was.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh yeah, monoculture of rye, maybe not, but
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: doing this blend is insane. And then there's all the
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: other benefits of that blend. What it does for your soil,
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: how it feeds the deer into the winter into the spring. Yeah,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: that turns into a year ound food source. So here's
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: another answer. You're trying to rescue something because because you
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: were lazy and or you're just got too busy, or
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: it just got out of control. It happens all the time.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: But if you plant that blend and you do add
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: the clovers and I would go higher or eight and
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: you do, I would for lies and linemen and do
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: all that good stuff too at the same time, which
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: isn't that hard. Then you're set up for a year
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: on food source. Now, now you're set. You're set for
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: next year too. If you get lazy next year, you
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: get busy. Now you have clovers growing, and ideally you'd
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: spray it or clip it or something to maintain it.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: And I definitely would do that. But now you're set.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: For like long term, so that one planning can really
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: fix a lot of problems and really advance your farm
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: long term. One day can make your farm different for
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: years ahead. And I've had clover stands that have been
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: there for like five, six, seven years, and I could
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: make them go in perpetuity if I'd frost seed them
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: and do proper weed control or whatever, so you really
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: could have food there forever.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a no brainer, easy, easy, Or if you're
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: in if you're in a bait state, just throw a
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: giant corn piles.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Don't trucks, don't trucks at corn piles drives me insane.
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: That's what Skip has to say. He has saved a
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: lot of food plots. He's helped a lot of people
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: that text him, Hey, what do I do? And so
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: now you got to hear exactly what he would do
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: if you're in this situation. Next up we have Jeff Sturges.
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: Jeff has a whole catalogue on salvaging food plots on YouTube,
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: but you get to hear what he has to say,
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: point blank on what he would do to get something
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: green and lush or October, November, December, tech January, depending
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: on where you're at. So here's what Jeff has to
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: say on how you'd fix food plots.
• 9:30
  Speaker 6: You know, there's still a lot you can do if
• 9:32
  Speaker 6: you have soil exposure. That's the first critical aspect. And
• 9:37
  Speaker 6: the reason I say that is if you have soil exposure,
• 9:39
  Speaker 6: you can kill weeds and you can get your seed
• 9:42
  Speaker 6: on the ground. And so as long as you have
• 9:44
  Speaker 6: soil exposure, you can get your seeds on the ground
• 9:46
  Speaker 6: and you can get germination with some September rains. And
• 9:50
  Speaker 6: a good thing about August and September, in October and
• 9:54
  Speaker 6: November is typically anywhere in the country. Not everywhere, but
• 9:57
  Speaker 6: most areas fall rains increase throughout that time period, and
• 10:03
  Speaker 6: so you can expect ever increasing moisture patterns. Weeds are dying,
• 10:07
  Speaker 6: not thriving that time of year, and so you can
• 10:10
  Speaker 6: use something like you know, glyphasate does pretty good on grasses,
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: really poor. It's the weakest service side you can use.
• 10:16
  Speaker 6: It gets the most press, but it's the weakest service side.
• 10:19
  Speaker 6: Doesn't live in the soil, which is a good thing.
• 10:23
  Speaker 6: Something like Liberty is really strong on broad leaves and
• 10:29
  Speaker 6: does marginal on grass, but it does kill grass. You
• 10:32
  Speaker 6: take something like two and a half quarts break or
• 10:34
  Speaker 6: of Liberty ultra, add two pounds ammonium sulfate to it
• 10:39
  Speaker 6: per acre, mix one court break or of glyphasate with that,
• 10:44
  Speaker 6: just combine that all together, and then I'll smoke out
• 10:46
  Speaker 6: just about any weed that you have a problem with.
• 10:48
  Speaker 6: And the really cool thing about Liberty and glyphasate is
• 10:51
  Speaker 6: there is no residual, so it's not going to live
• 10:53
  Speaker 6: in the soil. You can literally put the seeds down.
• 10:56
  Speaker 6: We did it with fourteen acres of buckweat this year,
• 10:58
  Speaker 6: but the seeds down first and then sprayed that combination
• 11:02
  Speaker 6: right over the top of the seed, soaking the seeds
• 11:04
  Speaker 6: with the chemical, and we have one hundred percent germination
• 11:06
  Speaker 6: in beautiful fields. And there's no residual. So that means
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: that you don't have to use like two four D
• 11:12
  Speaker 6: to kill out pigweed, water, smartweed and all this nasty stuff.
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: And you don't have to use something strong like that
• 11:21
  Speaker 6: that has a residual of two weeks and wait two
• 11:23
  Speaker 6: weeks to throw some seed down. You can spray throw
• 11:26
  Speaker 6: the seed down immediately. The other aspect is to either
• 11:30
  Speaker 6: hire someone with a tiller disk or do it yourself.
• 11:34
  Speaker 6: Disk everything up, knowing that you eats, you set your
• 11:37
  Speaker 6: weeds back, try to get a kill on it. If
• 11:39
  Speaker 6: you can, first wait ten days, then disk everything up,
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: even wait seven days and then plant. And when I
• 11:47
  Speaker 6: look at planting, if you're around September first in the
• 11:50
  Speaker 6: upper Midwest, a mix of one hundred pounds apiece per acre,
• 11:55
  Speaker 6: fifty pounds of oats, fifty pounds a rye goes a
• 11:58
  Speaker 6: long ways, and then I'll come in the end of
• 11:59
  Speaker 6: September add another one hundred, one hundred and fifty pounds
• 12:02
  Speaker 6: of rye. Right over the top of that rye because
• 12:04
  Speaker 6: it's very temperature soil pH tolerant more than anything else
• 12:10
  Speaker 6: weat can be working a pinch. Alts will die out
• 12:13
  Speaker 6: during December January. At some point I want something green,
• 12:16
  Speaker 6: So that's why i'm adding that total green layer. If
• 12:19
  Speaker 6: it's more closer to October, and if you're not in
• 12:24
  Speaker 6: the Upper Midwest, you could look at well, I'm in Kentucky.
• 12:28
  Speaker 6: We'll just move these dates back about two three weeks
• 12:31
  Speaker 6: something like that. If you're in Louisiana, move these dates back.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: A month that I'm talking about.
• 12:36
  Speaker 6: So let's say you're in the Upper Midwest, it's the
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: end of September. Then I'm going to go full and
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: you're just throwing seed down, maybe getting a good kill,
• 12:45
  Speaker 6: maybe you're tilling whatever, but you're getting set on the soil.
• 12:48
  Speaker 7: That's critical.
• 12:49
  Speaker 6: I'm going to go about three hundred pounds of rye
• 12:51
  Speaker 6: per acre and enjoy the season. If that's closer to September.
• 12:55
  Speaker 6: First you want to just use rye, I probably go
• 12:57
  Speaker 6: one hundred and fifty pounds and two hundred pounds. But
• 12:59
  Speaker 6: as that win it gets closer, you're not looking in
• 13:02
  Speaker 6: total height for volume of your food plot. You're looking
• 13:05
  Speaker 6: at horizontal growth and number of stems to create volume
• 13:09
  Speaker 6: your food plot can always save a food plot even
• 13:12
  Speaker 6: into I think I planted a new food plot in
• 13:15
  Speaker 6: the up of Michigan. We probably had frost that year
• 13:19
  Speaker 6: first part of September, which was normal. It was the
• 13:22
  Speaker 6: end of September. I had a new food plot, put
• 13:25
  Speaker 6: down a bunch of rye and line fertilizer. We had
• 13:29
  Speaker 6: snow on opening day of bo season. This would have
• 13:32
  Speaker 6: been about two thousand and two, two thousand and one,
• 13:34
  Speaker 6: at about five inches wet snow to the point where
• 13:36
  Speaker 6: geese landed on the field and start picking up the
• 13:38
  Speaker 6: rye they're forced down due to weather. Within a week
• 13:42
  Speaker 6: we had temperatures in the sixties and seventies, sunny days,
• 13:45
  Speaker 6: and that riot germinated and I had a beautiful, nice
• 13:48
  Speaker 6: low crop lush. That's pushing it in the up of Michigan.
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: But the point is is that it's not too late
• 13:56
  Speaker 6: to get food plots salvaged and enjoy the season. You
• 14:00
  Speaker 6: know what, he didn't have the perfect food plot you wanted.
• 14:03
  Speaker 6: Who cares it's green? Just forget about it. Things happen
• 14:07
  Speaker 6: and enjoy the seeds.
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: Next up we have Don Higgins Don owns the seed
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: company and has helped a lot of people throughout this
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: exact I'd be scared to guess how many emails he's
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: had of my food plots don't look like they should.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: What do I do?
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: And you get to hear right now on how he
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: would potentially look at maybe broadcasting, drilling, what blends does
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: he increase the seed rate? And here we go, this
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: is what Don has to say. My food plots look
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: like crap?
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Now what?
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: And maybe this is a spring food plot that didn't work,
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: or maybe I planned my food plot too early.
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: So what do I do now?
• 14:39
  Speaker 8: Well, September first, throughout most of the country, you've still
• 14:43
  Speaker 8: got time to replan. And what's that mean? I mean
• 14:49
  Speaker 8: it made me the first time. I don't know what
• 14:51
  Speaker 8: your mistake was. Maybe you're planning the seed too deep
• 14:54
  Speaker 8: or whatever. Come back in and start over. I'd start
• 14:59
  Speaker 8: over with a bear plot if need be. Maybe your
• 15:02
  Speaker 8: spring plot just got browsed having maybe it was a
• 15:05
  Speaker 8: soybean plot that there's still some soybeans, But those plants
• 15:08
  Speaker 8: are only about a foot high where you was expecting
• 15:10
  Speaker 8: them to be three feet high because of the deer
• 15:13
  Speaker 8: browse pressure. But yet there's still some beans on that
• 15:15
  Speaker 8: foot tall plant that you don't want to destroy. Maybe
• 15:18
  Speaker 8: you can just go over and oversee that with some
• 15:20
  Speaker 8: oats and and uh, you know, some braskas, some turnips
• 15:24
  Speaker 8: or adish something like that and produce more tonnage of
• 15:29
  Speaker 8: food on that plot than by just leaving the soybeans
• 15:32
  Speaker 8: or even that. That would be a better than just
• 15:35
  Speaker 8: a start over plan. You don't want to start over
• 15:38
  Speaker 8: if you've got some quality food there. So each situation
• 15:42
  Speaker 8: is going to be a little bit different. But you know,
• 15:44
  Speaker 8: early September is not too late to get a good
• 15:47
  Speaker 8: plot in.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: The later it gets into september.
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: How important in your opinion is that to add to
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: up the amount of seeds you're putting out or like
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: an oats or something like that.
• 16:02
  Speaker 8: Well, I don't think increasing the seeding rate is that
• 16:05
  Speaker 8: important at all. If it's going to germinate, it's going
• 16:09
  Speaker 8: to germinate. You're not going to lose germination into the fall.
• 16:15
  Speaker 8: I mean you will at a certain point, but it's
• 16:18
  Speaker 8: going to be more due to the species instead of
• 16:20
  Speaker 8: the amount of seed you're putting down. So you might
• 16:24
  Speaker 8: have to be a little more selective about what you're
• 16:26
  Speaker 8: planning later in the fall. But you know, oats is
• 16:29
  Speaker 8: one of the easiest plots to grow. You can throw
• 16:32
  Speaker 8: oats out in your concrete driveway and you get a rain,
• 16:34
  Speaker 8: it's going to turn green, sprout same way out in
• 16:38
  Speaker 8: the woods. You know, you can throw oats about anywhere
• 16:40
  Speaker 8: and you're going to get a stand of oats. Nebraska's
• 16:43
  Speaker 8: are not. You know, turnips and radish are not that
• 16:45
  Speaker 8: hard typically to get started either, because you don't have
• 16:50
  Speaker 8: to cover with soil.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: That's why they're so easy.
• 16:52
  Speaker 8: The bigger seeds, you know, like you get into the
• 16:55
  Speaker 8: Austrian winter peas, and some of those bigger seeds they
• 16:58
  Speaker 8: need to be in the soil to get them to grow.
• 17:01
  Speaker 8: But some of these other seeds you can happen right
• 17:04
  Speaker 8: on top of the soil. We get a good rain,
• 17:05
  Speaker 8: they're going to grow.
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: Next up, we have Bobby Kendall, and maybe you've wondered
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: as a worth overseeding into a road crop field. Here's
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: what Bobby has to say, encompassing everything else that all
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: boils down to trying to get something established for fall.
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: Here we go, it's September first. Either I didn't get
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: my food plots in yet or I plan in something.
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: They look like garbage, It looks like a weed patch.
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: Where do I start?
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: Is there anything I can do?
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: Oh?
• 17:30
  Speaker 9: Yeah, So I mean you're definitely not a game. I
• 17:32
  Speaker 9: mean most people the way these falls have been. At
• 17:35
  Speaker 9: that point, your stuff's not even grown anyway, because it
• 17:37
  Speaker 9: hasn't rained in three weeks. So anyway, for the you know,
• 17:43
  Speaker 9: for that September, what you're looking at basically is out
• 17:47
  Speaker 9: is is cereal grains like rye and wheat and oats
• 17:52
  Speaker 9: or blends with them in it, and then.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: Clovers.
• 17:57
  Speaker 9: So those clovers obviously are not going to really produce
• 17:59
  Speaker 9: any food or much food that year, but it's going
• 18:01
  Speaker 9: to establish it for next year. So which brings me
• 18:05
  Speaker 9: to another point in kind of a side tangent, thinking
• 18:08
  Speaker 9: about the future, you really want to have, like I
• 18:11
  Speaker 9: want to have like sixty percent of my farm in
• 18:14
  Speaker 9: perennial greens, clover and alfalfa because it beats the droughts
• 18:18
  Speaker 9: that we get.
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: It's food all year long. It's really good nutrition.
• 18:23
  Speaker 9: And that way you don't run into that problem because
• 18:25
  Speaker 9: if only if you're only trying to plant ten or
• 18:28
  Speaker 9: fifteen percent of your your food is you know, Nebraska's
• 18:32
  Speaker 9: or fall plant stuff. Well, then you're only out of
• 18:34
  Speaker 9: a game ten or fifteen percent if it doesn't rain.
• 18:37
  Speaker 9: So you're going into September, you know, cereal grains, And honestly,
• 18:42
  Speaker 9: at that point, I'd wait because the worst thing you
• 18:45
  Speaker 9: can do is plant cereal grains too early and then they,
• 18:47
  Speaker 9: I mean they shoot up and if you get a
• 18:49
  Speaker 9: rainy September, they'll pass the palatability where they really want
• 18:52
  Speaker 9: to eat them win or rye, you know, mixes with
• 18:55
  Speaker 9: them and rye, and it'll germinate down into the thirties.
• 18:58
  Speaker 9: I planted it before, and I mean there was people
• 19:00
  Speaker 9: last year who all of a sudden their turn up
• 19:04
  Speaker 9: plots were coming up in November that it hadn't done anything.
• 19:06
  Speaker 9: So it's definitely not too late. The cereal grains are
• 19:09
  Speaker 9: key at that point, but I personally like to if
• 19:12
  Speaker 9: I'm putting clovers in them, I might scoot it a
• 19:14
  Speaker 9: little forward, like you know, September twelfth to the sixteenth.
• 19:18
  Speaker 9: But if I'm just doing straight cereal grains and maybe
• 19:20
  Speaker 9: winter peas or something, I'll probably.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Do that like September twentieth.
• 19:25
  Speaker 9: Every year it seems like it's later and later.
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: Can folks who don't have a drill, don't have a tractor,
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: maybe they don't even have a four wheeler. Should they
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: feel confident broadcasting it at this time of year those
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: types of plans.
• 19:36
  Speaker 9: Yeah, So that those little seeds, you know, the cereal
• 19:40
  Speaker 9: grains like winter rye and wheat, you can do it
• 19:42
  Speaker 9: and turn ups and rape and even rash all those
• 19:45
  Speaker 9: little seeds. I mean, you can go that's when you
• 19:47
  Speaker 9: overseed the corn and the beans. Let's say it's the
• 19:50
  Speaker 9: beginning of September and you just got this farm.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Like it happens to me all the time.
• 19:55
  Speaker 9: I'll go in there and I'll mow off this junk
• 19:58
  Speaker 9: and then I'll take my bucket sometimes and I'll push
• 20:00
  Speaker 9: it off because it's just too much, and then I'll
• 20:03
  Speaker 9: get it down to nothing, and then i might wait
• 20:04
  Speaker 9: a week and come back in and spray it. And
• 20:07
  Speaker 9: then you know, at that point, if you wait into
• 20:10
  Speaker 9: the end of September before a big rain, you could
• 20:12
  Speaker 9: oversee it into it and you.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: Could have food there. So so don't panic.
• 20:18
  Speaker 9: No, And the other big thing for people to be
• 20:20
  Speaker 9: thinking about this is kind of a different deal than
• 20:22
  Speaker 9: the food. But for next year, if you want to
• 20:24
  Speaker 9: do food pots, now that is the time to be
• 20:27
  Speaker 9: prepping for next year. That's when the weeds are pulling
• 20:29
  Speaker 9: the root reserves. That's when you kill stuff stone dead.
• 20:32
  Speaker 9: So the next spring with stuff starts growing, you know,
• 20:34
  Speaker 9: and it's like this, and you spray it. In a
• 20:36
  Speaker 9: few weeks it looks like this Again. The stuff you
• 20:39
  Speaker 9: spray in the fall still looks like this dirt. So
• 20:41
  Speaker 9: that's when you want to prep for next year, especially
• 20:42
  Speaker 9: like switch grasses and stuff like that. So don't overlook
• 20:45
  Speaker 9: that at that time of year either.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: Great tip.
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: Next on the docket we have Thomas Milsna. Thomas works
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: on a ton of farms, and when you work on
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: a lot of farms, things can't always be optimally timed.
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: For a guy that maybe has one food plot, he
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: can time the rain as perfectly as he put actually can.
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: But the biggest question is for you to find out
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: on what he has to say to this question. I'm
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: not going to spoil it. Here's what Thomas has to
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: share when it comes to failed food plots and what
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: do you do well?
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: The first question I'm going to ask myself every time
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: is why did they fail?
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: What can we learn from this failure to prevent it
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: from happening in the future. You know, if I get
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: the phone call someone asking me if why my food
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: plots fail, usually I'm on the chopping block, right. So
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: we're always trying to analyze or analyze the situation as
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: much as possible. But that's why we look at first
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: it was a bad prep you know, did you not
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: have a soil test, was a bad seed was it
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: bad timing, you know, bad seed bed, whatever it might be,
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: there's a there's a million things that can go wrong
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: when you're trying to create life, you know, especially late summertime.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: It's just not the perfect conditions for stuff like that.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: So timing is a big one. You know, if that
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: was the timing, maybe you planted a little bit too late.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: You should have planted a week or two earlier to
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: get that rain. Or maybe you planted a week or
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: two too early again when there wasn't rain, or a
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: little bit of rain and a drought. You know, it's
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: a it's a crap shoot in the fall. It can
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: really be a struggle. There's things that you can do
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: to mitigate those issues. Retain more soil moisture, better food
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: plot practices, all of those things but I'm going to
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: look at why it failed. Maybe it was deer browse pressure.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: Get utilization cages out. I've had that happen in form properties.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: A client calls me, food plots look like crap.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: Blow.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: We did everything right. Why did they not work? The
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: deer browse pressure was so high that they were nipping
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: almost every plant off right at ground level before they
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: could even grow, you know, establish themselves at all. So
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: all these things we need to learn. Why. Now, if
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: you failed, what can we do short term to make
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: the most of this season. It is never too late
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: to plant cereal rye. A cereal rye. It's going to
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: do a couple of things for you. It's going to
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: first and foremost, it's going to provide a green food
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: source for those deer as long as there's moisture in
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: the forecast. Cereal rye with Germany at like thirty seven
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: degrees fahrenheit, it'll grow as soon as it hits the forties.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: If there's any moisture in the forecast, put down cereal rye.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: You can't put too much, and you can't put it
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: down it almost can't put it down too late. The
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: second thing that's going to do is. It's going to
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: help improve your food plot for the following year. Next spring,
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: it's going to come back, it's going to green up again.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: It's going to help retain soil moisture. You can roll
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: it down, you can mow it down, you can burn
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: it off, you can do all sorts of things. It's
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: going to help reduce weeds. That's going to help you
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: reduce your chemical input. That's going to help improve the
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: soil microbiome. That's going to help retain soil moisture. That's
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: going to help you know, all of these things come
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: into play. Obviously, I keep on circling back in the
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: moisture thing because I would say that's usually the biggest failure,
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: and it's it's not us. I mean it is in
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: some regard, right, It goes back to the timing thing.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: But we are farmers, right, we have to deal with
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: mother nature. And there's a reason why you don't see
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: very many farmers planting crops in July or August. Right,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: So you can save it, can salvage it, but really
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: focus on better long term food plating practices, and ultimately
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: all this stuff comes back around and just having a
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: good plan, A good plan you know, and I'm guilty
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: of this myself, where you're prioritizing other things. I'll be
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: food plotting all all of July, and then oh, I
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: should probably still do something with mine, right, So it's
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: kind of low on the priority list for me a
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: lot of times. But that's a big one. And now
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: the second thing, which is maybe a little bit abstract
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: from the question itself, is you shouldn't be relying on
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: food plots that much anyway. You really shouldn't. You know,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of guys that half the property is
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: food plot and half of it is either unmanaged or
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: it's just some type of peer cover, right, And then
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: you really really are relying on the food plot to
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: hold deer on your property. It's like having a bird feeder.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: If the bird feeder is empty, the birds are gone.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: What you can do to get ahead of that is
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: add a lot more.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: Perennial food on your property.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: I think it's a good philosophy to always have some
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: type of perennial food plot in there, even if it's
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: just a ten or twenty foot buffer strip of clover
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: around your food plot or along the edge of the
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: woods or whatever it might be.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: But bar none.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: You should focus on native habitat as much as possible
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: because there's always going to be some level of food
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: there for those deer that mother nature prefers, right, And
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: we're not fighting mother nature to establish versus a food
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: plot that is an annual thing, and you know, one
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: week without rain could be a major failure. So folks
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: on the perennial food sources, don't rely entirely on your
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: food plots. And if you need something in there that's
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: green and easy, cereal rye works. It works really well.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: You know, if you're a little bit earlier, maybe you
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: can even get oats or something in there, but cereal
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: rye is a good go to. The biggest thing with
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: cereal rye is once it gets about four to six
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: inches tall, the deer don't want to eat it so much,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: so you don't want to put it in too early,
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: but you can almost never put it in too late
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: as long as it's thirty seven degrees and warming.
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: Next up we have bill Winki And maybe if you're
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: this far, you're saying, is it even worth to do
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: all of this work and try to time the rain
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: and figure out and buy the seed, buy the spray.
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: Take the time to do it.
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: I asked, build that question on top of the basis
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: of what to do next. So let's see what Bill
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: has to say in regard to is it even worth
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: all this effort. We haven't had any rain, and I
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: planted my food plots. I planted my braskas. My food
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: plots simply look like crap. I'm starting to panic. What
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: do I do now?
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: At September first September one, no food plot.
• 26:30
  Speaker 10: Gosh, if there's rain in the forecast, you know you
• 26:34
  Speaker 10: still have a chance, but you're probably gonna have to
• 26:38
  Speaker 10: plant something now, more like a rescue type of plot,
• 26:41
  Speaker 10: something that will grow really fast. You know, hot will
• 26:44
  Speaker 10: come up and grow really fast, like fallwry true to
• 26:48
  Speaker 10: kay winter wheat. Those things will germinate and pop out
• 26:53
  Speaker 10: of the ground super fast. So ideally, you know, if
• 26:57
  Speaker 10: you have access to a no till drill, I would
• 27:00
  Speaker 10: just go and drill right into those areas where you
• 27:02
  Speaker 10: planet to grow the crops that are you know, lagging behind,
• 27:06
  Speaker 10: and that way you get a quick hit of something
• 27:10
  Speaker 10: green when you get that first rain. Because let's say
• 27:13
  Speaker 10: that was prossifense in prossts, I really need a few
• 27:15
  Speaker 10: weeks you know, even when they're growing good to get
• 27:19
  Speaker 10: up and get going and you know, produce any for
• 27:22
  Speaker 10: it at all. You know, they're awesome ones. They do
• 27:25
  Speaker 10: what they're supposed to do. There's a lot of tonnage there,
• 27:27
  Speaker 10: but it takes a while. Whereas these more grain type
• 27:32
  Speaker 10: you know, cereal grain type plantings you can get. They
• 27:37
  Speaker 10: grow so quick that you can have something there that's
• 27:40
  Speaker 10: fairly attractive in pretty short the order. So that's probably
• 27:46
  Speaker 10: the best way to save those spots, I would say,
• 27:49
  Speaker 10: is to try to get cereal grain planted and then
• 27:52
  Speaker 10: hope for a rain because it'll.
• 27:54
  Speaker 7: Pop up quick.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: Are they worth trying to save?
• 27:57
  Speaker 10: I mean put it this way. You don't need food
• 27:59
  Speaker 10: plots to be successful during the rut. So if you're
• 28:03
  Speaker 10: only planning to hunt the rut, then no. But if
• 28:08
  Speaker 10: your agenda is bigger and you're thinking, Okay, I've got
• 28:11
  Speaker 10: an earlier season hunts, I've got my late season hunts.
• 28:14
  Speaker 10: This is land that I hold, you know, so I
• 28:17
  Speaker 10: want my deer to be as healthy as possible, you know,
• 28:19
  Speaker 10: I want to hold deer out here. So there's sometimes
• 28:22
  Speaker 10: there's a bigger reason to plant these than just to
• 28:27
  Speaker 10: be successful. I've always said, you don't need food plots
• 28:30
  Speaker 10: you killed a nice buck during the nut you sure don't.
• 28:34
  Speaker 10: But during the early late season it really helps. And
• 28:38
  Speaker 10: then again, like I said, just for the overall help
• 28:40
  Speaker 10: the deer.
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: Now we have Steve Hanson, and if you ever have
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: gone and shopped to buy oats, I know this is
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: just one seed, and all these guys are talking about
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: different blends. But there's oats that allegedly can germinate and
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: wistand and grow a little bit colder temperature, and they're
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: usually called like buck forge oats, And I've always wanted
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: it as a worth the extra money because they are
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: more expensive. And this is what Steve has to say.
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: Is it worth to spend a little bit extra money
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: to try to get a couple extra growing days in
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: the fall, depending on if you're getting a late start. So,
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: without further ado, let's get into what Steve Hanson has
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: to say for anyone that feels like they're behind the
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: eight ball and they need every single growing day possible
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: before we get a really hard frost. My spring food
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: pot looks like crap. My beans got over browsed. I
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: feel like I missed a third week of August rain event.
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: My food pot's like, look like crap, I'm behind sure,
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: what can I do well?
• 29:32
  Speaker 11: At that point, you know you're you're gonna if you're
• 29:34
  Speaker 11: talking first week is September, you still have some opportunities.
• 29:38
  Speaker 11: You know you're gonna be more limited now to cereal grains.
• 29:41
  Speaker 11: That's gonna be your best your best food source chance
• 29:46
  Speaker 11: for sure. And they're almost failure proof because they will
• 29:49
  Speaker 11: grow into the cooler periods the later that you get
• 29:53
  Speaker 11: into the month of September. The only the only way
• 29:57
  Speaker 11: you can accelerate one of the only ways you can
• 29:59
  Speaker 11: really excel rate the growth of your food plots like
• 30:03
  Speaker 11: that you're gonna need like rye, wheat, tritcal, You're gonna
• 30:06
  Speaker 11: probably want to pick from one of those. And then
• 30:09
  Speaker 11: this is one time where I think it's a big
• 30:11
  Speaker 11: benefit to work the ground. So if you're dealing with
• 30:14
  Speaker 11: a failed food plot, you know of whatever, say it
• 30:17
  Speaker 11: was a failed turniplot due to drought or high deer
• 30:19
  Speaker 11: pressure or whatever. By working the ground and making it darker,
• 30:22
  Speaker 11: it's gonna absorb more heat, so you're gonna get more
• 30:25
  Speaker 11: heat units later into the year, which is going to
• 30:28
  Speaker 11: encourage that growth and allow that plot to be more
• 30:31
  Speaker 11: attractive later on. I would also up the seating rates
• 30:35
  Speaker 11: because each plant you're planting at this point isn't going
• 30:37
  Speaker 11: to have the ability to get as tall, so you
• 30:40
  Speaker 11: need more plants to create the same amount of biomass.
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: What's an example of a seating rate for We'll pick
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: tritacale because I feel like a lot of people don't
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: receive triticale.
• 30:54
  Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean tritacal. You're gonna want to You're gonna
• 30:57
  Speaker 11: want to run maybe one hundred pounds, you know, which
• 31:00
  Speaker 11: would be quite a bit. I think if if we
• 31:02
  Speaker 11: were doing just a pure cover crop rate, it could
• 31:04
  Speaker 11: be thirty or forty pounds. If we were planning is
• 31:07
  Speaker 11: at a crop for a harvest, we'd probably plan about seventy,
• 31:10
  Speaker 11: and for a food plot situation, I would probably go
• 31:13
  Speaker 11: closer to one hundred.
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: So you shouldn't necessarily panic if they look like junk.
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: There's still fail proof. I don't say bailproof, but safeguards yep.
• 31:23
  Speaker 11: Those would be your insurance policy plots, you know. Having
• 31:25
  Speaker 11: something like rye tritecal or winter wheat would be like
• 31:28
  Speaker 11: a last and you could put in some clovers with it.
• 31:31
  Speaker 11: You could try some other stuff because you have no
• 31:33
  Speaker 11: guarantee of the weather. You could have an abnormally warm
• 31:36
  Speaker 11: fall where things keep growing. So maybe throw a few
• 31:39
  Speaker 11: radishes back in, just kind of like candy, you know.
• 31:43
  Speaker 11: But the true ones that are going to be your
• 31:45
  Speaker 11: bread and butter that's going to get you through and
• 31:47
  Speaker 11: have a good food plot, are going to be the
• 31:49
  Speaker 11: cereal grains of some variety. I would stay away from
• 31:51
  Speaker 11: oats because they're going to frost kill. You know, they
• 31:54
  Speaker 11: grow fast, so you would get some you know, some height.
• 31:57
  Speaker 11: But depending on the latitude and where you're located, I
• 32:00
  Speaker 11: would stay with those three trit to cow rye or
• 32:03
  Speaker 11: winter whek because they're more frost tolerant.
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: Do you have any experience of the buck Ford jotes
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: that are supposedly more cold cold tolerant.
• 32:10
  Speaker 11: Yeah, And you know, if you just like anything, you
• 32:13
  Speaker 11: could do and I've done it, a deep dive into
• 32:15
  Speaker 11: oats and then each you know, they have a cold maturity.
• 32:20
  Speaker 11: There was a seed dealer in Minnesota and they used
• 32:22
  Speaker 11: to have a great breakdown of each one of their
• 32:24
  Speaker 11: oats and the cold heartiness. You know, Buck fourge oats
• 32:29
  Speaker 11: are definitely in the top of the cold hardy ones.
• 32:32
  Speaker 11: But what you learn is it really isn't that much
• 32:34
  Speaker 11: of a you might get they may it might be
• 32:37
  Speaker 11: three degrees different, but it gets you know, fifteen degrees
• 32:41
  Speaker 11: in the ground freezes.
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: They're all dead.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 32:43
  Speaker 11: You know, You're not there. Buck Ford isn't going to
• 32:45
  Speaker 11: survive that, you know.
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: So yeah, that's a question that I people ask all
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: the time of is it worth it because it's a
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: lot more expensive.
• 32:52
  Speaker 11: It is a lot more expensive, and if you're doing
• 32:54
  Speaker 11: a smaller plot, I would say it is.
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: Is to get a couple extra growing days.
• 32:57
  Speaker 11: Absolutely, just a little more lush little you know, stay
• 33:00
  Speaker 11: is a little more palatable, you know, because we get
• 33:03
  Speaker 11: a lot of that late October weather where you get
• 33:05
  Speaker 11: a twenty degree night sometimes and it'll freeze. But and
• 33:08
  Speaker 11: that shouldn't take out the buck four joke, where it
• 33:11
  Speaker 11: may take out some of the other ones.
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: So and to close things out, we have Mark Kenyon.
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: You know what the question is. But Mark has actually
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: a really funny story on this exact scenario. Like I said,
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: if you plan the food plots, things typically don't go
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: exactly right. More likely you're using an old tractor or
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: you're trying to scramble together a game plan on the
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: fly as a pop up shower comes up in September
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: that wasn't in the forecast two days ago, one day ago,
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: or a hex six hours ago. Let's hear what Mark
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: has to say. I think you guys will enjoy this.
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: Here we go. We just missed labor day and I
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: was out of the farm.
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: My food plots look like I'm growing noxious weeds or
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: it looks like the dust bowl rain.
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: It could happen any moment. My food plots look like crap.
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: What can I do? Yeah?
• 33:59
  Speaker 7: Unfortunately, I am someone who's been in the situation myself
• 34:04
  Speaker 7: a handful of times over the years, many times over
• 34:06
  Speaker 7: the years, and I have historically all the advice of
• 34:12
  Speaker 7: another one of our guests on this podcast and someone
• 34:14
  Speaker 7: who's helping. So I've called this guy like, Hey, what
• 34:17
  Speaker 7: do you have to do in this situation? How should
• 34:19
  Speaker 7: I handle the situation? So I am of the Jeff
• 34:21
  Speaker 7: Sturgis camp, So I've called him in the past and
• 34:24
  Speaker 7: be like, Hey, here's my situation, how would you tackle this?
• 34:27
  Speaker 7: What should I do in this situation? And what that
• 34:30
  Speaker 7: has meant for me in the past, and what I
• 34:32
  Speaker 7: would do again? Now is that I would go in
• 34:34
  Speaker 7: there and depend on Rye to save the day for me,
• 34:37
  Speaker 7: hundreds of pounds of Rye cereal, Rye praaker, pray for rain.
• 34:43
  Speaker 7: I'm just broadcasting this over top. And the thing about Rise,
• 34:47
  Speaker 7: it's it's so easy to get going.
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: You'll Germany like the I can't.
• 34:52
  Speaker 7: It's Jeffrey's South. It's end to your truck. You'll you'll
• 34:54
  Speaker 7: German in the back of your truck. And so I've
• 34:56
  Speaker 7: always remembered that, and that has been the case. If
• 34:59
  Speaker 7: you if you brought cast topsy, the whole ton of
• 35:01
  Speaker 7: Rye out there, it's very likely that you have something
• 35:04
  Speaker 7: green and growing and that'll be enough to get you through.
• 35:08
  Speaker 7: You know, get some attraction. Certainly deer utilize it. So, Yes,
• 35:13
  Speaker 7: I've had many failed plots saved by Rye. What was
• 35:18
  Speaker 7: the root of some of the failures of your plots
• 35:20
  Speaker 7: if you had to yes, is it is it poor
• 35:25
  Speaker 7: prep when you say a failure, is it just weeds?
• 35:28
  Speaker 7: Or did was the pressure to the rouse pressure too high?
• 35:31
  Speaker 7: What was the root of some of the failures that
• 35:32
  Speaker 7: you've had to face where you had to call on
• 35:35
  Speaker 7: the rescue plan? Yep, So the the root is twofold.
• 35:39
  Speaker 7: One is that I am like the most hillbilly sheep
• 35:44
  Speaker 7: food plotter. I don't own a tractor, I don't have
• 35:47
  Speaker 7: any farm implements. I do everything historically has been done with.
• 35:51
  Speaker 7: First was an a TV and a little tiny groundhog
• 35:55
  Speaker 7: max who plot disc if you remember those, Oh they're
• 35:58
  Speaker 7: still run, but that I've graduated to a UTV. So
• 36:02
  Speaker 7: I have a u TV with a sprayer in the
• 36:03
  Speaker 7: back of that. And then no till is what I
• 36:07
  Speaker 7: to know. And so by doing that, though I'm literally spraying,
• 36:11
  Speaker 7: broadcasting smashing, so I'm not you know, you're getting very minimal,
• 36:17
  Speaker 7: you know, at least not as good of seed to
• 36:19
  Speaker 7: soil contact as you could get if you had a
• 36:20
  Speaker 7: drill or if you were disking the whole thing and
• 36:23
  Speaker 7: then getting your seat.
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: In that way.
• 36:25
  Speaker 7: And so when that has when I've done it that way,
• 36:28
  Speaker 7: you are very dependent on rain. And so if you
• 36:31
  Speaker 7: do not get the rain that was forecasting heavy, Yeah,
• 36:33
  Speaker 7: if you don't get that heavy rain, you're gonna have
• 36:36
  Speaker 7: a significant challenge dealing with getting germination and not having
• 36:40
  Speaker 7: you know, also concurred to all this is like weed
• 36:43
  Speaker 7: stuff too, and so when I'm not destroying the field
• 36:46
  Speaker 7: and telling it all up, you're still gonna have weed
• 36:47
  Speaker 7: issues if you get one spray maybe in so usually
• 36:52
  Speaker 7: it's because of the challenging planting process mixed in with
• 36:57
  Speaker 7: rain not cooperating. That's when you have the failure.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: I have this.
• 37:01
  Speaker 7: It was last year, maybe one other time. I found someone.
• 37:06
  Speaker 7: I decided I was going to pay for someone to
• 37:08
  Speaker 7: come out of the drill and get that, and that
• 37:11
  Speaker 7: has significantly improved, you know, my germination rate and gets
• 37:15
  Speaker 7: you through some of these food plot failure type situations.
• 37:18
  Speaker 7: You can get away with a lot more when you've
• 37:19
  Speaker 7: got your seed there at the right depth, you know,
• 37:22
  Speaker 7: in the way you want it. You can survive a
• 37:24
  Speaker 7: little bit more of those water issues when you have that.
• 37:27
  Speaker 7: But even even last year, I think when I did
• 37:31
  Speaker 7: have someone drill this stuff in, there was one section
• 37:34
  Speaker 7: in one of my plots that like, simply every year
• 37:36
  Speaker 7: August we're not getting rainly we used to, and so
• 37:39
  Speaker 7: I still say, jeez, I'm gonna need to fill some gaps.
• 37:42
  Speaker 7: Got to fill some holes, and so right stave with
• 37:45
  Speaker 7: to day again.
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: So if you're in your food plot method, you know
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: you're broadcasting and it's people miss spots that. I think
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: that happens all the time, and so it's unlikely that
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: you have this beautiful plot with all these rows and
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: everything's perfectly covered. You might have some patches throughout the
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: food plot. Do you think it's a worthwhile effort to
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: go in and throw some rye grain or whatever kitchen
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: sink makes you.
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: Want just to fill it out?
• 38:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I do think so. Like, if you have a
• 38:10
  Speaker 7: situation where you have, you know, if it's rethink this. Yeah,
• 38:17
  Speaker 7: I do think it's worthwhile as long as the risk
• 38:20
  Speaker 7: is not outweighing the reward. So if here's a situation
• 38:23
  Speaker 7: where it's like opening days in five days and you
• 38:25
  Speaker 7: realize this, you're like, oh man, my food plus don't
• 38:27
  Speaker 7: look perfect and opening days five days away. At that point,
• 38:30
  Speaker 7: I personally wouldn't. It doesn't matter that much to have
• 38:33
  Speaker 7: a perfectly filled food plot. But if you're still three
• 38:36
  Speaker 7: weeks out or you know, he's got plenty of time
• 38:38
  Speaker 7: and you've got this perfect rain coming and everything looks great,
• 38:41
  Speaker 7: you're like, hey, I go out there and you know
• 38:43
  Speaker 7: a couple hours, really approve things. If these are significant holes, Yeah,
• 38:47
  Speaker 7: go out there, do that. I think that helps. It's
• 38:49
  Speaker 7: low impact enough and high enough reward that in those
• 38:53
  Speaker 7: cases it does make sense. I one time had this
• 38:56
  Speaker 7: situation and I had my family out there at the
• 38:59
  Speaker 7: property with me that day, and I thought to myself,
• 39:01
  Speaker 7: you know what if I just.
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: Go in on the UTV and.
• 39:06
  Speaker 7: Run in there and get my kids to use the
• 39:08
  Speaker 7: shoulder broadcaster. I had my wife and my two kids,
• 39:10
  Speaker 7: and I was like, if they each if we all
• 39:12
  Speaker 7: had a shoulder broadcaster, and if we drove through, we
• 39:15
  Speaker 7: wouldn't even need to step foot off of the UTV.
• 39:17
  Speaker 7: We just go in there, hand broadcasts these, fill in
• 39:20
  Speaker 7: these gaps, and then get out of there and never
• 39:24
  Speaker 7: turn off the can am, never leave any ground sent
• 39:26
  Speaker 7: It'll be super low impact. It would fix this food plot.
• 39:30
  Speaker 7: It'll be perfect in it's worthwhile. And so before we
• 39:33
  Speaker 7: go out there, I tell the kids, I'm like, hey,
• 39:35
  Speaker 7: here's the plan. I do not want you stepping off
• 39:37
  Speaker 7: the can am. I do not want you making a lot.
• 39:39
  Speaker 7: We're just gonna go in. Everyone's gonna lean off the
• 39:42
  Speaker 7: sign and spread the seed, and then we're gonna get
• 39:44
  Speaker 7: out of there. It's gonna take like five minutes, ten minutes,
• 39:47
  Speaker 7: and the deer will never know and we'll fix the
• 39:49
  Speaker 7: food plot problems.
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: And this was late.
• 39:51
  Speaker 7: It was this was like a later closer to this season,
• 39:53
  Speaker 7: and that's why I was so worried about. I was like,
• 39:56
  Speaker 7: all right, let's do So we start going and we
• 40:01
  Speaker 7: get to the food plot, and right as we start,
• 40:04
  Speaker 7: like everyone's trying to do this, my oldest son starts
• 40:06
  Speaker 7: getting upset because his thing isn't turning around. So he
• 40:08
  Speaker 7: starts like, You're like, Dad, it's not working. I'm like, cool, forever,
• 40:11
  Speaker 7: gotta quiet, got be quiet. And then Colt spills his
• 40:14
  Speaker 7: bag and see that, so he starts crying, and I'm like, guys,
• 40:18
  Speaker 7: if you're making noise, don't make noise. And then all
• 40:20
  Speaker 7: of a sudden, the canam dies and I ran out
• 40:22
  Speaker 7: of gas. So I'm stalled out there.
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: Both the kids are crying.
• 40:28
  Speaker 7: I'm thinking, this is the guest disaster ever, So don't
• 40:33
  Speaker 7: do that. Yeah, But outside of that set of circumstances,
• 40:37
  Speaker 7: I think it's worthwhile. It usually can be relatively easily.
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: That's a great METHODO.
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: If it would have worked out, you didn't run out
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: of gas and have the other issues, that's a really great,
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: really great strategy.
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: Well, now I think really really quick.
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: If your food plot failed and you're nervous and you
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: feel like it's semi important to have a food source
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: on the farm, is it worth it? Is it worth
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: doing pulling pulling this audible and try to scrap together
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: at the last moment, or you're like, hey, it is
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: what it is, and I'm going to still have a
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: good season without messing with the fixing the food plot.
• 41:08
  Speaker 7: I think the key thing goes back to how you
• 41:10
  Speaker 7: led that question, which is like how important is food
• 41:12
  Speaker 7: in that area to you or overall plant. I think
• 41:15
  Speaker 7: there's some properties where you know they're nice to have,
• 41:18
  Speaker 7: like it's a nice cream stand and these little food
• 41:20
  Speaker 7: plots are like, hey, it's nice. But honestly, if it's
• 41:22
  Speaker 7: not there, I still know I can kill deer X,
• 41:25
  Speaker 7: Y and Z ways because of other features or other
• 41:27
  Speaker 7: moving patterns. So if it's that case, then maybe it's
• 41:29
  Speaker 7: not worthwhile. But then there's other properties where really like,
• 41:32
  Speaker 7: a food source is the anchor of a property or
• 41:35
  Speaker 7: the anchor of a strategy, and if you don't have that,
• 41:37
  Speaker 7: then everything else crumbles around it, and you need to
• 41:40
  Speaker 7: know your property well enough to make that decision. I
• 41:43
  Speaker 7: have some properties that's that I have some properties where
• 41:45
  Speaker 7: it's the other one where okay, no big deal, we'll pivot.
• 41:48
  Speaker 7: You've got to make a judgment call over time perfect.
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: Well, there was a lot of great solutions to this example,
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: and there was a lot of similarities. Once again, I
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: think there was some episodes just here that you know,
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: really address why maybe they're failing or and then also
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: a lot of the mixes, a lot of the strategies
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: was very very succinct, and I think that depending whether
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: you're a guy that's just going to use a bags better,
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: there's solutions for you here in this episode.
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: And there was other examples where they're.
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: Like bake, borrow and steel, get a drill, drill it in,
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: and so you have different options based off of what
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: you have available to you. So don't panic. There's ways
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: to make this work. You ry grain can save the
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: save the day. And hopefully everyone got a lot of
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: value out of this, because I know I did. There
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: was a lot of really good solutions, and unfortunately the
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: last few years we haven't really gotten a lot of
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: great fall rains, and so there's been a lot of
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: people in this camp and so now they have eight
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: really good solutions. Next week, we have a great episode,
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: one that is really not all that great because it's
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: a really catastrophic issue. But we're talking about EHD and
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: what do you do if you are facing this? This
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: is not a fun conversation, and some of these guests
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: that really hit home, and we're going to dive into
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: what can you do next week?
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: There, you guys have it.
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: Hopefully you have a good game plan now and you
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: have a couple of different seed ideas on varieties and blends.
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: You have an idea on using.
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: Clips and ammonium soul fate to help get a quicker
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: kill down and a more effective killed down.
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: You're looking at maybe why did they not work?
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: If you did plant spring food plots and they got
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: over browsed, or you planted them too early, and or
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: maybe mother nature just hasn't cooperated. But as Jeff Ster
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: just said, there is typically more rain as you get
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: deeper into falls, so there's plenty of time. There is
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: so much time not to procrastinate, but there is time
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: to put together a plan that is not rushed or
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: you feel like you're in a hurry and maybe you
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: don't make the best decision.
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: There's time.
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: All these guys said there's time, So take a deep
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: breath and realize, put together a game plan and you
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: will have a good fall food plot even if it
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: doesn't rain for the next two weeks, because you have time.
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: So that is it.
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: I hope you guys enjoyed this episode of the Back
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: forty podcast. Like I said, we've had a handful of
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: other episodes that are going to help you develop a
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: game plan with a panel of highly qualified experts. These
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: are all been hand selected of guys that have decades
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: and decades of experience, have gone through different hoops and
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: challenges depending on where they're at in the country, and
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: so there's just a lot of value in a short
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: amount of time in all these episodes, and I hope they.
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: Don't seem repetitive.
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: But the point of this is to potentially solidify what
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: all these folks believe and figure out what do all
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: these guys really agree on, and then what are the
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: nuanced different approaches that may succinctly fall into what your
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: ideology is or what your plan is.
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: And so that is it.
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: I hope you guys enjoyed this episode of the Back
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: forty And next week we're going to have a pretty
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: heavy topic that I hope doesn't hit home but it might.
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: And I hope you see you guys next week.