Stressless Farm Blog - Wildlife Habitat Improvements

[Stressless]

I've been working on getting switchgrass established as a visual barrier to the public road down the way from this plot, one of the weeds that can out compete switchgrass is foxtail. The 12' bands of switchgrass here on FrontPad plot got heavily infested with foxtail which was still in the dough stage of seed development on 21 Aug.

Quinclorac 1.5L must be used with Methylated Seed Oil (MSO) to target foxtail and other noxious grasses/weeds. The application rates are somewhat strict or you'll harm/kill the switchgrass you are trying to recover. The switch must have 3 to 4 leaves off the main stem usually 2 y/o switchgrass or the quinclorac/MSO will kill your young switch.

I sprayed on 21 Aug. Effects pics below are on 30 Aug.

Application rate was 64oz of Quinclorac 1.5L/acre+ 32 oz of MSO/acre and 20Gal water/acre (for the Fimco 7 nozzle sprayer that's 40psi@3mph)

I knew I'd overspray a foot or two of the legumes but wanted to terminate the foxtail starts that were in that edge. As you can see below the quinclorac smoked the legumes and is terminating the foxtail. The switch is still dark green, where I didn;t overlap the spary. Where I did about 20'x2' I might have burnt the swtich... we'll see. The foxtail, other weeds, and everything else that got hit or overlapped spray areas are browning up.

Hit this plot and two other areas where the switchgrass has a larger footprint next to bedding/travel areas for about a 1/2 acre total.

 

[Stressless]

Got back to TOO about 1300 Wed and it was threatening rain and actually got some sprinkles on the way to the farm from CMH. With that wet 'kick in the pants' I got 12 bushels of rye overseeded, 150#/acre, and then mowed all the plots over the seed- finishing up just at dark. Long day with a 0300 wake up in FL. That's a wrap on the food for the farm critters this year.

17 Mar, frost seeded legume blend 8#/acre
23 Aug Overseeded crimson clover and oats into the legumes oats 50#/acre CC 15#/acre
13 Sep Overseeded cereal rye into the oats crimson clover and legumes 150#/acre

The plots and dry tonnes I have growing is either going to draw good deer or not. If the kids come up to harvest some meat in gun season I may put some corn out but that'll depend on what we see on camera and the neighbors. Cliff and I are planning to go w/o "Bought and Bagged Bait" this year. We'll see. The Amish on the West are baiting, the the outfitter to the North is baiting so planning on primarily rut hunting. Nothing exciting showing up on cams so far to get me back for those glorious pre-rut 20-31 Oct days.

 

[Boone]

How did overseeding the rye into the clover work out? There don't seem to be many bare areas in the pictures for the rye to germinate,

The lack of rainfall this year has hampered my gly-throw-mow plots so this may be an alternative for me next year.

 

[Stressless]

@Boone - I think there are a couple parts to your question above.

There don't seem to be many bare areas in the pictures for the rye to germinate

What I've found over the last 4 or 5 years is that rye and oats don't require "Bare Dirt" to germinate and thrive - They will for sure on bare dirt with moisture, rye being the more hardy and I have an example below. @at1010 can probably provide the science behind it but the long thin seeds will absolutely fall through the legume leaves and clover stolons and achieve seed to soil contact.

There is a certain % of seeds that obviously don't make it to the soil but I've found overseeding 150#/acre for rye and 50/# acre for oats gives me a good catch and fills in the horizontal space, of course the closer to an appreciable rain the better. Another seeding TTP I've learned is to brushhog the plots directly after seeding, my laymans observation but looking at the seeded area before and after there's no question that it helps settle a higher % of seeds to the soil. I have a 44" roughcut tow behind and between the cutting debris/wind/6 tires (4 for UTV/ATV and 2 for brushhog) the seeds get to where they can and will germinate and gives the primarily root of that germinating seed, the radicle, a chance to get to soil.

How did overseeding the rye into the clover work out?

The oats and rye both had a great catch this year doing the TTP's above.

FrontPad plot is the worst soil and is getting heavily browsed,

2" plot is better soil and gets some shade so the growth there is surpassing the browse pressure. I'd guesstimate that > 90% of the oat/rye seed germinated and is growing across all the plots. There is very little grass in the plots so those long stems are almost all Oats or Rye

The lack of rainfall this year has hampered my gly-throw-mow plots so this may be an alternative for me next year.

The drought around my farm this year has been bad as well these are from my WX station at the farm. About 1" of rain since the beginning of Sept thru 11 Oct.

September

October

The rye example in dry conditions. I had some work done along Crescent Pond in Sep, coal mined spoil bank opened up - nasty shale, clay and rock. Spread rye and crimson clover 16 Sep.

About 3 weeks later the rye germinated and rooted in almost no rain, not so sure about the crimson clover.

The difference between the rye growth in the plots where I overseeded into soil that had a crop growing, compared to seeded on bare dirt is, again just a observation, but I'd say 200-400% better in the overseeded areas.

Across all the plots the clover is getting dry and almost looks like it is going dormant the cereal grains are still producing. This is normally a great growing period for the cool season legumes. I am getting a little concerned about how fast the clover can react to a rain. Hopefully the oats and rye will really jump as well with a good rain in the forecast again.

Hope this is helpful - any questions LMK.

 

[Boone]

Thanks for your detailed update! I can see the rye/oats clearly in that second pic. Gonna have to try this next year.

Hopefully we all get the rain they are calling for this weekend to give our plots the boost they need.

 

[Stressless]

This plot, BackPad, as I've said is terrible soil. By overseeding the cereal grains into the legumes I've kept something growing throughout the hunting season. It got browsed truly chin high mid-late Nov but the horizontal space has had something growing it it from Sep thru Dec. In the warm spell coming up this week the rye will grow at temperatures > 38° F.

Herd management: We put seven 1 1/2yo or older does on the dirt (1 per 14.3A), neighbor Cliff and his crew put fifteen 1 1/2yo or older does on the dirt (1 per 33.3A). Both properties are still carrying a healthy herd population and getting closer to a 1:1 ratio and age class spread than we've had in a number of years.

The buck above, Willis, just kicked the crap outa me this year. I had him on daylight cams thru 11 Nov (when I left) and hadn't blown him off the property, I think creating deep woods bedding/woody browse pockets (in 2021), softening the edges of the plots, redoing access routes and some stands all played a part in giving me the most opportunity at a decent buck.

If you like hearing a nice buck grunting like a mule turn it up a bit.

Winter chores coming up, blowing leaves off the plots, terminate any large suckers/large invasives in the deep woods pockets and frost seeding are the primaries prior to turkey season. Indications are good.

 

[Stressless]

The overseeded rye consistently offers a bit of forage whenever it warms up. As soon as the crust comes off they roll in across all 5 acres of plots.

Most of the bucks have shed, but the majority of deer around the farm right now are unaccompanied minors.

 

[Stressless]

This is first soil sample taken in 2017 and last sample taken last month. All farm soils were below 6 pH when I started this food plot endeavor. I screwed up by tilling a couple plots in 2016 instead of going no-till - LoL but I didn't know what I didn't know. Tilling was what the organic farmer neighbor told me was best. A disc hasn't touched it since the fall of 2016. I've learned much from the No-Till So Easy thread and have tried to apply the TTP's to my small farm to increase the draw, create lines of movement thru the same blends of crops and keep crops growing in the plots throughout the year.

pH:
Below are lots of numbers but by sampling and administering the bag spreadable lime in posts above we've been able to bring most of the plots into the correct 6.7-7.0 pH range. Two Plots SkiJump and Edge, both relatively new, still need an application of lime to bring them into the desired range, the rest are in the target window.

Organic Matter: Across the plots the OM is being built up by 100-300%

Nutrients: When I applied Hi Mag pellitized lime, before I found the Hi Cal spreadable lime I got the Mag too high in many plots. To counter that I applied two types of gypsum, roughly 1500# acre, a pellitized fast acting and a granular one that works over time. This was pread right after the samples in 2023 (Right side below). Gypsum 'should' increase Calcium (Ca) and decrease Magnisium (Ma) PPM. Gypsum also leaches other nutrients so I expected to P and K to be reduced as well and that's the challenge I'm at now. How to best increase P and K. There numerous pics of the plots browsed chin high, aka 'Removal' whether for hay or in bellies, it has to be replaced for the crops to thrive, I picked close WTI seed brands to the blends that I have in my plots.

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[Stressless]

One thing I don;t like about WTI Soil sample resutls is they don't give you the Saturation% or Ratio's. Found a couple ref documents on OSU Ag site that allows you to figure those from the WTI PPM results. So you can get the raw values to start figuring.

From this it's strait forward to get the Lime required and P and K if you go the synthetic fertilizer route. Called the local CO-Op and the cost of fertilizer has gone down dramatically from last year.

To get the plots dialed into the pH and P and K nutrients the spreadsheet takes the WTI results and spits out what's needed. Total to dial the plots in, 19 bags of spreadable AgLime, 17 bags of MOP (0-0-60) and 9 bags of MAP (11-52-0) across the 11 plots. I have feeling the P and K values will be required yearly due to removal of a majority of crop.