Ok you should be able to see how high this
grass is here. Pretty much up to my waste. So it's about 3' foot of grass around here
and this is to basically show you that I know what I'm doing when it comes to putting in
plots and stuff. This particular client, we are going to mow
this, brush hog this today, come back in a few days and spray glyphosate. Get rid of the weeds. It's June 22nd, a few weeks from that maybe
a month or so we're going to probably spray again. Don't know for sure. We will put our soil amendments down and till. Check out the weeds, maybe spray so more grass
killer right before we plant clover / chicory in this field. You can see that we have a lot to contend
with but if this is done right, these weeds shouldn't matter to much. We're getting started now, looking to plant
in about a month to a month and a half. One concern might be when mowing grass this
high is that I don't want to hit any fawns. But fawns by now, it's been over a month since
they were born, if they're laying in here they should be able to run away pretty easily
from me. And today is July 2nd, back here I mowed this
field last week about 1 week ago. Today I'm going to spray glyphosate on this
and put half the fertilizer down. It's calling for potash. This is my personal preference to do it this
way. Just going to get that down now and get the
rest down when I come back here in a few weeks to start tilling. Got this client done, for today. Sprayed 45 gallons mixture of glyphosate and
then i put 7, 50 pound bags of 0-0-60 potash down. It needs 6 more bags and I will do that right
before I till. Just wanted to get this down, it was my choice
to do it this way. See you in a few weeks. Alright back here I sprayed, you can see it
worked great! It's been about 3 weeks. Today I'm going to start tilling so we can
get this clover chicory mix in. I think my client will be here a little later
to discuss mixing in other options like plant oats with them or awnless wheat. Since those are annuals it will help get the
clover established. Ladino clover takes alittle while to get established,
like 1 year to get fully established. The deer will have more to eat this year and
next year we will cut the oats or wheat off, then we are left with a nice green lush clover. Just wanted to give you a quick look at what
this looks like after 1 time tilling. There was a lot of vegetation in some areas,
it's also very hard dirt. It's not that dry, not a lot of dust kicking
up but a lot of rocks in certain areas too. Definitely going to have to go over it 1 more
time I'm thinking 2 more times just to get that go seed bed. It's a big key when planting anything really,
getting good seed to soil contact. Reason for tilling this ground versus no-tilling
this clover in, is for one of the reasons the clover seed is so small I don't exactly
know if it's even great to no-till. I don't have a lot of experience no-tilling
clover. If I was no-tilling something like oats, wheat,
corn or soybeans I definitely would not be tilling this I would just plant it. I'm risking activating some other weeds by
tilling it. So that is a risk I'm willing to take, we
know that going in. We know that I may have to come back in spring
and over seed this, which will help. But in my experiences the other plots I've
done, haven't had to many problems with weeds. Killing it like this especially. Ideally I would probably plant something else
in it this year like oats, wheat, brassicas and then a year from now come back in and
plant the clover. Just to be safe from weeds and other, but
you know what? When we're in a world like we are of getting
results fast and not having a lot of "time" we just try to do it the best we can with
what we have. Spraying and mowing and staying on top of
it is the biggest concern at this point. and thats not to bad to handle. i got this plot ready for the clover and chicory
mix. I am going to put down this forage whitetail
oats on it. If you like buck forage oats your going to
like these. Very comparable if not better. If you dislike buck forage oats prices your
really going to like these. These are about $35 a 50 pound bag which covers
1 acre. I'm planting about 1.8 - 2 acres. The client recommended putting these oats
on light. Then I will whirl wind, over the shoulder
spreader the clover chicory mix. I will put the full 2 acres on it and culitpack
it in. Now seed wise I'm seeding the oats first,
because it is a bigger seed than the clover chicory mix. So thats why I will use the grain drill here
for the oats first. Then I will broadcast the clover chicory mix. Then i will put the rest of my fertilizer
down. The potash. I put half down before I tilled. Tilled that in. Then the other half now and cultipack it all
in. This will be ready to go! We got a rain coming in tonight if not a 60%
chance of rain tomorrow. Cross my fingers that will really set this
clover and chicory off real nice. it's been a good time after I sprayed the
glyphosate so that shouldn't be a problem. It's going to be a great looking plot! So this is the clover plot that is done. I use 50 pound bag of oats, I used 2 - 10
poound bags of clover chicory and here's the results. This is what the dirt looks like. Hopefully rain tomorrow, next time I come
back we should see a green carpet. We are going to put a utilization cage down
today. I had to bring the kids to get the experience,
but these cages really tell you if your food plot is performing well or not. It also tells you how many deer are in your
food plot. Whether they're eating a lot of it or not
eating much of it. So this just cages off a little spot and tells
us just that. So I usually use a 4' high fence but this
is a 3' high fence but this is fine for this. I'll cut about 8' long and we got our post
here. We'll go down and put the post in, put the
cage on and we are done. This is a perennial clover, ladino clover
mostly. You will see how I planted it and this clover
takes 2 full growing seasons to get established. That is why I put the oats in with it, to
give the deer something to eat this year, keep them off the clover a bit. 1 year from now it will be thicker, but that
doesn't mean we don't have to frost seed or over seed it at some point, but we will have
to see what it looks like at that point.