Food plots

[Gene Shenk]

I went to hunting camp on Sunday 7/20 to check up on the new food plots and to see if the old ones need mowing. Well the new ones look great (clover, chicory & brassica) and the old ones need mowing and still do because my son was having way to much fun catching LM bass in the pond to take the time out to mow them on this trip. We have a lot of tree stand work to do this year and we must dig a new hole for the outhouse and move it PHEW! The deer sign looks great and now we have a farmer leasing out a 40 acre section to plant corn that will be another big food plot for the deer and some money to offset the taxes.

Are there any other Food plotters on the Board? It is addictive!

[T_barb]

Yes.. It is addictive, but gets expensive, so that kind of controls how much I can do...

Fertilizer has gone up so much in the past couple of years!!!

I planted 2.5 acres of Brassica last Monday and the recent rains have it sprouting already...

I wish I had more time!!!

Mowing seems to be a critical step, as I have not really found a good way to get rid of the weeds and grasses... Have tried a couple different kinds of herbicide without any real luck.... I think part of the problem is that there is always a constant in flow of new seed everytime the wind blows...

It is really fun trying new stuff.. This year we put in a bunch of buckwheat and Barley... The Turks really seem to like both.... I think part of it is they like snacking on the bugs that it holds...

Where's your camp?

[Gene Shenk]

T barb

The camp is located near rt 16 in the town of Sardinia just outside Arcade. The price of fert is horrible 2 years ago it was 8 bucks for a 66lb bag this year I paid 28 bucks for the same stuff. I used to spray a liquid fert made from kelp I just mixed the concentrate up and went over the plots with the atv sprayer I think I will have to price that out for next year. Where are your plots located up here or down south? As far as those weeds when starting a fresh plot sometimes it pays to burn it down with round up then till it wait 2 to 3 weeks and watch for the new stirred up weed seed to start growing and spray it a second time it will give you a better start, I also have tried spraying clover fields with a weak mix of round up it does kill some of the grass and the clover sometimes will look dead but it will usually come back this is best done in the spring.

[T_barb]

My camp is near Nunda...

When you say a weak mix of roundup, can you be more specific as to the specific % of roundup you use or how much roundup to 25 gallons of water? I have heard others mention this technique and that it works... I am assuming that the clover starts to brown, but then bounces back...

YOu mentioned that you have a pond... I had an acre pond put in a couple of years ago... It is about 15 feet deep.. We put some rainbows and minnows in last spring.. Everything looked great... clouds of minnows everywhere and the rainbows grew from 4 inches to 13 inches by may of this year...

Then, I started seeing "clouds" of algae and the fish started dying. The algae seemed to be suspended in the water... I am almost thinking it must have been brought into the pond by the geese...

I have since put some barley straw in the pond and that seems to be preventing any future issues, but the damage has been done to some extent...

Have you had any similar issues? any solutions?

[Gene Shenk]

T barb

I would try 10 to 15oz in 25 gal of water (about 0.5 oz per gal) of 41% concentrated round up or a generic equivalent i use razor pro I get it off ebay. TRY THIS ON A SMALL AREA FIRST! until you get the results you are looking for you may have to make it weaker or stronger depending on your application rate if it goes bad you can always replant a small area if you have to. Our pond is bass only it was an established cow watering pond with bass in it there is little to no food for them other than bugs and eating each other which is why the 20 year old bass are only 10 to 12 inches long. We have had a bit of a weed problem this year as compared to other years but it does not seem to bother the bass sorry I am not much help in the pond management dept. You should google pond management i am sure there must be info out there somewhere there probably is a board similar to this one you could ask questions on.

Try this link it seemed pretty informatve and it does cover trout fishing as well http://www.authorstream.com/Presentatio ... owerpoint/

[slapshot]

I wanted to plant an area with clover, etc... How big of an area would you suggest or need to be effective?

[Gene Shenk]

Slapshot

We have 3 clover plots 2 of them are about a 1/2 acre each and 1 is about 1.5 acres this seems to keep the deer on our 300 acres pretty happy we used to have a 5 acre clover field but the deer could not keep up with it and with the cost of fert and seed we dropped to less acreage. All the above plots are planted about 2 years apart and when they are put in they are a mix of several clovers, chicory and brassica for the first year but the clover keeps for about 3-5 years before replanting.