Plowing Food Plot with Box Blade

[Coyote]

That looks great! Your oats should pop up in no time assuming rain. BTW - it takes a couple of years to get a good stand of clover. I had similar disappointing results, but learned you have to be patient!

This weekend was the start of my first "real" farming attempt using my tractor in the food plot preparation. I have used it for a million things other than plowing. I have to tell you up front how jazzed I am about it....both Loretta and I. Last year's food plot was very small, maybe a 30' x 60' piece where we tried to grow clover. It was near a shady part of the meadow and didn't do too well. So we're gonna try it again.

This year, after having quite a successful dove hunt over the meadow, we decided to do almost all of the meadow. The growing area we chose is just over an acre, and there is about another acre surrounding the meadow that has some Oaks sparsely growing in it before the thicker Oak forest starts. On the other side it is bordered by a gully with real steep slopes and most of the meadow is on a minimum of 10° slope, with some areas of it approaching 20°.



I had brush cut the entire area before dove hunting season but really needed to scrape it flat, removing all rocks and debris and also cutting of the top layer of weeds and natural plants. I decided to scrape the entire 2 acres including in between the oaks, since I will be brush mowing the entire area in the future. This is an area in between some of the Oaks that border the meadow. I did everything with my trusty box blade. It is truly a multi functional tool and performed admirably.
I still don't have a real plow, but look forward to getting one after working in the field like this.

 

[3RRL]

Did I show you the oats, peas and wheat that the food plot has on it?
Oats


Field Peas




Wheat


We even picked and cooked some up fresh at camp.



There is also a lot of natural wildflowers growing in the mix. It does take a long time to get a solid stand. I will keep trying.
I did get some deer photos on the game cam, but can't find the darn things right now. I am also cutting a part of it down while green to stir up some interest in the animals and make some corridors in the meadow.

 

[jinman]

Rob, that's sure a nice lookin' food plot...even for the 2-legged deer. The peas look especially nice. We picked the last of our garden peas last night. They've been drowned by all our rain, and now the mid-90's temperatures will roast them.

 

[EddieWalker]

Rob,

Congrats!!! Your food plot looks very lush and inviting. I'm real curious what the deer are eating first, or where they tend to spend most of thier time.

Any bird activity? Quail. Turkey. Dove. non game birds?

Now that it's in and so nice looking, when do you plow it under to plant it again?

Thanks for the pics and update.

Eddie

 

[3RRL]

Well,
The temps have risen to the mid 90°'s now and climbing. So the plot is now toast. Those photos were from a month ago. I was surprised the deer did not eat much of the peas? I found they mostly ate the small plants of oats and wheat and left the mature ones alone?

First thing was to mow a part of the plot to add interest for the animals. They are all curious and love to explore newly cut or plowed areas. My plan was to leave it this way until the heat dried everything up.







I thought about tilling the cut parts and re-planting, So we ran 1" polypipe rolling out on the ground to the food plot. But the polypipe I used burst when we were gone for two weeks. The water got so hot inside it softened the pipe and I could see "bubbles" in the line where it burst. The well pump ran for hours and hours so I don't trust the polypipe when it's hot now. I'll have to bury it out of the hot Sun. Even so, I can't afford to risk another burst. I'll have to bite the bullet and install either pvc or polypipe, but under ground.

Here is Wes enjoying one of the RainBird sprinklers. We hook them up only when at camp now.

 

[jinman]

Rob, the peas are a legume plant and fix nitrogen in the soil. This will help your grain plants and reduce the need for fertilizer. You normally would not put peas in with a grain crop you were intending to harvest, but for food plots the peas are okay. If the deer ever eat the peas and get a taste of their sweetness, they just may make them part of their diet. I think they don't eat them because they aren't accustomed to them.

 

[3RRL]

Right you are Jim.
The peas were pretty good to me. I understand the deer need time to become familiar with a new food source (and location), so I know it will happen sooner or later. When I brush hogged, all the seeds, peas and all, should have been scattered all over the field. I think that's why the birds have been going nuts too. I plan to lightly plow all the nutrients back into the soil for my next crop. I think I'll get a better stand of wheat, oats and peas as the native weeds and flowers become less and less in that area.

After leaving the plot for about a month in the searing heat, It all dried out and I could now rotary cut the whole area.
Here's a picture before:



And this one is after cutting.



To give you an idea of how tall some of the native flowers and weeds got, that's me at the edge of the meadow only 2 weeks before it all got fried by the heat and no water.

 

[3RRL]

Here are a couple more photos of the mow job and the surrounding area.





Some of it was the steep bank across the gully and I also mowed between the Oaks as best I could.



I think if I run water to that bank, I'd like to plant Sunflowers there. I have a few that spring up around the property even when it is dry and hot like now. So I think they might grow this summer ... maybe in time for bird season? The Dove and Quail really like the wheat and oat seeds. So I'll keep that main area bare until after Dove season.

A couple more photos, one looking back to our camp site:



And this one at dusk from our camp. We have two water feeders around the edge of the meadow.

 

[schmism]

when i went to visit my buddie in CA and help him move back from his summer internship a couple of years ago.... this is all i remember of CA

everything is brown and dusty for like 330 days a year.

You can pry me from my green lush thunderstorm and tornato midwest when im cold and dead.

 

[3RRL]

It's always a pleasure to come back to your thread and read a positive reply yours schmsim.
Where did your friend live anyway, the Mojave desert? How long was your visit, 330 days? It's obvious you haven't seen much of California if all you did was help your friend move. Most interstate highways have dirt soft shoulders and that's probably what you remember. They are like that 365 days a year. FWIW, California has some of the most diverse scenery in the World ranging from tropical to austere.