What implements do y'all have for food plots, and what do you wish you had?

[airbiscuit]

Given the prices cultipackers are going for these days, I am posting a video of a DIY version. The poster says if he did it again, he would have used single wall culvert. I probably would have used a different shaft with pillow block bearings, but this is a pretty good option.

 

[CalG]

Help me understand...

Is a "food plot" a planting meant to attract deer , in the hopes to harvest said animal for freezer filling?

If so,

CAN I JUST SEND YOU SOME DEER! We have too many. ;-)

 

[EddieWalker]

My best implement for food plots is my wife!!! She will stick with it and keep working the ground until it's all fine powder.

The disk was a $300 Craigslist find that's 5 feet wide and made from angle iron. It works OK, but it takes a while for it to break through the ground. Once that happens, the results are worth the effort.

 

[airbiscuit]

Is a "food plot" a planting meant to attract deer , in the hopes to harvest said animal for freezer filling?

If so,

CAN I JUST SEND YOU SOME DEER! We have too many. ;-)

We have plenty of deer also, but we've found another way to spend more money on hunting. A person should never itemize what the true cost per pound of venison is

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Some handy implements for the purpose and the price is right for sure!

 

[wolc123]

My three favorite implements are my 7 ft cultipackers (have (1) on each property that were cut down from old 8 footers that had a few busted wheels), and my John Deere 246 2-row corn planter with fertilizer hoppers.

A “real” cultipacker is hard to beat, for getting little seeds like clover and brassica to just the right depth, and maximizing germination. I’ve tried other substitutes like dragging railroad ties, logs, bed springs, lawn rollers, or atv tires and all were horrible in comparison. The culvert type contraption looks good but doesn’t have the large clearance between the axle and the individual cultipackers wheel hubs, which is the real “secret” to their effectiveness.

Standing corn is tough to beat for a foodplot, because if your neighbor has it and you don’t, that’s where most of the deer will go, especially after the shooting starts. It has that unbeatable combination of cover and carbs, at the time of year that the deer need both the most.

 

[wolc123]

We have plenty of deer also, but we've found another way to spend more money on hunting. A person should never itemize what the true cost per pound of venison is

That depends on how you do at minimizing input costs. I can still produce venison for $ 1 per pound, which is cheaper than we could produce beef 40 years ago, when an exploding deer population helped with the decision to rid our farm of the last of the beef cattle. That’s not even accounting for inflation. Our family had raised beef cattle here since before the Civil war.

To top it off, the “free range, organic” venison is healthier to eat and I even like the flavor better. It’s also convenient that the deer take care of their own food and water consumption and cleanup and that they never require the services of a veterinarian.

Here in upstate western NY, they let us kill up (7) antlerless and (2) antlered per season. I only took these one of each last year, which should be plenty for my wife, two daughters, and I. We have almost finished eating the doe, and that hunting season opens back up in mid September. Our younger daughter had “study abroad” this semester and she’s the big “taco eater” so our consumption was down a bit.

She gets home this weekend, but the buck was bigger, so we should still have plenty. I grind most of them because my wife loves cooking with that ground venison. We’ve run out a couple times over the years. It really grosses her out, when she’s forced to use ground beef, watching all the fat cook out of it.

I shot both of these on their way to or on food plots. The September doe almost made it to the turnip greens, over by my parents place, and the December buck had just taken his first couple bites of winter wheat/awp/white clover mix, here at home.

To minimize costs, I rotate crops 3-4 years white clover, 1 year corn or brassica, which gets me most of my nitrogen for free, minimizing fertilizer expense. I only use Roundup on the corn rows (big advantage of the row planter) and I get the seed free for that corn (prior season’s leftovers from family & friends)

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

Nice harvest.

Just curious, how does a cultipacker control the depth of the smaller seeds? I have never used one and am looking for a dependable method to plant clover and other brassicas out.

 

[gstrom99]

We have all the usual implements (disc, drag, rototiller, straw rake), except a corn planter (SIL says he really wants one) and a cultipacker. We also have a 9 foot chisel plow if needed... We broadcast the various seeds we use. The idea of a regular corn planter was that we could harvest the uneaten corn for the next years planting. Not needed. The deer HAMMERED the corn and there was nothing left this spring. I just mowed it all down. The (Chinesium - Amzn) straw rake is used to rake up the heavy residue from the tall grass, it would plug up the tillers bad. I'm adding 100 lbs of weight to make it work better. I do like the DIY cultipacker (probably 3 point) ideas (uTube is a great source for ideas)...

 

[airbiscuit]

Just curious, how does a cultipacker control the depth of the smaller seeds? I have never used one and am looking for a dependable method to plant clover and other brassicas out.

Those tiny seeds like to be 1/8"-1/4" deep. My homemade tire chain drag, followed by a roller or cultipacker does a nice job of that.