Aug
24
Written by:
Clint Patterson
8/24/2010 8:21 PM
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Adam Smith taking a soil sample |
This past Saturday Adam and I spent a great deal of time working in the heat and boy was it hot! We are preparing to put in some of our Tecomate Seed fall food plots. We went out collected a few soil samples and sprayed some round-up. At this location we’re going to put in two food plots. One will be a half acre plot where we will plant Monster Mix. The other will be around 3 acres located on an old power line where we will plant Max-Attract and Ultraforage in alternating sections. The smaller plot has had crops on it before so conditioning the soil won’t be too bad in that location. There are some weeds there, but not too many. The old power line, however, is slam full of grass and weeds so we’ve got our work cut out for us to be able to have a successful plot in this area.
While we were there, we also spent a good deal of time scouting and walking the land. We found some rubs, saw some sign, and even saw a deer as we scouted. We feel these are good signs, but we shall see as the season goes on. Our goal was to find areas where we wanted to put our food plots at this location and get the soil samples + start spraying…and that’s exactly what we did. I think I soaked 2 shirts with sweat and I got really dirty by the end of it all. I wore pants out this time since last time we did this I caught poison ivy. I also wore boots since I’ve been seeing a lot of pics of snakes lately. I had the perfect combination for being protected from the elements and also being hot and sweaty.
The Small Plot
The smaller location is at the back end of the property and it looks to be a good location. Our area of SC has parts of town that are all clay, some are all sand, and then there are areas that are mixtures of both. The area of this plot is made up more of clay than dirt. The small plot is probably about 100 – 120 yards long and 25 yards wide. This should turn out to be a nice food plot and it also has a few oaks on the edge with a good crop of acorns. We’ll need to trim back some of the other trees to improve the vision to all end s of the plot. This location will be the easier of the two to plant. As you’ll see in the below video, Adam took the soil sample and then sprayed the field with Round-up to kill the weeds while I documented everything.
In hopes of not getting our plot overtaken with weeds (as we did in the summer at the one location), we’re going to spray it with Round-up, then come back in with the GroundHog MAX to disk it up, then return a few days later to spray it again. The reason we’ll spray it the second time is to kill any dormant seed that we may have turned up while disking. After we spray again, we’ll give it a few days before we go back in to plant the seed.
The Large Plot
The larger plot is the one that’s located on an old power line. The power company use to have poles run through this section of woods, but in recent years they have removed the poles. This left a great place to put in a food plot. The only problem we have is the weeds and grass that now resides in the area. There are a ton of weeds currently in the area and so we’ve got our work cut out for us to get an effective food plot installed.
We are going to try to put another long and narrow plot in this location. Here again we collected another soil sample and sprayed Round-up heavily. We’re going to let it sit for a few days and hopefully get a good portion of the grass and weeds killed. The weeds are so tall that I may even go back in and mow it down some. Then we’ll go back in, with a tractor and the GroundHog Max, and disk. Following suit, we’ll let it sit for a few days then return to spray again as we want to kill off any dormant seeds turned up while disking.
You can see the video of all this below to get a visual for what we’re talking about and attempting to do.
So you’ve seen the hopeful locations of 2 of our fall plots. We’re optimistic that we can pull it off, but again…only time will tell. In the mean time, we’ve got a lot of work to do. More to come.
Regards,
Clint
2 comment(s) so far...
Re: More Fall Plot Soil Samples + Spraying
So if you spray the round-up and all the weeds die. Will the stuff you plant for your food plot die as well from the round-up in the soil? I like the video, it has some really good animation!
By Derek on
8/28/2010 9:31 PM
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Re: More Fall Plot Soil Samples + Spraying
Derek,
Obviously, I'm not the expert on the matter here, but with our summer plots we did spray, then disked and planted and we had some really bad weed problems because some of the seeds that were dormant became covered with dirt, then they germinated, and grew even after we had sprayed. So what we're going to do this time is spray to get a kill, then disk, then wait about 8 - 10 days to see if anything germinates and then spray again. We will then wait 8 - 10 days after the second spray before we put the seed down. This will cover the initial kill on the weeds plus killing any seeds that have germinated after we covered them with dirt. I think Roundup only kills the plants that it comes in contact with above the surface and doesn't keep anything else from growing in the soil. That is, the plants soak Roundup in through their leaves or blades of grass and that's what gets them to die. Nevertheless, we'll wait a little while before we plant and if things go well, then we'll have a decent plot. Though, all you can do is try and see what happens.
If you have any insight on this process, please comment below. Thanks!
By Clint on
8/28/2010 11:16 PM
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