Jul 12

Written by: Clint Patterson
7/12/2010 5:40 PM 

Sorry it’s taken me a bit to get this one together, but I’ve been spread thin lately.   As you know, we’ve been working on several summer food plots on our Tecomate Seed Food Plot Journey.   I’ve been documenting one plot very thoroughly and we’ve been carrying out the same processes in other locations as well.   I’ve also documented much of the journey of our remote food plot.  We’ve been getting some good rain and the lab lab and lab lab plus is starting to grow pretty well. I’d like to update you on a few of the plots because we’ve got some mixed results that we can already learn some lessons from.

Food Plot Location 1

	The weed infested food plot 1

Food Plot Location 1 is the location where we have been doing most of the documenting and I’ve got some bad news to report on this one.  Initially we planned to plant this field with a no-till-drill which would get the seed in the ground without turning the soil up.  We wanted to do this because this field had some weeds in it in previous years and their seeds remained on the soil.  Using a no-till-drill is beneficial because it gets the seed in the ground without turning up the dirt.  When the soil isn’t turned up the seeds of the weeds remain uncovered by the dirt and do not germinate while the seeds in the no-till-drill get planted into the soil.  Since we couldn’t get access to the no-till-drill the undesired result has occurred.  By not getting the no-till-drill we were forced to disc the field.  This field had been sprayed, but spraying it only killed what was living on the surface.  The seeds of the weeds remain dormant until they get covered in dirt.  The moisture in the dirt causes them to germinate.  Add all of this + our actions up and what do you get… a field covered in weeds and food plot product as seen below.

Since we have a mess on our hands in this field we have opted to spray it with 2-4 D + Round-up.  We are going to spray it in hopes of killing the weeds in preparation for the fall plot.  In short, the summer plot at this location = fail!  Since we are spraying the field, we went ahead and sprayed a few different areas as that we are going to work on for the fall plots.  I made it out late to the field, but I did get some footage of the other areas being sprayed.  You can see how we sprayed it below.
 

Food Plot Location 2
Food Plot Location 2 has a much better result at this point and some deer tracks are already in the plot.  We’ve even seen where some of the plants are getting nipped at the top already.  This location has had food plot products placed in it year after year and there are no remaining weeds in the soil.  For that reason, we were able to use a disc here without having a bad result (as we did at the previous location).  You can see this plot clearly in the video, but here are some pics of it too.  This food plot is kind of shaped like what a golfer would call a “dog leg right” because it’s straight for a long time and then it curves around to the right at the top.

Here is a video contrasting Field 1 and Field 2… seeing the difference is easy

Food Plot Location 3
Food Plot Location 3 is a smaller area and is also coming along well.  The soil here is a little more like clay than the sandy soil of the others.  We were also able to get some pics of deer in this one on the game camera.

Remote Food Plot Location
The remote food plot is also coming along well so far.  We’ve got some exclusion fences up in this location and we have fertilized it as well.  The plants are growing well and since putting the fertilizer down, I think the plants look like they are a deeper green.  Though, it could just be my eyes or something.  See images and video of it below:

View from exclusion Fence 1	View from exclusion Fence 2

We were also able to get some pics of deer in the plot in the last few days.  I couldn’t believe this one doe was so close to the camera at 5:00 in the afternoon in 100 degree heat!  Then another snuck through at night and you can barely see her because the food plot is growing so high!

Entry Summary
As we’ve traveled the “Food Plot Journey” I’ve learned a lot about what to do and, as you can see with this journal entry, I’ve learned some of what not to do as well!  Our inability to come through with the no-till-drill did not benefit us at location 1 because of the resident weed seeds in that location.  By plowing and discing the field, we only covered the seeds of weeds (and other unwanted plants) with dirt allowing them to germinate.  This happened because some seeds of weeds remained from previous years.  Consequently, along with planting our food plot seeds and them germinating and growing, so did the seeds of the weeds.  Since we’ve currently got a less-than-desirable food plot going on at location 1, we’re going to spray it with 24-d & round-up to try to start getting ready for the fall plots in that area. 

So, we are not batting 1000, but we haven’t got benched by the coach just yet.  I’m glad that the majority of the plots are going well, but I’m bummed that the main plot that I was documenting very thoroughly did not turn out.  I’ll keep on reporting back with the others though to see what happens and we are planning to have fall plots in these locations as well.  There’s a song by Meatloaf titled “2 out of 3 ain’t bad” so that’s going to have to be the theme at this point.

We’ve got game cameras out in some of these plots and we’ll be moving them around in hopes of getting some good pics.  There is a lot out there for deer to eat at this point, but sooner or later they’re going to come through these plots and pose for us.  If we can get some good footage, I’ll post it here.  Looks like I’m going to have to move the camera higher up the tree since the food plot product is now growing higher than the camera!

Regards,

Clint