Rye And Buckwheat Food Plot

I am a deer hunter and i do own a tractor and have all of the equipment but that does not make you a farmer any more than standing in the garage makes you a car well you get the picture.

Rye and buckwheat food plot. Buckwheat the food plot cure all. Mowed this rye which had been planted the previous fall as a nurse crop for perennial clovers. August and september are key months for planting food plots here in illinois to provide quality green forage for deer for the fall. This means that if you don t have time to plant buckwheat this season you can go ahead and broadcast brassica clover chicory or tillage radish as well as rye wheat or oats right away and.

Buckwheat reaches heights of 2 to 4 feet at maturity. August planted soybeans and buckwheat. Same plot on september 18th. It s a forb and it can grow as tall as 4 to 5 feet in height.

Turnips forage rape and radishes. Cereal grains rye oats and winter wheat. I applied 200 s per acre of rye and a little more later lime by hand fertilizer and a melting late october 1st snowfall germinated. An initial soil test revealed a ph level below 5 and after removing the conifer the exposed soil could be labeled extremely poor at best.

This warm season annual is a great food plot seed option for most hunters. Late season turkey hunters will often find both hens and toms wandering about the food plot picking insects from the blooms. Having said that and with most of my ineptitude fairly well hidden i do think that. Buckwheat was always one of the most popular as it will germinate and grow a little bit in poor sites.

Seed buckwheat at 40 to 50 pounds per acre and drag to lightly cover the seed with soil. Let me start off by saying i am not a farmer. Waited a little too long but did get around to mowing it on august 5th. I have seen many attempts at planting food plots over the years by landowners.

It isn t a legume or grain species. Buckwheat can be planted as a warm season forage crop with cowpeas grain sorghum or soybeans and also as a stand alone crop. The rye provided a cover crop which fed my deer all fall and into the following spring. Crude protein levels are high often surpassing 20 percent.

Topics covered in this article. In june i sprayed the rye to terminate it and drilled sugar beets right into that great thatch. It also helps improve food plot soils by building soil organic content. Buckwheat doesn t handle cold as well as wheat rye or oats so wait until your last average frost date to get it in the ground.

Fall plantings for deer food plots tue july 30 2013. However it is not a legume as are some of the more commonly planted summer deer forages such as soybeans cowpeas lablab and alyceclover.