Food Plot: Slice South

Size:  0.3 acre

4/19/17

It came out somewhat different from all the other samples I've done.  This one has high magnesium, much lower iron, and the higher sulfur numbers point to some minor drainage issues I've got.  Short run, I'll tackle this a little differently.  Instead of using a dolomitic lime, I'm going to use a calcitic lime to raise my calcium, and try to offset the higher Mg content.  I found Menards pell lime that will fit the bill.  I'm also gonna dial back the gypsum I was going to put on.

2017 pre-amend soil test

8/6/17

South plot has been demo'd, leveled, cleaned, ferilized, and planted.  

Fertilizer applied
560 lbs 33% calcium pell lime (Menards)

200 lbs potash

100 lbs map

50 lbs ams
3 lbs copper sulfate

Seed planted

1.3 bushel rye

half bag of beans

some oats and barley

1 lbs brassica blend

Sample of WGF, sunflower, and buckwheat

9/3/17

Pre-demo

Post-demo/planting

19 days since planting

Success

9/16/17

Got some touch up work done on this plot this weekend.  I had a bunch of little things I wanted to get done before hunting season and winter got here.  First up was moving the ladder stand back about 15'.  At first glance you'd think 15' feet is no big deal, but what this move did was take the stand from being fully exposed and in the sun, to set back into a thick canopy of fir trees and shade.  

I finally got that dirtbag Williston Peter to come up and work off his immense labor debt to me.  So I put him to work on some of these projects.  One of them was putting a layer of Record Rack mineral on each of the stumps that remain in the plot.  Record Rack is about 40% salt, and that should about take care of killing those stumps without creating much of a "salt spot" in the plot.  

There are also three dolgo crabapple trees planted on the north side of this plot.  There were a half dozen canopy trees between the apples and the open sky coming from the plot, so I fired up the saw and bought some sunlight for those apples.  

Before cutting

After

The added bonus here is those bushes between the tubes and the plot are either hazelnut or beaked hazel.  Both are good hard mast and browse species for deer.  I need to make a note to go back and hit these bushes with a little cal-lime and some gypsum.  

Very happy with how this plot is turning out.