Food plot question - cutting clover?

Chas

Chas

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Cleaning up some trail camera pictures tonight and have a question for those of you who grow clover - either for food plots or farming.

Attached are a progression of pictures this summer showing the establishment of a small food plot I have on my deer hunting property. Small because its predominately rock and I hauled in 1200 lbs of soil in 5 gallon buckets a couple of years ago on two bad knees (before 1 knee replacement).

The first year, I planted a no till annual crop after liming and fertilizing. It established great, but the deer ignored it (especially the rye grass). Next year I herbicided (as previous crop was annuals), limed, fertilized and seeded with Whitetail Institute clover from Cabelas and had a total crop failure. A call to the company produced no results (I wanted to know if they had problems with the seed lot on the bag), and they blew me off saying they couldnt tell how the vendor had stored their product! I overseeded with Alsike clover I purchased from a feed store in Elmvale Ontario in early summer, and had good germination. Unfortunately I was away for most of August and broad leaf aster plants took the plot over and were waist high when I got back in late August. I ended up pulling them out (easily) by hand.

This past spring I raked up the plot, limed, fertilized and over seeded with the same Alsike clover, and seeded 1/2 the plot that was bare with chicory. Wow - it really took off! By mid July the clover was tall and starting to flower, and the deer and the bears :mad: found it. But I noticed within weeks the plants had fallen over, and the crop had fallen off. Didnt stop the animals from using it, but there was far less forage available than in June, and use tapered off to very little by October. I did spot treat the aster with herbicide in late July and those are the brown spiky stems in the last picture.

I have not been able to find any information to help me, so I was wondering if I should have mowed the plot when the clover flowers appeared in June to see if it would resprout for better crops in August and September. It seemed that the plants got tall, spindly and fell over.

Bought more Alsike seed this fall and hope to expand the plot next spring. Also going to fence a small area to prevent the deer and bears from eating to see if it was just a matter of overgrazing.

Your thoughts would be appreciated

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I mow about the end of June and mid-August . Cut the clover back to about 6 inches , no shorter . I fertilize after both mowings . I take care of grass and broad leaf weeds with Slay and Arrest mixed with crop oil . I've tried Alsike on one plot and Imperial Whitetail on another and the deer certainly like Imperial Whitetail better . One of the reasons for mowing is so the herbicide can easily kill the weeds and grass . I then rake those former weedy , grassy areas and put down more Imperial . There is 10 inches of snow out on my property and the deer are digging to get at the clover . The Canadian company , Rack Stacker is worth checking out for food plotting . I'll still be going with a 2 acre plot of Imperial Whitetail but i'm going to try some Rack Stacker on a couple of other plots although i haven't decided what , yet . I don't know what they put in their mineral blocks but what ever it is deer love it .
 
I have used Imperial Whitetail Clover for over 20 years and is the best product of all I have tried to draw and hold deer. I have tried red, white, yellow clovers, soya, oats, corn and alfalfa. I made the mistake of trying Rack Stacker and got rows of weeds. Not one of the seeds that were advertised in the product grew. I contacted Rack Stacker and was told the weed was not from them. I have 4 fields and the one with Rack Stacker was the only field with that weed. Nothing will kill it and after 2 years on constant tilling I hope that it will be gone this year. I mow my clover as soon as it flowers and I get about 5 years of crop.
 
I do not know How Much Rain you got ? but around here it was dry

where I am Most Crops Harvest were Bad ....unless you could water 2019 was just too hot with no rain.... or rain at the wrong time

I have talked to a few Farmers .. 1st crop of hay was not great... 2 crop of hay was not worth cutting ... unless you had a few spots that you did not take your tractor to in a wet year

Corn fields when you drove by them were really short and cobs were small.. Soybean when they started drying out and you could see them from the road ... pods were small or not there

So if you got the same weather your crops would not do so good

When i went to the club to do some shooting the only thing that was Green was the poision Ivy along the berms

A couple of years ago 3rd cut (wet sunny year) was better than this years 2nd cut
 
Thanks for the responses guys. We had a reasonable amount of rain this summer so it wasnt drought that caused an issue. I will try mowing and fertilizing during the summer as suggested (Jaaska - my plots are 80 km away from Thunder Bay).

I bought the Whitetail Institute clover in the states - do you folks have a Canadian source for it? I may try it again,
 
Chas said:
I really like working on the food plots - in a perverse way, I have more fun messing around with the food plots than taking care of my own yard!
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I hear ya! Id rather spend all day working a food plot breaking my back for free (well, costing me money really lol) than doing my regular work and getting paid for it lol

Seems like the consensus ive seen has been to cut down the clover to 6 inches after flowering. I planted my plot right before the horrible july dry period last year so mine never got that high. I used a groundhog maxx for my plot and loved it. I plan on going over a few more spots to start a few new micro plots next year. But i may focus more on annuals instead of clover.
 
Two crops on our land that hold deer to the property year in & year out is Alfh-alfa and ordinary garden peas.

Alfhalfa will hold deer year round (it grows tall enough to still be available without pawing thru most snow winters. Garden peas will attract deer and hold them in a farm yard all summer until the frost kills them like no other plant I have seen. when the wife plants peas we can have visitations from deer 24 hrs a day and any day of the week, very few days go by without at least two deer needing to be chased out of the garden (some days it can be 15), drives the wife crazy all summer trying to keep the deer out.LOL.
 
kamlooky said:
Wouldn't planting a couple/few apple trees be much easier?
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I know in my case we have a few apple trees there all ready. This is the guy i shot this fall, chowing down on an apple a few months before the fateful encounter (almost the exact spot where i shot him)


His gut still had apples in it in November even tho the trees in our spot had been empty for a while by then.

Only problem with apple trees is that the deer around here anyways tend to eat off all the buds before they have a chance to become apples so it is only every few years we see apples in great abundance.
 
Chas said:
Thanks for the responses guys. We had a reasonable amount of rain this summer so it wasnt drought that caused an issue. I will try mowing and fertilizing during the summer as suggested (Jaaska - my plots are 80 km away from Thunder Bay).

I bought the Whitetail Institute clover in the states - do you folks have a Canadian source for it? I may try it again,
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Have you soil sampled?
Blindly adjusting ph or applying unneeded nutrients is just a waste. Sampling and getting things exactly right is fun in itself.
 
This is what they are hitting hard around here now in preference to the alfalfa. Fall weeds that I don't know the names of. It's been down to -17 and the snow has come and gone a few times but it is still green. They are out there every night, nose to the ground.

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Chas - how deep is your soil? My experience, clover (and alfalfa, trefoil) prefer soil greater than 12" deep. My red clover plot is approx 28" soil depth and when things dry up, the clover really flourishes... due to deep roots.
Additionally, I have found that nitrogen fertilizer is counter-productive for clover, as it benefits mostly the weeds. Without nitrogen fertilizer, the clover fixes nitrogen from the air and can then out-compete the weeds.
 
Buck_Up said:
Chas - how deep is your soil? My experience, clover (and alfalfa, trefoil) prefer soil greater than 12" deep. My red clover plot is approx 28" soil depth and when things dry up, the clover really flourishes... due to deep roots.
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Unfortunately its only a couple of inches deep as I had to cart all of the soil into the site in buckets. The property is basically all bedrock with lichen growing on it. When I get and ATV trail into it then I may be able to bring some more soil in, but I still have to buy a load of it and have it trucked in. I want to cart more in this spring by hand and expand the plot as much as I can. I couldnt this past spring due to complications from knee surgery.

kamlooky said:
Wouldn't planting a couple/few apple trees be much easier?
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Would love to if they could grow on lichen covered rock :)


As far as soil tests, I know the underlying rock is acidic in nature, so I havent done a soil test yet and have been using lime / fertilizer rates from Quality Food Plots which is a great book: https://shop.qdma.com/quality-food-plots-your-guide-to-better-deer-and-better-deer-hunting.html

Its very difficult to find low nitrogen fertilizer in this part of the world, so I use what I can get that is as close to the recommended fertilizer.

Thanks for all of the input.
 
Chas said:
As far as soil tests, I know the underlying rock is acidic in nature, so I havent done a soil test yet and have been using lime / fertilizer rates from Quality Food Plots which is a great book: https://shop.qdma.com/quality-food-plots-your-guide-to-better-deer-and-better-deer-hunting.html

Its very difficult to find low nitrogen fertilizer in this part of the world, so I use what I can get that is as close to the recommended fertilizer.

Thanks for all of the input.
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No way I would do the work you are without testing, especially since you are moving soil around. Be a project in itself. Cost less than $30 a sample last time I did it. I was getting 8 samples on 200 acres of known soil type though.

Interesting thread.
 
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