doing a 5 acre plot following this video..... any advice? thoughts? suggestions?

I don't have a drill, so don't suggest that

I have the corn, the urea, the beans. Tractor disc and broadcaster. Going to disc the field a few times to really get it chopped up, broadcast, then drag. In the video, he discs the seed in instead of dragging. Would that be better?

location? how are you excluding the feral hogs from your 5 acre buffet?

SE OK..... I talked to local farmers and feed store. All said I am ok on time as long as I get it in before end of may at the extreme latest. preferably early may, but mid may is ok.

will just have to deal with hogs like everywhere else. we have them, but not in numbers like Texas.

yeah, you'd best get going. If the spigot turns off in June like it does some years, could be a pile of dust. The corn down here (north texas) is already waist deep and will start taking off here in the next 2-3 weeks with warmer temps and the recent rain we've gotten.

June is our wettest month. I would have preferred to have had it in a few weeks ago, but couldn't make it happen.

Now how about the process in the video?

Double your seeding rate when broadcasting. Germination is not near as good as a planter.

For all my dove plot stuff, I have disc'd, broadcast, then drug with a hog panel to cover. This video uses the disc to finish it off. I think that is my biggest question. which way is better?

Waist? In fort bend and Waller county it's already tassled out and has ears.

OnlyForNow said:

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Waist? In fort bend and Waller county it's already tassled out and has ears.

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250 miles farther north will do that.

We've still seen night time temps in the 40s in some recent weeks.

I have buddy that used to do this for all his food plots. He never did corn specifically, but did peas and turnips. His first couple of years he would use his disk and go back over it after spreading the seed and he would always have some thin spots due to the disk being set too deep. He then started using a drag and that worked pretty well. He finally perfected it by dragging and then running a cultipacker across it after that.

The cultipacker seemed to give better seed to soil contact, so more of the seed would germinate. Years that the food plots came in really good was also dependent on planting at the right time to catch enough rain to make it grow. We were not farmers by any means, and it was many years to perfect the method.

Envious!!!

we had lows in the upper 30's just last week.

shalackin said:

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we had lows in the upper 30's just last week.

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yeah I wouldnt be planting either n those temps... unless it was in a greenhouse

Optimal planting depth for corn is 2 inches. Optimal for soybean is 1 to 1.5 inches. These are big seeds that need a lot of soil contact to really grow well.

I'm not telling you what to do or not do. Actually I guess I'm telling you to manage your expectations on the germination if you're not going to get them more than an inch into the soil.

I'm not an agriculture guy at all, but I figured you'd only use a drag harrow over the seeds if you don't have a disk harrow. An inch or so of dirt contact should be enough for germination either way, right?

Hard times are real, there's dusty fields no matter where you go
You may change your mind 'cause the weeds are high where corn don't grow

I am an agriculture guy, but we only plant corn with a planter. 2" down and 7" apart. Soybeans need about 1/2" to 1" down. But I suppose if you are just enticing wildlife, getting it germinated and growing is all that matters.

so sounds like I should disc the corn and urea in, then broadcast the beans and drag that. would that work better?

shalackin said:

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so sounds like I should disc the corn and urea in, then broadcast the beans and drag that. would that work better?

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Yes, if you don't work in the urea, it will volatilize from the soil surface in just a few days. Lightly working in with just a little soil moisture is actually worse than leaving on dry soil surface.

Disk - corn and urea
Light drag - soybeans

If you have a way to firm the soil afterward that would be even better.

I do have a water filled barrel roller. would that work in place of a cultipackerr?

Yes

All done as planned. Should it take one full day from 7am to dark to plant 5 acres?