Ok I wanna plant a food plot

D

duckn66

Well-known member
This is gonna be a long question/post beware.

I've got a 20 acre piece of ground here at the house that I would like to plant some habitat on. Its all pasture right now and I have it hayed every year since I have lived here but I'm thinking now I'd like to turn it into more of a habitat area more than anything. It has a pretty nice pond on it that I kill geese off of occasionally in the winter so I'd like to keep the area around the pond pretty much how it is (short grass and no trees) actually I would like to keep the whole pasture treeless except for maybe the property lines.

My question is what should I plant for food and cover and does anyone know of any good websites that offer information on this? I was thinking maybe a couple of smaller food plots, maybe 4-5 rows of whatever bordered by tall grass and maybe some sort of thicket type bushes. I do have a small tractor, roto tiller and a disk I can use.
 
First question: is a food plot going to benefit you? What crops or cover types are around your property? Are birds being produced in the area and you're trying to make your property a wintering habitat, or are you trying to make it a bird production area? Second question: What is your deer population. Planting 4-5 rows of any food type that will also be attractive to deer will be long gone before the bird season opens. Third question: what are the soil types and what are their capabilities? This may need to be the first question because everything else depend upon the answer to this question.
 
duckn66, I moved your post out of lounge so it would get proper attention.

Second, I don't see what you objective of the food plot is? This is key.

I know of know better source of feedback than this forum on this type of question so take advantage of it and get back with your specific objectives and goals for the cover changes.
 
Not sure about the soil type. When I built the pond I planted winter wheat to help keep the soil in place and it did well.

Basically I am trying to build a place for the birds to winter and not hunt them or turn it into a production area. Benefitting the birds only. Birds are produced around here. Very few pheasant, a couple of coveys of quail are in the area and from time to time some prairie chickens are seen.

Not a ton of deer but there is some.

Mostly pasture with short grass that has been hayed but the neighbors and also the pasture to the south has good grass. To the west is a creek with lots of cover and some feed fields.
 
So, is the goal pheasants or quail? If you're looking toward quail, you will probably be more beneficial doing disturbance disking where you provide both food and brood-rearing cover. To hold pheasants through the winter, a mixture of millet, milo, and Egyptian wheat would be good, or a single variety of any of the three. Again, it won't take too many deer to eliminate the benefit of 4-5 rows of milo. Millet and Egyptian wheat are less attractive to deer.
 
I am honored southernblues, thanks! The blogspot is a great addition! But, you've found my shortcoming in life, computers:)
 
PD is going to know more about quail but if I had a 20 acre block to setup for pheasants this is what I would do:

1. Put 45% of upwind acres in nesting cover because this can act as snow catch in winter.
2. Put another 45% downwind of the nesting cover into haevy winter cover, namely warm season grasses
3. Lastly I would put 10% of furtheest downwind block into Milo/cane foodplot to use to harvest roosters in fall and carry the hens through the winter. The upwind snow catches should keep this food source clear in the nastiest winters. The foodplot may even provide critical winter survival cover when snow and cold get to be a limiting factor.
 
You call the existing habitat pasture, what species are present, how is the diversity, what shape is it in? Pasture hayed for long periods of time generally loses diversity and gets more dense (if it was hayed correctly). If not managed well, it will have a high % of invasive species that may be detrimental to it's function as bird habitat. If you're going to habitat unstead of hay, it may be time for a burn to try and get the diversity up and the invasive species down. If it is in native grass, the tall species should respond favorably to the burn. Uguide brings up a good point. Don't put your food plot on the windward side where it might just become a snow drift. If you put in any shrubs make sure they help act as a snow trap upwind of the food plot by 30 yards or so. If you will use a drill to plant the mix of milo, millet, and Egyptian Wheat, you won't have to worry much about weed competition. Make sure to fertilize the plot to ensure seed production.
 
Sounds like you have possibilities for some good pheasant populations.
The brushy creek to the West of you will probably be the favored roosting area.
Good thought to have the snow break to the West and North. Corn would do a good job of snow fencing. 40-50 rows would be a significant amount except if you draw in bunch of deer or/and turkeys.
I would do the rest in native warm season grasses. Good stand of Switch and Side Oats Grama left uncut would also be good brood rearing and roosting cover.
 
PD, its all native grass. I have burned but not recently. I really just want to do this for the quail. Pheasants have pretty much disappeared around here for some reason. Use to be quite a few but the last one I saw was laying dead in the road a half mile east. There was one rooster that would crow every spring and he finally musta bit the dust about 3 yrs ago. There is one covey of quail in the area. Some years its 25 birds and others it only about 10.
 
One covey on 25 acres is very good. You might hold 2 if you provide critical habitat. Again, spend some time looking over the fence and figuring out what the limiting factor in the area is. If there is row crop nearby, it probably isn't fall/winter food. If there is significant numbers of beneficial forbs and bare ground within your pasture, it may not be brood-rearing habitat, if there is other undisturbed, lower successional grass in the area, it may not be nesting habitat. You need to know what is limiting and provide that in order to add another covey or two. If you rarely get snow, the strip disking would suffice for a food source and would provide brood habitat as well. Remember that quail would rather eat the weed seeds in the row crop food plot most days than eat the row crop itself. If you want to get down to minutia, remember that the larger the seed, the less time a quail has to spend feeding. Therefore, giant ragweed will fill them up quicker than western ragweed, and western ragweed will fill them up faster than foxtail, and so on. Also remember that the native forbs have centuries of adaptation working in their favor and they will set seed in years when many crop plantings won't.
 
Might be better off just disking then and letting weeds grow back then. I don't wanna do the entire 20 acres but maybe a few areas around. I have some areas that have some thickets I could disk around and then let the native grass grow up tall around the disked areas too.

If you look at a typical hay pasture then your seeing what my ground is for the most part. All prairie grass. Below the pond dam is some thickets and areas i could disk up. But the rest is grass. Like I said sounds like some disking is in order and probably below the pond dam. I'd like to be able to attract some doves in sept as well to provide me with one or two good hunts for the year. :thumbsup:
 
If disking is the focus, then there are some specifics you can use as well. The best response as far as species goes happens when you disk in October/November. Further, remember that quail usually nest within 10 yards of a habitat edge. By maximizing your edge for the effort expended, you are more likely to bring off additional broods. Spread the disking out across the acreage, make crooked strips instead of straight. Round or square plots don't have the edge that strips have. Do some disking every year by just moving over from the previous year's strip and in 3-4 years you will notice that the first year's strip is back to native grass and you'll have varying stages of succession all benefiting quail. All this and no cost for fertilizer, seed, or herbicide. Focus on providing several "covey headquarters" on your acreage to maximize the potential for those additional coveys you desire. The headquarters should include nesting habitat (native grass), brood-rearing habitat (disk strips), and escape cover (brush) all in walking distance for a quail. The published axiom is a quail should never be more than 50 yards from a thicket of at least 50 feet in diameter. You may not have or want brush this thick, but it will help guide you when developing your overall plan.
 
Awsome PrairieDrifter. Thanks for your information. Hopefully in a few short years I can see an increase in quail numbers around here. Like I said I don't care about hunting them I just would like to kinda know that they are.
 
Contact these guys

I would contact your local Pheasants Forever Chapter. They can provide a small 7' drill but you will have to provide the tractor. Most PF chapters do this, yours may not. They can also provide the seed mix for you to use. Obviously it will be their blend that will benefit pheasnts and quail, but will also benefit geese and ducks. I would plant max capacity and brush hog out your rows or open spaces closer to winter. The geese will not typically land in tall milo, sorghum or corn. They prefer it to be on the ground. Also the food source will be on the ground for them to eat around that time of the year. What some of the other people posted makes all the sense in the world. You first need to look at what crops are being grown around that area and try to stay in that realm. Wheat is nice if snow doesnt cover it during the winter. Corn rows work well too but then you will pull in every deer in a section to your land. The geese and ducks love it if they can beat the deer to it. Any questions or help you can contact me at darenshepherd@hotmail.com and I can assist you more.
 
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