Ever leave a food plot fallow?

[1GB]

I've often seen mention in publications for improving pheasant habitat to leave 1/2 the acreage of a food plot fallow each year, essentially flip-flopping what is planted. That there is some benefit for the birds from the annual weeds that result, from the bugs being attracted to the decay of the previous years growth, and for possible use as nesting/brooding/roosting.

Is anyone doing this?

If so, are you finding value doing this and how are you assessing it?

Are you doing it in 2 blocks or are you alternating strips?

Do you leave the ground 100% fallow or do something to break down previous residue, yet leave it unplanted?

 

[Prairie Drifter]

You can have several goal/benefits from using fallow. Usually fallow means that you don't work the ground for that season. That allows annual weeds to invade the site providing an additional habitat type in your rotation. The annual weeds provide habitat for the insect food sources that chicks need the first 12 weeks of life. It also can provide cover and seed sources for the fall/winter season in addition to your planted plots. Further, it allows the ground to store moisture and nitrogen for the coming crop. You can elongate your crop rotation and make the fallow year less than 1/2. Something like wheat, milo, summer fallow is an option. Another option, useful in many circumstances, is to broadcast or overseed your fallow acres with a legume to further enhance the soil via leguminous nitrogen and green manure. This further increases the insect production and can provide needed nesting cover where it might be limited.

 

[1GB]

Thanks Troy for sharing your insight.

The reason I posted this is because I tried it with an egyptian wheat/WGF sorghum plot and am not sure I like the results I got.

In 2010 this is what I had:

I don't have any photos, but during the winter it broke and fell down similar to cattails, creating a lot of lodges and paths under it - I had a few pheasants running around in it for much of the winter.

So this year I let about a 1/3 of an acre that runs 100 yards along one side of plot go fallow after all I had read.

This past spring I saw a lot of marestail/horseweed/fleabane and a variety of other weeds germinate and didn't look at it again until just this past week. Here is what I found:

It's very, very thick and matted:

The deer did smash a couple paths through it in a few places:

But this is what most of it looks like looking straight down:

It's a thick layer of stalks about 4"-10" off the ground

I don't see pheasants walking through it because it's all heavy stalks intertwined. I don't see them walking under it because they won't fit. I see how they might be able to walk on top of it in places, but really it seems to be more like a "Great Wall" with a few passages created by the Mongols (deer).

Thoughts?

I'm thinking that maybe next time I should run a heavy disc over it just once or twice at the beginning of spring to break down the stalks first?

 

[Prairie Drifter]

If you'll reread my post, I hope you'll find that many of the benefits you get from your fallow plot are "preseason" benefits. One way to evaluate your fallow is to walk slowly through it in May/June. When you get to the end, look at all of the insects clinging to your clothes. These are the building blocks for your fall bird population. Hidden benefits you will see from the soil improvements in following crops. Further, that thickness will become visibly valuable when the weather gets tough. It will become a refuge with inside buffet at that point. Any points you get will be total lock-downs on buried birds. If you thought of proximity in your planning(looks like you did), the birds should be able to move from the fallow to your currrent food plots without undue exposure to predators. If you have used residual herbicides on this plot in the past, you may see a different species mix in future fallow years. It looks good to me. Every year will give slightly different results. You can amend it by scratching in clover seed or cowpeas/etc, but it is really unnecessary.

 

[Prairie Drifter]

Let me add: I'm sitting here watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, so my mind has a bit of time to stew. I like to talk in analagies, so lets fly with that.

Habitat is like building a house. You need all of the parts in reasonable size and amount in order to host the number of occupants you wish to. If your habitat plan is just a food plot, then your house is just the kitchen with no roof, no living space, no bedroom, no garage, no foundation. If your food plot is 1/4 acre, then you may only have an apartment size fridge with a few snacks in it. When they're gone, everyone will leave, if they ever came in the first place. Everything must be the building blocks of: food, water, cover, and space! Food must be available for every season and every life stage.

Cover can be food, loafing cover, escape cover, nesting cover, brood-rearing cover, etc. Cover can be amount, thickness, species, proximity, or even quality. Cover may take in removing predator perches, limiting furbearer habitat, and controlling rodents to not attract predators in the first place. Successional stage can be a part of all of these.

Space amounts to size and proximity. You modify space by adjusting size and interspersion. It could be a 10 acre food plot, or 10 one acre food plots across 640 acres. It could be not haying all of a grass field, not cutting the last 6 rows of a row crop, grazing stalks in strips instead of field-wide stocking, it could be CRP as filter strips around 640 acres instead of in 1 corner, it could be a fallow plot in 1 corner or disked strips completely across the section.

Look at your habitat and see if you have a whole house. If you don't, you're going to have to build the missing rooms.

 

[Prairie Drifter]

One other point, Egyptian Wheat is a great food plot. It's one weakness is it's lodging propensity. This is good for the year-of-growth, but down range it can be a problem. You may want to find some sorghum or milo varieties with excellent stalk strength to mix with your Egyptian Wheat to retain part of the vertical structure of the original year.

 

[OKIEGunner]

Let me add: I'm sitting here watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, so my mind has a bit of time to stew. I like to talk in analagies, so lets fly with that.

Habitat is like building a house. You need all of the parts in reasonable size and amount in order to host the number of occupants you wish to. If your habitat plan is just a food plot, then your house is just the kitchen with no roof, no living space, no bedroom, no garage, no foundation. If your food plot is 1/4 acre, then you may only have an apartment size fridge with a few snacks in it. When they're gone, everyone will leave, if they ever came in the first place. Everything must be the building blocks of: food, water, cover, and space! Food must be available for every season and every life stage.

Cover can be food, loafing cover, escape cover, nesting cover, brood-rearing cover, etc. Cover can be amount, thickness, species, proximity, or even quality. Cover may take in removing predator perches, limiting furbearer habitat, and controlling rodents to not attract predators in the first place. Successional stage can be a part of all of these.

Space amounts to size and proximity. You modify space by adjusting size and interspersion. It could be a 10 acre food plot, or 10 one acre food plots across 640 acres. It could be not haying all of a grass field, not cutting the last 6 rows of a row crop, grazing stalks in strips instead of field-wide stocking, it could be CRP as filter strips around 640 acres instead of in 1 corner, it could be a fallow plot in 1 corner or disked strips completely across the section.

Look at your habitat and see if you have a whole house. If you don't, you're going to have to build the missing rooms.

Troy,

Great analagy

 

[jaytee]

More often then not, some of my best habitat places are from fallow areas, be it food plots or just some ground that I've ran a disc over a few times during the year and then just let it go.:cheers::cheers::cheers:

 

[1GB]

Thanks for the advice PD. I had been trying to plug low holes in the local bucket - mainly nesting and brooding - thus my concern about how I don't see how they'd walk through it. The food plot is to keep birds around a little later in the season and provide a secure food source since I'm surrounding by other properties with mainly winter-only quality cover and farmers in my area chisel plow all the fields to dirt as soon as the crops come off.

One other point, Egyptian Wheat is a great food plot. It's one weakness is it's lodging propensity. This is good for the year-of-growth, but down range it can be a problem. You may want to find some sorghum or milo varieties with excellent stalk strength to mix with your Egyptian Wheat to retain part of the vertical structure of the original year.

I've been trying Wild Game Food (WGF) sorghum mixed in to do that. I'll try adjusting my rates next spring to shift the balance towards more WGF than EW.

More often then not, some of my best habitat places are from fallow areas, be it food plots or just some ground that I've ran a disc over a few times during the year and then just let it go.:cheers::cheers::cheers:

I've read this a few times and purchased a "real" disc (heavy) a few months back am going to try it this coming year. I looking forward to what results it might bring.