Food plot prep work is beginning

I finished putting the sprayer together, had to replace the manifold, pressure gauge, regulator and shutoff. Found large o-ring for the main filter/stainer and tighten the bungs as I couldn't locate replacement gaskets for them. The new control required a new bracket mount them. It should be ready to go next year now. Used Harness for the first half and then got some Harness Ultra in that last batch. I couldn't find much info on the HL, I hope the safened sorghum seed is fine with it. This was all for not, if the birds dig the seeds out and eat them. It was a week since I planted and on a quick inspection the seeds hadn't germinated in the dry dirt. Looks like we have some chances for rain this week....thundering now actually.
 
Checked the rain gauge before leaving for work...almost a solid INCH! That will get the herbicide activated and the seed growing. Now if the birds don't dig it up, we will have winter feed for them.
 
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Well, in my food plots the corn was up and the sorghum is sprouting, but not up. The birds have dug-up 99% of the corn it seems. I had planted with a 6 row, with 2 rows of corn, 2 passes, to have 4 rows of corn with 4 rows of sorghum on the outsides. Had this idea of a perfect food plots, but that isn't going to happen. I think I will just take the planter back down the middle with all sorghum, over seeding a little, but will fill in the missing 4 corns or corn. They seem to not go after the sorghum seed with the same vigor as corn, not the reward for the same work maybe and maybe the hens will be too busy sitting on the nest to be eating well.
 
Do you have any geese decoys set them out in corn rows they keep critters back for a while if you move them around effect will last longer
 
No decoys. Planted the remain sweet corn in the planter and loaded-up sorghum, replanted the plots, got that done around 9:00. Before I finished, I realized I had lost my hat. Got back to the farm, planted a couple more packets of pumpkins and gourds, got the gator and headed back over to maybe find the hat I lost. While looking, I stopped to retrieve a marking flag I had left where I had run out of herbicide. While retrieving it, I noticed that the pheasants had already been digging up the sorghum I planted just a couple hours earlier! Oh, I did find the hat.
I tried putting out some cheap, shiny pin wheel deals, those don't keep birds away.
 
remy3424 said:
No decoys. Planted the remain sweet corn in the planter and loaded-up sorghum, replanted the plots, got that done around 9:00. Before I finished, I realized I had lost my hat. Got back to the farm, planted a couple more packets of pumpkins and gourds, got the gator and headed back over to maybe find the hat I lost. While looking, I stopped to retrieve a marking flag I had left where I had run out of herbicide. While retrieving it, I noticed that the pheasants had already been digging up the sorghum I planted just a couple hours earlier! Oh, I did find the hat.
I tried putting out some cheap, shiny pin wheel deals, those don't keep birds away.
Click to expand...
That is amazing - good problem to have I suppose. I would be happy to see just one pheasant digging in our food plots!
 
I can't help but wonder if this is a learned behavior or if the birds are responding to the smell of the seed. In eastern Kansas I've heard of turkeys eating planted soybean seed, but my western farmer friends have never talked about this before.
 
I emailed PF last year and one of their biologists called me back, the fella has heard about this happening but didn't have an answer. I threw out the idea of spreading shelled corn out, he didn't like that idea. I might try it as a last resort. I can try spreading the corn in the hedges, there is a lot of grass there, but might be the easiest place to do this.....other than right in the food plots. I am afraid if I did that right into the food plots, it would just train them to look for food there and would eat the new seedlings and the corn on top of the ground. I will be getting a few more groups together to thin the roosters better this season...aiming for 100 or more roosters.
 
Thanks, The pic looks promising. I see a quart is $115, enough for 200 pounds of seed corn. I called the company to see if this could work on sorghum seed also.
 
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