April 2012 Food Plot Update

A Favorite Picture

An Interesting Spring

Welcome to the April Food Plot Journal. We had cool, dry weather in April. Cool temperatures were good for the clover, but we could have used more moisture.

The two plots we planted in late March have floundered. Looking at them from a distance there is just barely a green tint to them and a close look doesn't provide a better picture. I've had little success planting in March, but this year the weather was so good that I thought that we couldn't go wrong. We also had the time to do the work, which can be hard to come by. I'm not sure what I'll do about these plots other than watch them for the rest of May and see what happens. If nothing comes up I may plant a brassica in them or I could sow more clover seed in them. I do not want to let weeds take the upper hand so if we see weeds starting to take over I'll be forced to disk again.

It was no surprise that the corn we sowed didn't do anything. We may try corn again or possibly try some sunflowers for some variety.

You can see both of these plots still look like dirt while the clover in the foreground looks good.

We finally jumped into the middle plot and started disking on April 28th. This plot was last planted in 2007 and was our poorest plot. Hopefully this weekend we'll finish disking and plant a brassica.

We didn't get to disk much before it started to rain, but we got a good start.

We have another plot doing an interesting thing. The hayfield plot that we call Area 5 is growing in patches. We planted this plot last spring and it thrived through the summer and fall. This spring it is growing in patches. Ryan has begun calling it Area 51. I'm not sure what has happened here. There were areas of this plot that were wetter than others when we disked it so maybe this has something to do with it. I'm thinking that we could overseed the bare areas and hope that they jump up.

You can see how some areas of this plot are thick with clover while others are bare or just have weeds.

There are parts of Area 3 that have sparse clover in them but I'd like to limp this area along this spring/summer and possibly plant some oats here later this summer. We mowed most of the hayfield plots and there is still a lot of clover for the deer.

The Whippoorwill and Rt of Way plots both have a fair amount of clover in them which should keep the disks out for another spring.

We still have somewhat of a grass problem in the oldhouse plot. We would like to get some grass herbicide on some of our plots if we can get the time and the right weather.

We haven't done anything with the steep areas of the hayfield. Right now we're leaning towards killing it off and sowing something that takes little tillage. Right now this area is low on our priority list.

So far this spring we've had both good and bad and as much as I don't like rainy weather we need some rain.

We get thousands of pictures each month with our digital trail cameras but we narrow down each set of pictures to our favorite six or seven and these are usually buck pictures. As you can imagine there are always several more that are very good but don't make the cut.

Below is one of our favorite pictures from April. This feeder is somewhat successful at keeping the raccoons from stealing from us, but the squirrels have figured it out! Can you find the two squirrels in the picture? You can take a look at our favorite deer pictures from March 30 here.

What a crazy spring it has been. After a mild winter, we had summer weather in March and then cool, dry weather in April. We always worry about our apple crop and this spring has us scratching our heads. We can still see some small apples on our trees and small pears on the pear trees, but we have no confidence that they will mature. At certain times some of the leaves on the apple trees looked stunted.

If nature is as confused as I am about what to wear each day we could see some strange things. I've already noticed that we seem to have more bugs. On two warm evenings lately I've been outside and found myself swatting at I don't know what kind of bug. This could be a big year for Off!

There was even a time when the leaves had come out but then it cooled off and it looked more like fall than spring. It seemed like one week we had temperatures in the 80's and then we were getting freeze warnings a few days later.

One thing I know for sure is that it's giving me a real good excuse for my food plot failures!