August 2008 Food Plot Update

A Favorite Picture

Deer Condo

August was a dry month in our neck of the woods and this continued our poor food plot planting performance for 2008. There was a time that it seemed like I could throw just about any seed out and it would grow, but now I'm gun shy and almost feel that it will take a miracle to get a plot to grow. It sure does show how we depend on the weather.

We did get some rain late in the month from the remnants of a hurricane that came past our area but it wasn't quite enough.

Oldhouse Food Plot

The Durana in this plot is doing okay. The herbicide we sprayed in July did a good job on the grass but the dry weather hasn't allowed the clover to pop up like it should now that the grass competition has been largely removed. I would have liked to have mowed the dead grass but I didn't want to disturb the plot in such dry conditions.

Although this spring 2008 planted clover plot hasn't thrived I expect it to do well next spring.

By early August there wasn't much left in this plot other than weeds and grass, so when the hay had been cut and I started disking the field I went ahead and disked this plot as well.

I disked the plot on August 8th and 15th and then on August 31st I applied 200 lb of lime along with 50 lb of 10-10-10 fertilizer. We then sowed Lablab, dragged the plot with bedsprings and sowed Durana clover.

10-10-10 fertilizer isn't the optimum fertilizer for a clover plot, but sometimes you are limited by what your local supply store has and this was the case here.

Between the spring and summer plantings we have applied 300 lb of lime to this plot. For the size of this plot this adds up to over one half ton per acre.

We are now praying for rain.


Old Garden Food Plot

The June planting of Lablab had given way to weeds and grass so we decided to go ahead and disk the plot in early August. We disked the plot on August 6th and applied 80 lb of lime along with 50 lb of 10-20-20 fertilizer. We disked again on August 7th and on August 8th we disked again, sowed Lablab, dragged with bedsprings, sowed Durana clover and dragged again with bedsprings. After dragging the second time I started to second-guess myself since the plot had disked up very nice. I was afraid that we might have covered the clover seed too much, but there wasn't anything I could do after the fact. We’ll see how it goes.

After planting we had very little rain and this plot has been slow to grow.

As of the end of August the Lablab had just jumped up and you could see some clover if you looked real close. This was thanks to the rain we had from the hurricane leftovers.

We need more rain here too.

The grass has died in the strip of Provide clover but the clover isn't thriving yet.

I haven't done much to this plot other than spray with a grass herbicide on August 7th. I would like to mow this plot as well but the dry weather has kept me from mowing.

The good news is that there is still some clover and a little chicory so there is something for the deer to eat.

I'll take a good look at this plot next spring, it may get disked up.

Whippoorwill Food Plot

The whippoorwill plot is still hanging in there although there was increased weed growth this month. I sprayed the plot with Arrest on the 7th to knock back the little bit of grass.

Once again I would have like to have mowed this plot but the dry weather kept me away.

The best thing for this plot was that the neighbor’s hayfield was cut earlier than ours and that took some deer away from this plot for a while.

Hayfield Food Plot

The hayfield plot is hanging in there and I guess that is all I can expect with the weather we have had this year. Hopefully it will come on strong again next spring. This plot is probably our most heavily used plot by the deer.

In early August it was spot sprayed with Arrest and mowed.

After the hay was cut in the remainder of the field I started disking in an attempt to plant a one acres strip of oats and brassicas. I disked on the 8th, 15th and 31st but the ground has been so dry and hard that it is not disking up well. My plans on an acre strip has now turned into a half acre strip and I hope to get back later this week to disk again and go ahead and plant.

Right Of Way Food Plot

The Lablab I planted in late July started up great and then stalled out in the dry weather. The deer also found it early as well. The clover didn't come up as quick but has now started up and needs rain.

One interesting thing is that some chicory has started to grow. This would be from seed that was planted in one of our two earlier plantings.

Hopefully this plot will finally grow something other than sparse weeds and grass.

So far we have weathered a pretty bad year for food plots. A wet late summer and fall could go a long way to getting our plots green again, but I'm not counting on anything. Forecasts show another hurricane that may give us some rain. It's a shame we have to count on hurricanes to give us rain. The destruction they cause for those on the coast just isn't worth it. Once again though, we are not in control so we'll take what we can get.

Hopefully we can get the oats and brassicas planted soon and rain will nourish them along to good growth. I'd like to see a nice green strip in our hayfield for the fall deer season.

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 August that did not make the cut. This buck stole several apples right off of the tree. In this picture he is eating one and you can see another apple in free fall going past the bucks left shoulder.

You can take a look at our favorite deer pictures from August 31st here.

Last year I complained to Ryan about not being able to see very well from my ground blind at the oldhouse food plot. I had generally put that thought in the background and would have only thought about it again while I was sitting in the same location this year wondering why I hadn’t done something about it.

Ryan, on the other hand, wanted to build an elevated blind. When he wanted to start building I just wanted to build a platform to put a pop-up blind on, but Ryan had a grander vision.

Over the last few weeks we have been working on the deer condo and I’ll have to say that it has turned out well. I tried to talk him into building less, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy hunting from it this deer season.

Take a look at our condo as we were building it.