August and september are key months for planting food plots here in illinois to provide quality green forage for deer for the fall.
Rye and buckwheat food plot.
Having said that and with most of my ineptitude fairly well hidden i do think that.
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Buckwheat can be planted as a warm season forage crop with cowpeas grain sorghum or soybeans and also as a stand alone crop.
It also helps improve food plot soils by building soil organic content.
Buckwheat is an easy to grow warm season annual that is useful in sandy soils remote food plots or in blends with other warm season crops.
Around the year of 2001 i was in a rush to create a 1 2 acre food plot fertilize lime and broadcast rye.
Let me start off by saying i am not a farmer.
It isn t a legume or grain species.
Buckwheat was always one of the most popular as it will germinate and grow a little bit in poor sites.
The rye provided a cover crop which fed my deer all fall and into the following spring.
Buckwheat the food plot cure all.
Turnips forage rape and radishes.
This warm season annual is a great food plot seed option for most hunters.
Crude protein levels are high often surpassing 20 percent.
Cereal grains rye oats and winter wheat.
I am a deer hunter and i do own a tractor and have all of the equipment but that does not make you a farmer any more than standing in the garage makes you a car well you get the picture.
Late season turkey hunters will often find both hens and toms wandering about the food plot picking insects from the blooms.
Buckwheat doesn t handle cold as well as wheat rye or oats so wait until your last average frost date to get it in the ground.
This means that if you don t have time to plant buckwheat this season you can go ahead and broadcast brassica clover chicory or tillage radish as well as rye wheat or oats right away and.
However it is not a legume as are some of the more commonly planted summer deer forages such as soybeans cowpeas lablab and alyceclover.
It s a forb and it can grow as tall as 4 to 5 feet in height.
I have seen many attempts at planting food plots over the years by landowners.
Same plot on september 18th.
Buckwheat reaches heights of 2 to 4 feet at maturity.
I applied 200 s per acre of rye and a little more later lime by hand fertilizer and a melting late october 1st snowfall germinated.
Seed buckwheat at 40 to 50 pounds per acre and drag to lightly cover the seed with soil.
An initial soil test revealed a ph level below 5 and after removing the conifer the exposed soil could be labeled extremely poor at best.
By ryan basinger buckwheat fagopyrum esculentum is a warm season annual forb that can provide several benefits to your whitetail food plot program.
Waited a little too long but did get around to mowing it on august 5th.
Mowed this rye which had been planted the previous fall as a nurse crop for perennial clovers.
