dogdoc

You'll do fine with a 4 week old. Puppy milk replacer is great but you can start giving the pup some dog food. Just take some dry puppy good and soak it in water and let it become mush and let the puppy start eating/licking the food. You should be done with the milk replacer in a week. Start your first vaccines at 6 weeks of age and give boosters every 3 weeks till 16 weeks of age. Your pup needs to be dewormed with pyrantal (strongid or nemex) starting now and every 2 weeks for 3 dewormings. Start a heartworm prevention after 7 weeks of age. I'd just find a good book or video on shed hunting but the best thing you can do is force fetch the pup---but that won't start until your pup is 6 months of age. I'm a big believer in collar conditioning and hunting lab (using an e-collar) but you need to get with someone who knows what they are doing. If done correct it makes a very obedient enjoyable dog. I never trained my labs to track deer but it comes pretty naturally with them. I would have never found a buck i shot if i wouldn't have had Belle (black lab) with me. After looking for an hour for blood I finally got her and she was on blood within 5 minutes. Found the deer within 20 minutes with the dog. Never trained her to shed hunt but I think it would be pretty easy if you have a fetchy pup. good luck todd

I can't think of anything I need--probably have too much stuff already. Probably just buy more food plot seed. todd

i'm still a good month and half away from fall planting. I did some spraying yesterday to get a head start on the weeds and grasses though. Us southern guys get an earlier start on the spring plots and you northern guys get an earlier start on the fall plots. Are you only planting brassicas and how many acres did you plant?

I've broadcasted oats into an existing soybean plot and it did great. I think broadcasting then mowing would work great with oats. todd

William--I have not personally used cleth on my clover plots for grasses but that is about the only thing most of the guys over at the QDMA forum use. I purchased a big jug of Poast several years ago. When I'm done with that I will switch over to cleth. I have only sprayed my trees once this year. I sprayed them mid spring mainly to help prevent cedar rust. I have had very little insect damage so far.

You can just go to any Home Depot or Lowes and get some Bonide Fruit Tree Spray. That will take care of your fungal problems like rust and also your beetles. I think you can spray it every 14 days. Just don't wanna spray when trees are in bloom so you don't kill your bees that are fertilizing your trees. However, fire blight is another problem. What you wanna do with blight is cut off all affected limbs back 18 inches from the infection. Blight is a bacteria and this year (from what I am hearing from other fruit tree growers) is that this is a very bad year for blight. The best treatment is prevention and that is spraying with a copper based spray in late dormancy. If you prune off all the blight and spray now with copper spray then you might be able to prevent any further infection. There is no spray that will actually kill blight--only prevent. todd

Still have some fescue that survived the first spraying and crabgrass has invaded so sprayed again yesterday with 5 quarts of 41% glyphosate in 50 gallons of water. Hopefully this will knock out the majority of weeds and grasses. This is what it looks like now. todd

Drilled 2 acres worth of eagle soybeans the first week of june. Drilled the beans then sprayed with glyphosate immediately after drilling.

Fruit trees are coming along great. A late spring frost killed all the blooms but didn't have too many anyway and the trees are young so they don't really need to fruit this year anyway. Pear tree My sawtooth oaks that i tubed are growing like crazy. Planted the seedlings mid april and they are already popping out of the 4 foot tubes.

One of the driest spring on record but we did finally get some moisture during June--below average but at least it kept everything alive. I lost my clover plot that I planted last year with wheat. Just not enough moisture. So I let the wheat mature and then just broadcasted 75# of a local wildlife mix consisting of sorghum, millet, cowpeas, soybeans, mung beans, lablab, and sunflowers. After broadcasting I mowed the wheat to create a mulch over the seeds. Received a nice rain a few days later and now the plot is doing great. Providing lots of food.

I've lost a few grafts. Either wind blew them off or deer pulled them off but most are still doing great.

I agree with William in planting rye grain. Great for the soil and stands up to good pressure. It is a little more cold tolerant than wheat so it will grow a little longer and just as palatable. You might try tossing in some forage radishes. The deer really like the greens and the deep radishes is great for the soil. Red clover is another option to toss in the with both the rye and the radishes. good luck todd

lol yep--that is what i meant.

I'm always afraid my dad is going to run over one when cutting hay at my place but unfortunately he never has. But 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Part of farming though. todd

i am a believer in beginner's luck now. my first persimmon grafts are doing great. We finally got some much needed moisture and everything is taking off nicely. anyway here are some updated pics of my first year of trying my had at persimmon grafting. these are around 6 weeks old. I am having to remove suckers from the main stem every week or so to keep all the sap flowing to the graft (scion). If you don't remove the suckers then they will rob the scion of needed sap and the scion with wither and die. I'm probably at around 90% success. I had a few scions fall off---probably birds or deer bumping into them and I had 2 trees where the electrical tape came unwound and the scions died. Hopefully in 3 years these will be producing fruit. todd

very good news. Prayers for more good news in the future. todd

have a good one partner todd

That's the advantage of having a day off during the week and having kids that like to go to the farm and play. William--my guess would be that the persimmons you have are male trees since you don't get any fruit. If you want to give it a try next year just let me know and I can send you some scions off of a good female tree and you can graft them on your trees. It is so easy that I bet even Martin could do it:chat:

man that is some dark soil. looking good. How is your deer numbers? Lots of controversy going on right now in MN with the hunters and the DNR. Lots of unhappy hunters as deer numbers have fallen drastically in some regions of the state. todd

Haha--those sex changes on persimmons are a little less complicated. Grafts are coming along nicely. I would say my success rate so far is around 70% or better.

be very careful---this plot thing is really addictive:hammer1: keep us updated with pics todd

These are bark grafts which are the best and easiest grafts for persimmons. To do bark grafting you have to wait until the trees come out of dormancy and the sap is rising. This is when the bark "slips" from the inner wood easily. I checked on the grafts today and I have success!!! Buds are swelling and popping through the parafilm tape and some are already popping out some healthy looking leafs Not that I need another hobby but this grafting is pretty fun and it's pretty cool following the progress of these grafts. I have grafted a total of about 30 male trees. I don't expect all of them to take as I am very much a rookie at this but hopefully will get better with more experience. These grafts should be producing fruit in 3 years. Anyone interested should read this article that was in the QDMA magazine. http://www.qdma.com/uploads/pdf/Grafting-Persimmons.pdf there are also lots of videos on youtube about grafting persimmons todd

Well I started my persimmon "sex" change exactly 3 weeks ago. I harvested some scions (dormant one year growth) from a known female tree that produces lots of fruit and is a very late dropping tree: I cut the scions in about 6" length and dipped any cut ends in candle wax and stored them moist in the fridge. I collected them the last week of February. Last summer I identified a lot of male trees on my land and marked them with flagging ribbon. Three weeks ago today I did my first persimmon grafts.

we have had plenty of that here in oklahoma. I have been lucky with my home and land and have been spared--except for bad hail damage. enjoy the boat todd

wow--gave me goose bumps!!!!