Did I waste my time?


Ethan Givan

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Hey guys, I dont have any food plots or anything on the property that i hunt so yesterday i took our tractor and disced an area in a small 2 acre field on the back of the property where the heaviest tember is. I have a friend that works with a big grain farmer and he got me some soybean seeds so I planted them in the field. If they come up do you think the deer will come to them at all or did i waste my time? There isnt any soybeans or corn within a half mile of this area.

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I am betting that your problem will not be "if they come up"...your problem will be that the deer won't let them come up. A 2 acre plot is nice, but when you are dealing with soy beans, a 2 acre plot doesn't stand a chance...the deer will chow on those things once they start coming up, and won't leave them alone until they are eatin up. good luck

dan

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Depends on how much browse pressure the deer put on it. In the part of MS where I hunt deer numbers/square mile are very high. Whenever we've planted soybeans they will get about 5" to 6" tall then the deer wipe the plants out in a few days. That's on our bigger plots too than run from 2 to 6 acres. Even if they wipe them out though your deer still got the benefit from the planting.

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Depends on how much browse pressure the deer put on it. In the part of MS where I hunt deer numbers/square mile are very high. Whenever we've planted soybeans they will get about 5" to 6" tall then the deer wipe the plants out in a few days. That's on our bigger plots too than run from 2 to 6 acres. Even if they wipe them out though your deer still got the benefit from the planting.

Bingo. Have done miniplots of soybeans here with very good results. Depends too on the type of soybean you used. There are soybeans on the market that explode and tolerate heavy browsing. I am a fan of the eagle seeds soybean blends, very impressive growth on those plants even under drought conditions.

So to answer the question did you waste your time.... Probably not with 2 acres planted, the deer will benefit and unless the density is high in the area or there is absolutely no other food source around you should have some plants get decent growth.

Where concerned that overbrowsing will be an issue in the future you can plant sorghum or other fast growing summer grains. Tecomate lablab plus comes in small bags for planting smaller plots, and that blend also does very well.

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Thanks for all the advice. Yeah the deer around here mainly depend on grasses in hayfields, and acorns or other browse in the woods. THere isnt alot of crops around close. I dont know if the deer are gonna get a whole lot to eat, the turkeys are absolutely hammering the field that i planted lol

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