Ani-Logics Outdoors

Now that we are in the growing season, I am getting a lot of questions about site prep when it comes to food plots. First step with any food plot should be a soil test to know what you have for nutrients for the plants to grow. Once you have the proper pH and fertilizer in the soil, it now comes time to prep for planting. People ask if it’s better to spray, then wait, then disc/plant/cultipack or if it is better to disc, wait, spray, wait, plant/drag/cultipack. What if you have no equipment? I will tackle the options and give trade offs for each method with this blog. 

We want to give our seeds the best chance to win out when it comes to the competition from weed seeds. Before planting, I like to look at the field and see what I’m most likely to encounter for weeds. If it’s mostly grasses with some broadleaf weeds mixed in, I will spray the field with a broad-spectrum herbicide with glyphosate as the active ingredient. I use a 41% concentration, and I apply 1.5 quarts per acre. If I’m dealing with a field that has a bunch of pigweed or other glyphosate resistant weeds, I will use tillage first, then wait and hit the regrowth with glyphosate shortly after emergence. Many times weeds that are resistant to glyphosate are simply sprayed when the plants are too established to have any impact. Here is a handy Herbicide guide as to what can be sprayed on each of our plots: https://anilogics.com/seed-selector-chart/

Once you have the competition out of the way, the seeds you plant have a better chance to prosper. In the end, the seed needs 3 things to germinate: moisture, temperature, and oxygen. Planting the seed too deep will not allow germination as the seed doesn’t have enough energy to break through into the sunlight. Planting without enough seed/soil contact can dry the seed up too quickly and it will desiccate. Timing your planting so that there is a good soaking rain within 10 days of planting will help ensure the moisture is there for the seeds. 

If, at the end of the day, you have seed in the ground, with very little competition, they will flourish. If site prep was skipped, seeds will have a hard time winning the battle. On our seed bags we suggest planting into a weed-free, firm, and even seedbed. What does that look like? Here is one example from some of our test plots:

For this one we sprayed first, then tilled the soil, cultipacked, spread seed, then culitpacked again. We ended up with a very lush field of Pro Clover that kept the deer in that area throughout the whole fall.

Now if you don’t have large equipment, you can get similar results using a string trimmer and a backpack sprayer. This style of planting can be done in one day, and here is how I do it. I take the string timer and cut the area I wish to plant down to about 1 inch. You want a little stem sticking up to soak up the glyphosate. Immediately after string trimming you need to spray the plot. Don’t wait even a few hours or the weeds will go into a sort of dormancy after the shock of being cut and won’t take up the glyphosate. Broadcast your seed after spraying, and if you get a good soaking rain you will have a plot that does just as good as those that were planted with larger equipment. This method will not do as good as getting seeds buried into the soil if you have dry conditions as the seeds will dry out if exposed for too long.    

I can’t tell when I look at a plot how it was prepped, and neither can the seeds, so remember that when you are worried about the process. The outcome is what is most important, and there are many ways to do it well.