No-Till Food Plots

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Another question is did you spray existing vegetation with a herbicide or just throw seed and bush hog it?
I’m leaning on not spraying and just tossing seed out and bush hog the plot.

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I would think that would be a terrible idea if you are using high dollar seed. You do not want them competing for sunlight with weeds.

I've done no till last few years. Results last year were best yet. I spray then spread seed two weeks later and bushhog.

I have an area that is shady and holds moisture. Weeds seem to do fine(this is an area in my yard that several deer frequent) I have sprayed and curious if I could do this?? Not going to shoot these just like seeing them.

About 10 years ago we tried to go 100% No Till, and with mixed results. This is what I would tell you.

The idea of just bush hogging and throwing seed on the ground will not work. Don't do that.

We found what worked best was to clip about the first of August to get the heavy material down. Then let thing sprout back up and grow again. But only get about calf high. Then spray with 2qts of glyphosate about the first week of Sept. That will give everything time to really melt down and lay flat.

The dead grass acts as a mulch and holds in moisture. So even when it is too dry for most others to plant, you can probably get your crop up.

We rent a No Till drill from the rental place. Several county NRCS offices also have them for rent. We plant either the last week of Sept or the first week of Oct.

Just drill wheat and oats and clover into the dead grass mulch.

The problem we had was Poanna (Poa Annua) (Kentucky Bluegrass). It is a nasty winter weed that has taken over some of our food plots. It looks great and it makes the plots green. But it has no nutritional benefit at all and it chokes out everything you plant.

We have found that deep disking buries the seed and keeps it controlled. So that makes No Till hard except for every other year or so.

We have also found a chemical that controls it. Osprey. You can spray right over the wheat and it kills the PoAnna and doesnt kill the wheat. So we are gonna try more of the No Till this year now that we have Osprey in our quiver.

In short, the only real benefit we have found is the moisture retention associated with chemical control of weeds. Really helps in dry years. In wet years, it's about the same money and better results to go conventional till.

But we are continuing to refine our process. I would eventually like to feel comfortable going 100% No Till.

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But we are continuing to refine our process. I would eventually like to feel comfortable going 100% No Till.

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We are almost 100% no-till in our farming. You will occasionally run into wet years and have ruts that need to be worked out but for the most part on our soils it works great. We have a few fields that have not seen any kind of tillage for 40 years.

I'm going into my fourth year doing some small plots that way with reasonable, yet modest success.

I mow down to the dirt, then come back in 2-3 weeks, hose it with glyphosate, then in a week mow it down to the dirt and seed a mix of wheat/oats/turnips in the second half of October, usually ahead of a 2-3 day rain event for good germination.

There will be competition, but I've had decent stands of the wheat and oats. Turnips won't do well and I'll omit them this year.

This is on small plots no bigger than an acre and a half.

Ok, say grass is knee to waist high, once I spray the grass will all lay down. If I toss seed a day or 2 after spraying why would I need to mow the grass if it’s all laying down over the seed? Has anyone done it this way? Just spray then throw seed out and let it lay over your seed.

You in west TX?