I have no intention of getting in the middle of this schoolgirl squabble you and 257 have going, but my interpretation of his statement was that hunters on year to year leases may not reap the rewards of soil improvement. Having said this, I agree with 257 in this scenario. If you don't have several years of access guaranteed, traditional planting seems a better use of time. If you fully expect to renew your lease each year, throw and mow could yield good results, but the results will get better with time and there's no shortcut for that.

That looks like Chamberbitter. It's a small low growing weed with yellow flowers. I see it a good bit in landscaped beds. I am not sure if it is called partridge pea? Does it have a milky sap like a spurge?

I have no intention to argue with you….but I’m going to post a response anyways.

Explain how spraying, disking, culipacking, etc..etc…is a better use of someone’s time. If you and I are both looking at the same field of grass and weeds come this fall….why are you better off to spend 3X the amount of tractor time to do it the traditional way regardless of next season?.....A pretty seed bed?


We use to plant at the hunting club in the traditional manner. The first year we spent all weekend long planting and still didn’t get everything done we wanted to. This is in addition to going down two weeks in advance and spending a whole day hauling water and spraying. For the last few years we have switched methods and we get it all done in one Saturday from start to finish. The plots still look great and still serve their purpose. Everything is not just completely about long term soil improvements even though that’s the foundation for the method.

Hmmmm....Not sure. I'll have to take a look later today. I googled it and you may be right. It sure does look like that stuff.

Soil health was not why i started using this method. It was just quicker and easier and i didn't have to haul a heavy ass tractor to the club. I haul a 4 wheeler instead and just use a roll of chainlink fence to drag the dead thatch down over the seeds. I do appreciate the benefit of having healthy soil and not just dirt. I completly understand clubs not caring about soil health, but thats just icing on the cake, when using this method. A drill would be the ideal way to plant, but they ain't no way i'm spending that kind of money to plant a few acres of plots for deer.

CNC that is gripe weed or little mamosa as some call it. That crap will take over quickly. Or chamberbitas said above.

Well damn.....I thought I had me something there for a minute. I guess I'll have to order a little bit of partridge pea seed and see if I can get it started. Thanks man.

Therein lies the issue. Everyone is looking at a different piece of ground. 257 suggested that throw and mow may not be feasible for everyone. I was simply agreeing with him on the grounds that each property is different. If someone just got a new timber company lease and they're not 100% sure they'll renew it next year, why would they concern themselves with long term soil improvements? Secondly, most timber company food plots are nothing more than converted loading docks, usually in a dry spot like a ridge top. They may not have enough biomass in year 1 to effectively practice throw and mow. Remember, these leases usually renew in the summer time. A guy may not have time to grow biomass before it's time to plant fall food plots.

We have a long term lease so we would benefit from the improvements in the soil over time. However, I did T&M on 3 of our 15 fields in the Fall as a proof of concept in order to save time. It was a success and we may expand the number of fields this coming season. I decided not to plant any T&M Summer crops this year. I plan on keeping the fields cut so they don't get to overgrown. My hopes are that we can take advantage of man hours saved on planting and use them to maintain roads, trails and shooting houses.

Fair enough. I suppose folks will just have to assess each situation and decide for themselves what is the best option.

Here’s a couple more plant species in the field to add to the list of things being browsed. I believe this first one is called horsenettle.



I’m not sure the name of this plant…..someone help me out. It’s actually growing in one of my fruit orchards which is just a part of the same field. Forgive the expression but growing up I heard them called n***** knockers. They grow a little hard ball on the end of the stems about half the size of a golfball. The ends of every stem on this plant except for one have been browsed.

I would call that Golden Rod, and I think the hard balls are a Gall fly parasite. Sometimes you can find a grub in them.

It dang sure is.....I didn't recognize it without it being bloomed out yellow. I never realized the deer would browse that stuff. Thanks!

You guys ever have deer eating maypops? I don't know if that is the technical term, but 2 years ago we had deer seeking them out.

I ask that, because it was in a field I tried T &M on. I almost didn't want to bush hog it.

This might be your culprit. I thought the same thing too when I first saw it being devoured last year but it was these guys. The deer don’t mess with it too much I don’t think but I’ll watch again and see if I see any action on it.

I walked around and checked out a small patch of maypop that I still have growing and didn't see any browsing activity on it. If they don't browse it around here then it's probably not something they'll mess with too much. I'm going to do some more spot spraying tomorrow to nuke that little patch.....it spreads like crazy if you let it. Unless you are in bad need of the biomass production then I'd probably start spot spraying it to get rid of it.

Maybe that is what was eating them. I did read after I posted that they are vital for butterflies surviving.

Going to try method on browntop this weekend. 3 acre field. 3 foot weeds glysophate earlier this week. Should be interesting. Will report