Beans are definitely a large plot thing. If I did not have a field over about 3 acres I would not even try, unless fenced. Luckily I can do both there is about 1 ac of Perrenial Clover next to my 7 ac bean/corn field.

I wish I had one big field I could plant them on. I would plant some Eagle beans or powerplant and stand back.

The first year I planted clay peas, they came up all nice and pretty and looked really good. Go out to the club one weekend, beautiful stand, next weekend, nothing but stems. This usually happens about mid august. So then I have nothing for them until I can get the fields prepped and planted for fall, so they sit for weeks.

And then in clubs, they would come out in August and bush hog all the beans down, just as the deer were getting into them. Just doesn't seem like the best thing to do with fawns running around. Need doe's getting fat and happy to keep milk production up.

I still go back and forth on it, but I am committed to the clover and fusion right now. I think part of it is I like planting. LOL!!

Luckily my corn/bean field is seperate from my fall plots and I keep it standing. This year if it works out I may put an acre or two of pure brassica in the big field. I always plant my fall plots late, so brassicas never really get a chance to property do their thing .I also am going to plant my biggest fall plot (1 ac) in the corn/beans and e-fence it until about waist high.

Sounds awesome brad. look forward to the pictures

Hope I have some. Last year was my first failure in 8 years.Planted late, inadequate fertilizer, new mix, string of errors which resulted in a nice field of Sorghum, nothing else. The goal is this, from a couple years ago.

If I had one I could do that on, I would be all over it.

If I have some success with these cheap conventional beans... I will be doing about 20 acres in them next Spring. I've been planted a week or two. We are about to find out what's going to happen if the deer gnaw them to the ground and they can't get up I can split the rows with Sorghum and let it ride. Try something else.

I'm going to clover as well in the fall on several plots. Guys - this hobby is about to get high $$$. I'm up $160ish/acre on Fertilizer alone on corn ground.

I am going to change up what I plant in the fall to help compensate. Less brassica's, which from what I can tell consume alot of resources, and more cereal grains. Then add in some annual clovers to help nitrogen fixation. The cereals should provide the nutrients for the clovers as they decompose, and the annual clovers should fix nitrogen for the cereals. At least that's the idea.

This is another reason why I went to clover. It is there pretty much year round. With my smaller plots, it seems to hold up to the browse pressure better. I have a cell camera on a new plot. I put the camera there in late Feb when I put a feeder there. Not much traffic while the feeder was there, and then when Westervelt changed the rules, I pulled it. Deer traffic went up after that, and I had 4 deer using it pretty regular. They usually stay 30 minutes to an hour browsing. Sometimes I have a couple of other deer on it, perhaps from an adjacent property, I don't know. There is no way I could plant beans on this field, and it survive feeding 4 deer with them using it daily. They will start eating the chicory in it too.

I am going to try to fertilize this weekend, which should really kick the clover into overdrive.

Goatkiller, the only way I can plant regular soybeans and get anywhere with them is to plant them with Buckwheat to give them cover, or add clay peas as well. For some reason my deer don't jump on an emerging clay pea like they do a soybean.

With 20 acres you may be able to swing it with regular beans. Never know until you try.

I am only saying $30-35 a bag forage beans is the cheap stuff and cultivating is going to make things substantially cheaper from there. I have planted no-till RR beans for a crop. I am just trying to figure what this is going to look like when no sane person can afford the fertilizer or the Roundup to plant food plots. I am lucky to have a lot of big plots. However, I could be into this for serious $$ and I'm a lone wolf. My place is a single member dictatorship.

Clover is also going to be cost effective long-term with respect to input costs. That's happening this fall for me.... I have not been planting hardly any clover whatsoever. Plan on trying a couple varieties and see what works best in my soil then that's going to become routine.

People are going to lose it when they start checking on Fall inputs. The markets are saying dump equipment stocks like Deere because nobody is going to be able to afford to buy anything from them it's all going in the ground. Bout to get tough.

My largest plot is maybe 2.5 acres or maybe a little more and I rowed my forage soybeans out. I did corn last year there I hope it turns out good

Have you ever drilled chufas before? If you did, how did they do? That might be the cheapest and easiest way to grow them if it will work.

GK, a mix of 3 lbs of crimson clover to one pound of arrowleaf has been the most cost effective plot for me over the years. I plant the same fields year after year and they both reseed very well. I just bush hog the first of October, very lightly disc, and then throw out a little more seed. I don't even fertilize a lot of it, and the deer and turkeys seem to use the unfertilized plots as well as the places I fertilize. I add rye to the mix on the primary deer plots and some fertilizer on them; I may not use any at all this year.

My uncle and I have planted 4 acres of dove fields in the past week. T13 was $20 a bag. My deer will just have to scrap for a living.

PCP I have drilled chufa on that Dallas Cty lease not far from you. I rented a Great Plains 706NT dill from an equipment store there in Selma. I planted the chufa on 7.5" row spacing and made a good crop that year. I am going to plant this years chufa with my Landpride 606nt drill. I believe I will stick with the 7.5" row spacing on the .50 acre plots and then go with 15" row spacing (plug seed meters) on my bigger plot that I have planted on 30" spacing with a two planter.

I have all my seed and starter fertilizer bought. The input cost this year is ridiculous!! Triple 17 is $25.50 per bag and bulk was only $11 cheaper. What surprised me was the cost of chufa seed, $93 per 50 lb bag. I figured everyone made a bumper crop last year so I got sticker shock on over that price.

I am going to plant some summer plots as I feel like it will save me a little money over what I normally do. I usually feed protein year round, but that cost has risen significantly. Went from $9+ per bag to over $12+ last time I bought some. I have around $750 invested in seed and fertilizer will be $817 for what I am planting in summer deer plots.

If you are going to plant regular soybeans, I highly recommend planting buckwheat with them. It will give them the cover to get up past the 2 leaf stage before the deer eat them. I have never been able to plant regular soybeans and get them to grow because the deer eat them as soon as they come up.

I have not no-till drilled chufas in the past. I will post on here how it turns out, but I am hopeful. I rented a 706nt drill for fall plots last year and plan to do nothing but no-till as long as I can get my hands on one. The 706 was rented up for a while so I ended up renting a 1006 which kept me from getting to 2 of plots I was hoping to plant. I planted on a Friday, then sprayed gly over most of the fields that weekend (I didn't get to a couple). I have not used chicken litter in over a decade, but I am this year.

I just planted 6 acres of Eagle beans, two of Lab Lab and a 3/4 acre plot of WTI Power Plant. Still have 4 acres of Eagle Forage Soy Beans and two acres of lab lab and a one acre power plant plot to plant of a different piece.

All my spring plots are up as well and some are doing really well.

You spent some $!! I like power plant and eagle beans. Powerplant has always done well. I had one bag of eagle beans out of 2 that didn't do much at all.

Its begun! Just got a call from my buddy and the first lime buggy of three has arrived. Got 30 tons going out today. Then fix pig damage and get some seed in the ground. Looking at weather though does not look like any reason to hurry. Its dry at my place.

should get some more rain this weekend. It should have rained there last weekend as well

Not much. Most of the last one pretty much missed us. I am a little torn on precipitation. I have a 50-acre timber cut upcoming, which I really really want to happen ASAP, and it needs to be real dry on my place for that to happen. But then again I am at the mercy of the timber company. They probably gonna show up about January 15 when I arrive for my 2-weeks of rut hunt.