We've got a small farm and we got hit by Blue Tongue back in 2017. We found 13 deer and I lost all my shooter bucks that year. They're starting to come back and I want to help and do my part.
What's the best mixture to use? Everybody says there's is the best. What do you guys use?
Is Red Clover good to use?
Imo, clover is king. Not that there aren't lots of other good forages, but if you are going to have one perennial, nothing compares to clover.
Red clover is shorter-lived than white clover but red establishes a little faster. Red is usually a little less expensive than white.
I personally like white a little better than red but keep in mind that each come in several varieties.
Stay away from the courser versions of red because it has less palatibility per plant. The best time to plant clovers is in the fall...around Labor day for a lot of the country. Spring planted clover tends to develop more weed issues because clover, being a perennial, takes a little longer to establish than many weeds so it gets out-competed when spring planted.
You could spend the spring and summer prepping the plot and then do a rye/clover mix in the fall. Cereal rye, aka winter rye, aka grain rye is what you want...NOT RYE GRASS.
An easy planting method for a clover/rye mix is "throw and mow". Develop (grow) some thatch...spray with Roundup, broadcast seed, and mow the dead thatch. Cultipack if possible or even just drive over it with atv, or other vehicle in order to press seed to soil.
The object is to minimize tillage which will reduce activating weed seed in the seed bank of the soil. You'll also preserve soil moisture with less tillage.
There's a lot of good varieties of brassica if you want to do an annual.
Most brassica should be planted around July-ish.
An excellent source for seed and plot-planning is Green Cover Seed. Check out their Smart Mix calculator. Its very useful and almost addictive to play with different varieties.
Saddlehunter is a great forum, but it's not really the best source for habitat info. Try Habitat Talk if you want a ton of solid info on plotting and habitat improvement.
My number 1 bit of advice...Learn weed identification! Not all weeds are bad and some are actually highly desirable. Ragweed for example is highly preferred by my deer. You don't need to have a magazine-cover plot. You are just supplimenting the natural foods.
But you absolutely need to know how to identify the "bad" weeds and keep them under control.
Understand what you are getting yourself into. The wrong weeds can turn into a frustrating battle if they get established.
And as mentioned above...Get a soil test FOR SURE.
And thanks to Brandon, fertilizer prices and herbicide prices are thru the roof right now.
Probably the cheapest and easiest plot would be to frost seed clover and keep the competition mowed to about 6" or so until the clover gets well established.
Oh yeah, one more point...Where are you located? You need to taylor your planting to your zone. A plot in Florida is a completely different animal than one in Minnesota. Plan and plant according to your zone.
