Food plots

[stumpjumper83]

burning lime

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_oxide

Yes, an improper fire can cook the lime out. To cook the lime out require a hot, and staying fire. I think what roddyo is doing is a quicker fire that esentially just burns the old grasses and leaves at the top. If your burn actually burnt the top soil then you screwed up, but burning is a proven method in clearing, as well as in western agriculture. And even if you do burn the lime out, it will absorb carbon dioxide over time and turn into lime again.

 

[Deere9670]

I don't mean to be rude but in the type of work that I Do
I have to disagree with almost everything you said. After going to my web site and looking at this picture http://rodneyobrien.com/foodplots.htm Stumpjumper asked me some food plot questions on another thread. I have just been telling him what works in my area.

Lime is a rock, when a fire goes over it it is still there. We don't do it very often but when we need to lime before wheat beans we lime, burn and plant. If you want to dig through the ashes the lime's still there. The only way to lose lime other than using it up is through leaching and erosion.

Yes if you burn you will lose almost all of the organic matter and the N. The P and K Stays. I know that every 1% of organic matter is worth 20 units of N per acre. In this area you can buy 2 tons of chicken litter that will gain you more organic matter than 10 years of "Good" farming practices. Plus you get a list of trace minerals as long as your arm for free. The reason I'm for burning and sowing on top of the ground and covering with a good drag is it eliminates 2 mistakes most people make here.

1)They work their ground to much and get their seed to deep.

2)They work their ground to much and it comes a big rain and they lose their topsoil. It would take 500 years of organic matter here to make an inch of top soil.

I know this is ideal for No-Till but dragging a Drill down a four wheeler trail to pull it around in a circle in a half a dozen fields to cover 6 acres isn't ideal on the pocket book.

As far as the dozer in a food plot goes it's in there clearing the food plot out. "Compaction is a farmers worst enemy" The ground pressure of my dozer is about 5 PSI. To run a tractor in that food plot it would need to weigh under 2880 lbs. if it had 4 12X12 contact patches. By the way what has more ground pressure a 8400 MFWD or a 8400T?

Ok you can keep burning your lime off, its your money going up in smoke, not mine. I do agree about the P and K staying, but with todays N prices, burning it off just doesent make any sense! As for your dozer, why are we comparing with an 8400 size tractor? You just stated that we were planting 6 acres of 4 wheeler trail, may I ask were the 8400 tractor comes into play. If I were doing a 6 acre food plot, I would say somthing like a 4020 would be as big of a tractor that I would need How does that compare on ground pressure to you dozer. And yes a track tractor will put out less ground pressure. I do agree with your statement on overworking the soil, and losing topsoil, and getting the seed too deep, but I still say that that can be avoided, by making a pass with your drill and checking seed depth, and adjusting accordindly, and just not over working the ground.

 

[Deere9670]

There were some turnips mixed in this wildlife seed blend i planted last yr but my deer never touched them. I had some that were the size of a cantalope, they were pretty big.


And about the corn i just planed on liming the feild and thats it. My neigbor has an old corn planter im gonna check out to see if its still good or not. If not i guess i can just get a broom stick and make holes lol..

but what about in the old days, i dont think the old timers worried about lime..didnt they just plow and plant?? Thats pretty much what i was gonna do.

I think it takes a frost for the turnups to ripen enough were the deer will touch them. As for the old times, I dont know what they did for commerical fert, as most used manure as a substitute. As for just plowing and planting, that wont work. You would have to plow in the fall, then come back in the spring and smooth it out with a disk or cultivator. Plowing has become a thing of the past, and there are better methods, but there are alot of factors involved, so I would say get some advice from the guy with the planter, because he can guide you in the right direction. See what his tillage methods are, and see what he does for fert. :drinkup

 

[NateV]

Well the turnips were in all summer and there till spring and they never touched them. i plowed them under this spring to make my new plot.

But il have to talk to some of the old timers and the neighbor to see what they did in the past.

and i already have the plots plowed under where i want to plant.

 

[roddyo]

Hi Stumpjumper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_oxide

Yes, an improper fire can cook the lime out. To cook the lime out require a hot, and staying fire. I think what roddyo is doing is a quicker fire that esentially just burns the old grasses and leaves at the top. If your burn actually burnt the top soil then you screwed up, but burning is a proven method in clearing, as well as in western agriculture. And even if you do burn the lime out, it will absorb carbon dioxide over time and turn into lime again.

I think you got a good understanding of what I'm talking about. No one on here has said anything that's "wrong," in this line of work it's just not feasible. If theres any money in planting food plots it's not much. Thats why I say get in and get out Fast and don't spend a lot on equipment. If you get in this business i'm guessing your average job will between 6 and 10 acres. At $100 per acre which is about the max you can charge for labor, That's $600.00 to $1,000.00 per job. Theres not going to be a lot left over for equipment.

As far as lime/fertilizer goes let them buy it in the bag and run it through your seeder. It will take forever but it works. Spraying stick with Roundup and just do a burn down. If people want you to put in a crop tell them to get roundup ready seed.

I think buying a drill to plant Turnips, Clover or Wheat is overkill, these are three of the easiest crops to get a stand. Beans and Peas are a little different. If you really want a No Till Drill to use on you own land and your looking at this food plot deal Just to make the payment, I understand. Just be very selective in your jobs, bigger food plots, good ground and easy to get to. I'm the same way with my backhoe, I run it on 2 or 3 jobs a year to make the payment. I leave it at the farm the rest of the time. It's really not working for nothing if you get a piece of equipment that you wouldn't have otherwise.

 

[Turbo21835]

Whitetails will eat the greens of turnips all season. For them to go after the actual root you need a good hard frost. The freeze will turn those starches into sugars. Similar to sugar beets. Chances are, if they did not touch your turnips, they had plenty of food else where. Food plots are about to become a lot more popular in Michigan as there is a baiting ban in effect for most of the state.

 

[roddyo]

Ok you can keep burning your lime off, its your money going up in smoke, not mine. I do agree about the P and K staying, but with todays N prices, burning it off just doesent make any sense! As for your dozer, why are we comparing with an 8400 size tractor? You just stated that we were planting 6 acres of 4 wheeler trail, may I ask were the 8400 tractor comes into play. If I were doing a 6 acre food plot, I would say somthing like a 4020 would be as big of a tractor that I would need How does that compare on ground pressure to you dozer. And yes a track tractor will put out less ground pressure. I do agree with your statement on overworking the soil, and losing topsoil, and getting the seed too deep, but I still say that that can be avoided, by making a pass with your drill and checking seed depth, and adjusting accordindly, and just not over working the ground.

You acted like driving my dozer over a food plot was the end on the world. I was pointing out that my dozer has less ground pressure than any thing you would use to work the food plot up. Since you have a picture of a tracked John Deere I was using it as an example. By the way that 4020 has about 4 times more compaction than my wide track D4H.:bash

I think what you don't understand is that 6 acres of food plots is not 1, six acre food plot but closer to 6, one acre food plots. If you deal with bow hunters they will be closer to 1/4 acre, about a 40 yard shot is max. That's why drills don't work good in my area, by the time you run your turn rows your almost done. You spend more time going in a circle than going straight.

As far as the N and drilling goes the land owners are A Lot more willing to spend an extra eight to ten dollars an acre on seed or fertilizer than on labor to wallow the ground around.

When it comes to gassing off that's a problem with N not lime. Burning these food plots off is a "Flash Heat" anyway. I have never measured it but I would say 150 degrees ground temp. after the fire would be close and it wouldn't last a minute. Chat drive ways will get almost that hot in places and I haven't heard of any of them gassing off lately. Down the road from me they make Quick Lime for use in the steel mill. AG lime is a by product for them. They stay open 24 hours a day 365 days a year and sell ag lime for a little over a dollar a ton just trying to get rid of it. I would say they would be happy if it would gas off.

 

[Deere9670]

You acted like driving my dozer over a food plot was the end on the world. I was pointing out that my dozer has less ground pressure than any thing you would use to work the food plot up. Since you have a picture of a tracked John Deere I was using it as an example. By the way that 4020 has about 4 times more compaction than my wide track D4H.:bash

I think what you don't understand is that 6 acres of food plots is not 1, six acre food plot but closer to 6, one acre food plots. If you deal with bow hunters they will be closer to 1/4 acre, about a 40 yard shot is max. That's why drills don't work good in my area, by the time you run your turn rows your almost done. You spend more time going in a circle than going straight.

As far as the N and drilling goes the land owners are A Lot more willing to spend an extra eight to ten dollars an acre on seed or fertilizer than on labor to wallow the ground around.

When it comes to gassing off that's a problem with N not lime. Burning these food plots off is a "Flash Heat" anyway. I have never measured it but I would say 150 degrees ground temp. after the fire would be close and it wouldn't last a minute. Chat drive ways will get almost that hot in places and I haven't heard of any of them gassing off lately. Down the road from me they make Quick Lime for use in the steel mill. AG lime is a by product for them. They stay open 24 hours a day 365 days a year and sell ag lime for a little over a dollar a ton just trying to get rid of it. I would say they would be happy if it would gas off.

Your all wrong, how can you sit there and say that a 4020 will make more compaction then a dozer that wieghs upwards of 13 tons. just because its a wide track doesent mean it wont make compaction:Banghead btw a 4020 wieghs like 13 thousand pounds, a hudge difference.:bash Like I said before if you think that burning your plot wont effect the lime, then keep burning them. If burning is such a good idea, then why dont we see farmers out there burning thier fields? I had a nieghbor once that had an accident burning leaves in his backyard one fall, and the fire spread into the cornstubble of the farmers field. He ended up having to pay the farmer for the lost lime and organic matter. I think it was like 100 dollars an acre too

 

[roddyo]

Proven Facts VS. Tried and True Spectulation

Your all wrong, how can you sit there and say that a 4020 will make more compaction then a dozer that wieghs upwards of 13 tons. just because its a wide track doesent mean it wont make compaction:Banghead btw a 4020 wieghs like 13 thousand pounds, a hudge difference.:bash Like I said before if you think that burning your plot wont effect the lime, then keep burning them. If burning is such a good idea, then why dont we see farmers out there burning thier fields? I had a nieghbor once that had an accident burning leaves in his backyard one fall, and the fire spread into the cornstubble of the farmers field. He ended up having to pay the farmer for the lost lime and organic matter. I think it was like 100 dollars an acre too

I'm sitting here saying a 4020 will make more compaction than a D4H because it's True!!!:Banghead You got a 24,000 lb. D4H spread out over almost fifty square feet compared to a 13,000 lb. 4020 spread out over around 5 square feet. ointhead Figure that up and tell me which has the lowest PSI? :beatsme A 20.8-38 has a flat plate area of about 470 square inches, and that is A Lot bigger tire than the 18.4-34 that come out on the 4020 wich has a Flat Plat area of a little over 200 square inches. That's around 3 square feet of contact area for the back tires. Do you run bigger tires on the front up there? :Banghead

As far as farmers burning we burn between 80,000 and 100,000 acres a year down here. I've personally burned between 30 and 40 thousand acres of row crop ground myself. It's hard to double crop without burning. We burn wheat stubble to plant wheat beans and a little rice and corn stubble to plant wheat back. On ground that isn't suitable for raising wheat most people take care of their stubble since they have all winter to let in rot.

When I worked on the Lakehead Pipeline Project up there about 10 years ago we paid $30,000.00 per acre for Right of Way plus 10 years crop damage. If you compare what we paid in relation to the actual value of the right of way I would say it's about equal to what your neighbor paid the farmer for his Lime and Organic Matter. Close to 10 times what it was worth.

 

[Steve Frazier]

Deere9670, take a breath and do a little math. Compaction is all relative to pounds per square inch to the ground. Using the numbers from your post, the 13,000 pound tractor's weight is distributed over 4 small tire contact areas, I would doubt much more than 6 square feet total. This calculates out to 2167 pounds per square foot load on the soil.

Again, using your 26,000 pound estimate for the tracked dozer, we have to figure the load per square inch, or in this case per square foot. In looking at a photo of a D4H wide track, the tracks appear to be about 8 feet in length and maybe a foot and a half wide. This gives us 24 square feet of surface area for ground contact which calculates out to 1083 pounds per square foot load on the soil, or about half that of the tractor.

What roddyo is posting is making perfect sense to me. I've been a firefighter for 30 years and have seen numerous brush fires through this time. What makes brush fires difficult to control is that they spread so rapidly, the fuel(brush) burns very quickly and on top of the soil. There are no lingering coals to further heat the soil, once the fire has passed the soil immediately begins to cool. I don't doubt that roddyo's suggestion that soil temps reach just 150 degrees. Generally one week after a brush fire, the grass has already greened up again from the existing plants. I have to believe that if the plants weren't killed from the heat, that the limestone was not effected either.

 

[roddyo]

Hi Steve

Deere9670, take a breath and do a little math. Compaction is all relative to pounds per square inch to the ground. Using the numbers from your post, the 13,000 pound tractor's weight is distributed over 4 small tire contact areas, I would doubt much more than 6 square feet total. This calculates out to 2167 pounds per square foot load on the soil.

Again, using your 26,000 pound estimate for the tracked dozer, we have to figure the load per square inch, or in this case per square foot. In looking at a photo of a D4H wide track, the tracks appear to be about 8 feet in length and maybe a foot and a half wide. This gives us 24 square feet of surface area for ground contact which calculates out to 1083 pounds per square foot load on the soil, or about half that of the tractor.

What roddyo is posting is making perfect sense to me. I've been a firefighter for 30 years and have seen numerous brush fires through this time. What makes brush fires difficult to control is that they spread so rapidly, the fuel(brush) burns very quickly and on top of the soil. There are no lingering coals to further heat the soil, once the fire has passed the soil immediately begins to cool. I don't doubt that roddyo's suggestion that soil temps reach just 150 degrees. Generally one week after a brush fire, the grass has already greened up again from the existing plants. I have to believe that if the plants weren't killed from the heat, that the limestone was not effected either.

Hi Steve, Thanks for the support and also for the forum. :usa

I always try to remember that this is a world wide forum and what works in my corner of it may or may not translate to everyone else. Thats why I try to explain the context in which I work. I would like to think I come up with this on my own but I think I learned from reading Deas posts.

As far as the ground pressure my tracks are 5 feet wide. 30 inch tracks X 2= 60 inches That's how I come up with around 50 S.F.

I don't think these flash fires don't get hot enough to kill the germination of the seed in the ground. I think thats why they sprout so fast.

 

[Deere9670]

I still have to disagree steve. Ive seen what that heavy equipment can do to farm ground first hand. We have had some sewer lines ran through some of our fields, and the compaction that they have created is unreal. We had some ground that would normally yield 50 bushel beans, and after the sewer company got done tracking over it, it yielded 28 bpa. Sure what roddyo is doing is probley less intense, then this, but lemme tell ya, you wont see a dozer in my fields, no matter how long or wide the tracks are. Even with your math, I still cant agree with you guys on this theory. As for the burning steve, Im still confused, why do it if you know that you will be burning off good stuff?

 

[Steve Frazier]

From your email address, I surmise you are attending college. Print out these last few posts and take them to your math professor and have him explain what we are saying. Facts and math support what has been said, it's not opinion on the flotation aspect.

The whole point of the last paragraph of my post was that the "good stuff" wasn't being burned off, undesirable grasses and brush are. If the ground temps are not getting high enough to kill off the vegetation, how could it possibly destroy the lime?

 

[RocksnRoses]

Years ago we had a D4 and I remember at the time, reading Caterpillar's promotional material on using crawler tractors in agriculture. Their biggest selling point was the fact that tracked tractors excert much less ground pressure, because of the track area, than conventional rubber tyred tractors, therefore reducing compaction. I can understand damage being done where you have concentrated traffic, such as pipeline construction, I have seen this many times where trucks have been carting from paddocks, especially when it is wet, these tracks can sometimes be seen years later in the crops.
As for burning, farmers here still burn on a regular basis, mainly to kill snails or for weed control. I have never heard of a good burn doing any damage, it usually does more good, sometimes to the point that you can see a line in the crop where the fire went. A few years ago, there was a very major and extremely hot fire on the west coast of South Australia, where aluminium motors laying out side and water pipes and cables underground just melted. There was a lot of concern about the seed bank in the ground being destroyed, but after extensive testing and when the opening rains came, it was found that very little damage had been done at all.

Rn'R.

 

[Deere9670]

stalking on me eh? I dont need a college professer to tell me how to farm. Ive seen what those heavy dozers can do to ground, no matter how minimal the ground pressure is off of that dozer, I can tell you that with my 13,000 pound tractor, I can create alot less compaction then roddyo does with his dozer with the pure pysics of it. Think about it. Your in a 1 acre plot and im in there with my three point disk on my 4020. Meanwhile, roddyo is tracking around in his dozer, backing up, pulling forward,backing up, etc I with my little tractor, just keep going around, eliminating the unesscery, manuevering with a 13 ton machine. Steve, you mentioned earlier that you were a fire fighter and not a farmer, so I as a farmer will fill you in on the burning part. When you say in your previous post that,"the good stuff is not being burned off." That is far from the truth. When you burn a field, sure you eliminate all the junk like weeds, but you are left with nothing but bare dirt, and no organic matter or residue. Residue is a good thing, because it breaks down, and is used by the new plant. It has other uses as well such as preventing eroison, holding in moisture, etc. so this is why I ask, why burn it off???? And as for the lime its my word against yours, so until we get some hard facts on that, I guess we will never know if it burns or stays. I will do some research on it though.

 

[roddyo]

Good Burns

Hi Rn'R,
I love it when people from around the world share there experiences, it's what makes this forum so good.

I always thought most dozer compaction come from the blade, especially the cutting edge. Personally I use a backhoe for a compactor when I can. If I can get 1 1/2 yards in the bucket it will mash it down tighter than a dozer ever thought about. I have always wondered how much more compaction in construction came from the rubber tired machines instead of the tracked one's?

I think people have forgot that this country used to burn off pretty regular in the past. Instead of having those smaller fires more regular Now we have these raging wildfires like you see on T.V.

 

[Steve Frazier]

You're right Deere9670, I'm not a farmer by trade. My Dad broke the line of farmers in my family by going into engineering. I come from a long line of dairy farmers based in Central Pennsylvania, Interstate 80 runs through the center of what used to be my Great Grandfather's farm. My Great Aunt traveled all over the northeast breeding champion Holsteins. Farming is in my blood, my Dad and I subscribed to the "Farm Journal" and "Hoard's Dairymen" for years and years. Today I'm a landscaper, I know just a little bit about growing things. I've also got two years of mechanical engineering under my belt, I'm pretty well versed in math and physics.

I was by no means suggesting you have your Professor teach you how to farm, but to simply explain perhaps with graphics what myself and others here have been trying to get across as far as compaction is concerned. Our information is correct and we've tried to illustrate it in a couple different ways. My thought was perhaps with some visual aids your Professor might be able to get a light to come on.

Consider this: Just a few years ago Caterpillar introduced their line of Multi-Terrain Loaders which essentially are skid steers on tracks. They use the same frames as their skid steer counterparts. The key selling point to these machines is their flotation over the skid steers, that they can continue to work in muddy conditions where skid steers couldn't dream of going. Higher flotation equals less soil compaction due to the higher surface area of the footprint of the track over the tires.

We've also tried to explain that burning off grass and brush does not raise soil temps high enough to sterilize it. The soil might be bare to the eyes at the surface level, but I assure you the organics have not been destroyed, especially just below the surface where the roots actually do their work. By burning off the grass and brush, thatch and other accumulated debris are removed from the surface allowing new seed full contact or reducing an existing plant's need for competing for space with this debris. The debris is also transformed into ash which is absorbed much more quickly by the soil than in it's original form, which must first decompose over time.

I've got 30 years on you, I might suggest you would be well served to open your mind to new information that you come upon. Our friend Deas has nearly 30 years on me and I think he'd agree that if a day goes by where you haven't learned something new, then that day has been wasted. Believe me, we aren't trying to tell you 2 + 2 = 5, but rather explain why it equals 4.

 

[Deere9670]

I've got 30 years on you, I might suggest you would be well served to open your mind to new information that you come upon.

Thats good for you steve, and whenever I have a question about landscaping, I will know who to ask, and I will absorb every bit of information that I can from you, but when it comes to farming and growing food plots, I may be a young gun, but its my passion and I have alot of experience in this area. You wont hear another peep out of me in this thread, because I have had enough argueing for the day. We all have different methods of getting the job done, and whatever works for you is a good method. If burning and dozing works for you, good for you!:beatsme

 

[bigcatpip]

opcorn

 

[roddyo]

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opcorn

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