Weed killer for food plot?

[Dirty Steve]

I am planning to put in some small 1/4 acre food plots of beets at my hunting lease the end of July. The goal is to have them hit maturity the end of September. This is more of an experiment than anything else. I have the areas for each plot cleared and have been keeping them mowed down. I think I need to spray the plots to kill the grass and weeds before I till and plant. What is the best product to use that will kill the grass and weeds but not harm adjacent trees? The food plot areas are all near stands of walnut and oak that I do not want to harm.

Thanks for your response,...

Dirty Steve

 

[patience0830]

Roundup/glyphosate salts. Spray on a calm day. Only affects trees if you get it on the leaves.

 

[BoilerWes]

Agree…Roundup.

 

[Michigan Slim]

Plan on hitting it twice a couple weeks apart for a good kill.

 

[phylodog]

We’ve tried turnips, radishes and sugar beets in our food plots over the years. We’ve never seen the deer dig anything up until mid to late December at the earliest and most often not until January. Still a good food source for them and likely makes wintering over easier but we’ve never had luck hunting those plots.

As mentioned, glyphosate works great and my understanding is that it becomes basically inert (as far as killing plants) shortly after it’s applied so spraying twice a couple of weeks apart is a good idea. If you till it you’ll undoubtedly bring some dormant seeds up high enough to germinate so one spray doesn’t always work well enough.

Good luck!

 

[Dirty Steve]

Thanks for the input. I was thinking Round-up but wanted to see if there were other options.

My property is a tree farm and is the bedding cover for all of the adjacent agricultural farms and is the travel corridor linking all of them along Sugar Creek. We do not intend to hunt over the food plots per se. The locations are not real conducive for proper wind access. The goal is to make it a little more of an attractive place for deer to live.

Dirty Steve

 

[Michigan Slim]

Alfalfa, clover, winter wheat. Fertilizer on any oaks. If your surrounded by food, improve your cover around the edges. 12-12-12 all around. Make the cover thick and the natural browse healthy.

 

[clayshooter99]

No need to pay the price for the name of RoundUp, it is just glyphosate. Buy the 41% and use 4 oz per gallon and no need to soak them heavily with a sprayer. Glyphosate only kills what is currently green. Do it now and again in about 10 days to see what you missed or what else has come up and then till a week or more later. Only need about 2 hours before a rain. I cannot begin to count the gallons of glyphosate I have used with excellent results.

 

[snapping turtle]

True above and the extra heat coming in the next few days seems to help it work also. Maybe it just drys dead quicker but the only time I have had failure with it was when it got rained on after application.

Spray once. Spray twice. Till plant then hope you hit the next rainy weather to get them started well. Sugar beets turnip winter wheat and persimmon trees work well together. I also have cages around honeysuckle bushes that seem to bring them in like free beer at a picnic. Without the cages they eat it down to much.

 

[Mgderf]

... also have cages around honeysuckle bushes that seem to bring them in like free beer at a picnic. Without the cages they eat it down to much.

I have more honeysuckle than deer, and I'm not short on deer!

 

[snapping turtle]

I have more honeysuckle than deer, and I'm not short on deer!

I watched the does as a kid eat something. We only shot bucks back then and seeing deer while hunting was not rare but exciting. I noticed what they seemed to be eating in a fence row I always saw the browsing upon.
Honeysuckle vines. Grandma’s apples and persimmons. The winter wheat fields and of course where ever they spilled grain during the harvest.

The new combines strip the corn to the kernel level and then vacuum up every piece like a new purchased hover. There used to be half cobs and full cobs in the. Fields. Now not a kernel left behind.

 

[Mgderf]

It may be different, but I had a DNR guy tell me that what I have is Asian honeysuckle, and it's supposed to be an invasive species.
He asked us to eradicate all we can.
I have 50 acres just covered in the stuff...

 

[bwframe]

No need to pay the price for the name of RoundUp, it is just glyphosate. Buy the 41% and use 4 oz per gallon and no need to soak them heavily with a sprayer. Glyphosate only kills what is currently green. Do it now and again in about 10 days to see what you missed or what else has come up and then till a week or more later. Only need about 2 hours before a rain. I cannot begin to count the gallons of glyphosate I have used with excellent results.

I'm afraid that there is no cheap glyphosate anymore? I have always bought the Compare-N-Save brand glyphosate, as it was always the best value.

What used to be $20ish bucks a gallon on sale is now $50. Seemingly most everywhere?

I use 3oz per gallon with a Dawn surfactant. Don't think I could stretch it any further?


.

 

[two70]

It may be different, but I had a DNR guy tell me that what I have is Asian honeysuckle, and it's supposed to be an invasive species.
He asked us to eradicate all we can.
I have 50 acres just covered in the stuff...

There are bush and vine forms of honeysuckle both of which are Asian in origin and highly invasive. Deer will eat it, especially in the vine form, when there are no other, better options available to them. The native browse that honeysuckle displaces is superior nutritionally for the deer though. The DNR has taken to fencing goat herds in large areas overgrown with honeysuckle to eradicate it where herbicides would not be feasible.

 

[bwframe]

Any cheaper glyphosate alternatives?


.

 

[snapping turtle]

There are bush and vine forms of honeysuckle both of which are Asian in origin and highly invasive. Deer will eat it, especially in the vine form, when there are no other, better options available to them. The native browse that honeysuckle displaces is superior nutritionally for the deer though. The DNR has taken to fencing goat herds in large areas overgrown with honeysuckle to eradicate it where herbicides would not be feasible.

This could well be why that fence row no longer exists. I just figured that they bulldozed it under but it was right next to a tractor farm trail like road. Would make no extra farm land to remove it.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

I watched the does as a kid eat something.

Does eat oats...

 

[clayshooter99]

House brand Glyphosate current $45 a gallon at Rural King, likely about $10 more at a tractor supply. 1 Gallon will last most people 2 years unless doing a lot of spraying.

 

[bwframe]

House brand Glyphosate current $45 a gallon at Rural King, likely about $10 more at a tractor supply. 1 Gallon will last most people 2 years unless doing a lot of spraying.

Thanks for the heads up! Could you find it for about half that?

I'm still working the bottom of last year's gallon. My usage depends on how the rain treats us. Double edged sword. The best rain frequency for the gardens is also the best for the weeds. I do edges, a fairly big gravel driveway and a thistle patch in the neighboring pasture next to my garden.

I just spot treated the remaining couple dozen thistles this afternoon. Maybe I'll be fortunate enough to have them beat and the farmer can go back to cutting and bailing that area, along with the rest of his pasture?

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