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 This
120 acre farm was purchased in the Spring of 2008 for $120,000. Hunting
Country is using this land as a project farm to show how easy and
affordable it is to improve the quality of wildlife on the average
land. Within 10 to 12 weeks following the acquisition the results were
already noticeable. While the appearance may look like an “Extreme
Makeover”, this project was pretty simple and affordable. When
purchased, the land was nothing special, and mostly covered in native
grasses, weeds, and cactus, with small areas of trees along the outer
boundaries of the land. For the most part this was an average Northwest
Oklahoma farm. The Whitetail numbers were “average at best” on this
tract. The Salt Fork River to the south manages to breach the property
in a couple places. After disking under nearly 60 acres half was planted to milo and half to cowpeas. 12 ft. to 20 ft. wide strips were disked in
the timbered area along the eastern boundary and planted to cowpeas as
well. To better insure the success of our food plots seed planting
rates on the milo were reduced to below 5 lbs. per acre hoping to
eliminate drought risk from our normally dry summers. The cowpeas are
known for their tolerance to poor soil types and were planted at a rate
of 25 lbs. per acre. Surprisingly enough the cowpeas were the
easiest crop I’ve ever tried to grow. Our intentions are to disk
under approximately half (15 acres) of
 the
cowpeas in late August, then plant those areas to winter wheat. We
want to have a variety of crops with different growing seasons to
provide adequate protein and forage throughout most of the year.
With rising fertilizer costs we hope to eliminate much of our expense by
allowing the “disked-under” cowpeas to increase the organic matter in
the soil and provide a nitrogen source for our winter wheat crop.
The soil is mostly sandy loam and is extremely susceptible to wind
erosion. The cowpeas will also help to eliminate much of this
issue by leaving more “trash” on the surface, rather than farming the
ground “clean”. From the photos you can see different stages of
the project and how the crops mature.
WE HOPE YOU ENJOY WATCHING THIS PROJECT EVOLVE
Click on photos to enlarge |
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Oklahoma and Kansas
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