Frank,

Is there much commercial ag in your neighborhood? If not, you will have to do like me and experiment to find a system of crop varieties and establishment techniques that work for your specific site. There aren’t any commercial corn or beans planted within the counties surrounding The Proving Grounds. However, with a little trial and error in techniques and crop varieties I’m very pleased with the forage and grain produced here. Even more important is the significant improvement in the quality of our deer herd and other wildlife species!!! This is in response to the overall management program, but certainly growing quality forage and grain is a huge part of that program.

Based on my experience at The Proving Grounds, and at other locations while helping clients develop a forage/grain program, I have confidence that you can have success at your location. Your crops may not be as productive compared to sites with deeper soils, but they can still provide great forage and grain for your herd.

The three macro elements, nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P), or Potassium (K) all behave differently in soil. For example, N is extremely volatile in most forms. It can literally convert to a gas and disappear into the air, or leach with water through the soil profile. P is very stable in most soil types. It moves deeper in the soil’s profile at a very slow rate. In fact, in some soil types, surface applied P is not available to the roots of plants only a few inches below the soil surface. K is somewhere between N and P in stability.

Corn, soybeans, and other crops can have a root system that penetrates six feet deep or more! However, I doubt they do at my place. It sounds as if the existing vegetation at your place is also forced to have a shallow root system. Good food plot varieties are very adaptable to different conditions. For example, I select corn varieties based on their drought and stress tolerance more so than their potential yield. I discussed this to some extent in GDTV 13. I’m convinced that given appropriate amounts of soil moisture and soil nutrients, great forage and grain crops can be grown anywhere, including the gravel pile I lovingly call The Proving Grounds. Let me know how you progress on your “Proving Grounds.”

Growing Deer together,

Grant