There are few feelings better than listening to it rain the night after finishing planting fall food plots.  I was anticipating the rain, caused by a tropical storm in the Gulf.  We hustled hard for two days spraying and planting.  We logged more than 26 tractor hours during those two days.  The first sprinkles occurred after the Antler Dirt had all been spread and there were only two acres left to no-till drill.

The first average frost date at The Proving Grounds is October 14^th.  I like to plant fall forage at least 45 days before the first predicted frost.  However, there was no need to plant earlier this year at The Proving Grounds due to the drought conditions.

The range gauge showed 4 inches of rain this morning.  Most of the rain was in a slow even pace.  A huge advantage of using a no-till drill is that minimum soil disturbance occurs.  This combined with my program of simply spraying or mowing the existing crop and using a no-till drill means there is little chance of erosion.  The plots show no sign of washing even after 4” of rain.

The plots should be dark green with growing vegetation soon.  The deer and other wildlife will benefit from the nutritious vegetation and my family and guests will enjoy observing deer in the plots.

The rain was a huge blessing!

Growing Deer together,

Grant