farm hunter

If you've been on this board very many years- you've seen sunflowers form me before. We've found - Our deer could care less about sunflowers. We don't have a dove season, though the sunflowers do attract quite a few different birds in October I must say. I like them for that if nothing else.

So this year - when my 11yr old son came to help plant, he picked some rocks, and helped me mark of the areas to plant. When I got ready to plant the corn - I handed him a 3 lb bag of Black Oil Sunflower Bird seed from the hardware store (about$2.00 worth)- and told him to hand broadcast the seeds along the edge of the disked field all theway down the 200 yds- in about 10-20 ft. I told him this was his plot - and that we'd keep track of it over the summer.

As you can imagine - he's pretty proud of his plot - and knowing that he did it himself - I think gives him some added interest in planting as well as enjoying wildlife and hunting.

Here's a few pictures from today - 8-11-07.









FH

SamPAhunter

So all you guys used was regular black oil sunflower seed??? Hmmmm I might have to try this as a dove/gamebird plot!
Awesome Plot

indybrad

My father inlaw had some mixed bird seed and took some sunflower seeds out of it. He planted them just to see if something would come up. Sure enough he had about 8 plants that got to be about 7 foot tall before they fell over. I really enjoy your pics. Hope my food plots turn out as good as yours. This is my first year, so we'll see what happens

Dan O.

Farm Hunter; have you noticed if wild turkeys use the sunflower plants in the winter. I've been looking for something they could feed on in the middle of the winter when the snow is deep.

Dan O.

StealthyOne

Nice pics.

I don't know if they'd last to feed turkeys in the winter in my neck of the woods. The racoons and bears would make pretty short work of 'em.

Where do you hunt Dan O.?

RayC

Dan O, not speaking from plot perspective here but they will for sure eat sunflower seeds, and I believe the black oil ones are good for them. Unless you plant a lot of them though they may well be gone before the worst part of winter (lots of birds and other critters enjoy them).

louddrummer69

We broadcasted a 50 lb bag of sunflowers and it is just too hot and dry for them to get bigger than 1 foot off the ground. It was a shame but hopefully next year it will be a little wetter.

Dan O.

Stealthyone; I live near St. Catharines so I usually do the controlled hunt but my farm is near Wiarton. The snow gets deep in that area. There was a turkey introduction next door in the wildlife management area and we have a small but stable poulation. I usually have 1-2 nests on my acreage each year. Unfortunately there's a high rate of winter kill.

Dan O.

farm hunter

Dan -

The turkeys do really like the sunflower seeds early on- Problem is the seed heads don't make it till late winter, the Jays, Sparrows, & other birds/critters really do a number on the sunflower heads in October & Novemeber B4 we really get the snows. Maybe if there were ALOT of sunflowers planted? I'm not sure, but would guess yes.

We see our turkeys really really working standing corn in Jan & Feb around here.

FH

mlo31351270

Nice pictures. I was going to plant some this spring but never got around to it.