Corn Planting Question
 

This year i would like to plant about a 1 or 2 acre plot of corn for the deer. Ihave several questions though i was curious do you have to plant in rows or can you just scatter the corn everywhere, how deep should i plant it, is there a certain ph and do you buy just plain wildlife corn or is there a certain type i should buy. Thanks for any help by the way this ill be in Georgia

RE: Corn Planting Question
 

If you have access to a planter, I would suggest using it. This allows tilling and spraying with little damage to the corn corp. Corn can be spread with a hand spreader and lightly disced in. Be sure not to overseed the corn if you use a hand spreader.

The soil pH is not as critical in corn planting as it is with some legumes. However, soils with a high acid pH will decrease the effectiveness of any fertilizer the crop receives. Be sure to fertilize effectively, even if you have to buy several hundred pounds of 12-12-12 in sacks at the local nursery and spread them by hand.

There is no hybred corn that I know of design specificly for wildlife. The hybred corn varieties that regular crop farmers use will yield more then the sacks of corn that can be purchased for feed. However, even the feed corn can produce enough for foodplots if well fertilized.

Planting depth I believe is in the 1 to 2 inch depth range.

One suggestion, I will make is looking into the roundup ready corn if you have any type of spraying equipment. The roundup ready corn will allow you to spray roundup on the corn plants to help control the weeds.

If you have the equipment and the money, planting corn similar to way farmers do is best. However, I planted about 3/4 of an acre of feed corn crop last year by plowing, discing, spreading seed with a hand spreader and discing the seed in lightly. I added 100 lbs of 12-12-12 and a 50 lbs 0f some type of high N fertilizer at planting. My intent was to hit this plot with 100 more lbs of the high N fertilizer when the plants were up about a foot. I never did get around to doing this. With no weed control, I had a fairly good yield of corn with ears in the 6 to 9 inches long range. My little patch was gone by Thanksgiving.

RE: Corn Planting Question
 

Are you firm on planting corn? If not you might want to try cane-it provides as much carb loading and is a longer lasting forage for dear both young and old. Definitely plant in rows-makes the foraging more efficient for the animals and makes the escape routes more discernable for them as well.

RE: Corn Planting Question
 

corn needs to be planted in rows so that it can be manually cultivated, use good seed, it might be cheaper for you to hire a farmer to custom plant it for you, he already has the know-how, the equipment, fertilizerapplicator, if his equip is small enough to get into your field , if not buy a used 2 row planter at a sale if you can find one, they are at a preminm because everybody wants one for their grden, We just bought one for the farm 2 row Pull type, looks like our 16 row only ssmaller , it was 1500. It is for sweet corn...

RE: Corn Planting Question
 

Round up ready corn works out good if you have to broadcast the seed.