B-TechRapture

First of all I want to thank all you guys for all the usefull info. and help you have given me since I have joined this community. You have answered alot of questions I had and have made my experiences much easier. Now that I've thanked you I would like to be a pain in the rear-end one more time. I am going to lime my small food plot for the first time. The ground has never been broken or planted. I was going to rake the entire site, spread the lime and then till the entire site with a medium garden tiller. Does this sound like a good plan on liming?? How do you guys apply lime to a first time food plot? THANKS AGAIN!!

farm hunter

It sounds OK -

For shallow rooted plants like clover - Its nice to have the lime in the top 4" of soil.

For crops requiring plowing like corn with deep root systems - usually its suggested to put 1/2 down before plowing and the second 1/2 when disking the plot.

Its tough to put it down wrong though. In the end it all evens out.

FH

RonM

Spread it and disc it or till it in the ground...

SAWDUST 57

I put my first food plot in last year,,took a soil sample,,,it needed lime real bad,,so the guy at the fertilizer plant told me to use pell lime the first couple of years to get my lime back on track,,,then use regular ag lime after that. The pell lime is just little pellets,,,,,easy to spread,,,My food plot is just under one acre. I attached a pic (hopefully it worked) If you look in the pic you will see a fenced in circle,,,I keep the deer out of here so I know how much the deer are hitting my plot. The other stakes that you see are pumpkins that the wife wanted to plant. My fertalizer man told me that you can fertalize all you want ,,,but if the lime balance is not correct,,,your clover and alphalfa will suffer,,,,,,,,,,,good luck,,

SAWDUST ,,,

bawanajim

B-tech save your self some time raking and just burn off the ground cover .That will add nitrogen to the soil for free.

psandhu

i'm not sure if burning will add N to your soil, but i'm certain it will add P and K.

the easiest method i found for spreading lime to SMALL areas (less than an acre) is to drive a pickup to a quarry, buy half a ton or so of ag lime ($3), have someone drive around your plot while you blow the lime out the back with a leaf blower.

Russ otten

PS----
The leaf blower just don't get it here. The Coop keep there lime outside and it is usually very wet. You just about have to shovel it on the ground. It's just a little more labor intensive. And if you do get Lime stored out in the weather, watch out for its weight. My last load was quite wet, and the fellow loading it got carried away. Had over a ton on a 1/2 ton pickup. Fortunately I had aired my back tires up hard and made it home. But watch that weight, that Lime is heavy.

Russ