Vet Judy

Do you have weeds in your whitetail deer food plots that you can’t seem to get rid of? Are these weeds interfering with a successful deer food plot. What helps is to understand the different types of weeds and their natural biologic behaviour. Once you understand weeds, it is  easier for you to develop a successful strategy to fight them and not contribute to their distribution.

               Just like with plants of any sort, weeds can be grouped by their behavior and growth patterns.  There are annuals, biennials, and perennials.

Annuals are the most common weed found in your deer food plots . These weeds have the following characteristics.

a.       Lots of dormant seed

b.      Grow fast

c.       Produce high numbers of seed

d.      Can be both winter or summer

Summer annual weeds germinate in spring or summer while winter annual weeds will germinate in late summer or fall. The summer annuals will die before winter, remain dormant  in soil for the winter or in some cases for years before emerging again. The winter annual weeds overwinter in their vegetative form then in spring or early summer they flower, set seed and mature  and die with seeds dormant in summer months. 

Annual weeds are the biggest concern in fall seeded crops (ex winter wheat and alfalfa) which go through winter dormant period.

The Biennial weed life cycle lasts two years. In the first year the plant forms basal leaves(rosette) and a tap root. In the second year the flower comes, matures and dies. 

perennial weeds are those that  live 2 or more years. What makes them difficult to control is their  re-sprouting roots, rhizomes, stolons, tubers, and plant fragments which can all result in regrowth.  

The perennial weeds are spread by two routes: simple or creeping. With simple there is re-sprouting from crown buds on tap root and spreed from seed. In this case the roots are fleshy, may be large (dandelion). Creeping weeds reproduce by creeping roots(canadian thistle, field bindweed), or above ground stems (runners or stolons) (bentgrass, bermudagrass) or below ground stems(rhizomes)(quackgrass, johnson grass). These also reproduce by seed. 

Some of the more common weeds that spread by simple means are: dandelion, curly dock, buckhorn plantain, broadleaf plantain, poke weed.

The common weeds that are spread by creeping include leafy spurge, field bindweed, canadian thistle, mouseear chickweed, ground ivy, bermudagrass, johnson grass, quackgrass, and yellow nutsedge.

My recommendation on controlling these weeds: Do not let the seedlings get established. Once they have established the perennial weeds are the most difficult group to control. If this occurs you will spend a lot of time dealing with these weeds and it may require cultivation repeated, herbicide, and mowing.

A lot of us are looking for low maintenance food plots. As such, we may inadvertently contribute to the weed problem. If we neglect proper mowing, judicious use of chemicals, get involved in excessive tillage, or till improperly we may be making the problem worse.

In the next segment we will talk about different methods of weed control available for your deer food plots.

We are please to provide you with resources on the subject of deer food plots. This is the first in a series of educational videos on doing your own deer food plots. If you are interested in food plots stay tuned for our series.

Visit our Website www.diydeerfoodplots.com

for more information on planting your food plots. We can make the process easier for you.

For those of you also interested in small game and turkey food plots, the good news is, there is overlap and you can achieve results for small game hunting with your whitetail food plot.

Feel Free to visit our website to download Chapter One for FREE. Let us know what you think.

http://www.diydeerfoodplots.com/

Are you located in Pennsylvania? Do you have the desire to do food plots but need some consulting services to help you get started. In my travels I have come across a professional and qualified (fee for service) called Drop Tine Wildlife Consulting. Here is the website address. Check them out if you need services closer to you and you are in Pennsylvania.

http://deerdevelopment.com/index.php

Feel free to visit our website http://www.diydeerfoodplots.com/ 

for a free Chapter Download of deer food Plots Made Easy.

I frequently get questions about what seed to use in my food plots and immediately after that I get questions about food plot failures. I think it is no accident that weed control is hardly ever talked about thoroughly and most people spend a lot of time on the “right seed”, high fertilizer rates and somehow just don’t manage to deal with the weed problem.

The effect of weeds can be significant and if I was to have one priority in getting a productive food plot it would be dealing properly with the weeds. Assuming you have a good location for your food plot and you have picked a plant combination that works in your soil type, then loss in yields are often due to poor weed efforts.

Effects of Weeds in deer food Plots:

Competition for nutrients, light and water

Chemical impact some weed have on other plants

Competition decreases yields of prefered plants

Can alter palatability and deer can avoid the plot because weeds make it bitter

Steps to dealing with weeds

1. Prevent them form establishing

                Control prior to seed set: We spend a lot of time pretreating and tilling the land in combination with controlled burning(if it can be done safely) to get the best weed control possible before planting.

2. Don’t bring them in

               This is often overlooked. Consider how weeds are spread: wind, water, animals,  human movement, equipment, etc.  Don’t use contaminated seed (use only plant certified crop seed) which means it is certified to be free of weeds.  Use clean equipment,  don’t drag vegetative parts of perennial weeds around as it spreads weeds.

3. Understand the enviroment

     Different enviroments promote different weeds. Tilled row crops discourage perennials and encourage annuals. Established perennial crops like alfalfa may out compete annual weeds but perennials may get going because of lack of tillage.

Stay tuned for next in the series. I will discuss annual, biennial and perennial weeds that are likely a concern in your whitetail food plot.

If you are interested in getting started with a food plot, but aren’t sure where to start: download the first chapter in my ebook “deer food Plots Made Easy” and read all about food plot Design Strategies.

http://www.diydeerfoodplots.com/index.html

If you are looking for more detailed information on specific weed control, I have found this website is helpful. It is Washington State University Extension. Check in the agriculture section under plants, then weed control. There are specific publications that may be helpful to you and online courses in weed identification also:)

http://extprograms.wsu.edu/agriculture/plants/weed/Pages/default.aspx