How To Plant Sunflower For Doves

Sunflowers and wheat are the top crops to plant for a dove food plot. Common species planted for doves include sunflower millet sorghum and sesame to name a few.

Heartland Outdoors Food Plotting Sunflowers For Dove Food Plots Food Plot Growing Sunflowers Food Plots For Deer

Plant the sunflower seeds over the soil in mid- to late April but no later than mid-May.

How to plant sunflower for doves. Just as a test with some left over sunflower seed about 4 lbs. To paraphrase if you grow sunflowers and brown top millet wheat etc and bush hog the crop before season its legal. I typically plant my sunflowers seeds around 1 to 15 deep in well drained soil.

But a great dove field has more. Planting in April May allows the seeds to mature and be available to doves a couple of weeks before season conditioning them to visit the field when dove season starts. Then carefully manage the hunting pressure.

Sunflower germination requires a soil temperature near 55F with a soil temperature at or above 65F being ideal. McClellan will also hit his sunflower plots with a dose of Roundup a month or so prior to opening day. This produces a seed head of about 6-8 inches in diameter.

Also be accomplished with sunflowers. Sunflowers are a traditional choice for dove fields and a well-managed sunflower field is likely to provide enough food for birds throughout the season. If possible plant corn sorghum and sunflowers in rows and cultivate to keep the ground as clean which encourages use by doves.

For dove fields choose your planting date so that seed maturity will coincide with the desired hunting opportunities. If you have a harrow or roller use it to cover the seed lightly. Plant plenty of food give em a little water provide grit open ground and a handful of places for the birds to sit.

In addition it is best to offer a variety of different seeds. A 30 row spacing with a seed population of approximately 25-300000 seeds per acre and a plant spacing of between 7-8 will yield good sized sunflower heads with plenty of seeds. When it comes to choices of what to plant for doves its hard to beat the sunflower.

Thats where weed control prior to and during the growing season can be critical. Do you want to plant the best field for dove hunting. The sunflower fields we hunt are planted for commercial harvest but the timing of the harvest works great for the dove hunting.

Use These Tips to Pull Doves to Your Hunting Property. For example black-oil sunflowers mature in about 100 to 120 days so a mid-April planting date will provide mature seed in mid-August. Dryland farming sunflowers is a gamble.

These fields are not harvested until early October giving our hunters plenty of time to get some shooting in. Doves have short legs and do not like to feed in thatch or eat while perched on. I top sowed sunflower over a 100 x 50 strip of top soil no burial and it DID germinate and grew up to the V-2 and V-4 leaf stages before the deer found the Nuclear test site.

You want about 5 to 6 pounds per acre sown in rows that happen to be spaced 3 feet apart. Dukes says that sunflowers are the foundation of all good dove fields. And it takes about 90 days for them to grow this is because for the best dove hunting the sunflowers need to be grown by mid-August.

I try and plant in April if possible but in the Midwest you can get a freeze or even snow this time of year so its important to look at the forecast. Our fact sheet FS2150 provides valuable production information on sunflowers grown for dove hunting. When To Plant.

That dries up the plant and allows the seed to fall to the ground. It takes anywhere from 90 to 120 days for sunflowers to mature depending on the. If you did not get a soil test use a general fertilizer recommendation rate of 300 pounds of 13-13-13 fertilizer per acre at planting.

Planting dates will be later the further north you go. Sunflowers should be planted 1 to 1 12 inches deep by mid-May here in central Illinois to have them mature in time for opening day of dove season. This cuts down on birds eating your seed and helps seed germinate faster.

Having the ability to be irrigated makes life easy. When growing sunflowers for dove early planting dates help. Doves are ground feeders and need bare dirt in order to land and feed.

I typically plant them at 28000 seeds per acre in 30 inch rows which is about 75 inches between seeds within the row. Extended periods of soil tem-peratures below 50F will delay germination and extend the period of susceptibility to seedling diseases. Once spring arrives it is ideal to plant your dove fields between April 1st and 20th here in Mississippi.

Sunflowers have about a 100-day gestation period so to get a good full-grown head on the flowers which means more seeds for the doves to feast on you need to get them in by then. The Dove Field is looking good this video will give you an update on how the sunflowers have grown. Plant in a clean tilled seedbed or use a burndown application of glyphosate or paraquat to remove existing vegetation in no-till sunflowers.

Recommended planting dates for sunflowers range from early April through early June. The basic ingredients for a good dove field are no secret. In this video we will show you h.

Adding additional seedcrops to the field is not. Broadcast seed at a rate of 25-30 pounds per acre. We will talk about what things we did that worke.

The GOOD I did note a good number of plant growth but that was still only about 40 - 50. Plant spring and summer crops within two days after the soil is harrowed to aid in weed competition. Plants that seed at different times will keep the birds coming back and will prove more attractive to doves.

It is important to plant early and not get the seeding rate too high.

Pin By Marie Jose Ploeger Koppers On Sunflowers Mourning Dove Sunflower Garden

Our First Year I Recommend Just Planting An Acre Or Two Unless You Have Access To Tractors And Pull Behind Row Planters Sunflower Fields Plants Dove Hunting

Sunflower Food Plots Such As This One At Hendrickson Marsh In Southeast Story County Are Planted By The Iowa Department Of Natural R Outdoor Food Plot Plants

Check This Out On Instagram Com Beautiful Flowers Flowers Sunflower

How To Plant A Sunflower Field For Better Dove Hunting This Summer Dove Hunting Hunting Sunflower Fields

Sunflower Farming Gets Popular In Barguna Sunflower Edible Oil Growers

Planting Sunflowers And Preparing The Dove Field Preparations Is Very Large Consider Your Dove Hunting Success Learn Planting Sunflowers Plants Dove Hunting

The Mourning Doves Planted All The Sunflowers On The Balcony Themselves Cheers To Food That Flowers And To Leaf Photography Sunflower Photography City Garden

Girassois Sunflowers And Daisies Sunflower Flower Sunflower Wallpaper