Food Plots in Wet Soil

[Darron]

On our 100 acres in SE Ohio, we have a place that sits down in a bottom that receives decent sun light, the only problem is, when it rains hard it holds water. Is there anything out there that could survive an area like this? Any ideas on what to plant? Thanks for any input.

[Patriot1]

Many clovers can handle sitting water. Ladino, Durana, red.... their are others

[Darron]

Thanks.

[shrivl]

Alsike Clover is good in wet/moist soils.

http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/weeds/plants/alsike_clover.htm

I am local to Cooperseeds and have gotten it there in the past.
http://www.cooperseeds.com/pages/deer/fwindividual.html

[Darron]

When would you plan alsike clover?

[shrivl]

here is a link that is a .pdf document from the govt about Alsike Clover. Sounds like spring or fall will work. The only think I read that I didn't like was mixing it in with grass. I never mixed in grass and it did well. If you can keep it mowed, mixing in a small amount of oats or wheat might take some of the early pressure off of it. The thing would be not letting the oats or wheats getting to mature if you planted in the spring. Down here I am always afraid of grass, especially Bermuda grass. That stuff gets in a plot and you can't get rid of it. Same thing with rye grass. I never use grasses any more. Good luck

http://plants.usda.gov/factsheet/pdf/fs_trhy.pdf

[TheCream]

The chicory we planted did not like standing water. There was one small wet spot in the bottom where we planted, and it was the only bare spot in the plot.

[shrivl]

I must waste $100 on chicory every year and get little to no results. I don't know why, except its been real dry in the south with the exception of some creek bottoms. A few years ago it was wet all the time due to the tropical storms we'd get the tail end of.

[TheCream]

I must waste $100 on chicory every year and get little to no results. I don't know why, except its been real dry in the south with the exception of some creek bottoms. A few years ago it was wet all the time due to the tropical storms we'd get the tail end of.

We had great results with ours. What brand did you go with? We planted Tecomate Chicory and it did very well. We planted in early fall last year, late August to be exact. We planted Tecomate Ultra Forage brassicas at the same time. The brassicas got a faster start (to be expected from an annual), but the chicory grew well and the deer loved it. In the utilization cage, the chicory got to about 6-8" high, but the deer never let it get above 3-4" in the plot. We just overseeded a few weeks ago to fill in a few spots where coverage was a little light and the new seed is already sprouting up. Chicory is pretty drought-tolerant, so I am surprised it didn't do well for you unless it just didn't get established before the dry season. If my memory serves me well, I think it only needs about 14" of rainfall per year, as opposed to most clovers needing double that.

[shrivl]

Actually I mixed three brands. I used Tecomate, Biologic, and Whitetail Institue. I don't think its the seed as much as it is the dang deer and soil. The red clay down here just doesn't let the tap root get established and then you mix in the really dry summers and it fails. I really need to run a subsoiler in the plots to break up the hardpan so the tap roots can get down deeper, but the farmer that does the plots is skitish about running a subsoiler through there since the plots are in most cases just a couple of years old and there is still a lot of debris from the grading that was done to create them. I am no expert but just from what I have read I suspect the taproot and drought is my issue with not being able to get chicory established.