Soybean Competition Results Are In!

Hey everyone, 

The leaves are turning, the days are getting shorter, and the first frost is right around the corner.  It's really feeling like fall around here. With that comes fall calving in our Angus herd, and planting rye grass for winter grazing. I've been checking the cows every morning and every night for the last couple of weeks and still no babies. A few of the cows look overdue. I'm expecting to see the first calf of the year any day. 

Monday and Tuesday I spent in the tractor discing and preparing a seed bed for rye grass seed, Thursday Randy planted it, and Saturday we got an inch an a half of good slow rain. It all worked out perfect for once! Within the week or ten days it will germinate and we will have a good stand of rye grass, dark green in color, looking like a big beautiful green carpet. 

The Saturday morning sky, just before it cut loose and rained all day.

Now for the deer talk. 

A week ago I was checking cows and I saw a bachelor group of six bucks hanging out together in an oak timber. I'm very anxious to check cameras next weekend and see if they have been wandering over to the food plots at night. They were over a mile away from where the cameras are but I'm happy that they are living on the property. Two of those bucks were VERY nice, and I do not have pictures of any of them yet. 


I did however get a picture of a very nice 8 point so far, and some younger bucks with potential. I'm very optimistic that we are going to have a good season because we have so much food planted, and LOTS of doe. Last year we didn't get many big buck pictures until this time of the year, but soon they will be checking doe beds and looking for love.

The nice 8 point I mentioned.

The corn is mature and the beans are still growing fast. The eight or so acres of forage soybeans I planted are being browsed hard every night, and the results of our little competition between the two soybean brands turned out some very interesting results. 

SOYBEAN COMPETITION RESULTS

Back in June I planted a four acre field half with Croplan Genetics forage soybeans, and half with Real World brand forage soybeans on the same day, with the same no-till drill settings. We put no fertilizer on the field, so soil conditions were identical. Both products are Round-Up Ready, and they were sprayed for weeds on the same day on two seperate occasions. The two brands are the same price per bag.

The competition plot.

What I have found is that the Croplan Genetics brand produced much bigger leaves and much more leafy forage for the deer. On the other hand the Real World brand produced smaller leaves, but actually produced a lot more pods. 

 Real World on the left and Croplan on the right.

So in conclusion, the results of the competition to me, gives the Real World brand a slight edge, but not by much. 

Croplan Genetics - More tons of leafy forage per acre meaning that more forage will be available to the deer throughout the growing season until a hard freeze when the leaves fall off.

Real World - More pods per plant, meaning more forage during the hard winter months when deer need the nutrition the most. 

In this picture you can really see the browsing pressure this field is getting. The beans in this field would be two or three times taller if they weren't getting so much pressure.

Thank you for hanging on the edge of your seat reading about this competition for the last several months. If you have any questions about it please feel free to email me, or message me on Facebook.
Take care everyone, and good luck in the deer stand!