What are the exact steps to making a great dove sunflower field? When do you plow, plant? Do you clean the field before planting? What is the very best seed? I planted a seed one year and the deer are the heads off! Do you have to use weed killer? Do you have to expose the seed to a freeze-- like plant in March? Thanks.

following this one

April is when you wanna plant and go with the hybrid seed If you go with the native they will be coming up every wheres

Some quick resources for you:

Growing Sunflowers in the cross timbers of TX
https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_rp_w7000_1152.pdf

Food Plots for Doves
http://forages.tamu.edu/PDF/E569%20Norma...0in%20Texas.pdf

Sunflower Production Guide
http://sanangelo.tamu.edu/extension/agronomy/agronomy-publications/sunflower-production-guide/

sunflowers are great for pheasants, baby chicks feed on the insects that are found on the stalks, if there is rain

Thanks

Following as well.

"Stompy" on THF plants a lot for his dove hunts, you should PM him and invite him to this thread.

I like native sunflower as it is a great re-seeder and grows well in our climate.

Last year was our first shot at non native/hybrid/giant sunflower.

If you are wanting the easiest/cheapest, get the natives establoshed. At that point all you need to do is plow in November/December and they will come back each year. Maybe fertilize every few years. Shredding these in August August will produce morning dive but virtually no whitewings.

For the big ones it gets pretty costly and time consuming to do it right. Right being to where there's no competing weeds under the sunflower.

Plow in march to break the ground. Spray a pre emergent or wait until the weeds are up and spray with roundup. Drill your sunflowers in early/mid April. There's one seed that you can actually spray a post emergent chemical on. This kills all weeds under the plant and allows the birds to get to the seed that drops from the plants. This will also run you 200-300$/acre if done right but it's Argentina quality hunting but you could go to Argentina 4x for the same $$ as a 30 acre field. Here is one of mine right before opener last year.
Even with all the chemical and work we still had weeds.


I've also just sprayed roundup in march and drilled my sunflower in April. Let the weeds grow and then mowed it all throughout the season. We had great success at a fraction of the $$.



We got a bunch of late rain in August and had a Johnson grass explosion. I hit it with roundup as soon as the sunflowers browned up.

First half of the season we shot 50/50 whitewing. Dec 12 I plowed all of the remaining sunflowers and we hammered the morning dove the second split.

This year I'm trying something different. I drilled wheat on one of my big fields in November. The wheat will act as a natural weed control and I'm hoping to not have to spray it. I'm going Togo back and drill hybrid sunflower in April in the wheat. If I get a 60+% germ rate I will be pumped. Morning dove prefer wheat and the whitewings prefer the big sunflower. I'm hoping to get the best of both worlds.

Your photo from last year looks amazing. Good luck with your plan this year.

I've always wondered if you harvested the wheat in May if you could come back over the top with a browntop millet that has a 100-120 day maturation and do any good as well. I guess it would depend on what kind of June and early July rainfall you got, but a thought since doves love millet.

brazosboyt, what kind of sunflowers are in that first picture that you posted? I'm going to be planting sunflowers as well this spring and am looking for the same kind of help as the OP

I planted sunflowers last year and had exactly one flower - astonishing! They grow wild in the bar ditches, and I spend days prepping and planting, and get one daggum sunflower. Back to the drawing board for 2017!

and that's my fear

Peredovik


If you plant natives it's my understanding they need to be planted in nov/dec to receive a certain amount of cold hours in the ground.

Whatever I'm doing--it's wrong. And that's a lot of birds.

Native is what I have in my fields. Once native are established you just have to fertilize and disc in December thru February every year. I haven't bought sunflower seeds for many years, they come up volunteer now after being plowed.

What do you mean by "disc in December thru February"? How many times do you disc the field?

Sorry, should have been more clear. Only disc once and the time line for doing it is anytime in December through February. I like to do mine the end of January if there is sufficient moisture in the ground to get a good deep turn of the soil.