Cucumber35
Well-known member
So I've just acquired about 10 acres of ground to lease, long story short the property is a buffer for a local power plant, that I happen to do a lot of contracting work for. Found out they wanted to lease it to someone to farm, presumably to cut down on the amount of ground they pay me to brush hog through the year. It's not really that great by any means and its kind of cut up into 3 sections that total 10 acres tops, and that's if I push some brush and trees back along the edges. Not really worth messing with but only a few miles away and after hearing the deal I figured why not? The rent is cheap... Really cheap. (Ok - it's $1 per year :secret: ) So I figure if I can get a little something off it I'm still ahead. It was farmed at some point years ago, just been mowed a few times over the last several years to keep from getting totally overgrown to allow power line access if needed. Should have soil test back this week. Deer damage will be substantial where it is, so corn and beans are out of the question. Can always use more hay but I know weeds will be an issue the first year or so, so don't want to try to plant any perennial type forages to start with. Also want to keep tillage to a minimum at least for the first couple years. Right now I'm thinking of mowing it soon, lime and fertilizer dependent on soil test, then coming back in a month or so and spray before no-tilling something like rye. Can cut that and round bale in spring and borrow buddy's wrapper. Then spray again and follow with a warm season forage, maybe sudangrass... Same deal, bale and wrap. Maybe do this rotation another year or so depending on how it goes. I'm thinking this will be fairly low input and my best bet to get the ground back in shape and not pull to many nutrients out to start with. Does anybody see a problem with this train of thought or have any better suggestions? Do you think the deer will do less damage with something else? I'm pretty new to a lot of this so just looking for opinions. I'm right on the middle of the Mason Dixon, so our weather is well, whatever it wants to be... Thanks.
