Anyone plant sunflowers for doves?

LeviSS

LeviSS

New member
How do you control the weeds? We planted a half acre patch and are having trouble with weeds. The only thing we can spray for them only kills grass, no broadleaves. We used two boards to shield the sunflowers and dragged them down the rows, while spraying roundup. We later cultivated the patch. There are still weeds in the rows between the plants. Lots of hand pulling weeds going on. Is there an easier way? I wish they made a round-up ready sunflower.

Hopefully it will be worth the work. I'm ready for dove season.
 
Don't plant sunflowers but me and my dad plant wheat on bare dirt in the middle of august and they atrract doves and in the begining of october they sprout and attract deer the rest of the year
 
LOL. If you guys can control weeds in a half acre sunflower patch my hat is off to ya. I always figured sunflowers and weeds just kinda went together. Curious why you're so concerned about the weeds?
 
Haha, it's been a chore. My dad is the main one concerned. He farms the land around this patch and he doesn't want all these weeds to go to seed and spread like crazy. It's the farmer in him.

This is the second year we've planted them. The first year wasn't bad at all, then I guess the weeds that were there seeded and this year they are bad. We know it's too late to do much this year, but thinking ahead for the next. How do people grow these things for commercial purposes? I figure there has to some way to control them.

Either way, it's gonna be fun.

Correction: It's 1.5 acres. I thought when we measured it, it was only half an acre, but I talked to my dad today and he said 1.5 acres. It didn't seem that big.
 
I think the herbicide we use is POST to keep clean. Buddy does planting and spraying. Type in google and read applications and rates.
 
me and yotehunter243 used to plant between 3-5acres of sunflowers everyyear on his families gravel pit and we just let the weeds grow.
the couple of places that i have put milo and sunflowers on my inlaws family farm. i have used a 6ft dic and left a bare "road" around the plots that we spray and it not only gives the birds a place to land and walk into the sunflowers but it gives you a buffer from the crops.
these 6ft buffer strips make perfect places to put mojos and have a nice little slaughter hole.

Jim
 
Doves love a "clean" field , so weed control is a must. Spray roundup a week or so before planting and that will help a lot. I know some guys who spray again once the heads mature, burning off the weeds and then bushhogging strips in the field. This leaves clean ground with seeds on it for the birds to light on, leaves cover for gunners to sit it and the standing flowers can be mowed in the winter if you have a late season. Some places where I hunt the fields are taken very seriously but you can't argue with a few hundred limits being taken in one season.
 
We plant around 17 acres of sunflowers .We have been useing a Northern hybrid seed 3-4 ft plants good size stalks and heads . We allow enough roundup for a spray a few weeks before season if needed . We dont bushhog we have noticed it seems if you get rain the spent seeds tend to germinate and then you have more growth . We will lower the front bucket down and make a few paths thru the field leaving 90%+ alone for later season . We have had excellent shoots when no 1 else in the area had birds .We generally get 3,4 or 5 excellent shoots . With 99.9 % limiting out . Bare ground is important or at least we think so
 
We have 10 acres that we put into a food plot every year, for dove the sunflowers work well, though as noted clearings are important, just dig up a spot here and there and you should be fine I would think.

Also deer love them as well, so keep em standing all winter, then dig em in spring.

The BEST dove hunting Ive had here is over canolla fields, they LOVE that stuff and litterally can shoot all day if you need to, always coming and going out of that stuff.

Good luck!
 
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