This summer I want to give a food plot a go. We can get up there a few times over summer to work on it but getting any kind of equipment up there(no ATV's, tillers, etc.). Also our soil SUCKS. I haven't had it tested yet but I know it sucks. It's been labeled "tar sand" by whoever did our geological survey. It's sandy, it doesn't hold water for shit, and it's mostly covered in that dry grassy shit. We don't even have weeds.
There is no ag in our area at all. Most of our oaks have been killed off or are dying from oak wilt. The deer mostly feed on browse and what few oaks are left. Our section of woods has a few little, mature pine plantations. The rest is a hodgepodge mix of pine, spruce, oak, maple...all grown too close together so they don't get much bigger than 4-6" at the base. There are a few trees here and there that we could put treestands in but they are surrounded with dense forest that would require a LOT of chainsaw work.
Here's what I'm concerned with... Even if we clear the area out I don't want to clear too big of an area. This is going to limit sunlight quite a bit. We could put it on the back edge of the property that boarders an old clear cut to the west which would really increase sun exposure. Also, in most areas even if we take the trees down the floor is going to be littered with stumps. Less of an issue since we are going to be planting with hand tools I would think but this is only an educated guess on my part.
We can get a vehicle pretty close to some of the spots I'm thinking about to get lime and fertilizer out there but about how much are we talking? The deer numbers by us are LOW so we don't need a very big plot, I was thinking about starting with 1/8th acre to start just to see how it goes. Even if they do eat it up early my first season is going to be more of an experiment to see what, if anything, we can get to grow than anything. I know it's impossible to give too accurate an answer without a soil sample but about how much lime/fertilizer could we potentially be talking about here if the soil really is as bad as I think it is?
We get a fair amount of rain but again, our soil doesn't hold water for shit, and watering it is not an option, is there anything we could plant that will grow ok in this situation?
edit: Also since we are limited on tools we are going to be limited on planting. I was basically planning on clearing an area out, then spraying it to kill it off. Come back later and rake it really good. Spread the seed and depending on what that seed calls for leave it sit or rake it in as best we can.
Obviously somewhere in there we will spread our lime and fertilizer. I don't really know how that works, whether you add it all at once or add it over the course of the summer/fall.