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| You may not believe this but, beans can withstand deer pressure better than corn or wheat or that's how it works here. Used to, the deer only hurt the beans. So we started planting 2-3 years of corn on those fields. Big mistake, they seem to have grown more fond of the corn now, bypassing beans to get to the corn. Between the deer & bears, corn in the wrong field here will take a beating much worse than beans. But, I saw a sow bear and her 2 cubs the other afternoon browsing in a bean field edge.
Last year I had a 50 acre field of corn yield 40bpa. Ends rows on the road where 150+, once you went down the field it was nothing but stalks & nubbins. When the corn first came out of the ground say 2-3 leaves, they hammered it. When I went to post spray it, it looked someone had cut it all off with a pair of scissors! It grew, but only about every 4th-5th stalk had a a decent ear. We shot & shot them at night, we just couldn't break them out.
On the beans, I planted a low lineolic(sp?) bean that Ia State developed 2 years ago, and the deer really stayed out of them. The only damage they had from deer was traffic damage. I never saw where they fed on them while growing. Don't know if it was a freak thing or what as the processor I grew then for dropped the program. Joe | |
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how to stop deer from eating soybeans
