Tom,

Thanks for watching The Proving Grounds! Yes, I’m a huge believer in having soil in food plots tested annually. Crops produce much better when they have access to all necessary nutrients. The best method to produce quality forage is to determine what nutrients are lacking and then add the nutrients that are low or not available. I wish to grow nutritious crops, and therefore healthy deer at the Proving Grounds. Knowing that the soil was extremely poor, I started using humified compost from Micro Leverage  (now Antler Dirt) several years ago. It not only provides all the nutrients necessary for producing nutritious crops, but can also hold about four times it weight in moisture. This is critical for my gravely soils that don’t hold water!

Literally, my soil is too rocky to use a disk. Therefore, I have the compost spread on the plots. I use a no-till drill to attempt to get good seed to “soil” contact. I find that some folks think the compost is applied so thick that it acts like a layer of soil. That’s not correct. In fact, at two tons per acre compost is applied at less than 1/8″ thick. This system produces excellent results on poor, rocky soil. In fact, after touring The Proving Grounds some of the plots on public lands in the Ozarks are now managed the same way! Those plots looked like Iowa last year!!

Growing Deer together,

Grant