Seeds and Foodplots with Stratton Seed Company

This week on the Oklahoma Outdoors Podcast, John is joined by Keith Hammer of Stratton Seed Company to talk about their wide variety of food plot blends and how to create successful food plots even in dry conditions. One of the things that drew John to Stratton Seed Company years ago, was that most of their seeds are grown and produced locally here in the south around Stuttgart, Arkansas. Their target customers range along the southeastern United States from Oklahoma and Texas across to Georgia and Alabama. The seeds and mixes they produce are designed for the soils and climates of the south, and not the typical midwestern whitetail hunters that so many products cater to. 

Keith and John go through the lengthy product line that Stratton offers, but also dig a little deeper into specific food plot strategy. They talk about when folks in the south should plant as opposed to what most people in the midwest suggest, and Keith gives some tips for people trying to grow food plots in these drier than usual conditions Oklahoma and surrounding states have been experiencing. John also lets Keith talk about a subject that he has essentially no experience with due to his abundance of wild hogs, which is growing corn for deer. Over all, this is a great educational episode that you won't want to miss!

Check out the Sportsmen's Empire Podcast Network for more relevant outdoor content!

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[00:00:00] Hey guys and gals, welcome to the Oklahoma Outdoors podcast brought to you by Arrowhead Land Company. Here you will be educated, entertained, and equipped to get more out of your outdoor experience. So hold on tight because here we go.

What's up ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show. This is the Oklahoma Outdoors podcast. I am your host John Hutsmith. And if you're listening to this, deer season has officially began. That's right. It is deer season. It's bear season. Also, waterfowl season's coming up before too long. But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Odd, quick little story to tell you guys real quick before I jump into this, but I gotta tell it. So anyway, for the past like, Honestly, two months I have been dealing with [00:01:00] this foot issue. It's not like pain or anything like that. It's more of a, like an athlete's foot type thing. I guess that's what it is.

Super dry, itchy, but it, it doesn't really bother me that much. I don't notice it during the day. At the end of the day when I, take my socks and shoes off and stuff I notice it. I itch it a little bit, but then I forget about it again. But anyway, like I said, it's been like two months now that this has been going on.

So finally the other day I was like, you know what? I probably need to do something about this. And so I mentioned something about it to my wife, told her what was going on. She's Oh, I have a good idea. So she walks out of the room, comes back in and she throws me this bottle. And I catch it, and I look at it, and I quickly realize that it is my daughter's diaper rash cream.

And at first I thought she was, making fun of me or whatever, but then I got to looking at the bottle, and it's talking about moisture, and itch relief, and pain relief, and all this stuff, and I was like, you know what? This is not a bad idea. So I tell you that to tell you this.

Here I am, it is September 28th, [00:02:00] three days before opening day of deer season. I have zero food plots in the ground. I have a buck coming into a location that I don't think I'm going to be able to hunt because of the wind. And my foot is covered in diaper rash cream. Just wanted to say welcome to my life, this is what's going on, and welcome to the show.

So anyway, we're gonna talk a little bit more about a few of those topics, I'll leave my foot out of it from here on out but yes, as I mentioned, I guess on the last episode, Went up to plant my food plots, my, brother was having some equipment issues, I wasn't able to get a tractor or anything to plant.

I will say, I don't know if I mentioned this or not, I did shortly consider just broadcasting the seed because I had everything else, there ready to go. But we were supposed to have gotten some rain leading up to that weekend that did not come, it was completely dry, and then checking the extended forecast, I think there was like 2 or 3 days where there was a chance of, or like a 40 to 50 percent chance of rain, [00:03:00] but just not enough you could count on, and so I was really afraid that I would, you Spend all this time and you know spreading all this expensive seed and then it wouldn't rain Just be sitting out there in the sun baking and not, so yeah So anyway, I basically talked myself out of broadcasting decided to just wait and drill it later.

Turned out to be a terrible decision because like I said that was you know, saturday and sunday over the weekend I think it was that Wednesday, a storm popped up, and we ended up getting two and a half inches of rain. Which is like a dream rain if you broadcast seed. You want that nice big heavy rain to push everything down.

I think that Friday we got another like half inch, which would have been awesome. And then here we are that following Thursday, and I got nothing. I would love to plant food plots this weekend, but I'm also a little worried like if I am gonna hunt. I don't necessarily want to be, clunking the tractor around and stuff on Saturday, planting.

So yeah, still trying to figure out that. I thought about maybe taking, trying to take Monday off [00:04:00] work, but I don't know if that's gonna work. Just got a bunch of stuff going on. So yeah, so as far as my food plots, still at a loss. Which is funny because this week's episode is about... Seeds and food plots and everything.

So still trying to figure out what I'm going to be doing there. As far as the buck that I mentioned coming in I've talked about it a lot on Instagram this week. So my number one target buck, Stone, he still is coming in almost every day within shooting light, or before shooting light. I believe it was Monday he came in like 20 minutes before the end of legal light, which is amazing.

And then and then also sorry, there's a lot of a lot of different strings to this web here. We, my brother moved the cows around and there are currently cows in the pasture. With two of my four feeders and so one of those pastures is the cemetery pasture where the 2 percent buck has been showing up so literally the night that The cows were put in that or the day that [00:05:00] the cows were put in that pasture.

He quit coming in He had been like every day every day cows move in there That would have been, I think, Sunday. But, that Monday night, where I just talked about Stone came in 20 minutes before, he showed up at that feeder. It would have been, it was late, it was like, Two o'clock in the morning something like that, but I think what happened was he tried to go to his favorite spot There was cows there and so he went to the other spot he knew about which also just happens to be our land Which is awesome So anyway, so yeah So Monday night stone shows up 20 minutes before the end of legal light and then 2 percent buck shows up way late after that Tuesday night of this week Stone, I did not get a picture of him before daylight, but I did get a picture of the 2 percent buck just like five minutes after legal light.

And and again, that was when I got a picture of him. So more than likely, He was out there, potentially within shooting range, before legal light. And then I got a picture of [00:06:00] Stone, like 30 minutes after that. So he was obviously in the area too. My guess is that Stone was on his way in, the 2 percent buck came out, and pushed him off.

Pushed him out of the area, and then, took the feeder over. So I'm guessing that both of those bucks were out at the same location. before shooting light. Last night, Wednesday night Stone again was there before the end of legal light. I think the two percent buck I got a picture of him like 20 or 30 minutes after shooting light.

So all this to say like I am jazzed like this is the spot. I've been preparing to hunt Yeah, I've been checking the weather. I know it's gonna be hot I was actually I've been concocting like a portable AC thing that I can put in the blind I have a Banks blind here because there's not a good tree And so I was like man, I have this cheap cooler.

I'm like packet full of four or five bags of ice I bought this battery operated I was like, I can crack the lid, put that fan in there. The fan will push the cold air out. Have all the windows closed and basically turn that instead of it being an oven, have it be a little freezer. I can sit in there, won't be [00:07:00] sweating or anything like that.

When the sun starts going down, I can turn it off so there's no noise. Good to go. So I had this whole plan put together. We're like, again, we're like three days away from all of this. And then today comes along, and I just so happen, just because I'm excited for deer season stuff, I I opened the DeerCast app the app that the druids have, and it gives you a prediction, it gives you all the weather and moon, and it has like a Okay, good, great, or bad, rating for the day and everything.

So I was just kinda checking it, just, kinda see what the app was telling me. And that's when I noticed it. And I have no idea why. There's no front coming in, there's no front coming out. For whatever reason I think it's Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Instead of having our typical south wind, we have a straight east wind.

And that is the worst possible wind I can have for this setup. Literally, northwest, south, I'm good. [00:08:00] East wind, it just, it blows straight from the blind, out over the food plot and the feeder and everything like that. And with two potential shooters coming out in daylight on opening day, as of right now, I don't think I'm gonna be able to hunt it because of the wind.

My access is from the east. The wind would be coming from the east, blowing straight towards the feeder, straight towards the food plot, everything it's just terrible. And I start I immediately opened Onyx and was looking at the map, and I had this idea, I was like, man I can come way, swing way to the south, I can hug the tree line, and just hunt off the ground I'm pretty sure I know where they're coming out and maybe I can get them that way.

But again, just trying to think, rationally, in big picture and everything. If something were to happen, like if I were to guess wrong, if they came out in a different spot or, maybe they hung up a little bit, came out a little bit later, I would be absolutely stuck out there on the edge of the field because there's no [00:09:00] way I can get off our property by going west or south.

If I went north, I'd be going literally straight through the heart of my sanctuary, bedding area, all that. Obviously, if I went east, I'd be walking right into the deer, again, one, potentially two shooters, plus does and smaller bucks and everything like that, and I'm just stuck in this conundrum right now, because I have a chance, I have a chance at one, maybe even my top two shooters on opening day, but as of right now, just the wind is absolutely kicking my tail.

And again, it's still a couple days out. I'm crossing my fingers that something changes, and it goes to our normal south wind. But yeah I don't know. I'm gonna have a very tough decision. Because again, I just don't think it's worth the risk as much as I want to. I don't think it's worth the risk to hunt this spot opening day with my top two bucks coming in right at the edge of daylight if the wind is wrong.

[00:10:00] So anyway, that is all the conundrums that I'm in right now. Back to the food plot thing, like I really want to plant my food plots this weekend but again, so this feeder where these bucks are coming, that's at my big food plot. So I don't necessarily want to be in there like on Saturday, spraying, driving around, planting, all that stuff if I'm going to hunt it Sunday.

I thought about trying to take off work on Monday so I like, I could hunt Sunday evening and then plant on Monday. But just the way it works looking right now, I don't think that's going to be an option. So yes, that's where I'm at right now. Again, by the time this episode airs, I will have been forced to make a decision and we'll have done whatever that decision is.

So y'all can look forward to that hearing from me, but. Yeah, anyway, that's 11 minutes of me rambling about how terrible things are even though things are actually pretty darn good And I'm very fortunate to be in this situation. So so yeah, like I said, look forward to that I'll let y'all know what I work out, but it's just it's consuming my brain right now So I had to kind of word vomit that out to you [00:11:00] guys Anyway, today we have a great guest.

We have Keith Hammer on today and he works for Stratton seed great episode I love this company I've used their products before great company and we get into it in the episode, but one of the big reasons that I like using this company's products is because they are really grown and focused and targeted to it's not your typical Midwestern, plant in the middle of August and we get into all that stuff that you see at a lot of retailers and stores and stuff that's shoved down your throat in the deer industry.

But again, I talk about it all the time. Here in Oklahoma and even the surrounding states. We're just not in that typical Midwest area like you know our weather is different climates different soils different and so again We cover all this in the episode But just a really good episode with a really good person who works for a really good company So yeah, this was a long [00:12:00] intro my apology for that But we have a really good one this week as always.

So we're going to hear a quick word from our partner and then we will get into our episode with Stratton seed right after this. There is truly no place like the great outdoors in Oklahoma. When you're out in the wild, you want your wireless devices to work. Unlike other carriers, Bravado Wireless believes that coverage in rural areas is important so that you stay connected.

With competitively priced plans and coverage where you need it, the mission of Bravado Wireless is to keep you connected no matter where you are. Visit BravadoWireless. com or check them out at one of their retail locations. Bravado Wireless, the power of connection. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show this week.

And today we got special guest, Mr. Keith Hammer. How are you doing, Keith? I'm doing great, John. Thanks for having me. Absolutely, man. And really excited about this one. Keith, you work for Stratton Seed Company. So we're going to be talking a [00:13:00] lot of seed and food plot type stuff today. Great time going into the season now, but before we get too far Keith, I want to give you a chance just to introduce yourself, tell everybody a little bit about who you are.

Yeah. So like I said, my name's Keith Hammer. I started working for Stratton Seed back in 2018 was when I started and honestly started out in the warehouse conditioning the seed that we grew, grow locally there in Stuttgart, Arkansas. I probably started selling about three or four years ago now.

I'll just go ahead and give a little brief history of Stratton while I'm at it. So Stratton Seed was we came about 1948. We're 3rd generation owned privately owned family company. Like I said, we just celebrated our 75th anniversary. This past year we. We do mainly row crop seeds, so soybeans, wheat, rice.

Grow it all locally, produce it ourselves. We got about 6 locations throughout Arkansas and then 1 in the [00:14:00] Boothill, Missouri. But, and then we brought on the wildlife piece about 4 years ago now, probably going on 5. And it's just been growing every year. We have our hands full every year, just keeping up with the demand that we got, which is a blessing.

So we're thankful for it. But yeah, that's a brief real brief history of Stratton anyway, and where I came from with it as well. Great. Great. Love it. Absolutely. Love it. And you you hinted on it, but I wanted to start there where you were just talking about of maybe this is different than most.

Food plot type of podcast, but I want to talk about your actual seeds. You mentioned locally grown and stuff. Tell us a little bit about just the production, how that all goes out do y'all grow it yourselves? Do you contract it? Just tell us about where these seeds come from.

Yeah, we have a hand, I say a handful, it's definitely more than that, but we have some farmers that set up on a program basically that. That they grow our seed for us. Obviously it's maintained throughout the year to keep the highest quality possible. And needed [00:15:00] to to sell it and just that way we can give the end user a better quality product.

So we've got farmers that do that for us. We bring it in house after it's harvested. And clean it condition it from there. Go into bags from there, so that's the gist of it. And it like I said, whenever we talked about locally grown. Like I said, we're in step guard. Arkansas, eastern Arkansas, east of litter rock if you're familiar with that, but.

We service as a sales force, we service about 11 states here in the South, ranging from Texas, Oklahoma, all the way to. Really, Georgia, but Alabama, that kind of Tennessee, Kentucky, that area, and then all states in between. A wide footprint, but most of what we do. Plant seed wise will fit all those areas that I just mentioned and that's why I really wanted to focus on that question and why I loved having you on because I just feel [00:16:00] like it's coming from a fellow southerner.

A lot of the, not just seed, but a lot of whitetail products in general, I feel are just really targeted to the Midwest, the Iowas And and just I'm just being honest, things are different. Soils are different. Growing conditions are different. Temperatures are very different.

And one I wouldn't say it's a pet peeve, but one thing that I try to warn people against is, if you pick up that little. 5 bag from whatever store you bought it from. And it's got the celebrity with a giant buck and this beautiful green food plot that they planted. A lot of times you flip that over and like the suggested fall planting date is like middle of August.

And I don't know about you, but like where I am, if I try to plant something, fall crop in the middle of August. It's going to just burn and sizzle and never actually produce anything. And I like that y'all are more Southern based. The seeds that y'all are selling are grown and produced and really meant.

For this type of [00:17:00] area. And obviously this is the Oklahoma outdoor podcast. So I'm focusing on Oklahoma. A lot of most of the state, except for maybe that very Northeast corner, it's just a little drier. It's a little hotter than most people would find in the Midwest. So I just really liked that.

Y'all's stuff is more focused for down here. Yeah. And so basically just go off what you said there, but. Everything we grow here especially in your part of Oklahoma, there's not that much difference. So anything we grow here will generally work in your area as well. And that's why we've had success just in our outreach there.

Like I said, the 11 states. Yeah, there's some differences as far as weather and. Souls and and moisture and all that precipitation, but in the grand scheme of things, it's all pretty similar or work very well. Where, like, when you talk about the Midwest, they're planting. They're planting in July, really, and I would suggest doing that.

But down here, like you [00:18:00] said, if you try to plant a plot, especially this year, in August, it's been real hot and dry this year. It really hadn't been very conducive for food plots, unfortunately. And we can get into that a little bit later too, but there are certain things that you can do to help yourself take advantage of what Mother Nature is giving you, whether it's too much rain, not enough rain.

That sort of thing. But yeah, back to your question. It's everything we grow right there locally is. Will be suitable to your environment over there as well. Awesome. Awesome. And yeah, you touched on it. Might as well go ahead and get into it because that was definitely one of the questions I have because it seems like the last three years, maybe even a little bit more than that.

We've just had these crazy dry summers and this year was a little different. I feel like the last couple of years we actually got a lot of moisture in the spring. We had some pretty wet springs. And then, right there around the end of May, seemed like everything just shut off. This year we were below average, even in [00:19:00] the spring.

Now I will say we had some very well timed rains, at least where we are. It seemed like we'd get a little bit of rain and five to seven days later, we'd get a little bit more rain. So we actually had a fairly decent growing season, but we were still well below average, but then, this summer it shut off and it just seems to have still stayed shut off.

And so I would love to hear your thoughts on ways to help people out. Is it just, is the best thing to do just to wait and plant later? Or whatever tips you have I'm definitely open for, yeah, I think a good rule. Rule of thumb is you'd like to say 45 to 60 days of growing season before frost hits.

Now, obviously we can't do that this year, probably because I feel like we're going to go from a heat stroke summer to, to a cold fall pretty quick in a matter of just a few weeks, probably from what the weather's kind of looking but obviously that's a little dramatic, but. You get the point, but what I tried to do is this year, I planted 1, we had a little bit of a system move [00:20:00] through last week.

I think we ended up getting. 3 quarters of an inch out of it, and so I didn't really, I didn't plant 1 plot until just this past week where generally I would be planning. I would like to plant 1st of September in my area, and it's going to be pretty similar to where you are too. You could probably get away.

And your neck of the woods planting a little bit later. Really, even up till now 1st of October, just got to play with the weather. You certainly don't want to play it in August. Because you see, I ever it happens every year, John, we get guys that. In middle of August, they're excited about it. They say, we always get that 1 little not cold snap, but stretch right there in August.

And there's a little bit of rain in the forecast. And everybody starts freaking out. And I just try to tell them to hold on just because. It happens every year, it'll turn hot and dry and if you get that food pot up and going and it don't rain for 3 weeks and it's 100 [00:21:00] degree days. You're going to be calling me not happy because the seats not doing what it needs, but it's got to have some water to do that.

Yeah, I would just in situations like that. I'd suggest planting later. And then hopefully we catch some rains here in the next few weeks. But. 1 thing that and what I was going to get into this question was. I know it's not suitable for everybody, but you don't have to have a big drill to do this.

I know that can be expensive and time consuming, but if you can keep from it, not disking up the ground and exposing that's that dirt to the sun, basically. Hidden dirt is a pride and joy for a food plot. If you can keep it. Basically, you can still terminate it, spray it with glyphosate, whatever to terminate it and then go in with some smaller seeded stuff like clovers or brassica, something like that.

Basically, what that does is that thatch layer basically will help hold that [00:22:00] moisture into the ground and not. Basically evaporate with the daylight sun and everything else. That's a good option to do it. If you can keep from keeping that disc in the field. I know it's fun and I've done it myself too.

And it works. Don't get me wrong. But that's just 1 way to help beat the drought. And allows your soul to hold moisture a lot longer to. Yeah. And, even if you do have a drill, a lot of people are no till drilling still not using that plow, that's going to work even better if I'm, not unless I'm fooling myself, but yeah, you said, spray it, kill it, then run that no till drill through there, just straight over top of all of that.

Get that seed down there where there's hopefully a little bit of moisture and and let it go. I want to back up to one thing real quick that you mentioned that before I forget it you, which I'm glad you did, you mentioned that, probably need to wait a little bit into September.

I love that first September time period. And I didn't get that this year. We'll get [00:23:00] into that in a second. But I think one thing that people maybe just have maybe a little bit wrong in their head is And I think a lot of it again comes from seeing that picture on the bag, these giant bucks, pretty days and these nice green food plots, but you don't need your food plot to be two feet tall opening day for it to be effective.

If anything, you want it to be that more shorter, newer growth that deer really love. And if you plant too early, it's not necessarily going to get too mature. Deer will still eat it. But there's nothing wrong with it being just a couple inches tall on opening day to attract deer, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, so there ain't nothing more attractive to a deer than new growth, and they don't matter, they don't matter if it's coming off of woody brows from a tree you cut or a food plot that's growing out of the ground that's two weeks old. There's, you're right, there's nothing more attractive to a deer like that than that fresh growth, for sure.

And that, that brings me to my next point. So I, again I love [00:24:00] trying to get seed in the ground. I usually wait till about mid September but this year I have a one year old I went and hunted a little bit in Nebraska because my sister moved up there. And so I went to plant my food plot weekend before last, which would have been that mid September timeframe get up there.

And unfortunately, my brother had some equipment breakdowns. He was bailing hay. I couldn't get a tractor or anything, so I still do not have seed in the ground. We're recording this on September 28th today. And but with it being so dry, and you mentioned this temperature and stuff In your opinion am I wasting my time if I plant, maybe this upcoming weekend, or maybe I can't get it in this weekend, the next weekend, that early October timeframe, am I wasting my time?

Or is it, do you think it's still worth planning? I think it's still worth planning at this point. Now, if we were having this conversation two weeks from now, I'd probably say, it's just what year, but I think we're fortunate enough versus the Midwest, like we were talking about earlier.

As we have a longer growing season [00:25:00] and none of us know exactly when that 1st process is going to hit. It's all a gamble at the end of the day. Anyway, that's why they call farming, but. We've got a much longer growing season, so we can get away with those later plannings. I want to say it was.

I could, 2 or 3 years ago now, I planted 1, the 1st week of October. And it turned out better than my plots did that. I planned it. 3 weeks prior to that, it just all depends on the year. Like I said, we could turn around and get across in end of October and that plot may not do as well as it should have, but it could be the middle of November to, just as well as I do.

Yeah it's not that much different from Arkansas weather with you being in South Oklahoma. It's. You're going to have probably, you're generally going to have a little bit longer window of of growing season. Use it to your advantage, moral of the story. I think if you can still get something in within the next week or 10 days, even if you just get 30 days of growing out [00:26:00] of it that's, it's more beneficial to have a little bit than nothing at all.

Yeah, I like that. I like that thinking. Yeah, I so I had thought about again I had the seed, I was ready, two weeks ago, whenever it was got up there, but, I didn't know until I got there that I wasn't going to have the equipment, and we had spray I'd had soybeans out there, and I'd sprayed glyphosate over those soybeans probably a month before that, had killed most of it. There was a little bit of fresh stuff that was still going through. And I actually, I was fighting, I thought about just going out there and broadcasting it like you talked about. But we had been supposed to get some rain leading up to that weekend, which we did not, we got zero.

And then that next week there was like. Two or three, like 40 to 50 percent chances. But, and so basically I chickened out cause I was like, I don't want to broadcast it and not get any rain and have it exposed to the sun or critters get it or whatever. And of course, three days later, we got two and a half inches of rain.

So definitely definitely [00:27:00] missed out on a good opportunity there. But like I said, still got it. Definitely think it's still worth putting in. I was just curious. Let me ask you this and there may not be since I am going to be planning later. And that's one of the good things about this podcast.

I can ask people my personal questions, but but I'm sure there's other people out there in the same boat. Is there anything you would do differently planting, 1st of October, as opposed to 1st of September? No, not really. Now, it all depends on timeframes and what you have the availability to as far as tractors, discs, planters, anything like that.

But I would probably as far as what I would plant, I may change that up a little bit. I'd probably stick more to some clover and some cereal grains. More than brassicas at that point. I think, though, you'd have a better shot of. Of getting some green in the building, and I think those were just a little bit more tougher in my opinion that [00:28:00] brassica needs a little bit longer.

Growing season, in my opinion to really. Produce what it needs to be beneficial, but I would. I would that'd be about the only thing I'd change as far as practices though. I wouldn't change anything there. Gotcha. Okay. Awesome, man. That's a pretty darn good foundation. I have a few more questions like that.

But before we get there I just want to talk about some of your products and I'm on y'all's website right now. There's a ton of them on here. So I don't know if you want me to highlight a couple, or if you want to, throw out some of your favorites, but let's just talk about some of these different varieties that y'all offer and maybe like some situations you might pick one over the other.

Yeah, go ahead. All right. So right off the bat, I see Game Changer Soybeans, which I'm familiar with, and you got the regular and you got the 2. 0. So let's just start there. What's the difference in those two? So the original Game Changer and the 2. 0. The [00:29:00] original... Was what started it all really on the wildlife side.

Whenever I first got there, I saw that we had this being I knew it was very competitive with some of our competitors beans. As far as functionality, but also price and I knew we could be competitive in that market and basically just bring the market another option for guys that didn't want to spend 100 dollars on a bag of soybeans.

This is a early group 5 indeterminate being. So basically this is gonna and what that means is it's just gonna keep flowering and putting on pots, basically, even after a deer nips it off. Now, I want to clarify that if you go try to plant this in a one acre plot, you've got a high deer density.

You're probably not going to be too happy with the results because the deer are getting what they need, but you're not happy because it looks like a weed eater just went through there and mowed it all down, but there's definitely some situations we can get into that in a minute. But as far as [00:30:00] a glyphosate tolerant soybean that performs well, gets their tons of forage throughout the spring and summer.

And then also, if you can carry it all the way to production on those pods. Great source there in the wintertime, whenever those deer are needing that protein to carry them throughout the rest of the winter. Now, like I said, they're glyphosate tolerant. This original soybean is very drought tolerant.

I've actually seen this bean go underwater and it still survive and thrive. I've seen this, I've seen this bean go through droughts of 30 45 days of no rain and still hold on to the best of what you could possibly imagine it could do with 30 45 days of no rain. Very good bean. Like I said, I would probably concentrate on planting these on some larger plots just because it is very hard to have a successful stand of soybeans on smaller plots, especially if you've got a [00:31:00] high deer density.

Now the deer might be eating them and that's great. That might be your goal. But if you want to, if you're wanting any kind of pods at the end of the year, I would suggest making these some larger plot plantings. You can drill these, broadcast these. The 2. 0, basically the same thing as the original.

It's just a later maturing bean. So it probably get a little taller and bushier than the original. It's a determinant. So it'll shut down a lot faster than. Than the original will, but other than that, they both perform well as far as. Getting tall and bushy canopy and out and you can spray that glyphosate on there to help with some weed pressure.

Okay yeah, so this spring was my 1st year planting soybeans. I've always done fall plots and I've tried a few small spring plots, but never put much into them. But this year I really did and. And I'll admit, I just went down to the farm store and bought some regular [00:32:00] soybeans and they did pretty darn well.

But like you said, when it started drying up they went fast. And I did have, I had one plot that was like you were just talking about, about an acre, higher deer density area. And I actually, I didn't know that the beans were even growing. I thought they, that it just didn't work out until I really got down on my hands and knees one day and.

And found out that they had in fact sprouted, the deer just crushed them that quickly. And you can see the rows and everything, you can see the little plants, but yeah, they got absolutely crushed. And then I had a bigger plot that's two and a half, three acres, something like that.

And they lasted a whole lot longer. But as you mentioned, when we hit summertime and the rain shut off, they went pretty quick as well. But yeah definitely interested this coming spring in these game changers. I've heard a lot about them, heard a lot of good things about them.

Like I said, this spring I was just testing the water, but yeah, I would love to try those this spring. Absolutely. Yeah. We've had great success. I don't, I couldn't tell you the number we sell [00:33:00] a year, but but we have a lot of customers that are very happy with it. We'll just go ahead and stay in the spring.

And so I see Ancestry, and I see Heritage. So you want to touch on those real quick? Yeah, so in Ancestry and Heritage are going to be very similar blends. Quite honestly, Heritage is my favorite for whatever reason we can't even sell that in Arkansas. Used to be Mississippi as well, but the plant board, I guess has, or Arkansas has it labeled as a noxious weed.

That is why we can't sell them. We're trying to get that changed. Not don't really understand that fully quite, but either way, like I said, they're very similar. That's why we came up with the ancestry to help offset that for our Arkansas customers. But as far as qualities, what that's going to do is it's going to give you.

Plenty of height and structure for your cowpeas and lab and those sort of plants to bind up and thrive in that situation. Plenty of cover and obviously plenty of forage for [00:34:00] wildlife good for deer, turkey, just, you name it. It's, I don't know if you've planted. And then yourself, John, but it's been a, it's a really great blend.

And this is what I was hitting on earlier about the soybeans. If you're playing a smaller plot, I would recommend planning a blend such as Ancestry or Heritage. Because deer won't wipe it out near as much you'll learn and you'll see that they won't wipe it out near as much as they would a straight monoculture of planting just straight soybeans.

Basically, you got these different plants that are maturing that are growing at different rates. Different times, and they're deer, they're attracting deer at different times of the year as well. And you could still carry this out. You could use it as a screen. I've got some guys, I do it myself.

Honestly. I've got some places along some roadways that people pass by public roads that. I don't necessarily want them looking and seeing what I got in my food plot. So I kind of plant [00:35:00] this along some edges just to keep keeping toms out. But you can also do that to make your deer feel comfortable with coming into the plot as well.

Even in my fall plantings, I'll leave this standing and let it stand all year long till next spring when I replant it. Just so there's some cover on the outside of my plots as well. Gotcha. Gotcha. Awesome. Alright, and I'm pretty sure I'm right on this. The Bounty Hunter and the Legacy, those are your fall mixes, correct?

Correct, yep. Alright I loved the look of the Legacy, but correct me, I believe that's the one that has sunflowers in it, is that right? Legacy does not. No, that would be the Ancestry. Yeah, the Ancestry and Legacy will, but or the Ancestry and Heritage will. Legacy will not. Okay, maybe I'm wrong then, yeah, my dad would shoot me if I planted sunflowers on our place, unfortunately, I don't remember then why I didn't, but, but I had, I, so I planted what, what really turned me on to y'all was I planted the [00:36:00] Bowner Bounty Hunter one fall and it was awesome and the deer loved it. I love the mix and let's talk about those two real quick.

Yeah. So bounty hunters probably there's no probably about it. It is our number one seller as far as food plot, all food plots go. It's a really good economical blend. You're talking about 30 bucks a bag, probably a little less than that. Now a bag does do half an acre. But you're it's about 85 percent wheat notes and then the rest of it's you got your clovers, turnips peas and rapeseed in there.

But it's a very good economical blend. It's tough. I planted this and just about any soil you could throw at me and I've had it grow very well rocky soils, good ice cream dirt I broadcasted it, drilled it, if the conditions are right, you're going to, you're going to be successful with this one and like I said it's definitely our number 1 that we sell for the guys that [00:37:00] Don't mind throwing a little bit more money at the deer and have that luxury, that legacy.

It's definitely the way to go in my opinion. It is a better blend. You got some higher quality seeds, not so much wheat and oats. Now you definitely still have a fair amount, I think it's about 50 percent of the bag, but you've got four different cereal grains instead of just only wheat and oats.

And then as you can see, I know you're looking at it on your website, but for your listeners on here You're looking at about 11 different seeds in this bag, and I know that sounds overwhelming and a lot, but it works. Basically, it's just a buffet. I know it's a cheesy comparison, but it is that you literally throwing everything at them.

There's nothing out there that any time of year that a deer could come out there and find something that would be attractive to them at that point in the year. Like I said, 4 different cereal grains. You got your brassicas.

Turnips, rapeseed peas and your clover. So a couple of different high quality clovers in there too. [00:38:00] So it's a really good plan. You're probably talking about 50 bag on this one, average cost. So like I said, it's a little bit more expensive, but you're getting a heck of a lot more in that bag as well.

Yeah. And you mentioned those clovers and stuff, so that's going to help that carry over into the spring as well, which is an added bonus. Absolutely. Yeah, this is. This is not providing food year round necessarily, but it's it's provided for a long time. You're talking from September on average, all the way through, really June, because you got to think about the wheat notes and the cereal grains in there maturing about that time too, so it'd be very good for turkeys in the spring, leading into early summer.

Awesome. Awesome. And, when we first started talking and we mentioned the word Stuttgart, Arkansas, I'm sure some people might've gone to Waterfowl for some reason. And I see a lot of a lot of mixes and bags and emblems here with ducks on them. So just to make sure we get everything covered for [00:39:00] you guys talk about some of these Waterfowl mixes as well.

Yeah, so we got 2 to offer Quick 6 is one of them, Final Flight being the other. Excuse me. And Quick 6, generally, good rule of thumb, we try to get this in the ground by about mid July. That's basically just giving time for all this to mature. So you've got some later maturing seeds, such as your rice, milo's and the corn in it.

And then in the Final Flight. You can really get that in as late as end of August, early September in most places. And still have time for that to mature before frost hits or for a ton season. I get this question a lot and I'm sure some of your guys will ask, but. You cannot plant this directly into water now.

There are certain of these seeds that you can. Definitely have some water on it after that gets up and growing, but you cannot broadcast this in the water and get it to grow from there. You're going [00:40:00] to need to, we've got a lot of guys dry down ponds or dry down some fields and plant it. And then maybe after 30, 45 days, grow and put some water on it.

You certainly can do that. It's not everything's going to survive, but most of it will. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. And then I've got to ask about this one too, because I don't know, the last couple of weeks I've been spending way more money than I should on waterfowl stuff. So I'm pretty interested at the moment to I see one on here called InvisiBlind and I don't know, I guess I could see that working for for a lot of different things, but tell us a little bit about that one.

Yeah. So InvisiBlind, whenever we first came out with that is a two pound bag. I think we're actually going to move that up to a four or five pound bag next year. Sure. But. The whole idea behind this blend is like the ancestry and the heritage. You just put this around your blind, whether that be a pit blind, sled blind, you can put it around your deer blind if you wanted to, but it's just a cover.

You got sorghum, sudangrass, and milo in it. It's going [00:41:00] to grow up, some of it, 8, 10, 12 foot tall in some instances. This just creates a natural cover. That you can plant around your bind and you don't have to go out there and sweat all day and cut a bunch of brush to brush in your bind as much.

Gotcha. Okay. That's what I figured. Just wanted to double check and give you an opportunity. Yeah cool. We covered most of the blends there. We missed, I think, wild wings and cattlemen's treasure. It looks like but people can head onto your website and find those. The way I found out about y'all's company, it was from the Landon Legacy guys, Adam Keith and Matt Dye.

And good friends of the show and everything. I think they've both been on my show and I've met him a few times and Oh, yeah, absolutely. And, but 1 of the things they love to preach was just, all around habitat. Obviously, they're big on that. That's how they've made their name. Not just throwing a bag of corn on the ground and calling it good, but really putting in the work and And one thing that they're big on is coming up and you [00:42:00] talked about earlier, that year round food source, that year round system.

And so I was just curious in your mind, if you had to pick a couple of these and you're on your own place and maybe you do one with equipment or one without, or if they're different, but. I guess I'm just wondering what your pattern would be for all these seeds. Do you just pick one fall and one spring that you pretty much just go with over and over again?

Do you mix it up a little bit? For all the people out there who are fortunate enough to manage their own land I'm just curious, like I said of how you would go about planning and deciding and picking between all these different mixes. Yeah, so we didn't hit on this. I'll hit on it just for a quick 2nd, before I dive off into that.

But Revival is our only perennial clover plot that we have. It's red and white clover, alfalfa and chicory, but like I said, it's our only perennial plot that we offer. Everything else is annuals. So if I'm on my own place and I'm doing this. I'm having a couple of plots in there.[00:43:00]

Break the ground or run a drill through it or anything like that every year or every 6 months, basically, if you're playing spring, summertime, and then the fall. I'm going to have a few plots in that. That way, I've got some year round food for him. Other than that, like I said earlier, my bigger plots, I'm going in and planting soybeans or our bonafide, which is.

The glyphosate tolerant soybeans as well as some. Glyphosate core. So playing something like that by smaller plots, I'm planting ancestry or heritage. And then I'll go in and plant usually legacy or our triple be that. Brassica blend in the fall, and usually I like with that Brassica blend. I can do that without.

Having to do a screen thing like that, if I can go [00:44:00] in there and just brush all of that. Ancestral heritage down that I can go out there and broadcast those turnips and brassicas in there without having to disturb the soul or do anything like that. And it's quick and easy and I can spend my time doing other things and hopefully improve the habitat around it.

Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, I had to scroll down far enough. I just saw those other blends that I missed. I want to talk about. Yeah, I do. I want to back up a little bit and talk about bonafide. That's your corn mix because I have zero experience with corn. So where we're at we're in hog country. And there's basically no way I could get away with planting, 1 to 3 acres of corn.

It would just get destroyed. So I never in my life have planted corn. Actually. I'm very jealous of those who can. And because I've never talked about it. I just love your take. Somebody there are portions of Oklahoma that either aren't as bad of hogs or don't have hogs. I know it's maybe sound like a [00:45:00] silly question, but walk us through how you would plant and take care of bonafide.

So the bonafide, we, and I feel your pain, Jan. I've got a place right here in central Arkansas, along the Saline River bottoms. And we are overloaded with hogs. I can send you pictures from the last week and I probably show you about 100 different pigs on 400, 500 acres pretty quickly. So I get your pain there.

As far as my situation here, I do the best I can between the coons and the hogs. It makes it pretty dang impossible to, to make something thrive like that. But if you have the capabilities and can take care of it. It's pretty simple. It's nothing nothing crazy. Obviously, just play, you could either drill it or broadcast it drill and obviously be better get better.

See, the sole contact try to get it down in the moisture. But I said, it's classic tolerance. So you can keep that clean field by spraying that. Probably wait a couple of weeks after planning if you got some [00:46:00] issues. I generally try to tell guys to obviously spray before they plan it just to get a head start.

You certainly don't want to be planting and then spraying a week after with a field full of weeds, because it ain't going to turn out very as good as it needs to as good as it's got a chance to. Anyway, get it planted. You can spray it. Keep a clean field as far as fertilizer recommendations, this is where it gets a little tricky just because.

Okay. Everybody's different. Best thing I can tell you is go get a soil test. On your fields, and that's pretty simple to go a couple of different places, a few different places in your field. Collect some dirt, mix it all together. You can send it off most time to get that checked and get an analysis done.

For little to no cost send that off, see what kind of fertilize recommendations you need, but. If you can just do that, spray it, keep clean field, fertilize it. And in your instance, keep your hogs off of it. You turn out. All right. Let me again. I'm playing ignorant here, but let's [00:47:00] say, somebody just got their good old.

Branching equipment or whatever, they got a no till drill. Would you just pour it straight in that no till drill that's say on seven and a half inch centers, seven inch centers, or would you try to like tape over every other cup to spread it out to 14 inch? And I know you mentioned you could broadcast it too.

So I guess I'm just curious about like seed rate and spacing and all that stuff. I've had guys do both. It all depends on rates. If you're going to go a little heavier on the seed, you could definitely take that one off and give a little bit more space in between rows but I've had guys go through there and plant like you said, almost seven, seven and a half inch spacings to where it still fills out, but it hasn't, you're not overpopulating it.

It's still, it still fills out and has enough room to, yeah. To grow without too much competition and feeding its height or productivity as far as grain yields. Okay, and in fact, I think I think Adam sent me a message not too long ago. He. [00:48:00] He planted some up there on his Missouri place and, didn't have a chance to put a fertilizer to it and it still turned out pretty well.

So I can only imagine if he had time to put the fertilizer on it, what it would have turned into. So anyway. Yeah, I I did. I tried to plant corn one time. I I saved all my pennies and I bought, I don't know how many hog panels, and I sectioned off about three quarters of an acre with hog panels all the way around.

It wasn't that big. It was probably half an acre of hog panels all the way around. And but it was like thick native grass and I had sprayed it, but I didn't give it enough time. It was still super thick and went back there and tried to plant some corn and needless to say that experiment did not work out.

Like I said, I've always dreamed of it. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said I've always dreamed of it. Again, I guess this is one thing maybe I'm jealous of those Midwest guys about, is hear how awesome it is to hunt over those, standing cornfields late season. But I'll have to I'll have to wait a little bit longer before I can afford to do that again.

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com or one of their retail locations in Eastern Oklahoma. Let bravado wireless connect you to your family, friends, and business partners. all over the world bravado wireless the power of connection cool man i'm trying to think did i miss anything is there anything else that you want to touch on before i'll let you go y'all fade over there Y'all feed much as far as protein throughout the year, anything like that?

Or y'all, your listeners do any of that sort of thing? I know several of my listeners do. I fed it this year. I did it more for attraction than actual, benefit that to say, I did I bought, I think I ended up with [00:50:00] two protein feeders and then one kind of smaller one. So now that I have the feeders, I might feed some more of this upcoming year, now that I have it all set up for it.

Yeah, I have protein and I know plenty of the listeners do. Yeah. I'll hit on a couple of those real quick. If you don't mind. So I've got a whole line of deer feeds some rice brand products. Obviously we sell deer corn, but one of them that we're real successful with and sell a ton of bags a year and I use personally quite a bit, but.

As our rack attract, it's a corn and roasted soybeans. So that attraction piece, obviously the corn, but the roasted soybeans, when you roast them, it almost smells like peanut butter and I'll get you back. So you can see what I'm talking about. But it's 16 percent protein. We've got some guys that feed this year round for the protein aspect, but also.

Mix it in with some protein pellets throughout the year just to get that traction. Attraction to it. Now, we [00:51:00] also just came out with this year, a rack attract pellet. Which is basically rack attract, but it's 18 percent protein pellet. Now, it's got moisture guard on it. Obviously, we're down here in the South.

Humidity can get to us, it's not going to clog up in those gravity faders. If it gets a little sticky outside, stuff like that, it'll still flow through it just fine. But those are 2, I just wanted to highlight whether you're putting it out to hunt over or. Keep the deer on your farm during hunting season so your neighbors don't get them or are feeding you around and just trying to get them every source of protein and feed that you can get them throughout the year.

We've got a couple options for you there. Yeah, and I'll so our neighbor to the south, which is a portion of our farm or ranch that I get to do most of my hunting on it recently sold is getting broken up into a bunch of smaller pieces. And so I assume I'm about to have a lot more competition.

And so that's why I started feeding the protein this year. And from everything I've seen so far, it has worked. I have.[00:52:00] Not only I wouldn't say the quality is too much better again. I didn't start feeding it till May, not enough time to really do much this year. But I have seen more bucks and it appears that I'm holding more and not just bucks does also it appears that I'm just holding more deer by feeding that stuff.

Yeah, and to be honest with you, I know it's outlawed in several states and depend on if you're in a CWD zone, can't be till in season and that sort of thing. But hear me on this, if I'm not always hunting over it, because I try to hunt different situations over than just a pile of corn.

Don't get me wrong. But if you're in a state that you can feed I'm not above piling it up in the middle of my property just to try to keep those deer close, if that's what it takes to just because, hey, I like my neighbor, but. I like to shoot big bucks too. So if I can keep those, if I can shoot those, if I can keep those buck two, three year olds on my property without it getting over to the neighbors and them shooting them, then [00:53:00] that's something I'm going to do.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Keith, we're coming up on time here. Really appreciate you coming on, but before I let you go, I want to make sure people know where to find you guys and your products, so just want to give you an opportunity to shout out your website, social media, basically.

If somebody wants to find you, where should they go? Yeah, thanks. And 1st of all, thanks for having me. I've really enjoyed it. But you can find us on social media Facebook, Instagram. I think we even have a tick talk now, so just strident seed company. On social media website is. On, you can check out all of the.

You broke up for just a second there when you said that website. So I want to make sure everybody hears it. Can you say that one more time? Absolutely. I go strattonseed. com. Gotcha. Okay. Just want to make sure. Yep. Appreciate that. Yeah. So basically you can get on our website. There's lots to look at. We got to update our dealer locator.

But you'll find a lot of our dealers [00:54:00] on there. Contact information. You'll find that on me as well. If you've got some listeners out of state too, you can see who's in your area. There's our email address, phone numbers on it. You can give us a shout. Call us anytime, any questions you got, if we don't have a dealer near you and you want to throw us a bone, let us know who we need to go talk to in your area.

We'll certainly do it and try to get some products over there close to you. So anyway, I certainly appreciate it. Absolutely. I'll tell people from experience, don't forget to scroll down cause you might miss something like I did. So it's a lot to digest. It's like I said, with the row crop side, the.

Wildlife side and everything in between. And there's a lot of information to look at, but it's all well worth it. Awesome. Keith, I really appreciate it. Like I said, great timing coming up to season here. Hopefully people will we'll give y'all a check out and I think that's all I got for you, man.

So really appreciate you coming on and I'll talk to you next time. John, I [00:55:00] appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Alright folks, that's it for this week. Thank you, Keith, for coming on. Again, highly encourage you to check out Stratton Seed and all of their products. Grown in the South, for people in the South. Just a really good company.

That's it for this week. Hope you guys have some amazing hunting coming up in front of you. Continue to shoot your bow, shoot your rifle, shoot your muzzleloader. Man, muzzleloader season is three weeks away or something like that from this point. So be sure that you're ready. Be sure that you're prepared.

I can already see some cooler temperatures on the horizon. So one of these days, it's gonna cool off. It's not gonna be 95 anymore, and we're gonna have some amazing hunting this fall. So thank podcast. I really appreciate it. Look forward to a lot of good content coming up in the next couple months.

And as always, I will see you guys right back here on the Oklahoma outdoors podcast.[00:56:00]

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