Cover Crop Choice

[fortune82]

After a count up of what we shot and where on our shoot it turns out the best drives were from un harvested rape. The farmer left several strips which were too wet to harvest in the summer and these held birds very well. I see people on here talking about fodder rape as a cover. What is the advantage of this over standard rape? Would you recomend mixing anything else with the rape to improve the holding capacity? What size of strips do you find are big enough to produce a drive?

 

Thanks for any help.

[M ROBSON]

Teal,

 

Some of my game strips didn't fair too well this year with up to 10" of snow on it, they got hammered by the pigeons and deer.

 

Having said that they all held birds well till the end and our last shoot produced 65 head for 5 guns.

 

Some of the Kale strips produce better cover in the 2nd year.

 

Most of mine are new in again this year.

 

One strip in particular is up a steep hill above the release pen, producing nice driven birds at 30 - 50 yards high.

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Mark.

Edited February 4, 2010 by M ROBSON

[monkeymagic1969]

Also the standard maize crop if (again usually due to time/resources) planted in rows is next to useless, it’s draughty and gives poor cover especially in bad weather. Wind just whistles through it.

This has got to be the biggest load of tosh written on here today - we use maize crop and have kept Partridge and pheasant in it all though the winter ( even in the heavy snow)

Edited February 4, 2010 by monkeymagic1969