Better late than never I guess?  I hope so.  This was my first year putting in a “screen”, and I was late getting it planted.  July 28th is when I finally got it in….about 30 days later than I wanted to.

What is a screen?  A screen is a mix of annual seeds that can grow up to 14 feet tall.  One can plant a screen as a visual barrier along roads, property lines, access paths to stands, or around blinds.  It can also provide visual barriers in food plots, so a buck may have to move from plot to plot to check for does, vs just scanning from the field edge.  Usually people use Sorghum, Egyptian Wheat, or Miscanthus(perennial).

The point of this screen on my property, in 2 of the 3 places I planted it, is to provide a hidden access route to the back half of the property.  This means if deer are in the food plots or anywhere on the front part of the property, I can sneak behind my tall screen back to the woods.   This will be planted on the southern property line, for accessing with my best wind.  Northwest.  This is a picture from Killer Food Plots with the screen starting to fill in.

Dream-Screen

The other place I planted, was in the middle of my larger 1 acre food plot.  So now, I have it divided up into (2) 1/2 acre plots.  The bucks will have to go from one to the other, to fully check them for does.  Can you guess where my stand will be?  That is right….directly between the two.

Let’s get to planting instructions.

  1. Get a soil test.  Killer Food Plots does them for their customers, and it takes 3 days.
  2. Next you are going to spray Glyphosate(Roundup) on the preferred planting area, to kill the existing vegetation.
  3. Once the vegetation is dead, you want to till or disc it under to provide you with good soil to seed contact.
  4. Then you will lime and fertilize to amend the soil….according to your soil test recommendations.  Till this in if possible.
  5. Planting – Follow the instructions on your seed bag for the appropriate seed to acreage ratio.  Spread the seed on the designated area.
  6. Disc or Harrow Drag over the seed to cover/plant it approximately 1/4″ deep.
  7. Culitpack with your tractor or ATV tires if you do not own a cultipacker.
  8. Pray for rain!

Here is what mine looked like after step 7 was complete.  This was my access screen.  I actually had some weeds come back since my first spraying.  It never hurts to spray twice (step 2).

screen       screen2

I should be getting some rain tomorrow and Friday!  Wish me luck!

If you have any questions on screening in your plots or property, please feel free to reach out.  Thank you for reading!

-Jared