Great idea for a thread, Stan! Most kind of you to share the considerable work involved to plant a dove field by design. What kind of sunflowers are you planting?
I hunted on a fella for many years who had a number of native sunflower dove fields scattered about in W. TX within a 50 mile radius of Coleman. These were the small sunflowers that only grow to about a 2 foot height & have heads the size of a daisy w/tiny black seeds. He told me that he needed to have those seeds out by the end of Jan. for them to make & that he sometimes put them out begining as early as Dec. He was just barely scratching the surface on those fields to set the seeds as they didn't require much soil to make them 'take'. Nonetheless, those fields had seen considerable work in years prior w/stone & stump removal and disking and at an earlier time, altogether dif crops.
The heaviest bird population I ever experienced out there was a former native sunflower field outside Lohn of about 20 acres that had been allowed to go fallow for 3 years and it had scattered volunteer sunflowers and some coastal bermuda w/plenty of Johnson grass and a smattering of croton in it. The numbers of birds in that field that year was like being in South America! They were in there in clouds. It abutted a rough old cattle ranch w/plenty of mesquite and prickly pear cactus and a stock tank nearby. It was in early October when we shot it and the birds had been left alone until then.
