Now is THE TIME to get your late summer plantings in the ground! Frigid Forage Big n Beasty is my favorite for this time of year. Planting conditions and weather will be the key factors in your plot's success. The current condition of one's plot is likely found in one of the following situations, each involving slightly different steps.
The first situation would be a case where you pre-planned and have the ground tilled, packed and weed free. This obviously cannot happen overnight! Remember the IDEAL situation when planting Big n Beasty is to use the "barren seedbed" method. This means you prepare the plot several weeks ahead of planting. You want to give a new flush of weeds at least 2 weeks to germinate. Prior to planting Big n Beasty I recommend going in with a sprayer to kill all of the weeds. The next step would be to fertilize; followed by spreading seed and finally cultipacking. The key part of this process is NOT to do any tillage close to planting time. Every time you till dirt it brings up fresh weed seeds to the surface. If you do not have this setup this year, don't worry. Just make notes and try for this next year!
The second situation would be a field that has been plowed or worked, but is very rough and weedy. Perhaps a field that was worked back in early summer but wasn't fully prepped for planting. Another example of this would be if you spray killed a field back in early summer but never did any tillage or prep. In these situations I would get your tillage tool out and get to work preparing the seedbed and killing the weeds that are present. If they are extremely weedy you may choose to spray glyphosate after tillage to ensure all weeds die. Big nasty weeds can survive tillage depending on your implement. The difference in this case is we now do not have time to wait 2 or 3 weeks for new weeds to grow and spray again. We will fertilize, plant and cultipack same day as the tillage. This method works fine but you will likely encounter more weed pressure than in situation one.
The third is the "oh crap" situation. You haven't had time to do any prep work and you are dealing with an overgrown mess. Depending on the height of the weeds/grass you may want to mow first. This will size up the residue a bit. Step two is to spray kill with glyphosate. I should point out this situation is going to involve a delayed planting date versus situation one and two. Unless you have some heavy tillage equipment at your disposal you are going to have to wait a week or so for the glyphosate to brown some of the thatch. Once the field browns it's time to start hammering the tillage. Expect to make several passes! This is definitely not gonna be the prettiest end product. It's very difficult to make a great seed bed in this short amount of time when dealing with this situation, but you can still make a suitable food plot! Once you have a respectable amount of soil/seed bed, then begin the steps of fertilization, seeding and cultipacking!
Frigid Forage Big N Beasty is a very vigorous blend of seeds. It will work in all of these situations given the pH and fertility are there. The difference will be the weed pressure and quality/tonnage of food by fall. Again, the time is NOW. Get to work so you can enjoy the plots come fall! To see these processes in action check out the video below!
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