Trying to plant dove field! Help!

So I have been trying to plant a dove field since late April with no luck. I'be tried 2 times to plant 7 acres of sunflowers and two acres of corn with no luck. I own some land in central Alabama which for the past several years I've leased to a hunting club. Every year they have beautiful sunflower crops for dove fields. This year they did not renew their lease so I decided to give the dove field a try. I chisel plowed, disked, and drug the same plots they used last year. At the time the only planter I had was a ford 309 no till planter which I used on one field. Then I acquired a Cole planter to go on my farmall 140. I did not use the $200 roundup ready seed and went with normal sunflower seed. So I decided to go with the Cole planter so I could plow for weeds with the 140. About 10 days went by and the only plants I had come up were the ones I did with the no till planter. I had decided that the Cole did not cover up the seed well enough due to the ground being too hard. Try #2-- the 2nd time I tried to plant I used a middle busted and busted my rows deep then used a set of sweeps on the 140 to fill in my rows and then re planted with Cole planter on the 140. The planter covered up the seed very nice which I planted 1" deep. Still.... No sunflowers. I have about 5% of the whole plot coming up. I talked with my local extension officer and he advised to replant again. The weather here has been warm during the day but would drop into the 50s at night up until this past week. It's been warm all day and night. My question to ya'll is what should I do as far as ground prep/planting to have some luck this time? I have just about every kind of plow and disc available. However all I have to plant is the cole planter and the no till. The fields have already been fertilized. The no till is set up on 38 1/2 inch rows. I did a little experiment yesterday and I think I could plow between those rows with my farmall which is set up on 5' center. What would y'all do?????? I'm bound and determined to make this work!! I have a kubota m7060 and a farmall 140 to do all the work with.

In general getting a crop to grow isn't that difficult.

Where beginners fail is in controlling weeds, and they lose the crop a month after its planted.

Don't really know what to say.

Some herbicides used in corn can carry over a year and affect a crop planted this year, but you say it was sunflowers last year too?

Really really dry conditions can prevent plants from growing, as can over saturated ground. But you would mention if that were the case.

Put any old crop seed an inch in the ground in late spring and have a bit of moisture and you should get more to grow than not, whether you
were perfect or not on soil prep and planting.......

Don't know what to say?

Paul

It was all sunflowers last year. And it has been somewhat dry several days after I would plant. Rain would be in the forecast and it would always change. There are 3 days with 80% of rain coming up this week and I am planing on trying to get the new seed in the ground before then. I'm really just trying to figure out what planter to use. I had great success with the seed I put in with the little 2 row no till planter. But it would just be a pain to plow with the farmall. Or try again with the single row Cole planter and hope the weather/soil conditions is what caused the plants to fail the last two times

I know nothing of sunflowers so I googled about planting them and it says 1 to 2 inches, so I wonder about your 1 inch
depth? Maybe only 3/4" deep and not getting enough moisture since you said it has been dry!

Not trying to be a smart a** but what does "drug the same plots" mean?

I plant sunflowers every year. Just broadcast by hand and disc them in. Dont worry about getting the seed too deep. It needs to be in moisture to grow.

Dragged the field....could be either a straight tooth drag harrow (google Boss harrow), or a tine tooth harrow. We had a Boss harrow growing up. It was the "drag" which we dragged the fields with, to smooth them out for planting. I"m not used to the term "plowing" after planting- we called that cultivating, cuz we used a cultivator.

Sunflowers will usually come up regardless of how they are planted.I'd say either your seed isn't germinating or you could be using the wrong planter plate and its damaging
the seed when you're planting.For sunflower I just go to TSC and buy the birdseed sunflowers seed usually comes up real well.