Help planting sunflower seeds for doves

Can someone give me a good "how to" lesson on planting sunflowers for dove hunting. I have a neighbor who wants a field cleaned up and planted and since we both hunt, I suggested planting sunflower seeds for doves. Will a grain drill work?

Here's a link that may help. Here in MD they're planted in rows so they can be cultivated. Hal
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I simply broadcast by hand and disc in. This year I had something disappointing happen. I had finally got wild turkeys to come around. I like them, I feed them a bit and encourage them. Well, there were about 22 of them hanging around a while back. I planted a patch of sunflowers, maybe 500-1000 sq ft. The buggers spent days out there digging up the seed. Then when the seed started to sprout they came back and dug up the sprouts. But now, guess what, I have a nice stand of sunflowers, there was enough seed for everyone.

Now there are only a few turkeys here. I think they may be nesting.

I plant with a Fast Hitch planter on my Super C. But a drill will work fine. They are not particular. Just don't plant too deep. No more than about an inch to ian once and one half. True Son

(quoted from post at 06:12:29 04/22/15) Can someone give me a good "how to" lesson on planting sunflowers for dove hunting. I have a neighbor who wants a field cleaned up and planted and since we both hunt, I suggested planting sunflower seeds for doves. Will a grain drill work?

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I have been planting sunflowers for several year just for the birds. I typically use my 72" tiller to get the area ready. Then plant using my grandfather's JD two row planter. I use the same plate and set up as I use for sweet corn. I have had real good success. I mix seed 50/50 with big strips and the small black oil seed sold for bird seed. I have been using sunflower seed sold as bird seed as my seed. Just freeze it for a week before planting. The big strips, I purchased seed years ago but now I just harvest several heads for the next year's seed and just freeze it for a week. I typ leave the sunflowers stand till the next year. Since I started doing this I have slowly added more each year by tilling more yard under, as it saves my mowing time and I love the progression of birds coming in. First the finches, then the doves, then the hawks.
The black seeds only get about 4 to 5 feet tall and are all eat up by August. The big stripes get 10 to 12 feet tall and last till about Nov.
I have broad cast seed by hand as well and that did work good. Till ground. broad case seed. tilled it a second time, just going real fast and not very deep.

JL Ray

We have been doing this for a few years now. The first year we worked the ground then broadcast the seed and worked the seed in with a disc. We had a good stand, but had a Johnson grass problem. Since then, we plant the same way, but as the grass comes up I have been spraying with tap out and have had excellent results. This year I plan to do the same as well as expand to another field where we have a pigweed problem. We are going to plant a variety of sunflowers called clearfield. They are much more expensive, but we want to be able to control the weeds. In this field we will also plant with a planter so that we can cultivate if need be.
If you a planting an area where weeds are not a problem, broadcasting will work great. All types of wildlife will benefit, and they look great in the field!!

Fred you can,t hardly do it wrong. Get the ground in good shape and either broadcast or drill with light cover. We plant about 30 acres in different places for wildlife. Not hardly any wildlife that does not like the things. Deer will eat the green plant before it flowers if you don,t have a lot of them planted . We do use Clearfield seed then not hard to spray for weed and grass.