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Frost seeding is coming and Shed Hunting season is in progress. Where feeding is allowed it’s good to have the Stockpile blocks and some Bad Habit Attractant out make sure to check all regulations in the area you are in.

What: When frost seeding you need to be careful on “WHAT” you are planting and our recommendation is to only frost seed cold season perennials like Clover and Chicory, a good Domain mix for frost seeding are Comeback Kid and Hot Chic. The specific varieties of White and Red Clover, Chicory and Alfalfa have been chosen for their hardiness, longevity, soil tolerance, protein levels and attractiveness to deer and will provide a foundational food source on your property for many years to come.

WHEN: The best time to frost seed your cold season perennials is late Winter or Early Spring when the weather pattern calls for a period of freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw temperatures. Where it freezes at night and thaws during the day. This will cause the ground to expand and contract and help naturally “pull” the seeds into the soil, where they will wait for favorable air and soil temperatures to germinate.

WHY: Frost seeding offers a great way to establish an early Spring stand of high protein perennials that will green up before Mother Nature provides any other vegetation without disturbing the soil through disking or tilling. Since no tilling is being done to unearth weed seeds, it also helps the slower growing perennials to establish with little competition from weeds. Lastly, it is a great way to plant tiny perennial clover seeds without the risk of burying.

WHERE: First, you will need an area that is “ready for seed”.  This can be a pre-existing clover or chicory plot you are looking to thicken up, an area that was prepped last fall and is void of weeds, competition or debris or last year’s brassica plot that has been over grazed by deer, exposing the soil for good seed to soil contact.  You cannot just broadcast seed into an overgrown area of your property and expect it to be successful, so be careful when selecting your location to make sure it fits the desired application.

HOW: This is the easiest part, as you simply broadcast the seed on the frozen soil or last remaining remnants of snow on the plot. Typically, when frost seeding, I will use 1.5 to 2 times the seed rate to ensure enough seeds achieve appropriate soil contact, as there is the likelihood during the frost seeding process some seeds will be deterred by dead plants or debris, never having the chance to germinate. Once the entire plot has been seeded, it’s time to let Mother Nature do her thing!

Frost Seeding can be an excellent and inexpensive way to establish year-round food on your property without using heavy equipment to do so, just make sure the area is ready for seed and the appropriate type of seeds are selected.  Once you have the perfect spot and food plot mix picked out, just wait for the Spring thaw to begin, and give it a try!

Happy Planting this spring!!!

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The human memory can be an amazing thing, but it is also very flawed. While there are people that can remember small details about an event decades later, others cannot remember where they set their wallet down.

Recognizing a hazard and just making a mental note of it is not a mitigation action. Memory should never be relied on as the sole safeguard against a hazard. If this is the case, the hazard is not mitigated.

Short Term Memory Facts

While many things we learn make it into our long-term memory, many details we face on a day-to-day basis may only hit our short-term memory. Relying on short-term memory as a safeguard is extremely dangerous because of how limited it can be.

SimplyPsychology.com states that short-term memory has three key aspects:

  1. Limited capacity – Only about seven items can be stored at one time.
  2. Limited duration – Storage is very fragile and information can be lost with distraction or passage of time.
  3. Encoding – Primarily acoustic, even translating visual information into sounds.

Looking at these three aspects, it is easy to see why short-term memory is not a reliable way to protect ourselves from the hazards of our work.

Memory and Hazards

There are many hazards that can be found on a worksite that should be eliminated instead of relying on memory. Some examples of these types of hazards:

  • Pinch points or moving parts of machinery. Wherever possible, pinch points or any place where someone can have their hands or body parts injured should always be guarded. Relying on memory to keep your body parts out of these areas or hoping that PPE will protect you if you are in the line of fire is unrealistic.
  • Fixed objects. Objects that are in a work area where they can be struck or create trip hazards should also be protected or removed. Safeguards such as using a spotter, physical barriers, orange fencing, a bright marker like a flag, or removing the object all together are some ways to prevent a struck-by incident of a fixed object.
  • Incorrect job steps.  When individuals rely on memory to ensure all job steps including the necessary safety measures are taken, errors can be made resulting in injury or loss of production. Safeguards such as proper training, job safety analyses, labels, standard operating procedures, step-by-step guides, operating manuals, verification processes, etc. are some ways to help mitigate memory error.

Summary

The human memory can be amazing as well as very unreliable. It is important to look at the different work tasks you complete throughout the day and look to eliminate hazards whenever possible. Secondly, look at other safeguards to try to protect yourself and others from these hazards instead of relying on your memory. Your memory is not a safeguard, and it is bound to fail over time.

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