I would love to know where TWRA is planting sunflowers at?? Because every dove field I've been to in Tennessee is awful its always a briar patch or a weed field that they bushhog the week before season and scatter wheat on it, but if you want to waste a day and not see any birds I highly recommend them. Me and every other hunter that I know complain about this every year to twra via phone and email and nothing changes so much so we plan hunts in other states. Dove hunting is a great way to get new hunters involved in the sport of hunting, I just wish twra would actually put forth the effort in planting and maintaining real dove fields like the one their advertising in this video. I hate to be negative about this topic but this video just hit a nerve on me.
If you're going to a sunflower field for either deer or for dove hunting over, you might consider Clearfield Sunflower Seed for your plantings. The Clearfield herbicide trait allows you to spray Beyond herbicide post emergence over your sunflower plants. The term "Clearfield" refers to a plant that has been selected and bred for tolerance to the imidazoline family of herbicides that includes Beyond, Raptor, and Pursuit. Here's the herbicide program that has been found successful for growing clean fields of sunflowers. After planting but right before sunflower emergence, an application of Cinch herbicide is applied. When the sunflowers get 12-16" tall or when weed are 3-4" tall the second herbicide application is made with Beyond herbicide that will control most grasses and weeds in your sunflower field. Once sunflower fields begin to canopy, their vigorous growth makes them very competitive with any weeds that might germinate later. This 2-pass herbicide system has worked well for us in growing clean fields of sunflowers for doves and deer.
