Advice on planting sunflowers?

I don't know how they did it, but when I lived in Oregon sunflowers were always planted in a way that had the heads facing south. :)

Used to raise sunflower, pop about 20,000 or there, it will definatly attracked birds, that is why we quit, would lose half the crop to the birds, the sunflower head will follow the movement of the sun, watch in the am and again in pm and you can see how they follow the sun.

Dave,

It's hard to specify a plate because the size of seed varies so much. I borrow my neighbor's 6-row DA 385 and can usually find a "corn" plate in his assortment that "fits" the whatever variety I'm planting that year. Sunflower seems to be pretty tolerant of any depth between an inch or two. Re: population, for a dove field it's not critical for yield, per se. What's critical is canopy to keep the weeds out and enough plants to feed the deer and still have some left to attract doves. Here locally, deer are thick like flies. I'm going to experiment this year by no-till drilling into stubble. Especially in a small field, deer will savage the young plants it they're easy to nibble on.

The big challenge with a dove field is keeping it clean so there's seed on bare ground when you begin to mow them starting mid-August. An early maturing variety planted by Mother's Day is usually dried down well enough by then.

I've been planting them in my garden for 6 years now. I plant at a depth of 3/4".