Brassica, what sweetens in a frost?

[eclipseman]

This probably is a stupid question but you always hear that brassicas are bitter until there are hard frosts which turns them more surgery. I guess I never thought to much into this but now that I'm thinking about it...is it only the bulbs that are bitter and then sweeten OR do the green leafy bits also sweeten up?

 

[scott44]

My take was the greens sweetened up once frosted. This year on mine it doesn't seem to matter they have been hitting both greens and bulbs for awhile long before first frost and even more now that it has got cooler.

 

[eclipseman]

My take was the greens sweetened up once frosted. This year on mine it doesn't seem to matter they have been hitting both greens and bulbs for awhile long before first frost and even more now that it has got cooler.

I know in our garden, that turnip bulbs taste better after a frost so I always assumed it was the bulbs that everyone was talking about but then I thought to myself well what about DER. DER does not have bulbs so it must be the leafy bits which sweeten up

 

[Bill]

Greens. I believe the plant converts starches or something into sugar as a defense to reduce the temperature at which it will freeze and die.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

I believe it is the entire plant. Or, is it just a marketing scheme aimed at northern managers that traditionally plant corn or beans? Pretty hard sell to put a buck on a bag of seed corn or beans up here. For the most part the deer by me ignore brassica.

 

[eclipseman]

Greens. I believe the plant converts starches or something into sugar as a defense to reduce the temperature at which it will freeze and die.

Well if it’s the starches then wouldn’t it be the bulbs since they are basically all starch?

 

[eclipseman]

I believe it is the entire plant. Or, is it just a marketing scheme aimed at northern managers that traditionally plant corn or beans? Pretty hard sell to put a buck on a bag of seed corn or beans up here. For the most part the deer by me ignore brassica.

My deer won’t leave them alone. They love them. Do they love them more than corn? I’m not sure but there are corn fields nearby and I still get deer in my brassic.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Our brassicas have been hit from 3rd week of Sept. until now. Gobs of tracks in that whole plot, which is a combo of DER, GHR, PTT, Pasja forage brassica, WW, WR, and some red clover. The brassicas were hit before and after frosts - radishes first.

 

[Bill]

Well if it’s the starches then wouldn’t it be the bulbs since they are basically all starch?

SJ must be right, it's the whole plant. I know people say turnip greens are better on a salad after frost because it makes them sweeter. Anytime I've eaten PTT bulbs they have a kind of mild radish taste.

 

[cavey]

I often wonder too, if as the foliage dies out "dehydrates", if the the flavors are concentrated.

 

[Peplin Creek]

I am not sure the deer care one way or the other. I think it depends on what forage is or isn’t around you. Neighbors beans yellow in sept, my brassica plots light up, once they transition back to standing beans usage goes down. Once mid to late november hits when everything else dead, it’s the last green food source around, hammered. Bulbs are always the last to go though.

 

[FarmerDan]

In the grand scheme of things - by design, by accident, God, or by some other urban planner....

As luck would have it, brassicas, all annuals and probably snowbirds that like to stay in the cold, have a starch production system generating vast amounts of stored food for the plant to use to continue to survive well after it gets really, really cold! I don't know why - why they want to survive well after it gets freezing cold. Starch IS a stored food, a future source of energy. But, at the same time these plants (and all plants, really) are turning the stored starch (food, energy) into sugars used to feed the enzymes necessary for continuing growth (metabolism). So, when it starts to get cold and dark - freezing cold and really, really dark - the starch production factory shuts down because it has no more inputs. But, thru some quirk (or grand design) the conversion of stored starches to sugars continues. I'm not sure, but I think the sugars are always there, but are overwhelmed by the by-products of starch production and by starch itself. It's like putting too much cola in my Jack and cola. I can't wait for the barkeep to run out of cola and to just pour the Jack.

Now I'm just guessing the leaves are sweeter tasting than the bulbs because a lot of the starch being converted is in the bulb.

 

[yoderjac]

In the grand scheme of things - by design, by accident, God, or by some other urban planner....

As luck would have it, brassicas, all annuals and probably snowbirds that like to stay in the cold, have a starch production system generating vast amounts of stored food for the plant to use to continue to survive well after it gets really, really cold! I don't know why - why they want to survive well after it gets freezing cold. Starch IS a stored food, a future source of energy. But, at the same time these plants (and all plants, really) are turning the stored starch (food, energy) into sugars used to feed the enzymes necessary for continuing growth (metabolism). So, when it starts to get cold and dark - freezing cold and really, really dark - the starch production factory shuts down because it has no more inputs. But, thru some quirk (or grand design) the conversion of stored starches to sugars continues. I'm not sure, but I think the sugars are always there, but are overwhelmed by the by-products of starch production and by starch itself. It's like putting too much cola in my Jack and cola. I can't wait for the barkeep to run out of cola and to just pour the Jack.

Now I'm just guessing the leaves are sweeter tasting than the bulbs because a lot of the starch being converted is in the bulb.

That is a very good description of what is happening in the plant. I'm not sure if a frost is actually the trigger or if it is coincidental that the plant shifts gears shortly after the first frost. Either way, frost seems to be a good indicator of when the leaves sweeten and my deer hit them more. This does not seem to be exactly the same in all brassica. The effect is pretty pronounced with turnips. Unless we have a mast crop failure, deer will hit radish leaves in my area as soon as they become available. In general, the order seems to be radish leaves in the fall, then turnip leaves after a hard frost, then radish tubers until they get mushy and finally turnip tubers when nothing else is as good late season.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[FarmerDan]

I'm not sure if a frost is actually the trigger or if it is coincidental that the plant shifts gears shortly after the first frost.
Thanks,

Jack

In a lot of posts we discuss more and more about less and less until we end up at the point of nothing! To continue that tradition, it's my botanical (!!) understanding that, as the days shorten and temperatures begin to drop, production of chlorophyll heads towards a very small number - but it continues until a killing frost bursts freezes the water in the cell causing the cell to expand and burst the cell wall. Now, the plant is dependent on the stored starches being converted to sugar.

In my case, being further south of you, and because I have such great soils, my turnips are never very tasty because the turnips love me and I loved them back. So, much they continue to produce starches well beyond what I want them to do. I yell, stop it, but they just keep growing. Silly as that sounds, I have to wonder if growing more deer-favorite turnips might require a little less love. Not so much fertilizer, lower soil pH - the opposite of what we often hope to achieve. If you've ever nosed around production of grapes for wine, most of the great vintners seek the poorest soils in order to maximize the grape's sugar production. Hmmmmm....

 

[yoderjac]

In a lot of posts we discuss more and more about less and less until we end up at the point of nothing! To continue that tradition, it's my botanical (!!) understanding that, as the days shorten and temperatures begin to drop, production of chlorophyll heads towards a very small number - but it continues until a killing frost bursts freezes the water in the cell causing the cell to expand and burst the cell wall. Now, the plant is dependent on the stored starches being converted to sugar.

In my case, being further south of you, and because I have such great soils, my turnips are never very tasty because the turnips love me and I loved them back. So, much they continue to produce starches well beyond what I want them to do. I yell, stop it, but they just keep growing. Silly as that sounds, I have to wonder if growing more deer-favorite turnips might require a little less love. Not so much fertilizer, lower soil pH - the opposite of what we often hope to achieve. If you've ever nosed around production of grapes for wine, most of the great vintners seek the poorest soils in order to maximize the grape's sugar production. Hmmmmm....

I use turnips as part of a cover crops mix and typically follow soybeans. I usually fertilize the beans for P&K in the spring around planting time but the only N is the little in MAP. I don't fertilize the turnips at all in the fall and the N they get is largely whatever the beans banked. I typically mix them with WR and CC. My bulb size is largely dependent on how early the germinate. If I plant in Aug and they get some timely rain after planting, I easily get 5lb plus bulbs. I hand pick turnips for friends and family. Mine taste fine. Larger older ones tend to be stronger. I try to keep my pH around 6 or better. I just use PTT or whatever is cheapest. My primary purpose is to offset failed acorn crops in late season, and if there are no acorns, my deer don't care what kind they are, they ravage them.

Good point on the botany. I didn't know if frost played a role of if it was just temp and day length that was the trigger. Everyone seems to report it with frost.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

I think PART of the equation MAY have to do with an abundance of Nitrogen. I believe that if you use to much N it is going to tip the protein to carb ratio in the favor of protein. Sugar beet farmers want to make sure that toward the end of the growing season their beets are "starving" for N. If there is an excess of N in the soil the beets will produce less sugar. These beets are used to actually make sugar so they have it down to a science.

Turnips are not sugar beets but there could be some similarities on how they produce sugars. Just some food for thought.

 

[j-bird]

All I know is with all the corn and beans I have around...even after the harvest...the deer still don't want salad! However salad is cheap, easy and great insurance and good for the soil...so I still plant it!

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

From what I have seen on stand it seems the deer are eating some of the brassicas. I just not sure which. I Would assume just cleaning up the radishes but what I saw the other night makes me wonder. The deer are eating some of my September planted brassica I just cant tell which. It didn't look like radish leaves they were pulling out but they are small and with fading light it was hard to tell even though they weren't more than 20 yrds away.

Maybe my deer just dont like the big mature plants.

 

[JFK52]

I could not get the deer to touch sugar beets or turnips last year. They hammered the dwarf Essex rape seed. So I planted 50 pounds of dwarf Essex rape seed in five separate plots as my late season brassica. The deer are eating it now and will be until they clean up the fields of it. It is one of the last green food sources available to them.
I let the deer tell me what they wanted and then planted it for them.

 

[yoderjac]

I could not get the deer to touch sugar beets or turnips last year. They hammered the dwarf Essex rape seed. So I planted 50 pounds of dwarf Essex rape seed in five separate plots as my late season brassica. The deer are eating it now and will be until they clean up the fields of it. It is one of the last green food sources available to them.
I let the deer tell me what they wanted and then planted it for them.

That approach can work for attraction, but not so much for QDM. I'm not saying this applies in your case and I don't even know if you are doing QDM or not. Here is an example from my place that may or may not apply to yours or others, but the concept holds. If I plant turnips, deer won't use them hardly at all during development. This allows them to develop large tubers and a lot of forage when deer have plenty of other highly nutritious plants. In years when we have good acorn crops they don't get much use. But then suddenly we get a year with an acorn failure. The forage is providing good nutrition after a hard frost, but more importantly, deer will use these bulbs heavily during the winter when they have cleaned up the acorns. Sure, deer in my area will survive without this nutrition by eating woody browse, but this drop in nutrition has an effect on the herd. By planting a crop that covers this gap (when it occurs) has the effect of providing nutrition when it is absent.

Compare that with the radish (also brassica) that I plant. Deer will begin to use that forage as soon as it develops. It is fine nutrition, but during that time of year, deer have plenty of other food sources that are just as nutritious, they just seem to prefer the radish. That is great for attraction but it doesn't add much directly to QDM. Having said that, there are lots of indirect benefits. Organic tillage is one with GHR as well as mining nutrients from deeper regions of the soil.

Letting deer tell you what they like is part of the equation, but not necessarily all of it.

Thanks,

Jack