Sugar beets in fall mix

Mahindra3016

5 year old buck +
I notice a lot of the BOB brassica mixes have sugar beets in them, how much growth do they get when late summer planted? How are late planted beets utilized compared to turnips and radishes? Are beets cold hardy like a turnip, I never plan on growing full season sugar beets, just wondering if they are worth adding to my brassica's.

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I truthfully never understood why they add beats. I think it's just a buzzword that some hunters latch onto. They do not compete well with other plants (ask anyone who has tried to grow non RR beats), and will not grow much in that short growing season. As far as attraction, my experience is they're superior to turnips in all aspects and a much better late season crop than radishes.
 
Implanted a mix with it last summer. It was planted pretty thick, and everyone told me that I won’t get any beats out of them, but the beats were 18 “ tall, and had baseball sized beers on them. Not bad for Northern Wisconsin planted in July, and planted thick in a mixture.
 
I know that in my area the deer will choose beets over radishes or turnips, the tops and bottoms.
Depending on your deer herd size and how much you plant if they don't end up all eaten, they aren't as cold hardy as other brassicas by mid winter getting soft and eventually get kind of like small purple puffballs with the powdery centers.
 
Deer love the beets, I just don't see the benefit in a fall mix. The beets are a full-season plant that needs planted in the spring.
 
I have about an acre of Beets alone and about 1.5 acres of Turnips/Radishes. The plots are side by side. My deer don’t favor one more than the other. That might not be the case in other places, but it is at the farm I hunt in Connecticut. No other neighboring properties do food plots besides farmers planting corn for profit. My Beet plot was planted in Early June.
 
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