Deer love sugar beets

[Westwind]

 

[Westwind]

T-Raptor forage brassaca is a cross between forage turnips and forage rape. 40-55 day maturity. Pasja forage brassaca is another hybrid and is another good one. 50-60 day maturity. I am paying a lot more attention to short maturity with my brassaca mix because of the dry early falls we are getting.

 

[Telemark]

I would like to try sugar beets. I really like the idea of late-season food for deer. I think it's important to get them into good condition after the rut and into the worst part of winter. I've been feeding some deer for a couple months, and they are looking great. The does seem to go after the corn more, and the bucks are really hitting the soybeans. I sprinkle goat mineral into the food I mix up and use molasses to stick it to the grain. It would be nice to have food just growing there so I don't have to feed them. This is my first time trying that. They're nibbling at the brassicas, but not really utilizing them as much as I hoped. I think they might like sugar beets more.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

Sometimes it takes a couple years for the deer to get used to brassicas.

Sugar beets grow pretty slow, so weed control is tough. Round up ready beets aren’t available for food plotters, so your options are limited. Some guys get lucky and find a farmer who will sell them some round up ready seed though.

 

[Mortenson]

I got a thin stand of round up ready beets to grow a few years ago. The deer liked them too much in the summer. No beets left by winter. Purple tops and tillage radishes are the perfect mixture for me.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

I have never had deer not eat sugar beets. I have had them ignore turnips more times than not though. Seems like it depends on acorn crops and snow cover.


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[Brian662]

I think with a decent pre-emerge chemical, clethodim and stinger post emerge, you could control a very large portion of broadleafs and weeds without the RR sugar beets. My concern is keeping the deer off of them without a fence. I'd like to give it a shot sometime and may do it in a 2-3 acre chunk, fence an acre or two. Overseed something else in the unfenced area of the deer eat them to the dirt.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

Id like to give the conventional seed a shot this year. I've never used any pre emerg and would like to give that a shot on corn and beans as well as im looking to move away from gly.

 

[SwampCat]

Got a big field of these at our lease another member planted. Hogs wont even eat them

 

[Brian662]

That looks like a radish

 

[Brian662]

Dual II Magnum (metolachlor) pre
Clethodim and stinger for post

In my neck of the woods the biggest weed issue will be waterhemp/pigweed. Dual II provides up to 10 weeks of control on watermelon, i think the sugar beets would be canopied by then. Stinger/Sonora herbicide won't touch waterhemp, so post control on water hemp is non-existent.

 

[SwampCat]

That looks like a radish

Yes, mixed field of austrian winter peas and radish with zero use

 

[Kdog]

They sure do look good though! The first time I planted them they hardly ate any, the next year they wiped them out after a hard freeze. Never had much use of austrian winter peas.

 

[SwampCat]

They sure do look good though! The first time I planted them they hardly ate any, the next year they wiped them out after a hard freeze. Never had much use of austrian winter peas.

When I planted austrian winter peas at home, deer never let them get big enough to even see them.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

deer pound radishes by me and turnip uses is not reliable.

 

[Telemark]

You guys are describing one of the reasons I really like a diverse mix. Monoculture or low diversity can be hit or miss. A diverse mixture gives a much higher chance that the deer will find something they like in the mix and probably more likely to eat the other plants in the mix that they may ingest accidentally while grazing the plants they prefer.

Another reason is that anything they don't eat goes into the soil. A diverse mix will contribute much more nutrients to the soil and likely make successive crops in the food plot even more attractive to deer.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

They sure do look good though! The first time I planted them they hardly ate any, the next year they wiped them out after a hard freeze. Never had much use of austrian winter peas.

Deer took a couple years to "discover" our mixed brassicas too. Once they got a taste, they dig through snow to get them. They start hitting the tops in the fall - bulbs later in the winter. I agree with you, Telemark, on diversity in plots.

 

[Westwind]

Tacking on to Telemarks comments, diverse mix gives you some moat for things that grow well one year buy something else grows better the next year. Also deer are do damn finicky about what they want TODAY. Yesterday it was this, tomorrow it’s that….

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

Does anyone use pre-emergent herbicides for brassicas (turnips, radishes, dwarf Essex rape)?

 

[Brian662]

Does anyone use pre-emergent herbicides for brassicas (turnips, radishes, dwarf Essex rape)?

I haven't but I may try using some this year, with a Aug 1 planting in my area we still get some pigweed pressure. Deer will browse the pigweed some but don't want it going to seed and taking over the plot in following years.