I've done brassicas plots every year for close to 20 years now in northern WI. They are always eaten to the dirt come spring. Deer will hit the dwarf esex rape and radish as soon as they come up. Radish is really good thru bowseason. Kale and dwarf is a favorite for late bow and gun. Purple top turnips leaves are the least preferred but are still all eaten, but the bulbs are highly preferred late season and provide alot of food come January and February. I usually try a new brassica every year ( Winifred this year) but so far these are my favorites. I've tried most of the hybrids. They are all decent but still like the others better.
Pure Brassica Plots
- Thread starter neonomad
- Start date
g squared 23
5 year old buck +
I will plant a DER/Tillage radish/PTT mix along with some clover end of July and top with winter rye after Labor Day if I have bare spots. Really good combination.
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Wind Gypsy
5 year old buck +
I'm going with a July planted pure brassica blend (NWW sweet feast) and broadcasting red clover and rye on top around 9/1. I'll likely frost seed a mix of clovers in the spring.
That is what makes sense to me in theory at least.
That is what makes sense to me in theory at least.
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Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
I would normally have had my brassicas planted by now...not this year. We have had a total of 1.09 inches of rain in the last 23 days and we had 93 degrees in the shade yesterday. So I am waiting to plant when I see some rain in the forecast.
I almost always mix up my own brassica blends but I did use the Northwoods Whitetails Sweet Feast Brassica mix a few years ago - with very good results.
I broadcasted it over a sugar beet plot to fill in the rows and thin spots. The plot was already E-Fenced.
The deer still browsed under the fence on the outsides but not too badly...
This is my recipe that I used the past 2 years. This year I will be mixing (2#/acre each) PTT and Winfred Forage Brassica (1#/acre each) Rape, Crimson, Berseem and Balsana Fixation clovers and 5-6#/acre radish. Then I will broadcast winter rye over it 4-5 weeks later.
All I need is some rain in the forecast...
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Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
No need to plant any additional in the spring when you include clovers in your brassica mix and then broadcast rye over top of it a month or so later.
This was a brassica plot the previous fall using the recipe I posted above - 4#/acre clovers.
Plenty of clover forage after the rye is too tall to be palatable.
Foggy47
5 year old buck +
If there is any "problem" I have.....it's that I have too much white clover (and red) in my plots. Not sure I will be able to get the PTT, DER, GHR, Collards to grow over the great clover I got going now from last fall. Lots of those brassica are germinated now......so we will se how they compete with the clover I got going. A nice "problem" to have.
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Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
Planting brassicas into thick clovers can be an issue. I usually try to terminate as much of the clover as I can before planting brassicas - or at least thin them out or set them back some. I have not had very good success planting brassicas into heavy, thick clovers. Those in your first photo should do well.
Foggy47
5 year old buck +
Yep....that is a bare spot in the clover. Most is much better than that. Gonna see how we do. Conditions are good here.
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
That's my dilemma also. I have great spring growth of clover in the WR. If I mow to terminate WR, clover is still thick and won't be conducive to seeding brassicas. I did drill the soy beans directly into the clover & WR this year. Waiting to see how it does. That's why considering to spray WR & clover next spring.
There is a trade off in either approach transitioning from spring green up to summer planting.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
One thing I wanna try this year is planting collards once first frost hits. I thought I had them figured a couple years back, but a maturing perennial plot leaves no open space. The big idea here is to get the collards to germinate just as the deer are clearing off the clover so the new seeds can hook some October sun. The collards would get about 30 days to grow and get ready to overwinter, and then come back in the spring to grow the whole next season. At the same time, they'd stay so small, hopefully the deer pay no attention to them.
Foggy47
5 year old buck +
What would you spray the clover with??
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
I like the look of that Northwoods Sweet mix.
Wind Gypsy
5 year old buck +
Probably old hat to most of you but I just took note of how things change on the tag frequently. You can see the tags on the two bags in your picture that there is different germ rates between them and on my bag from this year the seed source is from a couple different locations.
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Wild Thing
5 year old buck +
I'll post my pic again here so it is easier to compare...
Yes, that is interesting Wind Gypsy. I purchased this seed and planted it in 2018. There is a difference although probably not much in the finished product?
Yes, that is interesting Wind Gypsy. I purchased this seed and planted it in 2018. There is a difference although probably not much in the finished product?
I'm doing a side by side trial of something similar this year. I chemically treated the acre closest to the road before lightly broadcasting a diverse mix in the entire plot. I then double planted rows of organic corn and soybeans, and then my diverse mix through the bean plate when I ran out of soy beans. The next day I mowed most of the plot and cultipacked half. Here's what it looked like last weekend. I planted quite late.
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Wind Gypsy
5 year old buck +
That is quite the difference between the two! To make sure i understand, the only difference is cultipacking vs only mowing? Or is it spray vs no spray?
In that area it is spray vs no spray. The area in the picture was both mowed and cultipacked.
Attached is an area that was mowed only. I ran out of soy beans somewhere in this part so the non corn rows to the left are a diverse mix run through my dad's JD 290. I'm not seeing much of what was broadcast but I know the turkeys that I chased out while mowing ate some seed. Mower has been awesome.
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Troubles Trees
5 year old buck +
Interestingly, this arrived last week from the same place and the germination rates have increased again :/
Wind Gypsy
5 year old buck +
And the makeup of the mix is a little different.
Probably just keeps it relatively close based on what he's got available.
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
I am no expert so take my advice with a grain of salt. I will spray with Gly at 2.5 oz per gal of water. This has set back the clover to stall it's growth. It will come back but maybe not all. I have done this on red, ladino, & white clover, but can't state exact impact on each.
Maybe some herbicide experts can jump in.
