Threw a hail mary last week

[eclipseman]

Some of you saw my other posts about my crowded brassica plots. The online store that sold me the brassica told me to plant 10lbs per acre mix of PPT, DER, and GHR. Well I have good news and bad. 1 plot is doin ok...stunted but mostly still green and deer are still eating the tops. The other plot id say 30% is yellowing due to the crowding but this plot the deer mainly use at night anyway so should not impact my hunting too bad. The really bad news is my father's food plots all died! Way way way over crowded. So much so, they apparently died a few weeks ago (we haven't hunted there but we could tell the days they started dying on our trail cameras). Because they started dying awhile ago, there is actually a silver lining , which was that a lot of bare dirt was showing so we decided to throw a hail mary and spread cereal rye last week. It has already rained a few times since so assuming we do not have an extremely cold fall I think that rye should put on a few inches and start drawing deer in a couple weeks. Oh well. You live and you learn.

 

[Bill]

I threw the same Hail Mary a week earlier. Let's hope we both get lucky......

 

[swat1018]

10# / acre isn't too high. I do it all the time.

 

[bbcoach]

Normal rate for brassicas is 5 lbs per acre. Brassicas have big leaves when mature and should be given room to spread out. Yellowing is probably due to nitrogen deficiency.

 

[Mortenson]

I executed a few Hail Marys yesterday. They landed on wet ground, and today it rained a quarter inch. Should get some of it to come.

 

[eclipseman]

Normal rate for brassicas is 5 lbs per acre. Brassicas have big leaves when mature and should be given room to spread out. Yellowing is probably due to nitrogen deficiency.

I threw out a lot of nitrogen but I think the crowding just overwhelmed them

 

[bbcoach]

I threw out a lot of nitrogen but I think the crowding just overwhelmed them

How much nitrogen? and when? If you have had the rain we had over the last month, your nitrogen is gone (leached out of the soil or has been consumed due to the overcrowding) Brassicas love nitrogen (100 to 150 lbs per acre is the norm) with a 5 lb per acre seeding rate.

 

[eclipseman]

How much nitrogen? and when? If you have had the rain we had over the last month, your nitrogen is gone (leached out of the soil or has been consumed due to the overcrowding) Brassicas love nitrogen (100 to 150 lbs per acre is the norm) with a 5 lb per acre seeding rate.

When I first planted I incorporated 60lbs per acre nitrogen which is what my soil test called for if planting brassica. After 3 weeks growth I then top dressed 200lbs urea per acre which should have been plenty since I already had decent amount of nitrogen in the soil to begin with.

 

[swat1018]

Normal rate for brassicas is 5 lbs per acre. Brassicas have big leaves when mature and should be given room to spread out. Yellowing is probably due to nitrogen deficiency.

Purple Top Turnips 3#
Dwarf Essex Rape 2#
GroundHog Forage radish 5#

Maybe you should have told Lick Creek that. I've been doing the same for years, with excellent results.

 

[bbcoach]

Purple Top Turnips 3#
Dwarf Essex Rape 2#
GroundHog Forage radish 5#

Maybe you should have told Lick Creek that. I've been doing the same for years, with excellent results.

Purple Top Turnips 3#
Dwarf Essex Rape 2#
GroundHog Forage radish 5#

Maybe you should have told Lick Creek that. I've been doing the same for years, with excellent results.

Paul is spot on if you have optimum conditions. That means 150 lbs of nitrogen per acre, 1 inch of rain per week and excellent sun on the plot. If you are only using PTT and DER (5 lbs total maybe 7 max), then they will fill in very nicely due to their giant leaves. Radishes grow straight up and don't have the big wide leaves that PTT and DER do, so they are fillers. If your planting brassicas, I would ire on the side of less seed per acre as over seeding causes problems as eclipseman has expressed. You can always put down additional seed at a later date but you can't do much if you put down too much. My 2 cents.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

I would also think that if the deer in your area dont eat the tops you would want to plant less #/acre to get bigger bulbs.

 

[bbcoach]

Another valid point ST.

 

[eclipseman]

Well the hail mary worked. The rye is growing! Now hopefully deer are attracted to it!

 

[jsasker007]

Where I'm at rye gets eaten after everything else turns brown. Deer eat it more when it's young and tender, but rye grows fast and gets past the point of being tasty pretty quickly. It stays green and in Minnesota it's better late in the year and comes on strong in the spring when temps get above freezing. Next year the rye should have kept most weeds to a minimum so planting and ground work are WAY easier.