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Brassicas

I really enjoy posting pics that friends send to me like these outstanding brassicas grown by Dennis.



Tim planted his July 28th and got a big rain right afterword!



That's some amazing growth!!



He's using the brassica/rye mix rotation as you can see here



Gotta love a job well done and beautiful lush crops that will be feeding a lot of whitetails this winter...nice work fellas! :way:
 
Overseeded rye into my last planted brassicas this morning. By next weekend I'll probably have to seed rye into my other brassica plots. Very happy for you other fellows who got enough rain. Your plots look fabulous.
 
Hats off to dbltree I have been busy at work and have not been able to check the brassica plots I planted on July 25th. I wasn't expecting much due to the lack of moisture and to be honest I was prepared yesterday to turn them into cereal grain plots. To my surprise where I had Paul's rotation the brassicas are thriving. Some of this is in the 4th year of rotation and the change in the soil is night and day as the organic matter builds. Thanks buddy for all you share!

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Sept 11th, 2013

A friend sent in some pics of his beautiful Iowa brassicas that obviously have received more rain then ours!



This is what a good healthy crop of brassicas should look by mid September!



A tremendous amount of high quality forage that will feed deer all fall and most of the winter...hard to beat! :way:
 
Well, I guess I might as well go ahead and claim those last pics of brassicas that Paul put up. Here in Clayton county we have received a couple rains in the last six weeks, and it shows. These were no-tilled into failed soybean plantings that the deer hadn't let get above six in. tall. I know better than to plant soybeans but the late spring made my usual corn plots impossible, so I decided to try dbltree's rotation for a couple years and see how it works. I have equal acreage of winter rye planted and the deer hammer the rye at this point and leave the brassicas alone, like they should. I am going to do Paul's rotation completely no-till, since I have a Great Plains drill that I'm confident can plant anything, anywhere, anytime. I should explain that I'm a farmer by trade and have been completely no-till for several years, so know the in's and out's of no-till pretty well. I recommend watching a video on you-tube by Ray Archuleta concerning no-till and cover crops. I believe food plots can work well with this system, and it eliminates ALL tillage. There are some radical concepts involved but be open-minded and I believe all one needs is a sprayer and a good no-till drill to do any rotation you want. The brassicas in the pics all germinated BEFORE we had any rain. The key was not tilling the ground and drying it out, especially in the middle of a hot summer. Bonker will be hunting over these plots this fall, so don't believe any stories about his hunting prowess.:D:D
 
Great advice Turkeyriver, thanks. I've been thinking the same thing, and I am tired of dragging my disc over everything, then my wire drag panel, then planting each kind of seed seperately with my over the shoulder bag seeder, the rye mix really hurts doing 6 acres.
 
I am going to do Paul's rotation completely no-till, since I have a Great Plains drill that I'm confident can plant anything, anywhere, anytime.
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Excellent!! No-tilling is the answer to building soil OM and lowering inputs, thanks again for the pics and keep us posted on the no-till progress!

Bonker should have a field day! :D
 
Paul,

Thought I would share a few pics of this year's brassica plots. We planted 8/9/13 and used 400 lbs of urea per acre. All of the plots were the rye mix last year. We received 2" rain 3 days after planting but zero since then. I am amazed with the growth of the plots without hardly any rain. Following your rye mix with brassica's is the only way to go.

Thanks and good luck this year.

Ryan
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Outstanding brassicas in various stages of growth!









Ryan planted the following mix:
1 lbs Dwarf Essex Rape
1 lbs Pasja
1 lbs Appin
1 lbs Bonnar
1 lbs Purple Top
3 lbs Ground Hog Forage Radish
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Pretty awesome for no rain



But that's the advantage of following rye and red clover



Brassicas are drought tolerant so when they follow winter rye, the roots follow the rye root channels deep into the subsoil while the rye root systems hold surface moisture like a sponge!



Repeating this rotation year after year allows us to have both crops in the same field yet never in the same spot back to back. No worries about disease and pests and building soil organic matter insures against drought and lowers the need for expensive synthetic fertilizers..

Plant ALL in one plot in strips or blocks

Alice, Kopu II, Durana (or comparable) white clover 10% of plot, sow at 6#'s per acre with the rye combination in the fall or in the spring with oats and berseem clover. Correct Ph and P&K with soil tests

Brassicas in 45% of plot

Purple Top Turnips 2.5#
Dwarf Essex Rape 2.5#
GroundHog Forage radish 5#

Plant in mid to late July in most Midwest states, or 60-90 days before your first killing frost, Use 200#'s of 46-0-0 urea and 400#'s of 6-28-28 per acre. Follow the dead brassicas with oats and berseem or crimson clover in mid spring at 50#'s oats and 12-15#'s berseem clover an/or same of crimson clover and/or 50#'s of chickling vetch)

Cereal Grain combo in 45% of plot...I use 50# each rye, oats and peas along with radish and clover seed all plant in half of each feeding area

I use 50#'s each of the following:

Winter rye 50-80#'s per acre (56#'s = a bushel)
Spring oats 50-120#'s per acre (32#'s = a bushel)
Frostmaster Winter Peas or 4010/6040 Forage peas 20-80#'s per acre

Red Clover 8-12#'s per acre or white clover at 6#'s per acre (or 20-40 pounds hairy vetch and 20-30#'s crimson clover on sandy soils)
Groundhog Forage Radish 5#'s per acre

Plant in late August to early September, if following well fertilized brassicas use 100 - 200#'s of urea, if starting a new plot add 400#'s of 6-28-28 but for best results soil test and add only what is necessary.

Rotate the brassicas and rye combo each year
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letemgrow said:
That was my plan, seed rye soon as I get back to the farm.
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Well the rye was seeded yesterday & it's raining now, hopefully we'll make the best of a bad situation. My question is what type of growth can I expect from the rye and the brassicas that have been sitting in the dust waiting for some moisture.
 
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