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Favorite Fall Brassica?

Bassattackr

Bassattackr

Well-Known Member
Curious to hear others experiences here.. I've played with a few different varieties over the years - here are my results:

- DE Rape - Eaten early and often for me. Deer and turkey both seem to demolish the leaves from early season (September) onward. Been a good staple, will keep planting. Had an old timer years ago tell me if you want turkeys, plant rape in the fall. Although I'm targeting deer, he was quite right.

- Radish - Doesn't seem to be eaten as early, but definitely see signs of browsing the tops around late October. By December the tops are pretty well eaten. I don't get a whole lot of browse on the root itself, even into late season. The roots mostly rot for me late winter / into spring, with only a few bites taken out here and there..

- Purple Top Turnip - Leaves/tops get eaten when it starts to get cold out, I'd say around November for me. The bulbs don't get eaten until late January thru March, essentially when the season is over. For a "hunting perspective" maybe not the best, but from a "total habitat management" plan, I can tell you these keep bucks on my property through the end of February, long after food is gone elsewhere.

- Forage Collards - Got excellent knee high growth, with no browse whatsoever. Toast after the temps got into single digits. I won't be planting again.

- Pasja Hybrid - Field full of them untouched. PTT is a much-preferred solution both from plant and bulb.

- Kale - Won't be planting again. Also lots of high growth, with no browse whatsoever. Seems to be a filler in most blends.

From now on, I'll be only using DE (or some form of) Rape, Radish and PTT in my brassica or blend plantings. Rape for early season, Radish for mid, and PTT for mid to late season.

FYI - Deer pressure is strong for me, with anywhere from 5 - 15 deer in our 6.5 acre field every evening. 2 acres of which is typically in brassicas or a brassica mix planting of some sort. The above comes from about 8 or so years now of brassica plantings.

What say you?
 
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FWIW, my experience with radishes is that they go for them first, in Sept and Oct. But, they only really hit the tops hard then...it takes them to late Oct, early Nov, before they start gulping the bulbs. They also rot faster than turnips, so depending on weather patterns, etc, I normally don't have any radishes by Dec. They are usually eaten...or rotted by then.
 
I have always planted a generic blend that has PTT, a few types forage turnip & rape, and like 10% radish. They eat everything in it to the dirt, bulbs included every year. I'll usually mix in some co-op cereal rye for good measure too.

Still planted the greater field in the mix above, but this year as an experiment, I planted like 1/4ac straight daikon radish in front of two blinds on bigger fields in an attempt to make them more bow friendly. WOW - eye opener. It was like having a bag of corn poured out. Every sit I had in these spots I would watch old deer, young deer, bucks and does step out, walk through standing beans, mentioned greens mix, & clover, regardless of weather - on a straight bee line to eat and paw at these radishes. From mid Oct and still today they check them first thing every single night. Everything is gone, including bulbs now, but they gnaw at the dirt like pigs for a bit before moving on to the other food in the field.

Haven't witnessed something work so well in a long time. Pretty cool to see
 
Snail3496 said:
I have always planted a generic blend that has PTT, a few types forage turnip & rape, and like 10% radish. They eat everything in it to the dirt, bulbs included every year. I'll usually mix in some co-op cereal rye for good measure too.

Still planted the greater field in the mix above, but this year as an experiment, I planted like 1/4ac straight daikon radish in front of two blinds on bigger fields in an attempt to make them more bow friendly. WOW - eye opener. It was like having a bag of corn poured out. Every sit I had in these spots I would watch old deer, young deer, bucks and does step out, walk through standing beans, mentioned greens mix, & clover, regardless of weather - on a straight bee line to eat and paw at these radishes. From mid Oct and still today they check them first thing every single night. Everything is gone, including bulbs now, but they gnaw at the dirt like pigs for a bit before moving on to the other food in the field.

Haven't witnessed something work so well in a long time. Pretty cool to see
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Interesting. Maybe I need to try a heavier mix with these. Mark Drury is a fan of pure radish stands as well.

I have a small 1/4 acre corner by a stand I may try that this year..

One could almost "micro manage" his brassicas with the PTT further out away from stands (post season food) and radish, rape in closer to stand setups.
 
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All good stuff!! Im a PTT & radish guy.
I need to experiment on 2 others: sugar beets and rutabaga. SB are the earliest of any brassicas to plant. Rutabaga would be a middle of summer type. Then PTT & radish. Be fun to do a plot with all the varieties - they would all be done at different times but fun to compare
 
Daver said:
FWIW, my experience with radishes is that they go for them first, in Sept and Oct. But, they only really hit the tops hard then...it takes them to late Oct, early Nov, before they start gulping the bulbs. They also rot faster than turnips, so depending on weather patterns, etc, I normally don't have any radishes by Dec. They are usually eaten...or rotted by then.
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I’m also in Van Buren County and that’s what I find. The radishes are hit first. I’ve never seen the huge radishes I see pictures of. I’ve used a “Kitchen Sink” mixture the last several years, with good results. Purple Tops are easily the heart and soul of every mix we’ve used. I would be OK with just that and we started with a predominantly Purple Top, rape, kale mixture 16 years ago. We noticed again this year that the deer absolutely hammered the turnips again this year. They’ve been critical after Christmas each year, in my opinion.
 
Many other turnip hybrids untouched, starting to bolt.

Hybrid crosses can be easier to spot this time of year.. One can see the trademark yellow flower forming of the rape/mustard family, albeit with a bulb on the root below.

PH.jpg

Yet a radish or purple top turnip.. leaf or bulb, anywhere to be found..

The remaining few are largely rotted away by now, leaving just holes to aerate the soil.
 
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groundhog/daikon radishes are a hit on my place.

They're usually mowed down before winter and long gone before spring planting. It's not uncommon for them not to make it past September some years.
 
Tillage radishes and PTT are that's needed here. I'd actually like trying something that they like a little less, just so they leave it alone until winter just to help them get by.
 
northcedar said:
Tillage radishes and PTT are that's needed here. I'd actually like trying something that they like a little less, just so they leave it alone until winter just to help them get by.
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Dwarf Essex Rape would be my recommendation. The rest aren’t worth planting IMO.
 
I walk my plots every few weeks after season. I try not to but I live on the property and I indulge myself whenever I feel like it.

If I only went by what I see late winter, after the snow, I would think brassicas aren’t used much. Some of the bulbs were bitten into all winter. Some were pulled and eaten. What was consistent, all winter/spring is the leaves are being eaten. There won’t be tons of evidence of that. And when the snow was deep, they were digging for the brassicas.

What I’m trying to say is I think it is easy to underestimate the usage.

I just walked a couple days ago. I have a plot next to my house that I haven't seen a ton of deer in all winter. The turnips and daikons don't currently show a lot of use. I know they used it because they are thinned out. The rye is bitten off though. The ends of it is all squared off.
 
My experience is that forage/daikon radish tops start getting worked over in September and the whole plants (bulbs included) are pretty much decimated by the deer by sometime in December. Great early to middle late season crop.

Purple Top Turnips don't get a whole lot of activity until usually in December or so (unless just a really heavy deer density), but once they do, they carry benefit and attract deer pretty much till the end of Winter.

I also like Dwarf Essex Rape because in my experience it is attractive starting when Radishes are and it stays attractive all the way to the end with PTT, as long as there is any tiny little bit of green left on the plants for the deer to nibble. I always include a healthy amount of DER in my plantings.
 
Bassattackr said:
Curious to hear others experiences here.. I've played with a few different varieties over the years - here are my results:

- DE Rape - Eaten early and often for me. Deer and turkey both seem to demolish the leaves from early season (September) onward. Been a good staple, will keep planting. Had an old timer years ago tell me if you want turkeys, plant rape in the fall. Although I'm targeting deer, he was quite right.

- Radish - Doesn't seem to be eaten as early, but definitely see signs of browsing the tops around late October. By December the tops are pretty well eaten. I don't get a whole lot of browse on the root itself, even into late season. The roots mostly rot for me late winter / into spring, with only a few bites taken out here and there..

- Purple Top Turnip - Leaves/tops get eaten when it starts to get cold out, I'd say around November for me. The bulbs don't get eaten until late January thru March, essentially when the season is over. For a "hunting perspective" maybe not the best, but from a "total habitat management" plan, I can tell you these keep bucks on my property through the end of February, long after food is gone elsewhere.

- Forage Collards - Got excellent knee high growth, with no browse whatsoever. Toast after the temps got into single digits. I won't be planting again.

- Pasja Hybrid - Field full of them untouched. PTT is a much-preferred solution both from plant and bulb.

- Kale - Won't be planting again. Also lots of high growth, with no browse whatsoever. Seems to be a filler in most blends.

From now on, I'll be only using DE (or some form of) Rape, Radish and PTT in my brassica or blend plantings. Rape for early season, Radish for mid, and PTT for mid to late season.

FYI - Deer pressure is strong for me, with anywhere from 5 - 15 deer in our 6.5 acre field every evening. 2 acres of which is typically in brassicas or a brassica mix planting of some sort. The above comes from about 8 or so years now of brassica plantings.

What say you?
Click to expand...
Winter greens by whitetail institute….
 
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