Buck Hollow Sporting Goods - click or touch to visit their website Midwest Habitat Company

Rotting Radishes?

AIRASSAULT

AIRASSAULT

PMA Member
This is my first year planting dbltree's brassica mix.. The last couple wks, the plot has started to smell awful and the groundhog forage radishes are rotting. The turnips and rape still look great though. Is this normal or do you think the spells of warm weather after the killing frosts have caused them to rot? I wonder if the smell bothers the deer much? I planted them on July 29th I believe. The deer have eaten the tops off of most of the radish leaves but havent touched many of the bulbs yet.
 
I have heard the radish die when temps get down in the teens. Once dead,,and it warms up,,rotting,,,I suspect. Normal. You are lucky you had a crop. I planted the mix, around the first wk of August, and with the dryness, I never got more than all tiny plants. The deer loved em though, but consumed them by early Nov.
 
loneranger said:
I have heard the radish die when temps get down in the teens. Once dead,,and it warms up,,rotting,,,I suspect. Normal. You are lucky you had a crop. I planted the mix, around the first wk of August, and with the dryness, I never got more than all tiny plants. The deer loved em though, but consumed them by early Nov.
Click to expand...

The plot is only about 150' from my yard hydrant :grin: they grew fantastic.. i just wish we would have some more steady cold weather now to keep them from spoiling
 
Ours have done the same thing the last couple years. They have a very strong smell and turn to mush towards the end of November. I am guessing the warm temps speed the process up. We wouldn't know how this effects the deer because for whatever reasons deer won't touch our brassicas mix. I read on another site that some landowners are not happy with the smell coming from the fields that farmers planted with tillage radishes this year. One farmer even said he's not gonna allow them to be over seeded again anywhere near his home. So clearly this isn't just a problem on your place. I guess if you have a property that the deer consume the radishes you won't have this problem but if not be prepared for some old garbage smell for a few months.
 
Yea,,if it got cold, and stayed cold like it should in the winter, this probably would not be a problem. Fifty degrees again end of the week in S-IA.
 
Interesting...reading this I suspect that this may explain what I saw at my place this past weekend. My brassica plots, all GHFR this year, were quite popular this fall, that is until about 6-10 days ago.

I had one trail cam in a radish plot from 12/1/12 to 12/8/12 and got very few pics, which I couldn't really understand, as this plot was seeing 10-15+ visitors per evening up through the end of November. I sat very close to it this past Saturday, 12/8/12, and saw next to nothing and in alignment with the slim pickings on the nearby trail cam, there wasn't much fresh sign there either.

There was though a pretty distinctive smeel(purposeful, see Rocky 1. :D) present. So maybe mine are rotting too and the deer are steering clear of them now. Hmmmmm.....

I finally get some rain to grow something and it rots...just my food plotting luck! :D
 
Mine are just rotting in the ground. The part above ground is still being eaten. But they have turnips also. Seems like more deer are coming each day. But pickens is slim in the crop fields with all the tillage going on.
 
Daver said:
Interesting...reading this I suspect that this may explain what I saw at my place this past weekend. My brassica plots, all GHFR this year, were quite popular this fall, that is until about 6-10 days ago.

I had one trail cam in a radish plot from 12/1/12 to 12/8/12 and got very few pics, which I couldn't really understand, as this plot was seeing 10-15+ visitors per evening up through the end of November. I sat very close to it this past Saturday, 12/8/12, and saw next to nothing and in alignment with the slim pickings on the nearby trail cam, there wasn't much fresh sign there either.

There was though a pretty distinctive smeel(purposeful, see Rocky 1. :D) present. So maybe mine are rotting too and the deer are steering clear of them now. Hmmmmm.....

I finally get some rain to grow something and it rots...just my food plotting luck! :D
Click to expand...

FWIW, I examined a couple of my GHFR plots this past Saturday and pretty much confirmed that they are rotten and are not attracting or feeding anything at this point. Harumph! The radish bulbs are very punky, with a consistency like a soft mushroom AND they stink. :( The only deer tracks in them were just passing through.

Given the drought conditions that many of us in SE Iowa were battling against this year I was very happy with the GHFR growth and I had some really nice radishes that I thought would help make for a good late muzzy season, but now they are basically a waste land.

Did others have a similar outcome? What about turnips, which I basically have none of this year, did they rot too or is this something that the GHFR did?

Note - I will plant GHFR again, but I think I will be careful to plant other types of brassicas too to guard against this problem as I think the GHFR may be more susceptible to rot than what I suspect a turnip may be.
 
Now that we got some snow the deer are tearing my plot up.. i think they are just eating the rape and turnips now.. still skipping over the radishes
 
Daver said:
Did others have a similar outcome? What about turnips, which I basically have none of this year, did they rot too or is this something that the GHFR did?

Note - I will plant GHFR again, but I think I will be careful to plant other types of brassicas too to guard against this problem as I think the GHFR may be more susceptible to rot than what I suspect a turnip may be.
Click to expand...

dbtree will chime in here but I think the GHFR will always rot first. My turnips and rape are still good and they are feeding on them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom