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

Welter seed brassica mix

MadisonB&C

MadisonB&C

Active Member
Just curious, what has everyone's experience with Welter Seed's big buck brassica mix been? I've got a beautiful one and a quarter acre plot of this in at my place, and I've been just waiting for the deer start pounding it. Across the farm, the deer have destroyed my Daikon radish / Antler King honey hole plot, but they feed in the bean stubble just a few yards away from the welter mix and haven't touched the stuff all season.
 
I used it for the second time this year. Eaten very well but they have since I started brassicas. Only thing I'm going to be doing different going forward is turnips and radishes only and skip the other stuff in the mix
 
I have the same results this season on the Welters mix---they have not touched it yet. I planted 3 acres in August to replace some beans that got pounded. The biggest bulbs I got were a little bigger than a golf ball. I am attributing the failure to the drought but this makes me wonder? Interested to hear from others!
 
Oh, the PTTs are almost volleyball sized even after a late germination. Probably a little bigger than desired but they're still gnawing on them
This is average size
d3a6d06a6ee054ac1216d9fd9f447eca.jpg
 
lv2hntnfsh said:
I have the same results this season on the Welters mix---they have not touched it yet. I planted 3 acres in August to replace some beans that got pounded. The biggest bulbs I got were a little bigger than a golf ball. I am attributing the failure to the drought but this makes me wonder? Interested to hear from others!
Click to expand...

Regarding our 2017 brassicas...I actually checked a couple spots this weekend where we put brassicas in. Due to sever drought conditions at my place, we did not even attempt to plant brassicas until right around September 1st/Labor Day Weekend. (I think I may have even planted one of these plots the following weekend, so 9/9'ish). It was so dry at my place prior to that that I am sure I would have had a failed seeding and I know I was pushing things to put them in that late, but I also knew that I could get something out of them, even that late.

By and large, we had good germination as it did rain a few days after we planted, and then we had a few more rains on them in the month or so following planting. So the brassica plots "worked" and the radish tops were popular as ever, the radish bulbs probably only got 3"-5" long, about 1/2 of normal, maybe less. BUT...with failed corn and bean plots already this year, I was very glad to get that growth out there.

The turnips were between golf ball and tennis ball size, with most of them being towards the golf ball size. Radishes are all but gone now, with still a pretty fair amount of turnips out there, which they are starting to chew on now. We applied a decent amount of N too and the soils that these plots went into have been getting "built" now for many years, so we had that on our side.
 
Too new to tell (first year for it) and the drought at my normal planting time was a flop so I am at least 14 months from having an opinion on it. Not their new big buck brassica mix, but their big buck annual mix has worked great for me over the years. I have become a big fan of the forage turnips in that mix, maybe more than the purple tops. Still too early around here for them but I do have some of them that came up OK, even this year. A true late season hit for the deer most years.
 
I planted 4 plots of welters brassica mix around late July . I had to come in and replant a few areas on a couple plots in August due to lack of rain but they filled in pretty nicely.
The deer hammered them in September and early October but they have not shown nearly as much interest since October. I'm hoping cold weather makes them popular again , but they have not been near the draw the purple top turnips I planted last year were. They hammered those from September all the way to spring.
 
They have eaten the tops off most of our plot, maybe 1/3acre. Last night I had 3 does and one buck just munching on this stuff. It is our first year planting the big buck mix from them. In previous years we just had them make us a mix of reddish, purple top turnips and rape.

We planted ours late this year around the beginning of September and didn’t get rain for 3 weeks or so. We sure could use some rain still, it is very dry here.
 
All I do is PP turnip and radish as well. Have done that for last 8 years. Gave up on all the other stuff years ago.

Mix em’ together in a big bin and use that to get seed from as needed.

Seed is very inexpensive. The nitrogen requirement is the expensive part.
 
Lesson learned from this year, the dry conditions caused late germination which caused smaller bulb development which caused the deer to hammer them harder. Think bite sized as opposed to being too big to get in their mouth. The deer spent a lot more time eating turnips this year than any year in the past. Nothing else changed but the size of the bulbs. Food sources in the area remained constant from past years. As someone else shared the bulb size was tennis ball or smaller.
 
Quick update from my end---The deer started to hammer mine in the last two days. I attribute the size to drought but the palatability is no longer a concern. Like others have said, next year I might go to a custom mix to get rid of the smaller radishes for more tonnage per acre.
 
I'm kind if dense, so heads up. I've heard tonnage before used here. Are we talking about the bulbs or the greens or both? I couldn't tell at all this year if they were eating above the bulbs...there was just too much growth for me to tell without sitting over the plot.

I want to aim for golf ball sized bulbs next year. Plant late and a little heavier. At least that's where my heads at
 
arm said:
I want to aim for golf ball sized bulbs next year. Plant late and a little heavier. At least that's where my heads at
Click to expand...

You might want to try the forage turnips from Welters. Heavier with turnips is not good.
 
It seems like the deer have just stopped eating my foodplot. Many of the tops are chewed off but I have not seen any deer. What gives?

I’m not sure if the cold weather knocked them down and
then the warm weather made them undesirable. I’ve never had this happen.

I’m thinking about planting corn or beans next year.
 
Madison county said:
It seems like the deer have just stopped eating my foodplot. Many of the tops are chewed off but I have not seen any deer. What gives?

I’m not sure if the cold weather knocked them down and
then the warm weather made them undesirable. I’ve never had this happen.

I’m thinking about planting corn or beans next year.
Click to expand...
No food plot is going to be good all years. That’s why u must have multiple plots: grains, legumes, brassicas, cereal grains, etc. all the stuff in dbltree section.
Case in point.... last year.... I had fields of beans. It was “warmer” winter. I mowed those beans this spring & had volunteer beans everywhere. They hardly got eaten and were crummy to hunt on. Will I still plant beans? YEP- cause not all winters will be warm (sure wish we had snow right now!).
I’ve actually never had a “total” brassica failure.... a way to avoid that is start about July 25 if you have a lot to do.... reseed if needed weeks down road. I plant about 1/2 of mine on lower bottom ground or super high quality soil- almost bullet proof. Almost. If u have rotated rye mix in past- Organic matter will help u as well. If it’s a total bomb & 100% failure... put in rye/oats/peas, etc. in September.
So..... high fertility (lay on the fertilizer too & make sure PH is around 6.5-ish - add lime as needed) & seed a touch early if u have lots of plots. Add or inter seed as needed. IF u have ur soil right- it’s pretty amazing what September rains can “rescue” and make into amazing plots. Follow dbltree threads & rotations and it will work. BUFFET is the solution too..... do lots of things for plots if u are able.
 
It looked like my plot was starting get more browsing pressure a week ago...hopefully this cold kicks things up a notch!
 
Sligh1 said:
No food plot is going to be good all years. That’s why u must have multiple plots: grains, legumes, brassicas, cereal grains, etc. all the stuff in dbltree section.
Case in point.... last year.... I had fields of beans. It was “warmer” winter. I mowed those beans this spring & had volunteer beans everywhere. They hardly got eaten and were crummy to hunt on. Will I still plant beans? YEP- cause not all winters will be warm (sure wish we had snow right now!).
I’ve actually never had a “total” brassica failure.... a way to avoid that is start about July 25 if you have a lot to do.... reseed if needed weeks down road. I plant about 1/2 of mine on lower bottom ground or super high quality soil- almost bullet proof. Almost. If u have rotated rye mix in past- Organic matter will help u as well. If it’s a total bomb & 100% failure... put in rye/oats/peas, etc. in September.
So..... high fertility (lay on the fertilizer too & make sure PH is around 6.5-ish - add lime as needed) & seed a touch early if u have lots of plots. Add or inter seed as needed. IF u have ur soil right- it’s pretty amazing what September rains can “rescue” and make into amazing plots. Follow dbltree threads & rotations and it will work. BUFFET is the solution too..... do lots of things for plots if u are able.
Click to expand...


That’s some great advice, thanks. I only hunt this during shotgun season, I don’t bow hunt.

Unfortunately this year the plot wasn’t planted until September 1st and sat 3 weeks without any rain and the ground was bone dry to start with.

Tried seeding clover on one side and rye on the other side in areas that didn’t grow close to the edges in late October but it never got any rain either.

I only have maybe 1/3 acre for foodplots so there’s not a lot I can do. The east end is clover with a small watering hole and I have a small clearing with a little clover to the north of that.

My soil has lots of nutrition (soil test from the co op) and I also fertilize it.

Next year I’m going to reseed my clover areas and I might try planting different food strips down my foodplot (it’s long and narrow). That way they have a buffet.

I put my trail camera back in the middle of the plot on a stand and will maybe check it after Christmas.
 
I got ya. The seed and plant weren’t the issue here. It’s sept planting. So- don’t throw in towel on them- just seed em earlier.
 
Your right, I think I’ll plant them earlier next year. Last year they were the size of softballs or bigger.

I just went and looked at the plot and there were some deer tracks on the snow in the dirt driveway going into it.

I might try planting clover or rye in the spring as a cover crop and then till it in before fall.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom