As we’ve discussed, it wasn’t always this way. This is my 4th year of planting and in years 1 and 2, I had a similar experience to you. The brassicas were completely ignored. Last year they started to show some interest, but still left a lot on the table.
There was an exception. They deer have always liked the rapeseed. Which technically is also a brassicas member. They hunted down the rape early and often. Did you have rape in your blend, by chance? How did the deer like it?
This year was the first “root ’em out” year where they seemed to attack all the “root brassicas” (turnips and radish) in the plot with a determined vengeance. Of all the things we plant for food plots, brassicas is the one crop that deer don’t dive into right away. The exception seems to be in areas like sugarbeet country in ND / NW MN where the deer are already tuned in to digging for dinner.
But at the end of the day, I’m becoming convinced there is no “best”. I’m convinced that the strip method is the way to go regardless of what the deer seem to prefer.
Not to pick on Sticker, but he provided another good reason last year of why not to go “all in” on what your deer seem to prefer. His bean crop got wrecked by a rampant ragweed invasion. Good thing he hadn’t made the mistake of only planting beans.
This year I had two different landowners, in two different states tell me another one. They got wrecked when their plots flooded out because of unending rain in June and July and that killed off all their spring-planted crops. They both had a near total kill due to plots with standing water. Both landowners had to figure out a Plan B and bear the expense of replanting 100% of their plots.
Since I’m up in the boreal forest zone, my property has heavy softwoods and all my plots are very sheltered. In a normal winter, with normal snowfall, nothing would stay above the snow for long and no part of the plots blow clean. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough room to plant enough corn to have staying power, it would be stripped down within weeks. Beans may fare better, I’ll see next year.
But I’m not cleaned out. I have my “grain bins” full of corn. I can fire up the feeder at any time and I’ll add more feeders if I feel the deer or turkeys need it. If necessary, I’ll feed the deer enough that they can live off of the feeders alone, I’m not going to repeat what happened 3 years ago with late storms starving the deer to death in March.
Grouse
