It's Brassicas Time!

Is it that time of the summer already? Yep. Time flies when you’re having fun, but if you’re in the northern half of MN, WI, or ND, etc it’s time to plant the brassicas.

I know experiences with brassicas (sugar beets, turnips, Daikon radish, rapeseed, etc) vary, but I love them because my deer love them. That first 2 weeks in November are Brassicas Prime Time and the deer are aggressive when it comes to gobbling up all those high sugar goodies.

I love watching a plot full of deer get after the brassicas and it’s fun because my dad does not bow hunt, so he gets to get in on the fun of seeing a lot of deer because brassicas prime time coincides with the firearms season in our area.

I got my 2 acres planted yesterday, but it wasn’t without drama. My old tractor had been acting up on the previous visit, so I was in a bad spot. Had to get the tractor fixed BEFORE I could plant brassicas, and I HAD to plant the brassicas due to time constraints. Long story short, after an hour of troubleshooting, I got the ol’ gasser Deere back up and running like a watch. Blocked fuel filter and line was the culprit. Victory!

And today, the farm got 1.25 inches of rain on top of all that freshly planted seed. The timing couldn’t have been any better.

I laid down a lot of 20-20-20 as a starter fertilizer, but I’ll go back and top dress the plot with urea once things get going.

I planted my blend called Brassicas Bender, it contains sugar beets, forage turnip, forage radish, and 2 types of rapeseed.

Nothing much to see yesterday, but I’ll post pictures as soon as there’s something growing. Best of luck on your brassicas plots this year.

Grouse

Good to hear you got it done Grouse!! I won’t be getting mine in until Mid July as I always do, but like you said, timing is huge and I have found that mid July is perfect for our farm.

I am planting and rolling again this year. I put oats in 2 plots this spring that should be about mature pretty quick. I plan to broadcast urea, broadcast brassica seed, then roll the plot with the cultipacker, then spray gly as the last step to kill any weeds that grew in the oats. This worked really well last year as the oats laid down on the plot kept any weeds from germinating and held the moisture in the soil.

When I disc’d mine I packed in Urea and was going to spread another application of Urea when I planted. I figured they require so much nitrogen that it would help. Should I spread in something else to keep it more balanced? How many pounds per acre is you brassica mix applied Grouse? Because of how wet my plot it I could only prep about a 1/4 acres worth.
DT

Hi. Sorry for the delay just saw this.

Personally, wouldn’t put any more N on. Unless your soil is really lacking, I’m not thinking you need to do anything more this year. A soil test at some point would be a good idea, but with brassicas the N needs are high so I think you have that end covered.

Grouse