Not sure what brassicas are

The deer in my neck of the woods wont touch em… My South Dakota deer tip toe through the plot with out ever taking a bite. Almost look annoyed that they have to walk across the big root balls in the dirt. They grew great I was all excited about fall and late season hunting.

They never touched the greens all fall and now after a few “hard freezes” they still do not take a chance on them. I can all about guarantee this is the 1st brassicas they have ever been exposed to..maybe its an acquired taste? Maybe since there is standing beans right next they just prefer that first and once that is gone they will try?

Good thing this that wasnt the only thing I planted, but you hear all over the place IF YOU HAD TO PLANT JUST ONE THING FOR DEER… plant this…

Well good thing I didnt put all my eggs into that basket.
Any insights fellow PLOTTERS?

It may take a year or two for them to acquire taste for Brassica’s. If you have a standing bean field next door that may be your issue too. I would take standing beans over brassica’s any day. The main draw for brassica’s is overall tonnage. the deer will start to eat the leaves after the first frost and then dig up the bulbs later on in the season.

have patience. They will eat them.

That was my experience as well. I planted them, and the deer ignored them for 2 years. Then they figured it out in year 3. It was frustrating, I agree, because in the first 2 years there were bulbs frozen in the ground in December, the deer just did not know what they were.

Keep the faith, they will figure it out. In areas where the various brassicas species aren’t widely grown as an agricultural crop, it takes several years for enough deer to try the brassicas so that they become part of the deer’s “food memory”. Since fawns learn about food by watching the doe and seeing/smelling what goes into her mouth, once you establish the brassicas in the food memory of your deer, it gets passed from generation to generation.

One thing that I tried that seemed to help and that I’ve seen recommend is to walk around the plot and pull some turnips and radish and just stomp the #### out of them. Get that juice out there and release all that scent all over in the plot. The idea is that deer are more curious about scent than sight, so something that smells sweet will encourage them to seek out the source more quickly. I don’t know that this is scientific or not, but I read it on another forum, I tried it last year, and the browsing activity increased right after that. Can’t be sure that was the cause, but what can it hurt to try it was my thought.

Brassicas pay off in the long run. Last night I was watching one of my plots and I had 14 deer with their noses down, pawing away snow, to pull out forage turnips and radish. What I love most about brassicas is the staying power. After all the other plots are mowed to the ground, the deer still have brassicas to eat because they become highly palatable only after hard frosts. The deer ate the greens, but the root portions were left in the plot until they became frost-sweetened and then for the last 3 weeks the deer couldn’t leave them alone.

Grouse

I know they have drawing power, When I planted them in MN the deer just took to them right away. So they must have had it somewhere before. This year maybe a wash on them, they are so big it is a shame.. So I will continue to plant just a small plot so hopefully they will check it out one of these years!

Bad part is I know the left overs really stink once the snow comes off of them in the spring.

A buddy of mine had the same issue year 1. When they were ready year 2, he took his plot disk and lightly tilled about half of it to unearth them and to break them apart. Deer crushed the tilled part right away and within a week or two they were digging the untilled ones out of the ground.

I cannot for the life of me get them to eat brassica at home. I have had plots of them for 4 years. This year I added some radish from my buddy Grouse to that plot. All of the plants are 2-3′ tall, radish bulbs a foot long out of the ground and hardly touched. A couple years ago I had the greatest brassica plot known to man, it was beautiful! They never touched a one and they rotted in the spring. I now just plant strips of them down the middle of the corn plot in hopes they will some day get it.

Now at the farm they hammer them. From the first year I planted them they ate the greens to the ground then dug up the bulbs in winter. Let’s face, DEER ARE WEIRD!!

Seriously, before the ground is too frozen, quick try pulling about 25 or 30 radish and turnips out of the ground (if you still can) and stomp them into a pulp. Or take a hammer and just beat them into a pulp. Get as much scent as you can spread around the plot. See what that does.

I’ve seen numerous variations of this suggested to people who couldn’t get deer to eat brassicas. Jake47’s story above is another variation.

I can also believe that in some areas it’s a case of NEED. If the deer have an ample and high-protein supply of food in the vicinity, they may just not have the motivation that’s needed to try a new food like brassicas when it’s available. By the time they need it, it’s snowed under and frozen in.

I didn’t think the deer on my place would ever get it and even this year when I had an awesome plot I was worried because even when all the corn got cut for silage, the deer didn’t show up in the plot right away. It took a couple of hard frosts and then declining night temps during the first week of MN deer season and then they took on the Brassicas plot with a vengeance. As of last Sunday, I think the 1.5-acre plot was 80% gone and it will almost certainly be gone by this weekend.

Grouse

I’ll pull and stomp some tonight and report back. I know the deer are there because they are eating the corn, which is already just about gone…dang squirrels

sticker wrote:

#1651936
I’ll pull and stomp some tonight and report back. I know the deer are there because they are eating the corn, which is already just about gone…dang squirrels

You have too many deer. You should shoot one sometime.

Grouse

Ill go stomp around and see what happens.. I think to be fair.. I better wait before I give me final judgement till there is no more standing beans left over to see what they do then. Because 4 ft to the left is a big bean plot that they love.

I mean does it get any better than beans?

sktrwx2200 wrote:

Ill go stomp around and see what happens.. I think to be fair.. I better wait before I give me final judgement till there is no more standing beans left over to see what they do then. Because 4 ft to the left is a big bean plot that they love.

I mean does it get any better than beans?

For sure wait until the beans are gone to be fair. They will crawl thru broken glass to get to standing beans this time of year. Make sure and report back if they decide to give the brassica a try.

My 3xperience has been after snow and a few frosts. When the get a little red in the stem, they are sugaring and that’s when the deer here go nuts on them. Until then, moderate to very little is eaten

I went out and broke open some of the Purple top turnips and Daikon radishes… Took a bite out of each of them and they were pretty sweet. Tasted like a really low quality apple. So I was pretty impressed. Hopefully they will check it out in December. I have ALOT of beans still.