First time food plot question

[TKC]

Lots of great info here, so thank you to all.

[Aetheling]

We plant 75 lbs forage oats, 50 of winter wheat, 50 cereal rye, 10 lbs ladino and 10 lbs arrowleaf, 5 lbs Daikon radsish, 5 lbs forage turnips and 5 lbs of rape per acre. Some plots have chicory and some lablab.

How much of the Nitrogen are you using?

[Aetheling]

Lots of great info here, so thank you to all.

Yes very informative and thanks to all.

[BTLowry]

I read this on the internet somewhere so it may be right or it may be wrong
Turnips and other brassicas are not palatable to deer until they get a good frost which converts something to sugar in the plant and then the deer will eat them.
Like I said, just somethng I read

[Aetheling]

I read this on the internet somewhere so it may be right or it may be wrong
Turnips and other brassicas are not palatable to deer until they get a good frost which converts something to sugar in the plant and then the deer will eat them.
Like I said, just somethng I read

Ive been told the same thing by multiple neighbors. Unfortunately we still haven’t had an actual freeze or frost here.

[dbaio1]

How much of the Nitrogen are you using?

100 lbs acre triple 13 at planting. 100 lbs of 34-0-0 around 60 days after planting. We run soil test in March and August for ph/lime adjustments needed.

[Arrowsmith]

I had always heard that too but research by people a lot smarter than me have proved that theory to not be true.

Read this:

https://deerassociation.com/do-brassicas-get-sweeter/#:~:text=Additionally%2C%20there%20was%20no%20chan ge,and%20turnip%20taproots%20following%20frost.

[wytex]

Turnips in Cooke County do well after a frost or freeze, deer hammered them. Vetch also worked pretty well and helps the soil.
Try some Whitetail clover from Whitetail Institute, deer love it and it is a perennial.

[dbaio1]

I read this on the internet somewhere so it may be right or it may be wrong
Turnips and other brassicas are not palatable to deer until they get a good frost which converts something to sugar in the plant and then the deer will eat them.
Like I said, just somethng I read

I agree with that based on 20+ yrs of planting and seeing firsthand. We usually start seeing turnips and radish get hammered in January.

[wytex]

Yeah, turnips down there might be late for hunting purposes but are good for the soil and that was the main purpose for planting it on the family place.

Great advice so far, I'm soaking it in.

Soil tests might help the OP out, they are not expensive. It would tell you just how much you need fertilizer wise, lime too.
We were prepared to lime and fertilize our little plot up here but the soil test showed us no lime needed and only nitrogen was deficient. A lot cheaper than what we were going to put down.

[GLM]

In my area (San Jacinto County) the deer eat the turnip tops in December/January but don’t eat the bulb until February.

[Drycreek3189]

I planted purple top turnips two years in a row with my wheat on a place I used to own. The deer wouldn’t touch them. I even pulled some up and piled them thinking the hogs might eat them. No dice. They do say that they are good for the soil, as in breaking up hard soils, but I didn’t need that in the sandy soils where I planted. My son planted some on a lease he had, but it was an old gravel pit and was covered in anemic pines. There wasn’t anything else to eat there so the deer ate the turnips. I just think there are much better choices where I hunt.

This nubbin stayed in a thirty yard circle for thirty minutes or more today eating rye. I could hear him crunching it ! There should have been a bald spot in that food plot he ate so much !

[Hogmauler]

I had turnips come up as well and went uneaten. I pulled a few up and threw em around the feeder and they disappeared. Don’t know if rabbit’s, squirrels, deer, or hogs ate em.

[miket]

I planted some seed mix years ago on my home property and the deer barely touched. They ate some of the greens out of it, but never touched the turnips at all. Grimes County

[Quackerbox]

I read this on the internet somewhere so it may be right or it may be wrong
Turnips and other brassicas are not palatable to deer until they get a good frost which converts something to sugar in the plant and then the deer will eat them.
Like I said, just somethng I read

This is what I was going to say