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Turnips / Brasicas ?

S

STEELMAN

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 26, 2004
Messages
265
Location
ARRINGTON, TN
Are turnips in the Brasica family?
Currently the BF oats and clover are getting hammered but the turnips are still mostly untouched. Is everyone seeing the same thing?
 
The deer have been walking straight through my turnips to the oats and winter peas. I did pic some of that brassicas and make a pot of turnip greens boy was they dilicous I don't understand why the deer don't won't them
 
I will say this, i have video of deer in VA KILLING the turnips on there fields. They are pulling up the entire plant and eating them. odd this is we planted turnips last year and they seemed to never get eaten......different strokes for different folks i guess.
 
During the juvinile hunt a couple of weeks ago our brassica was almost knee high. Now, since we have had a couple of big frosts, it looks like you took a weedeater to it! I noticed that some of the turnips are already being dug up as well. That usually doesn't happen on our club until January...
 
BamaBoy N Sumner CO said:
I will say this, i have video of deer in VA KILLING the turnips on there fields. They are pulling up the entire plant and eating them. odd this is we planted turnips last year and they seemed to never get eaten......different strokes for different folks i guess.
Click to expand...

Was that the first year you planted them BamaBoy? I ask because often deer take a year to get used to turnips, as they are not a common plant to see planted. We often saw the best ultilization of turnips the second year they were planted on a property.

Then again, you will see deer pound one plant in one plot on a property but leave that same plant completely alone in another plot on the same property. Deciphering why deer do or don't eat a particular plant in a particular area can be an effort in futility.
 
yeah it was the first year. we never in the past ever planted them and i just wanted to see what the deer would do with it. The second part of you post is kinda funny, in BAMA we have approx 15 different food plots and most have different soils types (some have clay, others have soil and some have that glorious black dirt) the deer treat each one different even though we plant them all in the same thing. on the Sandy soils they tend to eat the clover first but on the dirt ones they always hit the RAPE first, yet on the clay i see no preference they just browse all through it..
 
I have a field planted with turnips/oats/wheat/peas in one section, oats alone in another, and the other with perrenial white clover. I watched deer in September browse the surrounding weeds, then the turnips for a while, move to the oats, and then the clover. Took them about 45 minutes to work the plot. This was an afternoon scouting trip with my wife prior to hunting season. They apparently decided to hit the salad bar.

They are definately eating the turnip tops and have been even before the "sweetening" . Unfortunately they are now doing it all at night as I have not seen deer in the plot at dusk. maybe once some of the natural browse freezes out they'll come in during legal shooting hours.
 
BamaBoy N Sumner CO said:
The second part of you post is kinda funny, in BAMA we have approx 15 different food plots and most have different soils types (some have clay, others have soil and some have that glorious black dirt) the deer treat each one different even though we plant them all in the same thing. on the Sandy soils they tend to eat the clover first but on the dirt ones they always hit the RAPE first, yet on the clay i see no preference they just browse all through it..
Click to expand...

VERY common observation BamaBoy. Why deer eat a particular plant at one time but not another isn't really known. Is it taste? Is it smell? And the relationship between soil type and plant food choice is also a mystery. Deer generally LOVE Austrian Winter Peas when they are grown in clay-loam soils, but often won't touch them when grown in sandier soils. No one knows why...
 
it is an odd topic i have been trying to look at for a long time. IMO it is that different soil types tend to have different nutrience levels to which will cause the plant to have a different taste. In my region of alabama (macon county) maybe the nutrience in the sandy soils give the clover a better taste as in turn the dirt soils give the rape a better taste. I dont have anything to back it up but that just seems logical to me.

In the past i have had soil samples done on all three types we have and each is higher in one type of mineral then the other as well as each one is diffecient in one mineral different then the other.

I guess the next time i go down i will just have to taste them myself and let you know LOL
 

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