beans & turnips
 

Has anyone tried this combo in the same plot? I am thinking of planting soybeans this summer & broadcastings turnips around Sept 1. Thought that might work well w/ the green plants going into the fall & beans as they rippen. My understanding is the deer love the turnips once it gets real cold. In the past I have planted both beans & milo. With my relatively small food plots the deer seem to strip the milo as soon as it rippens & eat the beans off before they can set beans. Doing it this way would give me twice as much area in beans as in the past plus provide the turnips for later.

RE: beans & turnips
 

Yep, that should be a combo. I'll be doing the same this year.

RE: beans & turnips
 

We had turnips in our food plot in our deer pen last year. At first we thought it wasa bunch of mumbo-jumbo that deer love turnips so we started pulling a few out for us to eat. After the first heavyfrost hit they started pawing at the ground to work em out and just devoured em. I dont know why they wait so long but they do in fact love them. It sounds like a good combo choice you have planned. You should keep the deer in the area early season with the beans then once it gets cold its almost a certainty theyll hang around for turnips.

RE: beans & turnips
 

I do this but with collards. Collards are milder so no need for a heavy frost to make them taste good. The shade from the beens will actually let you plant them a month sooner. That way the OCT rains will produce tonnage instead of germination. When the beans die out the greens take over. I just till it all under after the greens seed in early spring. Take a soil sample, amend and have never had to replant the beens. The collards come back in the spring as well but die out in July. So they have to be reseeded.
Doing it this way gives me a lot of organic matter to put back in the soil. So far I have gotten away with it 6 years without crop rotation. As a bonus it gives them a good food supply in early spring with the collard sprouts when times are hard.
Blessings

RE: beans & turnips
 

Had good results with beans planted early and turnips planted all around the edges around Sept 1 where the beans were already hard hit. I like the idea of broadcasting them right into the beans though. Might try it this season:D

RE: beans & turnips
 

Looks like a few people agree w/ my idea. I will give it a try this year & see what happens. The area I am in is heavy in ag & attracking & holding deer can be difficult. I have excellent cover which tends to hold deer under extreme conditions, but during the milder times they can be anywhere. I hope this puts them over the top.

RE: beans & turnips
 

I haven't tried this, but my concern would be to keep the turnip seed rate low enough that they don't crowd the beans out. I had a couple of blends that had turnips in them and the turnips crowded everything else out. Just a thought.

RE: beans & turnips
 

I live in a heavy ag area with alot of wood lots. Deer population is around 18/sq mile, lots of good habitat. With human activity in the neighborhood, it is hard to get deer to come in during hunting hours. I planted turnips and brassicas the year before .... and the deer did not touch them September through April. The deer prefered standing RR soybeans, RR corn, and dug through snow to get white clover.

What blew me away this year was the new RR sugar beets. The deer are all over them, along with the RR soybeans, RR field corn, and clover. Winter sugar beet attraction is almost as good as sweetcorn. I am planting 3x more RR sugarbeets this summer, but noturnips/brassicas.

RE: beans & turnips
 

I assume by RR you mean roundup ready?

RE: beans & turnips
 

yes.

28-Feb-2010, deer are still hitting the sugarbeets!

Good job! having a plot that is feeding them this time of the year is an accomplishment.

I've never tried growing sugar beets, but back in the 90's I experimented with something similar called Mangels. I tried a couple years and the deer only ate the tops, sparingly at that, so I gave up on the idea. Probably one of the heaviest producing crops I've ever grown, but somewhat difficult and expensive to grow.

Since RR sugarbeets will not be available to foodplotters spring 2010 ... looks like the two year run is over. :nonono2:
01-March-2010



01-March-2010

I'm not helpful as far as beans go, but they sure will tear up some turnips when the real cold gets there. The first few frosts, they were still just hitting the rapeseed, but once the snow and ice came, they were pawing and digging for the pt turnips. Only bad part is they started hitting it hard in the last two weeks of late archery and are still hitting it now. I'm gonna plant them again, but try ww and oats I think this year. My cousin had deer in his ww and oats from october to the new year, one county down from me.

I am just south of wichita and planted turnips in my ww,most of the deer would walk around them and they just started eating some in feb after it was really cold.I will stay with ww,milo,SB and maybe try some jerry oats this year along with a new alfalfa planting.

I tried turnips for the last couple of years where I hunt and the deer really chow down on them. I plant them with grasses and clover. Got the idea when the deer decimated my BILs garden and ate all of the peas and turnips leafs.