Planting turnips over soybeans anybody?
 

Been reading a little on planting turnips over soybeans. Ive heard of several guys starting to do this so they have some late season food left after the soybean harvest. Anybody out there doing it? If so, when do you over seed the turnips? Good or bad experience? Im in southern Iowa, Zone 4

If you time it to match up with the leaf drop, that would work best. I'm not real sure if your growing season is long enough for that work. I've done it with winter rye, but never turnips. My deer will not touch them.

I have not personally planted them but I have never seen very good luck with deer using the turnips, the plot looks great but the deer wont touch em.

Are you thinking of planting Turnip second?

The deer prefer soybean spring to mid/late summer, when they want the high protein. Turnips are only good after the first frost. For some reason, after the first frost the starch in the Turnip turns into sugar and then the deer hit it. After it has been frosted several times the Turnip tuber starts to rot and becomes like super candy for them. That is when they dig up the ground to eat the tuber, even the leaves are eaten only after the first frost which works out good for hunting season.

The soybean is for the first half of growing season to help with bigger, healthier deer. The Turnips only help as a hunting season attractant.

Sorry if I didn't understand the order in which you are going to plant (had a few beer), but I hope this helps with your future plans.

I think in southern Iowa turnips after soybeans should work well. You may want to select an earlier maturing variety of soybean for your area to give the turnips a little more time to bulk up. The deer by me go crazy for turnip foliage once it is the only greens left (about Nov 1), and they will dig through the snow until all of the bulbs are eaten. Maybe try a smaller area this year to see if they will grow, and if the deer in your area like turnips.

We did it in corn about 3 weeks before they cut it and had good growth.