Do any of y’all plant any type of brassica in your plots? If so, what has grown the best that the deer have eaten? I usually just plant brown bag oats, wheat and a cereal rye along with crimson clover. I’m pondering the idea of adding some brassica to this mix this year. Thanks
We plant the Buck Buster mix with rape and brassica mixed in it. Not sure of strain of brassica but that is usually the first thing the deer eat. We also top dress with turnips but I have found the deer where we are don't really touch them.
I’ve tried turnips and rape in the past. A couple problems I’ve found are one, most often it’s too hot and dry to plant early enough for a good stand and two, the deer eat it all as soon as possible. If I knew I could plant in September without it burning up allowing it to grow prior to the first frost I’d plant it more often. I mentioned the first frost because the deer won’t usually mess with it until a frost converting the starches to sugar in the plants. After a frost the deer should start working on them. The few attempts I’ve made each the turnips and rape only got about 3-4” tall before it magically disappeared.
I've tried turnips and rape in the past. A couple problems I've found are one, most often it's too hot and dry to plant early enough for a good stand and two, the deer eat it all as soon as possible. If I knew I could plant in September without it burning up allowing it to grow prior to the first frost I'd plant it more often. I mentioned the first frost because the deer won't usually mess with it until a frost converting the starches to sugar in the plants. After a frost the deer should start working on them. The few attempts I've made each the turnips and rape only got about 3-4" tall before it magically disappeared.
I have had zero luck getting deer to eat rape, turnips, brassicas, etc. Done with it. But did see ONE property a decade ago deer were pawing up turnips to eat the root.
Mine disappeared too. I think the deer pull them up roots and all. We planted rape about 3 years straight and it seemed to come up well but was all gone within a month. It looked to good to believe it just died but it definitely wasn’t there going into November.
This probably won't be much help to you now but next summer consider planting Lab-Lab Plus (not regular Lab-Lab, Lab-Lab plus) by Tecomate. It is a bit on the expensive side but it flourishes in the MS heat of summer. For some reason bucks are really drawn to it, at times there would be only bucks feeding in it. It does well in small patches regardless of how much it gets eaten down, it will stay established even in areas of the state where deer density is high.
This probably won't be much help to you now but next summer consider planting Lab-Lab Plus (not regular Lab-Lab, Lab-Lab plus) by Tecomate. It is a bit on the expensive side but it flourishes in the MS heat of summer. For some reason bucks are really drawn to it, at times there would be only bucks feeding in it. It does well in small patches regardless of how much it gets eaten down, it will stay established even in areas of the state where deer density is high.
I planted some Canola Crave from Tecomate last year in a couple spots and the deer mowed it down. They didn’t eat the turnip root, but I’ve never seen a deer around where I hunt eat them anyway.
We have planted all sorts of rape, turnip, and radish in with cool season plots. They eat them later in the winter. I couldn't tell that they really preferred one over the other. You could see signs of foraging/utilization on the greens and roots of all of them.
For summer, vetch is hard to beat. If you have enough land to prevent over-utilization to death, forage beans are very impressive. If you want a year round plot, white clovers.
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