Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Purple top turnips

Any one had any luck with planting im thinking of doing hafe my feild turips and rape ?

I'd plant a variety instead of just brassicas straight. This winter was the first time I planted purple tops in my fields and the deer wore them out. That was until the hard freeze killed them and all that was left were the grasses.

We have small acreage plots. I need something that will be left alone, until late season. Purple top turnips does that for us. I plant Deer Magnet with Coker oats and top sow turnips.

I have planted them many times, and have never had one get over 2" tall that I remember.

They come up, the deer nip them off, and they gone.

i agree, i wouldnt plant them straight either. i havent ever seen them killed by a freeze but here is what i know about turnips and other brassicas. when those plants go through a frost, all of the starches in them convert to sugar and the deer will almost wipe them out within a matter of days. i always plant them in my mix and when we get the first frost during bow season i am busting my arse to get to the hunting club to set on plots till the brassicas are gone. i have killed quite a few deer over brassicas immediately after the first frost. bradley, do you think the deer ate all of them after they froze.

I plant ptt regularly. Planting brassica's on half the field is a common practice. Brassica's need a lot of nitrogen to do well, so you just put the nitrogen on half the field. Next year rotate the brassica's, to the other side. Growing brassica's in the same field, several years in a row, can cause some problems, when planting them heavy, in a mix, not so much.

When are yall typicaly planting your ptt?

I usually plant around the first of Octoberand suspect it is too late for them to get established before getting hammered

I always plant my fields end of September or first of October. My purple tops got 10-12" high last year before they disappeared. The actual turnips got as big as a baseball some bigger.

Same thing here. They kept tying to come back and would get eaten but it got down to 12 degrees that did them in.

X3, but after the cold, ours quit growing but the deer dug them up and ate them. Sat and watched them several times pawing at the ground and pick them up. It's funny watching them try and eat something that big.
My plan was to swap back to D radishes this year, but since the ptt did so well last year, I stuck with them.

I could grow them on our place and harvest seed with combine in the spring. The deer don't touch them. I've planted them 3 or 4 years. I thought they might be an acquired taste but they never developed a taste for them.

Same with winter peas. I could grow them as a seed crop as well. Most of you have probably never seen one get large enough to put on blooms.

My deer be weird and stuff.