June planted Brassicas

[Rempump870]

I have a 3/4 acre food plot that was forage beans, sunflowers and millet last year. I have dragged the plot to break up the stalks and get the volunteer seeds growing. The plot currently has weeds and the volunteer seeds growing. I was thinking of spraying it off with gly and then planting brassicas mixed with some clover. Is June too early for this kind of mix? I am in Columbia county, WI and this plot is fairly low and has had water on it off and on for the last couple months. Is there something else I should plant in June as I don't like having bare soil that is not helping the critters.

 

[horntagger]

In the past I have planted Brasscia's and Crimson Clover at the end of August but I am in Southeast Missouri not sure if that helps

 

[John Barnes]

I'm a couple counties north of you and don't plant my brassicas til the first week of august. I would plant buckwheat now and then come back with your brassicas then.

 

[Jason Broom]

If you want brassicas, I'd wait a month, spray with gly and then broadcast/mow around 7/15.

 

[Vandy]

In Phillips if we don't plant by 2nd week of July our plots rarely turn out when doing brassica mixes, that seems to be our sweet spot for planting (various ph levels but avg of 6.0, low potash tho). Last year was perfect with all the rain we got in July. I have planted a clover/brassica mix for a customer a week ago "it needs to be in the ground" so I will let you know how that goes as the season progresses. I assume that the sugar beets/turnips will get huge but idk how well it will truly do.

 

[Rempump870]

I decided I am going to try a cover crop of recleaned oats and then come mid to late July roll some brassicas into the hopefully headed out and dieing oats. If they are real green, I will spray with gly. I kind of like experimenting and seeing what happens and I don't like the field just sitting empty and not producing deer food.

 

[Vandy]

I like the idea. Oats are super cheap anyways so it worth a shot

 

[swat1018]

In North MO I plant July 25ish...

 

[Rempump870]

I took a half day on Friday and headed up to the land. I was surprised how quick mother nature had taken over the plot with weeds and grasses. 3-5 foot tall. I mixed up the gly and hit the whole field with 2 passes. As I was running the wheeler around sparying, the thousands of grass seeds hitting the air made me realize I was too late on this plot and will have to just plant in late July after another round of gly. I had some winter rye left from another plot last fall and I threw it into the standing sunflowers in Late September this year. I was amazed that the area with the WR, grass was barley growing but just inches away, grass had over taken the plot.
I am going to plant the brassicas in late july and come mid September, I am going to broadcast some WR into the plot, see if I can suppress the weeds a little for a frost seeded clover plot next year.

 

[Jason Broom]

Now would have been the perfect time to plant buckwheat (Nature's glyphosate) and follow that up with a fall rye mix. Instead of spraying 3-5' tall grasses (largely a waste of chemical), you could have just broadcast the BW, lime and fertilizer, then mowed it all to create a thatch covering the seed. The buckwheat would germinate, shoot for the sky, canopy and prevent those grass seeds from getting the sun they need to grow.

 

[Rempump870]

Now would have been the perfect time to plant buckwheat (Nature's glyphosate) and follow that up with a fall rye mix. Instead of spraying 3-5' tall grasses (largely a waste of chemical), you could have just broadcast the BW, lime and fertilizer, then mowed it all to create a thatch covering the seed. The buckwheat would germinate, shoot for the sky, canopy and prevent those grass seeds from getting the sun they need to grow.

Thank you for the idea, I am learning new things all the time! I still need to get a mower/brush cutter one of these days. Do you think if I went with your idea, planted the BW now and then come July spread seeds and roll the BW with a wheeler and roller, would that work. Will the roller kill off the BW?

 

[Jason Broom]

Thank you for the idea, I am learning new things all the time! I still need to get a mower/brush cutter one of these days. Do you think if I went with your idea, planted the BW now and then come July spread seeds and roll the BW with a wheeler and roller, would that work. Will the roller kill off the BW?

We are all learning, all the time...that's a big part of the fun! I used to think I needed a good tiller for my tractor, but now what I want is a roller crimper. (If you don't have a cultipacker, start going to farm auctions and look to pick one up...they're invaluable for food-plotters.)

You're still talking about planting brassicas mid-July, so I'm going to say it's darn close to being a little late for the BW, but yes, you can terminate buckwheat by simply rolling it, particularly since you would be doing so quite early in the growth cycle, when the stalks are still green and fragile. With only about 30 days between planting and termination, you would not have any worries about flowering and setting seed, so minimal volunteer seed in your brassica mix.

 

[Vandy]

if you want to see what a brassica mix is looking like you can go on my facebook page: Whitetail and wildlife land management LLC. I can't remember how to do pics on here

All plots are in Wisconsin too

 

[Rempump870]

I checked on the progress of the experiment plot this weekend. I sprayed this plot 3 weeks ago. I planted it about 10 days ago. It has last years left over brassicas, soybeans, sunflowers and millet. So far the beans, brassicas and millet are showing up. I didn't see any sunflowers yet. Over all, I would say 90-95% of the weeds died and I didn't see much regrowth other than a couple small patches. I am hoping the brassicas canopy and shade out those weeds/grasses