July 9, 2010

After wheat or oat harvest, consider planting turnips to extend your grazing season into fall and winter.

Turnips provide good grazing beginning in October and often lasting into the new year and are cheap to plant. Often seed costs less than $10 per acre.

Weed Control. Early weed control is essential to a successful turnip crop. Turnips do poorly if weeds get a head start, but once started, turnips compete well. Since no herbicides are labeled for turnips, weeds must be controlled either by tillage or by using contact herbicides like glyphosate or Gramoxone before planting. Then plant quickly to get the turnips off and running.

Planting. Seedbed preparation and planting can be done several ways. Some turnip growers work soil like a fully prepared alfalfa seedbed. Others heavily disk their ground, but leave it fairly rough before broadcasting seed. A few spray glyphosate or Gramoxone® on wheat or oat stubble to kill weeds and then plant no-till.

Plant only 2 to 4 pounds of turnip seed per acre. Turnip seed is very small, so barely cover it with soil. If you drill the seed, just scratch the surface with your openers.

Simply broadcasting seed onto tilled soils works well for many growers, especially on rough seedbeds where rainfall or irrigation washes soil onto the seeds for soil coverage.

Bruce Anderson
Extension Forage Specialist