Brassicas

Brassica

Brassicas are annual cover crops that are typically planted in the winter or spring. They are characterized by rapid fall growth, great biomass production, and nutrient scavenging ability. Brassicas include cabbage, kale, radishes, rapeseed, and turnips. Many farmers use brassicas because of their large roots, which can address issues related to soil compaction, water drainage, and excessive nitrate leaching.

Brassicas are also useful for controlling erosion, suppressing weeds, scavenging nutrients, and producing a large biomass in a short period of time. Brassicas are not winter-hardy and they will typically die after freezing temperatures so farmers do not need to worry about terminating the crop in the spring with herbicide or tillage.

This cover crop can be seeded in a variety of ways, including drilling, broadcast seeding, over seeding, or aerial seeding. Brassicas are often mixed with other cover crops, such as cereal rye or oats, because you are able to achieve benefits of the brassica’s large root system while also growing cover in the spring.

VARIETIES WE OFFER

Bayou Kale: a deep rooted, medium-maturing forage with good winter hardiness and excellent palatability. Bayou has excellent regrowth when rotationally grazed, and the stems are more palatable than forage rapes for cattle and sheep. Helps protect soil longer from erosion. Kale is used for fall grazing because it has low fiber stems and is easily digested by livestock. It has the potential to reduce Soybean Sudden Death Syndrome and potentially reduces white mold in soybeans.

African Cabbage: an open leaf cabbage that is excellent at sequestering nutrients and releasing them in the next growing season. This cool season crop breaks up hardpans and conditions soil. Unlike other brassicas, African Cabbage will remain erect and retain its leaves after dying from cold weather which makes it a very effective snow catch cover crop.

Daikon Radish: a significant root mass brassica that is excellent for nitrogen mining, nutrient scavenging, and nutrient repositioning and improves soil biology. Rapid fall growth in short windows, allows radishes to fit perfectly into a traditional corn and soybean rotation. The large root system allows tremendous water infiltration, reduces water erosion, and a path for crop roots to follow through compacted soil layers.

Rape Dwarf Essex: a cool season brassica that works well alone or seeded with oats. This brassica is a rapid forage that produces quality pasture equivalent to alfalfa. Adding rapeseed in between wheat crops has been shown to greatly reduce take-all in wheat. Also works great as an emergency forage source.

Purple Top Turnip: a high-quality, high bulb yielding turnip that can be utilized in both summer and fall and mixes well with cereal grains. It is a fast growing summer crop that has excellent feeding value. Excellent at taking residual nitrogen and putting it back into the soil.