What to plant?

JSmith

Member
Livestock Farmer
Grazing turnips off some new ground at the minute, planted into burnt off permanent pasture, turnips came quite well with some grass coming through from seed bank which is keeping them dry! Lambs are cleaning it up well an leaving it like a billiard table, it’s potentially going to be turnips or something similar again this back end, what, if anything could I plant early, graze or mow an then plant the turnips in mid august?? Any thoughts/suggestions??
I know someone’s gonna say don’t plant brassicas back to back but it is what is!
many thoughts greatly appreciated 👍
 

jendan

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northumberland
Grazing turnips off some new ground at the minute, planted into burnt off permanent pasture, turnips came quite well with some grass coming through from seed bank which is keeping them dry! Lambs are cleaning it up well an leaving it like a billiard table, it’s potentially going to be turnips or something similar again this back end, what, if anything could I plant early, graze or mow an then plant the turnips in mid august?? Any thoughts/suggestions??
I know someone’s gonna say don’t plant brassicas back to back but it is what is!
many thoughts greatly appreciated 👍
Dont plant brassicas back to back. They will get finger and toe.
 
Grazing turnips off some new ground at the minute, planted into burnt off permanent pasture, turnips came quite well with some grass coming through from seed bank which is keeping them dry! Lambs are cleaning it up well an leaving it like a billiard table, it’s potentially going to be turnips or something similar again this back end, what, if anything could I plant early, graze or mow an then plant the turnips in mid august?? Any thoughts/suggestions??
I know someone’s gonna say don’t plant brassicas back to back but it is what is!
many thoughts greatly appreciated 👍
Can you utilise/handle an arable whole crop such as oats and vetches. The harvest date should give you plenty of time to put stubble turnips in and the vetch should fix some N for the next crop.
 

Anymulewilldo

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cheshire
I know a man who put cheap Italian ryegrass in as early as he could after turnips, 3 cuts then ripped straight back into turnips? Bit labour intensive but he makes it work. Grows good turnip crops for me too! But he’s on beautiful sandy soils that will grow anything!
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Do you particularly want extra silage? If not, what about putting maincrop turnips or swedes in earlier, giving a much bigger crop than stubble turnips next winter?

If you want silage, an arable silage (not 'wholecrop', unless clamped) of SB and peas, avoiding the need to buy more fert? That would get established from the muck left behind the sheep, then fix it's own N. Either that or see if a neighbour is interested in some whole crop Spring Barley, or SB/Peas?

Nothing much else will give much return before turnips will want to be in IMO.
 

JSmith

Member
Livestock Farmer
I was considering going in early with swedes to be honest, how early would you plant them? I could do with the silage aswell but rather have a good crop of swedes planted right than a shît grass crop an rushed late turnips!!
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
I was considering going in early with swedes to be honest, how early would you plant them? I could do with the silage aswell but rather have a good crop of swedes planted right than a shît grass crop an rushed late turnips!!

I’ve given up on swedes here as we don’t get enough rain to keep them bulking out reliably, so switched to maincrop turnips.
To get high yields of swedes, the ‘experts’ all reckon to plant them in May iirc. Planting them before late June here means they get hammered by fly, but I’m no expert.
Maincrop turnips seem more reliable and yield better here, and plant a few weeks later. That said, even they seem to struggle with flea beetle then alternaria these days, so end up spending more on them to get decent yields…:banghead:

If you’re feeling adventurous, you could plant fodder beet after stubble turnips, without worrying about back to back brassicas. More of an expensive/specialist crop to grow well, but reliably very high yielding. Needs to be in late April/May ideally, so takes up the ground for the whole year, and not really a lamb finishing crop (if that’s what you’re after).
 

Derrick Hughes

Member
Location
Ceredigion
I was considering going in early with swedes to be honest, how early would you plant them? I could do with the silage aswell but rather have a good crop of swedes planted right than a shît grass crop an rushed late turnips!!
I used to plant end of may , get ground ready a month earlier so weeds can chit first , swedes won't do without a lot of rain though, Fodder beet is better in the dry
 
Grazing turnips off some new ground at the minute, planted into burnt off permanent pasture, turnips came quite well with some grass coming through from seed bank which is keeping them dry! Lambs are cleaning it up well an leaving it like a billiard table, it’s potentially going to be turnips or something similar again this back end, what, if anything could I plant early, graze or mow an then plant the turnips in mid august?? Any thoughts/suggestions??
I know someone’s gonna say don’t plant brassicas back to back but it is what is!
many thoughts greatly appreciated 👍
I had thought about planting a chichory, clover and plantain mix to wean lambs onto in the past. I have grazed a simular crop after turnips before but left it in until the following spring not ripped it up for brassicas in the back end. I would say your timeframe may be a bit tight but I could be wrong.
 
We’ve grown plenty of brassicas back to back, don’t worry 😂
Grazing turnips off some new ground at the minute, planted into burnt off permanent pasture, turnips came quite well with some grass coming through from seed bank which is keeping them dry! Lambs are cleaning it up well an leaving it like a billiard table, it’s potentially going to be turnips or something similar again this back end, what, if anything could I plant early, graze or mow an then plant the turnips in mid august?? Any thoughts/suggestions??
I know someone’s gonna say don’t plant brassicas back to back but it is what is!
many thoughts greatly appreciated 👍
 

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