Common in Europe, Great Britain and New Zealand, brassicas are being rediscovered in the United States as supplemental summer, fall, and winter feeds. The brassicas work well as a break crop between an old stand and a new seeding. Brassicas provide higher crude protein and digestibility at half the cost of hay or conserved forages. Cold, drought, and heat tolerant, these crops provide valuable feed when other crops are less productive. Because these crops have outstanding frost resistance, northern producers can get much closer to year round grazing. In the south, Brassicas provide feed during the typical summer feed deficit. Why the brassicas aren’t more common in North America is a mystery. They are a logical next step for farms looking to balance and lengthen their grazing season. The Brassica species used in farming are: rape, turnips, kale, fodder radish, and a new disease resistant rape hybrid from New Zealand named T-Raptor.
Rape, turnips and T-Raptor can be spring or summer planted for summer or fall grazing. Seeding rates (lbs. per acre): are 3 lbs./acre for a precision drilling making them very economical to produce. For a broadcast seeding, a rate of 4-5 lbs./acre is recommended.
Precision drilling of the seed is preferred, however successful stands can be established by broadcasting, even from aircraft. It is ideal to plant these crops into the stubble of a harvested small grain. The old root systems continue to wick moisture up from deeper in the soil. They can also be planted in a conventionally prepared seedbed or a killed or suppressed sod. The animal “hoof” planting methods works well.
Rape is generally ready for grazing 75 -85 days after planting, turnips take 60 - 90 days, and T-Raptor 50-70 days. All have the potential of regrowth and multiple grazing harvest if managed by strip grazing. If cattle are turned into a large area and given free choice feeding a great deal of wastage will result from trampling. These are high quality, low fiber crops. Livestock should have restricted access and receive supplemental roughage prior to grazing brassicas. A diet of 80% forage brassicas is optimum.
As the soil often gets heavily pugged by the livestock during late fall and early winter grazing, broadcasting annual ryegrass over the area just before the livestock are turned in may be a worthwhile endeavor. The hoof action punches the seed in. Early in the spring a new crop of ryegrass should emerge without the need for more tillage and the expense associated with seeding. Personal and local experience will help fine tune this method.
Brassicas require good management and are worth the effort as they can produce 40 tons or more per acre (wet) of high quality feed at times of the year when forage is short. In choosing the best brassica for a given situation it is best to look at the individual product descriptions and the crop comparison charts.
A staggered planting of T-Raptor seeded first, followed 2-3 weeks later with rape, then lastly turnips 2-3 weeks later can provide bountiful feed for the summer or, if planted later, from autumn to winter.
Recommended Barenbrug Forage Brassicas:
Forage Turnip
Barkant is a very vigorous diploid turnip with a large purple tankard root. (50% of the root is above the ground). Barkant has high leaf and bulb yield. Barkant has high sugar content, which provides winter hardiness and increased palatability. Barkant has good tolerance to bolting. Using a controlled grazing management system, Barkant can provide multiple harvests, first of the green tops followed last by the root, commonly yielding a total harvest of 4-6 tons/acre of dry matter. Barkant is suitable for stockpiling, strip grazing with sheep and cattle.
Barabas is a tetraploid turnip variety with high fresh matter yields. It provides quick bulb development after sowing. It has more leaf yield than bulb yield. Barabas also has good frost tolerance. Barabas is later in maturity than Barkant and has good resistance to bolting. It holds bulb quality longer than Barkant. Barabas has high digestibility (88-91%). It is good for mixtures with Barkant for strip grazing and stockpiling.
Forage Rape is suitable for either grazing by livestock or green chop feeding. It has high energy and high digestible crude protein content (up to 30% in leaves). Forage rape has good night frost tolerance and rapid initial growth. Rape takes 75-85 days from seeding to being ready for harvest. All the rape varieties listed here are suited for multiple grazing. Forage rapes are highly suited for production to supplement perennial cool season pastures in August and September after they are planted in May or early June.
Barnapoli is a medium tall forage rape variety that produces very high yields, high protein levels, high protein levels and high digestibility. Barnapoli ranked #1 in a sheep grazing study in Ohio, outperforming all other varieties of any Brassica species. A combination of Barkant turnip and Barnapoli rape seeded together has proven highly successful.
T-Raptor is an early maturity hybrid forage rape variety with 50-70 day crop duration. It is a leafy forage (higher leaf to bulb ratio) highly suited for summer feeding. It is good supplement for the periods when cool season forage grasses slow down in production. It can be sown in summer or early spring. Under ideal management it can be multiple grazed at monthly interval. Highly disease resistant.
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