I planted turnips this past year, a very small area. The ground was so hard that they grew above the ground. My question is, do deer usually eat the actual turnip or stick to the leaf part?

A friend of mine planted about 50 acres of turnips one year and the deer never touched them.

Depends on the deer but they usually won't eat the leaf until it had a freeze on it the first year or so. Some areas have a hard time getting deer to eat them even after a freeze. In the Hill Country they ate the leaves the first year after a freeze but not the bulb. The next years they ate the leaves even before a hard freeze and then at the bulbs after a freeze. It usually takes several years of planting them to get the deer used to them IME.

I planted 2 acres of turnips and the deer loved them. They just ate the leaves, but they would run to it . We called it deer cocaine.

I am glad someone/something likes them!!!!

I have not planted turnips in several years, but when I did the deer ate leaves and later on the hogs would root up the bulbs

I planted turnips two years ago here in wood county,And the deer never touched it,Watch deer walk through it,I planted wheat last year and it seemed to do a little better,The best i have done is just throw some deer corn that was left over and run a disk over it one time,It did come up and did good got a lot of pic's

We planted them two years ago, the deer at the tops, hogs rooted the rest. A family friend planted a buch of them and his grew better than ours did, you could pic them and make a nice snack on the way to the blind, they were pretty good

matt

They did not touch them until I ran a disc over them. The next day I had twenty munching away. Sounds silly I know but I did have some rabbit sign of browse but nothing for deer. We did have a bumper crop of acorns that year early on though. I just did not replant the following year. Sweet potatoes were attacked and eaten roots and all.

I've had no luck at all with turnips. I'm going to try one more year on the same plot and see if I can get them to hit it. I also planted clover, rye, and oats. The oats by far were the best liked. Of course, we also have about 40 acres in wheat, so that is the main draw.

Planted them last year, just spread them by hand and ran over with a harra(sp?). They grew ok. Some were really nice(baseball sized) but most were small. Some had the leaves eaten off and some didnt. I havent been back out in a couple of months to see if the hogs ate the bulbs or what. Maybe I will get back out this weekend.