I've never used turnips before and was thinking about adding them to my food plot in Southwest Arkansas.
Has anyone planted them before. Had any luck with them. Am I too late this year to plant them.

Not turnips but radish was a big hit last winter. Even I ate a few.

I shot a giant deer out of a turnip/beet patch in Ohio

on one of my earlier leases, I played around with planting different things to see what the deer liked best. It was an 8-10 acre plot, I used some of the small packages of seeds like from Home Depot, turnip, radish, pumpkin, spinach and a few others. I also bought a couple of bags of black eyed pea at HEB along with oats and wheat from the feed store. The seeds seemed to come up at slightly different times and the turnips and black eyed peas seemed to be the favorite. The pumpkin didn't come up until the next spring but the deer loved the blooms.

I plant 5 pounds of these every year. The deer go back and forth between the turnips and radishes. Not to late to plant. It won’t hurt to try and see if Ark. deer like them.

They will like them. Plant em!

It must rain more there than here.

Will definitely eat them, but will really get after them after the first frost. When that happens all the sugars in the plant move up into the green leafy part and the deer will demolish them.

What he said.

And one or more hard, "killing frosts" works even better by reducing the level of natural browse.

How do you guys get food plots without hogs rooting up everything? I’ve given up.

A lot of weekends sitting in the blinds hunting them is my only suggestion.

I plant turnips every year, and so do my buddies in SW Ark. Don't even have to "plant" them. After discing and planting your food plots just walk around and throw the seeds on the ground. 5 lbs goes a long way.

One of my plots from last year...most of the big leafy plants are turnips. They get big.

Yep, and that is how you keep hogs out of your food plots.

I plant white egg turnips for me to eat, but I've never had any luck planting any turnip for deer. Obviously some people have luck with them, but I've never seen them attract deer out of half a dozen plots. After they come up several inches, feel the leaves. You'll guess why. Guess you have to try to find out for yourself.

They have never rooted my plots but I am planting peas, oats, clover and such.

Z

Same. I never really have an issue with hogs destroying my plots after planting except a little rooting around the edges. I plant oats, some wildlife mix, and turnips.

I've only had a couple of years where the hogs demolished my plots ... Planted, everything sprouted, about 2 weeks and it looked like someone went thru with a rototiller ... but that is pretty rare over the last 2 decades though.

I planted turnips once, along with wheat, about 20 years ago. About a 5 acre food plot. It’s a good thing that I don’t like turnips to eat. I believe everything but turkeys dug them up and ate them. They didn’t last until deer season.,

Go for it if you aren’t over loaded with hogs.

Funny seeing how some have great luck with them. My buddy’s lease in East Texas had someone plant turnips a couple years ago and they rotted in the ground because absolutely nothing would eat them

Planted some turnips a couple years ago in fall - they came up nice, but critters only nibbled on them.
Ended up with a ton of softball and larger size bulbs on them - deer never ate, but we started picking them and eating them! Dang good in the microwave with butter/salt/pepper on them like a baked-potato!

Hmmm. Seems like mixed results on the turnips.After my spring fiasco with soybeans, which came up nicely, but then was subsequently eaten down to the ground before they had a chance to grow taller than 3 in. I decided to put in a winter mix of grains, clover, peas and turnips. Planted in early September, with expecting rains. But no rain for nearly 4-5 weeks. To my surprise went back up in mid October and growth was showing. Last weekend, everything was coming up nicely, and had some really large Turnips - baseball sized. Picked a few this weekend to try at home, but I haven't seen any browsing or rooting on the crops. I guess they're more interested in the acorn and corn feeder.

Keeping my fingers crossed they'll find and hit the plots in the winter. Going to increase the size of the plots in spring and try the soy again. I know I'll probably need to fence it especially since I'm planting less than 2 acres.

They like the turnips after a good freeze, they are sweeter then.