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Gettysburg, PA | I guess I'll weigh in with my opinion and observations with the tillage radish as Ed W sent me an email with a link to your thread (subtle hint Ed! ) We've had several growers try them. All completely and totally non-scientific in nature!! They do grow very well in the early fall. Your September 5-15 time frame is right on target. Here no one has fertilized them, well not with commercial fertilizer. Nearly all that have used them have manure in rotation and fertility isn't much of a problem. They seem to do a great job at keeping weeds supressed and that carries over into the spring. I see them being a good choice for heavy use areas of fields in order to help alleviate compaction. However, here they don't fit the bill in regards to what we need/want a cover crop to do. Since they winter kill and control weeds very well, we are left with a fairly clean field in the spring and that means a wet field as there is nothing growing the moisture out of the ground. So, we haven't seen huge acreages planted with them. A roadside market grower plants them in his sweet corn acerage because he works that ground and wants to try and avoid a plow pan. Some have mixed them in with other cover crops just to add some addtional diversity and still others have planted them in fields that they expected compaction problems. Don't get me wrong, I have NOTHING at all against them. It is just that "here" they don't fill the needs as well as other cover crops. They are neat to see, they are impressive and I'm sure they help alleviate compaction, but, as with all cover crops you need to identify your needs in order to determine if tillage radish is the best choice for you. | |
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Tillage Raishes-give me more info
