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Thumb of Michigan | I don't believe there has been any confusion as to any Oilseed Radish Varieties in the areas where they've been used for many years as bio fumigants. There has always been a clear distinction as to recommended varieties as well as those that are not recommended in a rotation, depending on the crop rotations.
I have noticed most of the confusion seems to be started on line. Which is kind of troubling to me anyway. Cover crops are a great tool to many, I believe they can potentially be the key that makes or breaks a lot of different tillage and rotation decisions. They should be kept simple to understand and if possible, simple to use. This isn't rocket science. The concept gets hurt by over selling the potential value on any cover crop.
I've admittedly not done any extensive side by side plots in a few years on any cover crops. I have planted Oilseed Radish varieties next to other radishes in ground that will never see a sugar beet. When it comes to growth habits of any of them, I saw very little or any difference WHEN THE SEEDING RATE WAS THE SAME. And yes, the caps are on purpose. If I plant root crop A at 3# per acre and root crop B at 15# per acre, guess what- root crop A develops a bigger root. Magical, huh? I can't dig out my data on seed size differences at the moment, but I will say that from memory, the Oilseed Radish varieties I was growing was a tad smaller than the other "cover crop" varieties I had available at the time. From a seeds per acre standpoint - admittedly the best tool I had was to count actual stands vs trying to count seed drop- when the same stand per acre was established, there wasn't much difference in root size. No matter if the planting rate was 3# or 15# across the board. Again, this is pretty predictable, especially to anyone who's ever planted any root crops.
In Michigan, for sugar beet cyst nematode control, when I was planting them, 12 to 15# per acre was recommended. Basically because there was so much data generated in Michigan, Idaho, and Germany that 12-15# was a a good rate to control the nematode in question. This isn't like trying to cut your Glyphosate application, we don't get that many shots at controlling sugar beet nematodes. As far as root growth goes, we could plug tile in a lot of different circumstances with Oilseed Radish roots. We could easily get measurabley looser soil down fairly deep at 15#. I'd say that we were acheiving very adequate growth in attempting to improve soil while were after Sugar Beet nematodes. We're not making porno movies, size doesn't really matter. 4 little radish plants will do about as much as one big one. I've seen it. | |
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Tillage Radish vers Oil Seed Radish
