Volunteer buckwheat in brassicas
Contributors to this thread:Whitetail Deer
From: t-roy
10-Aug-19
I planted buckwheat in a few plots this spring for weed control and to add some green manure/soil building organic matter to my plots. Unfortunately, I let it go to seed before I mowed, then disced it under a few weeks ago. After discing it under, I had a bunch of volunteer buckwheat sprout after some rains. I then prepped the seed beds for the brassicas with a cultimulcher, which turned the soil enough to terminate most of the volunteer sprouts. I then planted most of my brassicas last weekend. We got .3” of rain afterwards (not nearly enough) and I’ve got some spotty new growth coming up, but the majority of it is more buckwheat.
My questions are, will the volunteer buckwheat be detrimental to my brassicas, due to the fact that buckwheat grows rapidly, and may shade out the brassicas long enough to stunt their growth, which is precisely the reason I planted the buckwheat in the first place!? Or will it not hurt anything? I may consider mowing it back once it gets to be 8”-10” tall before the brassicas get too tall. I seem to remember John with GRO commenting mowing brassicas to promote new growth, but not totally sure on that. I would hate to drive over the top of stuff, but might need to if the buckwheat canopy becomes an issue.
Anybody dealt with this before?
From: t-roy
10-Aug-19
Prepped and planted. Just waiting on some rain.
From: t-roy
10-Aug-19
Cultimulcher in action. Best piece of equipment I own, except for a tractor.
From: Junior
10-Aug-19
Buckwheat is fast growing. You may be able to raise the moyer and just cut the buckwheat.
From: t-roy
10-Aug-19
That’s what I’m thinking too, Junior. The buckwheat will, most likely, be taller than the brassicas. I’m thinking that clipping the tops of the buckwheat once, the brassicas should be fine after that.
From: Deerplotter
12-Aug-19
Dwarf Rape and Buckwheat mix planted together.
Dwarf Rape and Buckwheat mix planted together.
After applying a second round of fertilizer to the field of dwarf rape and Buckwheat, the rape quickly caught up with the buckwheat and is doing great. Try fertilizing again and see if you get the same results. The buckwheat does not react the same way to fertilizer that’s why I think it worked well this way.
