Radish Plot Report from June 26

Radish plot 013
This is is the variety I called "Stubby" in the previos post...it's very shallow rooted versus the other varieties in the test. Let's hope that this is not the variety that someone sells as "Big Bubba" Radishes for your cover crops!
Radish plot 006
This variety was among the deepest rooted in the trial.

I planted a cover crop Radish plot over Memorial Day Weekend (5/29) in my garden plot.  I have 5 varieties in the plot from around the world.  My goal is to see what differences there are in the different Radishes being sold in the USA for cover crops.  I replicated the plots so that each variety would be in 2 times with one variety as a check in each of the 4 rows.  My children and I did some plot work on June 26, 4 weeks after I planted the plot.  We thinned out on rep so that there is approximately 4″ between the radishes.  The other two reps are thick…too thick actually, but I want to show what happens at an approximately 12#/acre rate (as some seed company folks recommend).  When thinning the rep I measured the roots of each variety.  BOY, what a difference I found!  Two varieties  have around 8- 9″ deep roots.  two varieties have around 4-6″ deep roots, while one variety has 3″ deep roots.  Now, when purchasing a VNS Radish you might get any of these…or all of them mixed together.  I am also testing these varieties because companies want to sell these on the market as deep rooted cover crop radishes.  They will be called “Big Bubba” Radishes or something like that, but buyer beware.

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