Mangelwurzels

It is just the start of Mangelwurzel planting time where I am. I'm so excited to get the seed in the ground as this plant did amazingly well for us last year.

Mangelwurzel, mangel wurzel, mangel or sometimes called fodder beet, is something like a cross between a beet and a chard, only the mangelwurzel has a huge root. It's usually grown as animal fodder, but some varieties are yummy for humans too.

Last year we grew these for the sheep. They love this. It's a great supplement to their winter diet as it has a lot of vitamins and minerals that they can't get from hay alone. The roots store well in clamps, but in our case we put them in an outbuilding and smothered them in hay.

Where to get mangelwurzel seed?
My favorite seed was the yellow mangelwurzels from Wallace Springs
. These grew really nice, had a sweet taste to the leaf and the root that is appetizing to humans, and the sheep liked this best. The leaves were sweeter and tender than my chard in the heat of the summer, and the early spring leaves from the roots I re-planted after winter storage are even sweeter. I bet this would be a good plant for forcing winter greens.

There are a few other sources of mangel seed around, but not enough. I've seen it listed in some of the seed exchanges under 'sugar beet', but I suspect it's not accurate. Most common I've seen commercially is mammoth red, which is quite acceptable to the sheep, but not as popular with the humans.

The seeds are a bit bigger than beet seeds, but still work with the two wheel mechanical seeder gadget-ma-thingy. We use the beet seed plate and plant them between the last killing frost and the end of the spring rains (second half of april). We didn't irrigate last year, considering we have virtually zero rainfall these plants grew amazingly well. An average of 5 to 10 pounds per root.


Harvesting:
When the mangels are well established we thin out the weaklings and feed these to the sheep (or to the humans) whole. Leaving one plant per foot to grow large. As with any feed, we make the change slowly, spend maybe ten minutes to thin the plants a day, and add the thinnings to the morning feed. As the summer continues we harvest the large, outer leaves like chard, feeding a handful or so to the sheep each day. Some people mound up the roots as they grow, we didn't bother last year.

Starting about a month before the first fall frost, we harvest the roots, a little at a time. Chop off the leaves about half an inch above the root, feed the leaves to the sheep, and leave the root in the sun for a couple of days to cure. We could do this all at once, but I don't like feeding sheep that much mangel leaves at a time as they are high in nitr(ites/ates?) which can prevent the sheep from absorbing some of the minerals in their diets and in rare cases, cause heart issues (especially that time of year when the weather is either too hot or too changing and already puts enough stress on their system).

After the roots are cured, I dust off the dirt, and pack them in loose hay or a clamp. These stored very well into Feb, but we ran out before we could discover how long they would last in our storage conditions. To 'serve' them to the sheep, I either toss them in whole or chop them up thinly with a knife, depending on the age of the sheep.


When cooking for humans, I treat the leaves like beat greens or chard, only sweeter. Raw as a salad green, or blanched and tossed with garlic and sesame oil, or however I feel like cooking them.


There is one possible problem with feeding mangelwurzels to sheep - the nitrites/nitrates (I can't remember off the top of my head if it was -ites or -ates, so I put both).

A while back I read this one study which showed the nitrite/ate level in mangel leaves, especially wilted leaves, which caused serious health issues in sheep. This surprised me since it's historically a very popular foddercrop for sheep. Reading the study further, I noticed that they used a very high level of NPK, especially artificial nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer in their crop - much higher than I understand to be average for growing a crop like chard or beet in an industrial setting. The nitrogen could explain the high levels of nitrites/ates in the leaves (I guess), but more interesting was the phosphorus. Pat Coleby's book Natural Sheep Care, talks about high levels of this used in growing fodder can prevent the sheep from absorbing minerals and weaken their system leaving them susceptible to other stresses. All this made me wonder if the people doing the study were blissfully ignorant of this or were purposefully arranging the variables to prove a point. In the end, I decided I didn't care as I don't use artificial fertilizers on my own crop. But if you choose to on yours, it may be something to look into.



Anyone else out there grow these? What's your favourite variety? Have you tried saving your own seed from it yet? Anything particular you liked or disliked about it?

I suspect with the summer heat here I'd have to grow these as a winter crop, but I found this fascinating nonetheless. I don't have livestock but I'm interested in robust greens anyway. And anything that makes a big bulk of food is of interest as a potential survival crop in hard times.

Just planted some today! I will have to remember to try the greens.

Dan Boone wrote:I suspect with the summer heat here I'd have to grow these as a winter crop, but I found this fascinating nonetheless. I don't have livestock but I'm interested in robust greens anyway. And anything that makes a big bulk of food is of interest as a potential survival crop in hard times.

These don't bolt in the summer, if the seeds have been selected properly. Mine are only just starting to bolt now, 13 months after first planting the seed. They made a good substitute for beet and chard during the heat of the summer. When most greens start to go bitter, mangelwurzels were still sweet.

The leaves shrivel up with the first moderate frost. Unless protected, the roots are damaged with the hard frost.

Halifax Seeds has an interesting summer green seed, listed under spinach called "Perpetual Spinach (leaf beet)" that I suspect is actually a mangelwurzel not a chard because of the leave shape being more spinachlike. Note to those of you south of the 49th - seeds shipped from Canada to the US seem to get damaged in customs. Even though there seems to be no legal restrictions on importing small packets of garden seed from Canada (at the time of writing this) they seldom make it across the border undamaged these days.

According to the books, chard, beet, and mangels cross pollinate easily. Mangelwurzels may make a good start for breeding a new kind of green crop - Greens from late spring through summer, forced greens during the winter, EARLY greens in the spring from last year's roots. Up off the ground so fewer bugs and less dirt (because of the way the mangels push themselves out of the ground when they grow so big, the leaves stems start about an inch or three above the dirt). I don't think it would take much to breed mangels into an awesome green crop that humans would enjoy. Hope to start on it next year, but this year, I'm just bulking up on seed.

To force greens for midwinter eating (going from books, not actually tried this yet) you store the root in the cellar, or somewhere dark and cool and a bit dampish. You bring one or two roots out 3 to 4 weeks before you want the greens, put it in a pot of moist soil next to the window. Water when soil dries out. Greens will sprout. At least that's the theory. Works for Rhubarb too. Can't wait to try it this winter with the mangels.


Did I mention that mangelwurzels are often used to break up the soil when the field is used for the first time? The roots reach deep into the soil and help break up those big clods of dirt left behind by the tiller. If I was bringing some fallow land back into cultivation, I would grow mangels the first year, favas over winter, and potatoes the second summer.


Mangels deep roots mean they also do well in the drought. We get very little rain (a few mm) from early May through to mid Oct. We did not irrigate the mangels once. I can't imagine how well they would do with actual access to water.


Deep roots, high trace mineral content - this sounds a bit like the qualities of dynamic accumulator... any thoughts on that?

I love my mangels and so do my goats! I've been growing them for 7 years and store about 300 pounds of them in the root cellar every fall to feed to our dairy goats. They store from November til June ( at least) ,packed in damp sand. I've been looking for ways to decrease the amount of grain that I give the girls on the milking stand, since I am not willing to grow grain and feeding the mangels has really helped cut down on the feed bill. This is how a lot of old world peasants helped their animals to get through the winter...they did not have the luxury of feeding grain. For pregnant dairy goats, the correct  ratio of calcium to phosphorus is very important. If you feed  alfalfa( high in calcium) without the phos( found in grain) you'll have problems such as hypocalcemia or ketosis , which can be lethal. Beets and other root veggies can also provide phos. which makes the grain not as crucial..... important if you are working towards growing most of your own food for the homestead.
They say they can grow up to 20 pounds each but ours have not ever gotten bigger than 12 pounds. I have to chop them with a knife to feed them but I have seen antique mangel choppers online that would help make the job easier.
The roots are sweet and juicy and the leaves are huge and delicious. I planted some in a mix in a first year hugel and they did fantastically. I usually grow a Red Mammoth mangel( from Baker Creek and Sustainable Seed Co)
Oh yeah.....the voles and gophers love them too!

@Dan Boone: "I suspect with the summer heat here I'd have to grow these as a winter crop,....."

Dan, just look to the south of you regarding when Texas grows/grew their sugarbeet crop.  The season would be the same for sugarbeets and mangels.  The sugarbeet industry would have loved to have developed a sugarbeet with the size of the mangel, but there seems to be an inverse relationship between root size and sugar content, so the mangel almost always falls short (in percent sugar per kg fresh weight beet root) when compared to a sugarbeet.  For the most part, if you start with a diverse population of sugarbeet and breed for size, eventually the sugar percent declines a bit, you get huge roots, and you have essentially created a mangel, although there is much diversity if varieties of mangels as well.  All of the beets, from mangels to sugarbeets to chard to table/canning beets, are great ways to play around with leafy greens and storage roots.

Bumping this thread, I was randomly thinking about mangels last night.
Curious what else people have learned about growing them for human consumption?
Anyone taste tested various varieties? Have good info on flavors? I don't require super sweet to eat things, in fact I'd rather not. Things like sweet potatoes I generally mix half and half with white potatoes to cut the sweetness.

I LOVE the idea of tough greens, I'm having a hard time with greens in this climate, they fry, dry, or bolt. I've been improving the soil, perhaps that will help.

Thank you for bumping this very inspiring thread. I had meant to buy seeds for mangel beets, but they were sold out when I was ordering seeds last spring. This thread reminded me to check, and they are now back in stock, so I ordered some. My kids and I are very excited to see how these do for us.

I always see the Independent Homestead raving about these but I suspect what works best is highly dependent on climate. I'm having great luck with constant brassica and radish harvest in my zone 8a garden, no need to harvest and store. Currently this is only for hens, but I'm looking forward to a continual harvest for overwintering pigs. The chickens really prefer the greens, and I suspect that the pigs will prefer the roots. Our ground rarely freezes, it's very different from the NE.

Sharing a pic of a few 8 pounders we harvested yesterday. I can't imagine what a 20 pounder would be like to harvest and chop up!
We plant them for the goats to feed in winter. The greens are like chard for human eating and the beets themselves are sweeter than regular beets but not as sweet as a sugar beet. The skin has a lot of oxalic acid and can leave an acrid taste in the mouth when eaten raw.  These are Red Mammoths.
Last year I planted in March and our monsoons were late and sparse and it got quite hot and the greens got what looked like powdery mildew on them mid summer when they were stressed. But we cut back the unhealthy greens and later in the summer they grew back and continued to grow healthy greens until hard freeze.
We left the beets in the ground, with heavy mulch over winter and harvested as needed. Because they grow so high out of the ground the top of the roots did freeze and had to be cut off when cutting for the goats. But, come spring, the ones that were left started growing nice greens again and eventually made seed. Have you ever smelled a beet plant in flower? Heavenly perfume!!

This year , we planted in March and monsoons came in end of June and were very abundant. The mangels grew superbly even though we did get a 100degree+ hot spell for a few weeks in June. The growth of the beets themselves seems to slow down during the hottest periods but late summer they put on a lot of mass and weight after a side dressing of compost.
I'd say that we got about 240 pounds of roots from a 4x15 foot bed. This year we are digging a trench and burying the roots under some soil and then mulching heavily to prevent them freezing.

Oh, yeah, and in the spring when we panted the mangels, we inter-sowed the beet seeds with lettuce and fennel and a few other early greens that were done by the time the beets started getting big! So we got a lot of yield from that one bed.

I liked the idea mentioned about crossing mangels and perpetual spinach (chard).  I heard about perpetual spinach on an Aussie YouTube gardening video and so I grew some this past year. Definitely a keeper for here in NE Kansas 6a.

I was impressed at how well they did, producing gobs of large, dark green leaves that were quite tender and tasty all summer and into fall. They are still going strong and the temps have dipped into the low 20s a few times overnight. I did go out and mulch them heavily around the bases with chopped tree leaves when the weather turned cold. Hopefully they'll make it until spring and I'll see how they do at seeding.

Interplanting PS and mangels should produce crosses since Beta vulgaris is wind pollinated. I'd love to give this a shot to see what kind of beautiful monsters they might make.

Sunny Baba wrote:I love my mangels and so do my goats! I've been growing them for 7 years and store about 300 pounds of them in the root cellar every fall to feed to our dairy goats. They store from November til June ( at least) ,packed in damp sand. I've been looking for ways to decrease the amount of grain that I give the girls on the milking stand, since I am not willing to grow grain and feeding the mangels has really helped cut down on the feed bill. This is how a lot of old world peasants helped their animals to get through the winter...they did not have the luxury of feeding grain. For pregnant dairy goats, the correct  ratio of calcium to phosphorus is very important. If you feed  alfalfa( high in calcium) without the phos( found in grain) you'll have problems such as hypocalcemia or ketosis , which can be lethal. Beets and other root veggies can also provide phos. which makes the grain not as crucial..... important if you are working towards growing most of your own food for the homestead.
They say they can grow up to 20 pounds each but ours have not ever gotten bigger than 12 pounds. I have to chop them with a knife to feed them but I have seen antique mangel choppers online that would help make the job easier.
The roots are sweet and juicy and the leaves are huge and delicious. I planted some in a mix in a first year hugel and they did fantastically. I usually grow a Red Mammoth mangel( from Baker Creek and Sustainable Seed Co)
Oh yeah.....the voles and gophers love them too!

Thank you for mentioning that about the calcium to phosphorus ratio. I've actually never heard that mentioned in reference to not feeding grain to pregnant or milking does, so that is very good to know! Can you tell me some other non-grain sources of phosphorous? I am not against grain by any means, but more looking for things I can do to reduce my feed-bill. I have heard of feeding sunflower seed heads in the "doughy" stage of seed formation, as well as feeding black oil sunflower seeds (which I could grow myself). I don't know if these would be good phosphorous souces. Would carrots and winter squash also be good sources of phosphorous to balance out the alfalfa? I usually feed organic alfalfa pellets on the milk stand with soaked grain and chopped veggies, but organic grain is super expensive, so I'd love to supplement with more things I can grow myself.

That's bad news about the gophers. The property we just bought has tons of them. My dogs are constantly digging up their burrows, though, so even if they don't catch many of them hopefully they will encourage them to make their homes elsewhere. My dog got one once that I know of, and I felt so bad for the poor thing, but at the same time, the gophers are can be so destructive.

As I understand it from the human diet, nitrates that are in veggies especially greens, are converted to nitrites by the action of chewing in herbivores. The saliva contains the necessary enzyme. Once in the stomach the acid converts it to nitric oxide, which is the nutrient needed.
Problems occur when the enzyme is not present or the stomach acid is not healthy. This website explains it better then I can - webpage

Ok well Halifax seeds is currently out of stock, and since this post is on the dailyish watch, I figured I would share my current seed sourcing

The pic above looks to be the golden variety which is what I am after

Currently the red mammoth in the US victoryseeds, rare seeds in a generous 350 count pack, and tradewindsfruit have them, Canada wildwood.express, heritageharvestseed, oscseeds also in bulk, incredibleseeds 225 pack, theseedcollection in Australia, and in the UK Yellow Eckendorf
worldwondersgardens and Kingseeds (listed out of stock on Amazon Canada I asked if they ship letter envelope to Canada)
I got used to the golden beet when my kid was young and didn't like the red beet taste, and now although I crave borscht on occasion, I do find the yellow beet to be more versatile

I don't care if I only get a few seeds because I combo seed save the best, and leave the small ones in place to go to seed with pretty well any biennial
I even do the no-no of transplanting root crops, when thinning, for the purposes of leaf consumption and slope stabilization on new compost hills

Red mangels can be found at Heritage Harvest Seeds in Manitoba...it didn't occur to me to check whether they are out of stock though.

I see that Incredible Seeds also has them (a bit more money, but many more seeds in the packet.

Locally, T&T Seeds carries Red Mammoth in quantities up to 1 kg.

Has anyone tried to utilize the root for chicken feed?

I read if it is shredded up that it could be a useful element to chicken's winter diet. I also read that it might be advisable to boil it first?

Timothy Norton wrote:Has anyone tried to utilize the root for chicken feed?

I read if it is shredded up that it could be a useful element to chicken's winter diet. I also read that it might be advisable to boil it first?

It appears the following article is 'open-access' and may have some information on processed beet pulp for chicken feed.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/effects-of-increasing-levels-of-sugarbeet-pulp-in-broiler-chicken-diets-on-nutrient-digestion-and-serum-lipids/21793A6C9ED7479656361340290497DE

r_ranson mentioned a varietal from Wallace Springs in the OP. The link leads to a google creeper wall. Anyone know if this company is still in operation, or where I can get the varietal mentioned?