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Purple Top Turnip - Cover Crop Potential?

 
Timothy Norton
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Purple top turnip is considered a cool season cover crop. The crop reaches maturity in roughly 45-65 days. Some areas it has some success overwintering but others it will winter kill. Purple top turnip makes an decent option as a grazing crop for some livestock.

Turnips produce foragable tops as well as the turnip root itself. The leaves have somewhere around 15%-25% crude protein and the bulbs are around 10%-15% crude protein. Be careful with cows because eating too many turnips as they can contribute to bloat.

If not being fed to livestock the cover crop can be utilized as a green manure as well as a decompaction cover crop. They are an excellent plant to scavenge excess soil nutrients and it does in fact have a taproot albeit it is small. Turnips as they grow can fight erosion as they put roots down and spread out their leaves. The seed is pretty cheap where I live and the plants can make see easily if you let them.

(source)
Purple Top Turnip


The entire plant, the greens and the root, of purple top turnips can be consumed by folks. Some folks find the root to be bitter with an improved taste after a frost or so I'm told. I prefer turnips at peak freshness, there are much less instances of woodiness in the root when they are fresh. Turnip root can be stored for months under proper conditions.

They don't make a good biofumigant cover crop nor do they do much about nematodes. Their flowers do offer a source of nectar for bees.

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Timothy Norton
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I have grown some purple top turnip as part of a mixture of root crops and find that it grows very well with little attention.  I know of sportsmen who have utilized turnips as part of a forage mix for wildlife food plots.

I have successfully fed the greenery to my chickens, the best success coming from chopping it up in advance for them. I have not tried feeding them the root but I have read of some success with that approach.

Turnips that winterkill leave modest impressions and root tunnels in the soil but they can have a displeasing odor if enough of them are rotting at the same time. They are not as aggressive as diakon nor are they as smelly as radish.

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Joylynn Hardesty
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And if you pull the root, in my area, it does not get woody at anytime before it starts sending up the seed stalk. The root is sweet when thinly sliced and sauteed in butter. Any left over after sauteeing? Mush them up similaly to mash potatoes. The chopped roots work well in a soup.  Spicy raw, as an accent in a salad. Even in our heat in summer, I haven't had one be bitter. Now the leaves... When growing the seed stalk, um, yeah. And 'woody' roots really are woody. If you get really hungry and find a way to eat them when woody, let us know! Hint, it don't work even in over cooked soups.

Then anything left over works GREAT as a cover crop!

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James Bridger
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I grew a ton of turnips last year and used them just like mashed potatoes. I made a bunch at one time, and froze it in gallon ziplock bags. I prefer turnip greens as a salad compared to beet greens or radish greens, and what I cant get to before it gets to enormous and bitter went to the chickens, and they gobbled it down.
 
Jenna Guy
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Just grew Purple Tops for the first time this past season. They seemed to size up better than rutabagas in the same bed, and they are storing excellently! For chicken feed I've found that if I smash them then the chickens go to town on them. They seem to have more trouble getting into them whole, but I just stomp on them until they smash open haha and the chickens love it! Pigs are also quite fond of them. I don't raise pigs at home, but the farm I work on does and I'm the main care taker.
 
Trace Oswald
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People plant them here for deer.  They don't seem to bother with them when they are growing, but after they freeze, deer dig them up to eat.

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Our deer food plots were turnips and purple hull peas.

I never saw any evidence that the deer liked the turnips.

We like eating turnips though I find that the greens are hard to clean all the dirt/sand off. Seems a waste of water.

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
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Mike Barkley
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I have been growing them 6 or 8  years as a cover crop, for organic matter to leave in the soil, & as human food. If you have wild pigs be cautious about planting them in deer food plots. The pigs seem to like them more than the deer do. I had them destroy acres of beautiful deer plots overnight, for the turnips.

Mashed like potatoes is how I prefer to eat them but often add a few into soups too. The leaves are the bitter part to my taste buds. I don't like bitter so most of the leaves go to chickens or compost. I do like turnip greens cooked down with bacon & whatever else the good soul food cooks use. I think that is a fine art or magic or something. Every time I've tried to cook turnip greens it came out too bitter.  

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Ayva Jean Damas
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Cover cropping is something I want to work in this year. I had wondered if purple top turnips would work, they seem more accessible than tillage radishes, and I imagine tillage radishes don't make for very good eating. Purple top turnips, on the other hand, I've eaten plenty of times, both the greens and the roots.

-Ayva Jean

 
Mike Barkley
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TN is where I started growing turnips. They struggled a bit in summer but still grew. If you're also trying to improve soil & loosen the clay TN Red Valencia peanuts will grow right along with the turnips. According to the university ag department no other type of peanut will grow there.

Argue for your limitations and they are yours forever.

 
Suzette Thib
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Never ate turnips until my 30s. My husband's grandmother said it was her favorite food. She loved to cook hers long and low (smothered). I find them absolutely yummy too! I love to slice them thin and saute them in oil with seasoning. The greens we eat many ways: I cut as a chiffonade and add to spaghetti sauce (my kids favorite) or into soups.

And I personally grow them also as a cover crop, having read that the greens deter nematodes. I just chop with the hoe and turn them in. Cover with a little compost and wait a little.

"The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command." -Samwise Gamgee, J.R.R. Tolkien

 
Mary Cook
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I tried growing turnips for the first time last fall, as a cover crop and to feed my friend's goats. This is WV, zone 6, but it was the coldest winter in 30 years. Got to 7 below zero F. Come early spring, my kale was gone, nothing else made it--except the turnips, which are fine. I don't think I'd grow these in the summer, but such a hardy plant, I expect I'll grow some every winter. I haven't tried eating them myself--maybe I should.
Interesting about the Red Valencia peanuts--that's the variety IO grow, here in West Virginia. I tried another once, the first time I grew peanuts--Schronce's Black. They did fine. The Valencia need fewer days but the reason I switched is that a thing we do with roasted peanuts is mix them with raisins to eat out of hand, and a 50/50 mix is best. Hard to assess that when the peanuts are the same color as the raisins.
 
Dave Bross
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The Japanese turnips like Tokinashi are my favorites for flavor.

Baker Creek has a few varieties on offer.

Trying snowball and white egg cultivars this year to see if they're similar, so we'll see how that goes.
 
May Lotito
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I densly sowed this bed of purple top turnips as covercrops in March. I will plant tomatoes later no later than May 1st. Is there enough time for the soil to be ready if I terminate turnips two weeks later and allow two more weeks for breaking down?
IMG_20250401_085900.jpg
Turnips cover crops
Turnips cover crops

Zone 6, 45 inches precipitation, hard clay soil

 
Mike Barkley
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Did you mean 2 weeks from now?

How are you going to terminate them? My experience with turnips is if you chop the leaves off they will regrow. Turnips left in the soil take a while to break down but that probably won't bother the tomatoes.

Argue for your limitations and they are yours forever.

 
Timothy Norton
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I have not tried to plant into dense turnips like you are going to attempt, but I don't see why it wouldn't work out!

Just spit-balling, but I would probably scuffle hoe the areas I want to plant and pop the tomatoes right in. I think you won't have issues with competition but you might need to spot weed any loose turnip seedlings until you have tomato establishment.

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Nina Surya
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My mum used to sautee little cubes or thick slices of turnip in butter and sprinkle with salt. It's still a favourite winter food for me, so yummy, true comfort food!
I also like to thinly slice small turnips into salad, as one would do with radish.
Funny enough I never thought of it as a cover crop - thanks, I learnt something new today! I'll be cover-cropping with turnips this fall

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May Lotito
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I didn't expect that small bag has so many seeds and they all sprouted. I plan on letting them grow bigger with more root mass and pull the tops off. April is usually very rainy so I won't till them in and have the soil structure destroyed. I will see if I can make the greens into some sort of weed tea to water into the soil for faster decomposition.  Tomatoes are such fast growers so even the remaining parts grow back they will be shaded out.

Zone 6, 45 inches precipitation, hard clay soil

 
Mike Barkley
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The greens are perfectly edible. Usually too bitter for my taste but when cooked right they are rather tasty. I never can get them just right though. Some people can.

If I was going to plant tomatoes into a dense patch like that I'd probably remove them from about a foot away from each tomato space & leave all the rest intact.





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May Lotito
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Weather has been favorable so I transplanted tomatoes two weeks ago, pulling the turnip tops to be used as mulch. I save some away from the planting hole for later. I have to say there weren't a lot of biomass being 90% water but they did protect the soil from 10" of rain. Tomatoes are doing great and I will throw in grass clippings for more mulching.
IMG_20250428_153117.jpg
Tomatoes transplanted into turnip cover crop
Tomatoes transplanted into turnip cover crop

Zone 6, 45 inches precipitation, hard clay soil

 
May Lotito
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I have my first turnip harvest today! Turnips work very well with the warm season veggies so far. I just gradually thin out those starting to compete as my tomato plants get bigger. They have straight roots so the pulling won't damage neighboring roots.
IMG_20250512_125832.jpg
Turnip giving way to tomato and potato
Turnip giving way to tomato and potato

Zone 6, 45 inches precipitation, hard clay soil

 
May Lotito
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It's been three weeks and I am still eating turnips every day. Occasionally there are a few turnip plants that have cracked root or delayed development. It's an indication of boron deficiency due to uneven amendment and excess rain. I would give extra weed tea to veggies growing in these spots and they respond very well.

Eta: also in the picture you can see the path is covered with prostrate knotweeds and there is none in the bed. The knotweed seeds need light to germinate and having turnips and mulch to prevent bare soil keeps the weeds down.
IMG_20250608_152447.jpg
Last few turnips
Last few turnips
IMG_20250608_152441.jpg
Tomato growing
Tomato growing

Zone 6, 45 inches precipitation, hard clay soil

 
Timothy Norton
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I ended up cutting back some hedge exposing some growing space recently so I have broadcast seeded some Turnips!

If my timing is correct, I should get a fall harvest and the rest will ideally winter kill.

I will update in a few months.

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Robert Ray
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I buy my cover crop seeds from Deer Creek seeds.  Daikon radish, purple top turnip and collards are way more affordable in bulk. I even use them for sprouting.

Our inability to change everything should not stop us from changing what we can.

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