Four Types of Mustard for Cover Crops: Growth Rates, Blooming Patterns & Uses

0:12 Now we're going to talk about our mustards and we've got four different types of mustard here that we're going to kind of talk about them all at once, Dale, because they're all kind of in the same family, obviously, but again each one has a little bit different purpose, a little bit different use. And the first thing that we're going to talk about with mustards is obviously these are all blooming very prolifically, but with mustard it's a different reproductive trigger than what we saw with the radish systems to cabbage because these guys.

0:37 Aren't sensing that the days are getting longer, they can care less than the day length is, they just simply accumulate growing degree days and then they're going to flower. So that's kind of a nice thing because if you want to use them in a pollinator plot, it doesn't matter if we plant these in March or if we plant these in June or we plant these in September. When they accumulate growing degree days, they're just going to start blooming.

0:59 So that's both a good thing and a bad thing with mustard. It's a good thing if you want the blossoms, you want the attractiveness.

1:05 To insects and there are just tons of insects all over in this plot. It can be a bad thing if you're a little concerned about these things producing seed and happen to deal with lawns. Here it is—has it really seemed to be a problem so far? It's something that can definitely be managed. So each of these has a little bit different purpose and we'll talk about each one here. And I'm going to just briefly talk about them kind of in order of how they start to flower. So right here on my right, this is the white gold mustard. It is the first and earliest to bloom. You can see it's the...

1:37 Shortest but it's the fastest growing. And so for that reason this stuff will start blooming 30 days after you plant it. So if you want something that really blooms fast, the white gold is a good choice. And if you want something to really be competitive against weeds, this is one of the better choices because it's so fast and so aggressive getting started. It's very effective at some of that early season weed control. So in a situation where a farmer maybe just has six weeks of growth before they plant a crop but they want to try to control.

2:07 Weeds this would be a pretty good choice because six weeks you're going to get a lot of growth, a lot of blossoms, and a lot of weed control, and then you can terminate it.

2:16 So that's how we use the white gold. That's where we like that. The two on either side of me here, the Indy gold over here, which is an oriental mustard, and the Kodiak right here, which is a brown mustard. These are both very high in the glucosinolates, that's that same chemical compound we talked about with Ethiopian cabbage. It gives it that real pungent, real bitter taste.

2:38 Would taste the leaves and I know Dale's been eating the seed pods and making funny faces because they're pretty hot. And that's what, when you buy a hot mustard in a store it's probably an oriental type mustard because they're very high in the glucosinolate compound which is very, very pungent, very strong. And again, those are very good for controlling nematodes.

2:58 To get the most effective control you really need to shred this down and till it into the soil, and so we don't recommend doing that unless that's your specific goal and your specific purpose.

3:08 For having your cover crop. And that makes sense if that's what you're after. Again, we would use these as part of a pollinator plot. We would use these to add diversity to our other mixes. But you know, again, the different flowering stages. The Indy goldwood flower just a little bit before this one. So if we were going to stage these out in a mix, we can go with the yellow gold or the white gold and then the ND and then the Kodiak, and we would just kind of have staged out flowers. They're also Lowry, but they would start at different stages.

4:15 This is tiny compared, yeah, yeah. Usually you know you'll get some that are 10 inches across, really really large. And I'm all of the mustards if you're going to put one of these in a grazing mix I would definitely recommend the Florida broadleaf. It still has the glucosinolate, so it still has that pungent flavor, but it's the lowest level of any of these. And in fact that is the exact plant you hear people talk about eating mustard greens. That's the plant that people plan their gardens to harvest mustard greens, yeah.

4:45 Has very pleasant horseradish. If you like horseradish, has a very pleasant horseradish flavor. I like to grow this in my garden. I'll pull the leaf, mash it up, make a paste out of it, put it on the steak. I love it. I like horseradish.

5:01 One other benefit of having these great big leaves—this is probably the best weed suppressor amongst all the brassicas. And I think where it may have a play: I get a lot of calls from people who've gotten into fight with infected fescue, and they want to kill it off but don't want to spray Roundup. I think we might have potential to use this too.

5:26 Maybe you can kill out some perennial grasses now, maybe doing a combination. Have like white gold that gets her out of the gate really really fast, and you have the Florida broadleaf that comes along a little later with the big ol leaves. Yeah, in case you're wondering, these are very good honey plants. These honeybees do like this. That is not where they get honey mustard dressing. The honey tastes like honey, not like mustard.

5:55 Yeah, we can we could patent that if it worked.

6:04 Yeah, one of the things we talked about with the brassicas is their ability to

6:09 Suppress weeds. Some of that is simple competition and some of them is probably that glucosinolate content. And if you look down through in between these rows, there is no weed growth whatsoever. They're very, very effective at suppressing weeds. This is something that a lot of organic farmers are discovering — plant mustards and there's just no weed pressure.

6:38 The mustards themselves are very easy to terminate by a number of different methods. Some of the more upright ones once they start flowering roller crimper, and they just provide a very effective level of weed control. And conventional farmers, you use mustards in your fallow period. If you're not interested in grazing, keep it weed free and then terminate it just before you plant your next crop.

7:04 Glucosinolates can have an effect on seed germination though, and so we usually recommend waiting about two weeks after termination of the mustard before you plant the next crop to allow the glucosinolates to break down.