Rutabaga

Last updated: June 26, 2025

Rutabaga (Brassica napus L. ssp. rapifera) is a fodder agricultural crop and belongs to the group of fodder root crops.

Economic importance

Rutabaga is considered a high-yielding, cold-resistant crop; unlike other root crops, it is less demanding of soil fertility.

Rutabaga roots contain 10–16% dry matter, including 5–10% carbohydrates, a small amount of protein, carotene, ascorbic acid, and minerals.

Like other fodder root crops, it is a milk-producing feed.

The tops are used for feed in fresh and ensiled form, in mixtures with drier feeds, in haylage, and in vitamin grass meal.

History of the crop

Rutabaga is not known in the wild. It was introduced into cultivation much earlier than potato.

The presumed place of origin of the crop is the Mediterranean. It originated from a spontaneous cross between leaf cabbage and turnip, followed by doubling of the chromosome number.

Cultivation areas

Rutabaga has not become widespread in Russia. It is grown on small areas mainly in the southern taiga-forest zone and Western Siberia, as well as in private subsidiary farms. It can be cultivated in the forest-steppe zone.

In southern regions, rutabaga tolerates heat and lack of moisture poorly and is more severely affected by pests.

Yield

Rutabaga yield on fertile loamy soils reaches 30–40 t/ha of roots.

Under irrigation, yield increases 1.5–2 times.

Botanical description

Rutabaga (Brassica napus L. ssp. rapifera Metzg.) is a biennial plant of the cabbage family (Brassicaceae).

In the first year of life, plants form roots with simple, weakly and strongly dissected, large, fleshy, smooth dark-green leaves with a waxy bloom, more than 60 cm long.

The root shape is round, flattened-round, round-flat, oval, and conical. The root flesh is firm, yellow or white. The neck and head are well developed, so a significant part of the root is above the soil surface.

The root is formed mainly by the hypocotyl and the root proper. The root system penetrates to a depth of 1–1.5 m, spreads 40–50 cm wide, and is characterized by poor absorbing capacity.

Varieties may also differ in the color of the upper part of the roots: red-headed, green-headed, and bronze-headed.

In the second year, a flowering stem branched at the top forms from the root, with a height of 80–150 cm. Leaves are of different shapes: basal leaves are lyrate, petiolate; stem leaves are sessile.

The inflorescence is an elongated, simple, many-flowered raceme. Flowers are of the tetradynamous type, yellow, cream, or orange. The flower has 6 stamens and a pistil. Pollination is cross-pollination.

The fruit is a many-seeded pod with a beak, which cracks when ripe. Seeds are small, round, blackish-brown, gray-black, brown-black, or dark gray. The 1000-seed weight is 2.2–3.8 g.

Biological characteristics

Temperature requirements

Rutabaga is a cold-resistant plant, has moderate heat requirements, and tolerates heat and drought poorly.

Seeds begin to germinate at 1–2 °C; uniform seedlings appear at 5–6 °C. Seedlings tolerate frosts down to −4 °C, adult plants down to −5…−7 °C. A prolonged cold spring can provoke bolting. At soil temperature at the sowing depth, seedlings emerge after 4–5 days.

The optimal temperature for growth and development is 15–18 °C.

Moisture requirements

Rutabaga is a moisture-loving crop. The greatest water requirement is observed during seed rooting in the initial growth phases, as well as in planted seed roots. This period is critical for the crop’s water requirement.

Light requirements

Rutabaga is a light-loving, long-day plant.

Soil requirements

For rutabaga sowings, cohesive, calcium-rich, non-acidic soils (pH 6–6.5) with good water-holding capacity are preferable. It tolerates heavy, excessively moist soils, drained peat bogs (when boron and copper micronutrient fertilizers are applied), and ploughed lands well. Optimal are fertile floodplain and cultivated sod-podzolic soils.

It tolerates acidity down to pH 4.3. In a more acidic environment, root branching and overgrowth of root heads are observed.

Acidic soils are limed.

Not recommended for growing on sandy soils.

Growing season

The growing season in the first year is 110–130 days; in the second, 90–120 days.

Rutabaga seedlings bring green, broad cotyledons with a notch at the end to the soil surface. At the cotyledon stage, seedlings are indistinguishable from turnip.

Crop rotation

It is desirable to place rutabaga crops on lower relief areas where moisture conditions are better.

Rutabaga can be placed in field, vegetable, and fodder crop rotations. The latter, near-farm crop rotations, are most preferable due to its economic importance and economic feasibility.

The best preceding crops for rutabaga in rotation are fertilized winter crops, annual cereal-legume mixtures for hay and green fodder, grain legumes, maize, perennial leguminous grasses of the first year of use, potato, and silage crops.

In vegetable rotations, rutabaga is not placed after crops of the Brassicaceae family.

Areas infested with wireworm and remote from livestock farms are poorly suitable for cultivation.

Fertilization

1 tonne of rutabaga roots and the corresponding amount of leaves removes from the soil 4 kg N, 2.5 kg P₂O₅, 7.5 kg K₂O.

Organic fertilizers are applied under the preceding crop; however, if this was not done, they are applied under autumn ploughing at 30–40 t/ha. For the main fertilizer, to obtain a root yield of 40–50 t/ha, P₄₀K₆₀ is also applied.

In spring, before pre-sowing cultivation, N_60-90P₂₀K₃₀ is applied. The total rate of mineral fertilizer application is 0.9–1.0 t/ha. On podzolic soils, N_60-80P_60-80K_60-90 is recommended.

At sowing, for better phosphorus plant nutrition in the initial development phases, it is recommended to apply row fertilizer in the form of granulated superphosphate at 20–25 kg/ha.

Half of the nitrogen fertilizers (30 kg/ha) can be applied as a top dressing, which is carried out after thinning the seedlings.

When growing rutabaga as a post-cut or post-harvest crop, due to the shortened feeding period, the soil is fertilized with increased fertilizer rates, and the seeding rate should be increased by 10–15%.

Soil cultivation

Rutabaga responds well to early autumn soil cultivation. Ploughing is carried out depending on the depth of the plough layer to 20–30 cm with ploughs with skimmers.

In areas with insufficient moisture, snow retention measures are carried out.

Spring soil cultivation includes harrowing and smoothing to conserve moisture and level the surface for uniform seed sowing. Cultivation may also be required before sowing. Heavy and slaking soils are ploughed in spring with ploughs with removed mouldboards, or this is replaced by rototilling. Light soils are rolled before sowing (according to other data, pre-sowing rolling is recommended on all soils).

Sowing

Seed preparation

For seed treatment against ascochyta, black leg, downy mildew, phoma, bacteriosis, olive spot, seed molding, and black mold, the preparation TMTD is used. Treatment is carried out 2–15 days before sowing or in advance.

Sowing dates

Very early sowing leads to an increase in the proportion of bolted plants.

Rutabaga sowing begins simultaneously with the sowing of early spring cereals. Early sowing reduces damage to crops by flea beetles.

Seedlings are planted at the 5–6 leaf stage using transplanting machines into prepared soil. It is desirable to carry out planting on cloudy cool days or in the morning and evening.

Sowing methods

Rutabaga can be grown from seeds or by the transplanting method. The transplanting method is used to shorten the growing season, especially in northern regions. In southern regions, the transplanting method is used when sowing as a post-cut or post-harvest crop.

Seedlings are grown in cold seedbeds in the same way as seedlings of late varieties of head cabbage. For 1 ha, 200–300 m² of seedbed and 0.5–0.6 kg of seeds are required.

For sowing with seeds, vegetable seeders are used, for example, SON-2.8, SKOSSh-2.8, SON-2.8A, SO-4.2, SKON-4.2.

For uniform sowing, granulated superphosphate of a 2–4 mm fraction and granulated phosphamide to control cruciferous flea beetle can be added to the seeds as ballast, at the rate of 2.5 kg phosphamide and 20–25 kg superphosphate per hectare seeding rate. Calcined millet seeds or dry sifted sawdust can also be used as ballast.

According to experimental data from LSKhI, sowing round-fruited rutabaga varieties to a specified stand density is possible. For this, it is recommended to sow up to 20 seeds per 1 meter of row.

Sowing is performed by the wide-row method; row spacing is 45, 60, or 70 cm. On soils with a shallow plough layer, as well as under excessive moisture, for example in northwestern agricultural regions, rutabaga is sown on ridges or beds.

Seeding rates

The seeding rate of rutabaga seeds is 1.5–2.7 kg/ha (according to other data, 3–4 kg/ha), adjusted depending on soil and climatic conditions and field weediness. At a high level of agricultural technology, the seeding rate can be reduced to 1.5 kg/ha without reducing yield (VNII of Feed named after V. R. Williams).

When using precision sowing with calibrated pelleted seeds, the seeding rate is reduced to 0.5–0.8 kg/ha (LSKhI).

When grown as a post-cut or post-harvest crop, the seeding rate is increased by 10–15%.

Sowing depth

Sowing depth is 1–3 cm.

Crop care

Crop care includes:

after-sowing rolling (when the upper soil layer dries quickly);
harrowing with light tooth or net harrows;
treatment with rotary hoes or ribbed rollers when a soil crust forms;
shallow cultivation to a depth of 4–6 cm;
2–4 inter-row layered loosenings during the growing season to a depth of 8–12 cm.

To form stand density, thinning is carried out, which should form a density of 50–90 thousand plants/ha. Depending on the density and uniformity of seedlings, cross harrowing of crops in the 2–4 leaf phase is used for this with:

at a density of more than 30 plants per 1 m — with a net or light tooth harrow or bunching according to the scheme: bunch 20 cm, cut 40 cm, followed by harrowing over the bunches with net harrows and manual checking;
at a density of 20–30 seedlings per 1 m — bunching according to the scheme: cut 40 cm, bunch 20 cm or cut 27 cm, bunch 18 cm.

Harrowing over seedlings and bunches is carried out carefully; in dry weather, one should limit it to bunching only. With uniform, non-thickened seedlings and fields free from weeds, row thinners are used.

To control weeds in rutabaga crops, a pre-sowing treatment with Ramrod at a rate of 4–6 kg/ha a.i. is carried out in spring. Pre-emergence spraying with the herbicide Butisan against annual grass and dicotyledonous weeds is also used.

To control flea beetles and horseradish leaf beetle, spraying with Actellic is carried out during the growing season.

Harvesting

For rutabaga harvesting, two-phase harvesting is usually used. Leaves are cut using top-removing machines UBD-3A or KIR-1.5B. Then the roots are dug with potato diggers or converted potato harvesters. The use of the KGP-2 potato harvester for harvesting rutabaga roots increased labor productivity 6-fold compared with manual harvesting (Kholmogorka state farm, Volokolamsky District, Moscow Oblast).

The KKG-1.4 machine can be used for harvesting.

Rutabaga leaves ensile well.

Storage

Rutabaga roots are stored in surface clamps, trenches, and storage facilities. Storage temperature is 1–2 °C; relative air humidity is 85–95%.

Growing rutabaga for seed

Mother-root crops of rutabaga should be thickened to 80–90 thousand mother roots per 1 ha, that is, for 3–4 ha of seed plants. During harvesting, storage, and planting of mother roots, their wilting is not allowed.

The recommended planting scheme is 70×60 or 70×70 cm. Rutabaga can be planted under a plough or cultivator. Planting depth should ensure that the root head is covered with 2–3 cm of soil. Rutabaga seed plants should be separated from other plots of the Brassicaceae family by at least 2 km to prevent cross-pollination.

Stems of rutabaga grown for seed are fragile and often lodge, so they are tied up when possible.

Seed plants are harvested manually or using reapers in two phases, when the seeds in 25–30% of pods become light brown and the pods themselves become yellow-green or light yellow (at the end of August). During ripening, seed plants are protected from birds. Threshing of cut seed plants is carried out with combines or threshers. Seed yield with good agricultural technology is 1.0–1.5 t/ha.

In southern countries, for example Georgia or Armenia, non-transplanted rutabaga seed production is possible. For this, mother-root crops are left in the field for the winter, care operations are carried out in spring, and seeds are harvested in summer. The cost of seeds obtained by the non-transplanted method is substantially lower.

Varieties

During the USSR, 8 varieties of fodder rutabaga were released: Kuusiku (a hybrid of rutabaga and fodder cabbage), Vyshegorodskaya improved (late-ripening, with white root flesh), Gofmanskaya improved (mid-ripening), Dotnuvos baltei, Pskovskaya local, Bangolmskaya, Krasnoselskaya local, and Esko. The first three varieties became the most widespread.

In 2006, only one table rutabaga variety, Krasnoselskaya, bred by the VNII of Vegetable Breeding and Seed Production (Moscow Oblast) in 1950, was approved for use in Russia. The roots of this variety have yellow flesh. Early ripening (110–130 days).

References

Vavilov P. P., Gritsenko V. V., Kuznetsov V. S. et al. (1986). Crop Production. Edited by Vavilov P. P. 5th ed., revised and enlarged. Moscow: Agropromizdat.
Kolomeichenko V. V. (2007). Crop Production/Textbook. Moscow: Agrobiznescentr.
Niklyaev V. S. (2000). Fundamentals of Agricultural Production Technology. Agriculture and Crop Production. Moscow: Bylina.