Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
Note - this was a thread posted by Paul Knox, aka ... Lick Creek, aka dbltree in which he shared his vast knowledge and ag/farming experience on the subject. I found this in some old threads I kept and thought I would share so every one could benefit. Paul is no longer with us but his spirit & legacy lives on.
I will post in multiple posts due to the size of the thread.
Enjoy!
Cereal Grains and Cover Crops
Postby dbltree » Sat Feb 28, 2009 2:15 pm
NOTE: This thread not only covers the attributes and how to's of planting cereal grains as a food source for whitetails but also covers all aspects of using cereal grains and legumes as cover crops to be tilled under as green manure to build organic matter, pull up nutrients from the subsoil and use legumes to add nitrogen to the soil.
Do not spray, just plow or till under any plant source from clovers to sorghum's and green growing grains like rye and oats. When using small equipment, mowing may be required first followed by tillage to incorporate the plants into the soil while still green.
.
The most common questions are what, how and when to plant, so here is my favorite mix, rates based on heavy grazing in my area and proper planting dates in the Midwest.
I mix the following:
Winter rye 50-80#'s per acre (56#'s = a bushel)
Spring oats 80-120#'s per acre (32#'s = a bushel)
Austrian Winter Peas or 4010/6040 Forage peas 20-80#'s per acre
Red Clover 8-12#'s per acre or white clover at 6#'s per acre
Groundhog Forage Radish 5#'s per acre
Plant seeds roughly 1-2" deep by lightly tilling or discing in, and then cultipack to cover, broadcast clover and radish seed and re-cultipack
Plant fall grains no earlier then the last week of August through mid September, earlier is better when adding peas and clover
Seed sources
Albert Lea Seed Company
Welter Seed (check under "other grains")
Adams Briscoe Seed Company
Cooper Seeds
Hancock Seed
Greencover Seed
Fall Rye Grain
Austrian Winter Peas
Frank Forage Oats
Alta-Swede Mammoth Red Clover
PM nannyslayer on this site if your in the mid west southern Iowa area
Winter Rye
Cereal Grains include winter rye, winter wheat, spring and fall triticale, barley, buckwheat and oats and are perhaps one of the least expensive and easiest food plots that we can plant.
Of those listed winter rye (fall rye grain NOT ryegrass) is my favorite as it has a host of attributes not found in other grains. Rye is the most winterhardy, surviving the most brutal winters, grows on a wide range of soil Ph from acid to alkaline, is a nitrogen scavenger (compared to wheat that sucks up N like a sponge!! ), is one of the ultimate cover crops because of it's allelopathic effects on many types of weeds and it's ability to break up hardpan soils and is one of the highest in crude protein.
Recycle Nitrogen? Rye is one of the few plants capable of taking up nitrogen and then re-releasing it when tilled under the following spring! Not going to happen with wheat, when it use nitrogen it's gone!!
A rye cover crop and manure applications are mutually beneficial. Manure nutrients aid in decomposition of the rye, offsetting any potential yield drag, and rye captures and recycles the manure nutrients effectively to the future corn crop, reducing commercial fertilizer needs.
Rye is one of the best scavengers of nitrogen and reduces leaching losses on both sandy soils and tile-drained land. The fast growing, fibrous root system can capture 25 to 100 pounds of soil nitrogen per acre. Seeding rye in late summer or early fall will allow it to scavenge nitrogen. When organic N (from manure or legumes) is still available. Rye can capture this nitrogen and recycle it to the following season. The actual amount of nitrogen that is recycled is highly variable. A presidedress soil nitrate test can help determine the amount of nitrogen credit to take for the upcoming corn crop.
Rye should be allowed to grow over the winter to continue taking up N in the spring.
Rye is the hardiest of cereals and can be seeded later in the fall than other cover crops, and it provides top growth and extensive root growth. It will germinate at cold temperatures—as low as 34 degrees F—and it will resume growing at 38 degrees in the spring. This makes it possible to seed rye after corn, sugar beet or bean harvest until the ground freezes.
It is relatively inexpensive to plant, and the seed is readily available or easily grown.
Easy to establish, rye can be aerial seeded in standing corn/silage and before leaf drop in soybean. Rye can be broadcast alone or with dry fertilizers, can be added to manure tanks for slurry seeding or drilled (which provides the most consistent stands).
It outperforms most other crops on infertile, sandy or acidic soil. It is also tolerant of a variety of soil types and grows well on both poorly and well-drained soils.
Rye can recycle potassium from deeper in the soil profile for future crop use.
Rye is effective at suppressing weeds. It competes with winter annuals and inhibits growth of spring weeds. As rye residue decomposes, it releases allelopathic compounds that are harmful to the growth of weeds.
The rapid fall and spring growth can stabilize sandy soil, trap snow and improve infiltration.
Rye is utilized for many cropping systems, including fruits and vegetables, where it can be left in narrow strips to reduce wind erosion.
Rye, and all cover crops, build soil quality over time by adding organic matter. Long-term benefits include improved soil structure, tilth, water infiltration and water-holding capacity.
Why cereal rye?
More about Rye
Attributes of Rye
High on Rye
Winter Rye for Extending the Grazing Season
Cover Crops: Cereal Rye
CEREAL RYE - Secale cereale
Cereal Rye for Cover Cropping
These links show that rye has higher crude and digestible protein then all other cereal grains such as wheat, triticale and oats.
Forage Dry Yield
(ton/acre) CP (%)* NDF ( %)* ADF ( %)*
Rye 1.7 b 19.4 a 48.6 b 26.8 a
Early-cut wheat 2.6 a 16.2 b 59.1 a 30.6 b
Late-cut wheat 2.7 a 14.0 c 59.8 a 31.6 c
LSD 0.2 1.0 0.9 0.8
* ADF = acid detergent fiber; NDF = neutral detergent fiber; CP = crude protein.
Winter Rye for Extending the Grazing Season
Managing Small Grains for Livestock Forage
Understanding Forage Nutrition for Ruminants
Interpreting Forage Quality Reports
I usually mix oats with my winter rye but oats like wheat is consistently lower in crude protein:
Cereal Forages for Spring Planting
Oats compared to wheat and triticale
Whitetails absolutely love rye and will dig thru deep snows to get at it during winter months and even the highest deer densities can not destroy it. I often hear people touting winter wheat but wheat cannot hold a candle to the many positives of rye and in fact has to many negative attributes to even consider it unless rye seed is not easily obtained.
Less than 50% of the rye grown in the U.S. is harvested for grain, with the remainder used as pasture, hay, or as a cover crop. About half of the amount harvested for grain is used for livestock feed or exported, and the remainder is used for alcoholic beverages, food, and seed. In the Midwest, rye is primarily grown for grain, but occasionally for hay or pasture.
It can also be grown as a cover or green manure crop. In addition to contributing organic matter, rye reduces soil erosion and enhances water penetration and retention. Furthermore, due to its allelopathic effect, some evidence suggests that rye could be exploited for weed control. It has been widely reported that residues of fall-planted, spring-killed rye reduces total weed biomass by 60% to 95% when compared to controls with no residue. Rye residue which remains at the soil surface can potentially modify the physical and chemical environment during seed germination and plant growth.
I will post in multiple posts due to the size of the thread.
Enjoy!
Cereal Grains and Cover Crops
Postby dbltree » Sat Feb 28, 2009 2:15 pm
NOTE: This thread not only covers the attributes and how to's of planting cereal grains as a food source for whitetails but also covers all aspects of using cereal grains and legumes as cover crops to be tilled under as green manure to build organic matter, pull up nutrients from the subsoil and use legumes to add nitrogen to the soil.
Do not spray, just plow or till under any plant source from clovers to sorghum's and green growing grains like rye and oats. When using small equipment, mowing may be required first followed by tillage to incorporate the plants into the soil while still green.
.
The most common questions are what, how and when to plant, so here is my favorite mix, rates based on heavy grazing in my area and proper planting dates in the Midwest.
I mix the following:
Winter rye 50-80#'s per acre (56#'s = a bushel)
Spring oats 80-120#'s per acre (32#'s = a bushel)
Austrian Winter Peas or 4010/6040 Forage peas 20-80#'s per acre
Red Clover 8-12#'s per acre or white clover at 6#'s per acre
Groundhog Forage Radish 5#'s per acre
Plant seeds roughly 1-2" deep by lightly tilling or discing in, and then cultipack to cover, broadcast clover and radish seed and re-cultipack
Plant fall grains no earlier then the last week of August through mid September, earlier is better when adding peas and clover
Seed sources
Albert Lea Seed Company
Welter Seed (check under "other grains")
Adams Briscoe Seed Company
Cooper Seeds
Hancock Seed
Greencover Seed
Fall Rye Grain
Austrian Winter Peas
Frank Forage Oats
Alta-Swede Mammoth Red Clover
PM nannyslayer on this site if your in the mid west southern Iowa area
Winter Rye
Cereal Grains include winter rye, winter wheat, spring and fall triticale, barley, buckwheat and oats and are perhaps one of the least expensive and easiest food plots that we can plant.
Of those listed winter rye (fall rye grain NOT ryegrass) is my favorite as it has a host of attributes not found in other grains. Rye is the most winterhardy, surviving the most brutal winters, grows on a wide range of soil Ph from acid to alkaline, is a nitrogen scavenger (compared to wheat that sucks up N like a sponge!! ), is one of the ultimate cover crops because of it's allelopathic effects on many types of weeds and it's ability to break up hardpan soils and is one of the highest in crude protein.
Recycle Nitrogen? Rye is one of the few plants capable of taking up nitrogen and then re-releasing it when tilled under the following spring! Not going to happen with wheat, when it use nitrogen it's gone!!
A rye cover crop and manure applications are mutually beneficial. Manure nutrients aid in decomposition of the rye, offsetting any potential yield drag, and rye captures and recycles the manure nutrients effectively to the future corn crop, reducing commercial fertilizer needs.
Rye is one of the best scavengers of nitrogen and reduces leaching losses on both sandy soils and tile-drained land. The fast growing, fibrous root system can capture 25 to 100 pounds of soil nitrogen per acre. Seeding rye in late summer or early fall will allow it to scavenge nitrogen. When organic N (from manure or legumes) is still available. Rye can capture this nitrogen and recycle it to the following season. The actual amount of nitrogen that is recycled is highly variable. A presidedress soil nitrate test can help determine the amount of nitrogen credit to take for the upcoming corn crop.
Rye should be allowed to grow over the winter to continue taking up N in the spring.
Rye is the hardiest of cereals and can be seeded later in the fall than other cover crops, and it provides top growth and extensive root growth. It will germinate at cold temperatures—as low as 34 degrees F—and it will resume growing at 38 degrees in the spring. This makes it possible to seed rye after corn, sugar beet or bean harvest until the ground freezes.
It is relatively inexpensive to plant, and the seed is readily available or easily grown.
Easy to establish, rye can be aerial seeded in standing corn/silage and before leaf drop in soybean. Rye can be broadcast alone or with dry fertilizers, can be added to manure tanks for slurry seeding or drilled (which provides the most consistent stands).
It outperforms most other crops on infertile, sandy or acidic soil. It is also tolerant of a variety of soil types and grows well on both poorly and well-drained soils.
Rye can recycle potassium from deeper in the soil profile for future crop use.
Rye is effective at suppressing weeds. It competes with winter annuals and inhibits growth of spring weeds. As rye residue decomposes, it releases allelopathic compounds that are harmful to the growth of weeds.
The rapid fall and spring growth can stabilize sandy soil, trap snow and improve infiltration.
Rye is utilized for many cropping systems, including fruits and vegetables, where it can be left in narrow strips to reduce wind erosion.
Rye, and all cover crops, build soil quality over time by adding organic matter. Long-term benefits include improved soil structure, tilth, water infiltration and water-holding capacity.
Why cereal rye?
More about Rye
Attributes of Rye
High on Rye
Winter Rye for Extending the Grazing Season
Cover Crops: Cereal Rye
CEREAL RYE - Secale cereale
Cereal Rye for Cover Cropping
These links show that rye has higher crude and digestible protein then all other cereal grains such as wheat, triticale and oats.
Forage Dry Yield
(ton/acre) CP (%)* NDF ( %)* ADF ( %)*
Rye 1.7 b 19.4 a 48.6 b 26.8 a
Early-cut wheat 2.6 a 16.2 b 59.1 a 30.6 b
Late-cut wheat 2.7 a 14.0 c 59.8 a 31.6 c
LSD 0.2 1.0 0.9 0.8
* ADF = acid detergent fiber; NDF = neutral detergent fiber; CP = crude protein.
Winter Rye for Extending the Grazing Season
Managing Small Grains for Livestock Forage
Understanding Forage Nutrition for Ruminants
Interpreting Forage Quality Reports
I usually mix oats with my winter rye but oats like wheat is consistently lower in crude protein:
Cereal Forages for Spring Planting
Oats compared to wheat and triticale
Whitetails absolutely love rye and will dig thru deep snows to get at it during winter months and even the highest deer densities can not destroy it. I often hear people touting winter wheat but wheat cannot hold a candle to the many positives of rye and in fact has to many negative attributes to even consider it unless rye seed is not easily obtained.
Less than 50% of the rye grown in the U.S. is harvested for grain, with the remainder used as pasture, hay, or as a cover crop. About half of the amount harvested for grain is used for livestock feed or exported, and the remainder is used for alcoholic beverages, food, and seed. In the Midwest, rye is primarily grown for grain, but occasionally for hay or pasture.
It can also be grown as a cover or green manure crop. In addition to contributing organic matter, rye reduces soil erosion and enhances water penetration and retention. Furthermore, due to its allelopathic effect, some evidence suggests that rye could be exploited for weed control. It has been widely reported that residues of fall-planted, spring-killed rye reduces total weed biomass by 60% to 95% when compared to controls with no residue. Rye residue which remains at the soil surface can potentially modify the physical and chemical environment during seed germination and plant growth.