spring planted winter rye?

[bornagain62511]

spring planting rye works great to suppress weeds. I've used it in my garden a lot in areas that I don't plant with garden crops in early spring. I plant several crops of vegetables throughout the summer and till the rye in just before planting the next crop of vegetables. the rye will get about a foot tall and very thick, but starts to go dormant in June/July. Mowing it helps keep it growing somewhat, but once summer heat comes, spring planted rye really slows down a lot. I planted it in April and May with Swedes (rutabagas) last April and May in our food plots, but the swedes grow so slow and the rye stunted the swedes so much and then the weeds took over after the rye went dormant in mid summer. I also planted rye in May in other years along with Winfred forage brassica and the Winfred grows so much faster than the swedes and did quite well. once the rye and Winfred got about 10" tall, the Winfred took off upward in growth as the rye started to slow down and eventually got drowned out under the canopy of the Winfred. you can see how tall and thick the Winfred gets in previous post on this thread.

you could plant rye as soon as the frost is out of the ground in the spring.

last year I learned I will never plant swedes again. way too slow growing. they need nearly perfect weed control and lots of fertilizer to grow and produce well. Purple top turnips and Winfred grow so much faster and compete well with weeds. we don't use chemicals on our food plots so faster growing plants like these that will have the advantage over weeds are a must. This year, I'm planning to plant most of our plots in a mix of 4 lbs. of PPT and 1 lb of Winfred per acre in Mid June without any rye. Rye seems to suck up a lot of nutrients that the brassicas could use. And with mostly PPT in the mix this time, I think those will work good at suppressing weeds and once the Winfred reaches about 12" tall it will really shoot up and get the height we need with our deep snows in winter. So hopefull it's a nice mix of large bulbs from the PPT and the tall large leafs of the Winfred, that should be the ultimate fall/winter plot around here. I've been doing food plots for over 20 years here in southwest Wisconsin and radishes/rye/oats might have a slight more attractiveness in early/mid fall, but not by much. our deer even feed on the Winfred quite a bit all summer long. And the deer love the Winfred and PPT in early to mid fall as it is, so I don't bother with rye/radish anymore. And when they need it most in late fall and through the winter, there's nothing that I know of that is better than Winfred and PPT for feeding and attracting deer around here.

 

[bornagain62511]

I know the title of this thread is about spring planted rye, but I've posted about planting brassicas, mainly Winfred forage brassica, with rye in early summer in this thread in years past. The rye really suppressed the weed growth, but the rye really stunted the brassicas and sucked up much of the fertilzer, so I learned that it's best to plant the brassicas alone and I left the rye out this year. I planted several acres of Winfred and purple top turnips this week on the 15th. It's been super dry and we got a inch and a half rain the day after planting, and another shot of rain today, and more later this week, so it should get off to a good start. I was hoping to seed it at around 2 pounds per acre of Winfred and 3 pounds of PTT per acre, but the grain drill I was using was challenging to adjust for such small rates of seed per acre, so it's gonna be thicker than I wanted. I will post updates as things progress.

 

[Wild Thing]

You can always broadcast your rye over top of the brassicas later on BornAgain. I did last year and could not be happier. I also included some clovers in with my brassica mix and the combination of clovers and rye has kept my played out brassica plots in good forage all spring and early summer this year. I know what you mean about planting brassicas too thick and it is something we all need to be concerned about but I actually drilled my seed a little heavier than normal last year (including the clovers) and I was still OK.

Here is the recipe that I drilled:

Brassicas 2020 - Drilled July 9th

Large Box:
GH Forage Radish 6#/acre

Small Box:
Purple Top Turnips 1#/acre
Barkant Turnips 1#acre
Appin Forage Turnips 1#/acre
Kestrel Kale 2#/acre
Crimson Clover 2#/acre
Medium Red Clover 2#/acre

Total 9#/acre + Radish = 15#/acre

Last year was my 5th year since going no-till and my fertilizer inputs are decreasing but I did spread 75% of the soil test recommendation. I had plenty of forage although the size of the PTT could have been bigger.



On August 21st I broadcasted cereal rye into the brassicas as best I could without stepping on too many of the brassicas.





In the spring I could see the little aerated holes where the tillage radish had been...



May 26th the Crimson Clovers were flowering...



This is what it looked like last week...





And upon closer inspection it is quite apparent that the deer are heavily foraging on the clovers.



These plots have produced a lot of forage over the past 11 months and other than broadcasting the rye last August, I haven't done anything here since I planted on July 9th last year.

Bottom line - even though I planted a little heavier than normal, the clovers and rye had little to no impact on the growth of my brassicas, yet the rye provided some forage for last fall and early spring and the clovers have been feeding my deer ever since. I always rotate out of brassicas for a year so I would normally plant cereal grains or beans in the previous year brassica plots. This year I am thinking about just letting the rye go until early-mid August and then just mowing the rye above the clovers and getting some volunteer rye along with these clovers and just keeping that cover crop going until I plant brassicas there again next July. I may broadcast or drill a little extra along with mowing the rye this year and I will likely cut back on the amount of radish and maybe increase the amount of PTT next year.

I am in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan so I normally plant brassicas in July - earlier than they do in lower Michigan, but I have never planted them in June. I will be following along to see what your June planted brassicas look like later this fall. Interesting...

 

[bornagain62511]

nice looking plots Wildthing! I'm surprised the rye was able to get a foothold when you seeded it in August with the brassicas that well established. With the Winfred forage brassica I plant, I don't know if the rye or clover would survive because the Winfred gets over 36" tall and forms a solid canopy and nothing can really grow underneath it My goal with the Winfred is to provide maximum winter forage and unless it's kept very light, like 1 pound per acre or less, it will totally shade out anything else once it gets to where it's over 2 feet tall. If you look back in this thread I've posted photos of it, for example in post #99 it's about 40" tall or more. We plan to do another several acres in late July/early August with radish/winter rye/crimson clover.

 

[Wild Thing]

Thanks BornAgain - It could be that the deer pretty well hammered my brassicas early on so that the rye was able to get germinated OK.

I am impressed with the growth on your Winfred brassica. I have never planted it before but will definitely look into it, and I may have to experiment with a mid-June planting as well.

 

[bornagain62511]

that makes sense, if your plots were grazed enough to provide enough sunlight to germinate the rye in August.

The Winfred is amazing stuff! It blows away any other brassica I've ever planted as far as height and tonnage per acre. It's a longer season brassica so there's no worry with planting it too early. We've planted it around May 15 several years already and it's always worked great. And even though it's a longer season brassica, it grows so much faster than the rutabagas (swedes) that we planted last year. The rutabagas (swedes) are even longer season than the Winfred and they could not complete with weeds very well because they were so slow to get established. But the Winfred takes off pretty quickly and once it reaches 10-12" in height it really shoots up fast. The deer love the stems which get to be about 1" in diameter and after eating the leaves the deer will eat the stems nearly to the ground. The reason I added purple top turnips this year was to provide a little more late winter forage because the deer often eat the Winfred leaves and stems before anything else in December, January, and February, and often PTT provide more food in March because the Winfred is already gone, unless we had more acreage in Winfred

 

[Wild Thing]

You have convinced me to give em a try. Thanks.

 

[bornagain62511]

you're welcome. I think the Winfred is sweeter than most brassicas as well and the deer like to browse it more early compared to other brassicas. They actually feed on the Winfred leaves all summer and usage increases into fall and winter. The photos from post #99 in this thread show the east end of a 2 acre plot of Winfred and that year the Winfred was about 40" tall on the east end where the photos were taken and on the west end of that 2 acre plot where the deer traffic is higher, the Winfred barely got above knee hi that summer due to deer constantly feeding on it all summer. Kale is even sweeter but it grows much slower, more comparable to rutabagas, and so kale and rutabagas and kale are not suitable for food plots at least in our area with the deer density as it is, they browse it to death and neither kale or rutabagas get above knee hi.

 

[Bowman]

I know the title of this thread is about spring planted rye, but I've posted about planting brassicas, mainly Winfred forage brassica, with rye in early summer in this thread in years past. The rye really suppressed the weed growth, but the rye really stunted the brassicas and sucked up much of the fertilzer, so I learned that it's best to plant the brassicas alone and I left the rye out this year. I planted several acres of Winfred and purple top turnips this week on the 15th. It's been super dry and we got a inch and a half rain the day after planting, and another shot of rain today, and more later this week, so it should get off to a good start. I was hoping to seed it at around 2 pounds per acre of Winfred and 3 pounds of PTT per acre, but the grain drill I was using was challenging to adjust for such small rates of seed per acre, so it's gonna be thicker than I wanted. I will post updates as things progress.

What is your plan to rotate out of brassicas? I thought that brassicas should not be successionally planted?

 

[bornagain62511]

What is your plan to rotate out of brassicas? I thought that brassicas should not be successionally planted?

we have about 12 acres in food plots. I don't think I've ever planted the Winfred or PTT on the same ground in 2 consecutive years. I rotate the plots through 3 different blends.

Roughly 1/3rd of our food plots are in alfalfa/red clover/hi sugar ryegrass for 3 or 4 years, and in addition to being a very important and highly attractive deer food, it also serves to make hay for my animals.

Another 1/3rd of our plots are in Winfred and PTT and the following spring we either frost seed crimson clover or lightly till and seed it with crimson clover in early spring.

The last 1/3rd of our plots are in winter rye/crimson clover/radish which we plant the year after the Winfred/PTT mix.

Each year I rotate between ground that was in rye/crimson/radish with the ground that was in Winfred/PTT. So the rye/crimson clover/radish gets planted in late July on ground that was in Winfred/PTT the previous year and which was also seeded with crimson clover that same spring. The radish is at 4 or 5 pounds per acre and with the rye/crimson clover making up a significant part of the mix, we never have issues with planting Winfred/PTT in the same plot every other year while rotating with the rye/crimson/radish every other year. And as I said, we rotate through all our plotting ground with the alfalfa/red clover/HSRG mix with roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of our ground being in that mix for 3 to 4 years at a time.

 

[Bowman]

we have about 12 acres in food plots. I don't think I've ever planted the Winfred or PTT on the same ground in 2 consecutive years. I rotate the plots through 3 different blends.

Roughly 1/3rd of our food plots are in alfalfa/red clover/hi sugar ryegrass for 3 or 4 years, and in addition to being a very important and highly attractive deer food, it also serves to make hay for my animals.

Another 1/3rd of our plots are in Winfred and PTT and the following spring we either frost seed crimson clover or lightly till and seed it with crimson clover in early spring.

The last 1/3rd of our plots are in winter rye/crimson clover/radish which we plant the year after the Winfred/PTT mix.

Each year I rotate between ground that was in rye/crimson/radish with the ground that was in Winfred/PTT. So the rye/crimson clover/radish gets planted in late July on ground that was in Winfred/PTT the previous year and which was also seeded with crimson clover that same spring. The radish is at 4 or 5 pounds per acre and with the rye/crimson clover making up a significant part of the mix, we never have issues with planting Winfred/PTT in the same plot every other year while rotating with the rye/crimson/radish every other year. And as I said, we rotate through all our plotting ground with the alfalfa/red clover/HSRG mix with roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of our ground being in that mix for 3 to 4 years at a time.

we have about 12 acres in food plots. I don't think I've ever planted the Winfred or PTT on the same ground in 2 consecutive years. I rotate the plots through 3 different blends.

Roughly 1/3rd of our food plots are in alfalfa/red clover/hi sugar ryegrass for 3 or 4 years, and in addition to being a very important and highly attractive deer food, it also serves to make hay for my animals.

Another 1/3rd of our plots are in Winfred and PTT and the following spring we either frost seed crimson clover or lightly till and seed it with crimson clover in early spring.

The last 1/3rd of our plots are in winter rye/crimson clover/radish which we plant the year after the Winfred/PTT mix.

Each year I rotate between ground that was in rye/crimson/radish with the ground that was in Winfred/PTT. So the rye/crimson clover/radish gets planted in late July on ground that was in Winfred/PTT the previous year and which was also seeded with crimson clover that same spring. The radish is at 4 or 5 pounds per acre and with the rye/crimson clover making up a significant part of the mix, we never have issues with planting Winfred/PTT in the same plot every other year while rotating with the rye/crimson/radish every other year. And as I said, we rotate through all our plotting ground with the alfalfa/red clover/HSRG mix with roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of our ground being in that mix for 3 to 4 years at a time.

Well that rotation looks like it will work.

I will be doing some planning for this year. Last year we were ravaged by Oak wilt and wind storms blew down several trees. Had much ground disturbance from removing stumps and possibly negatively affecting microorganisms burning trees during the winter. There are visible bare spots in the fire sites.

Started this year with an early heat wave and had decent germination from overseeding some of the plots. Mother Nature then sent frost which hurt and followed that with a drought. My annual clovers are toast.

Since I don’t use herbicides, I have been wary of perennial ryegrass. I am intrigued with the high sugar ryegrass. How do you rotate out of that?

 

[bornagain62511]

Well that rotation looks like it will work.

I will be doing some planning for this year. Last year we were ravaged by Oak wilt and wind storms blew down several trees. Had much ground disturbance from removing stumps and possibly negatively affecting microorganisms burning trees during the winter. There are visible bare spots in the fire sites.

Started this year with an early heat wave and had decent germination from overseeding some of the plots. Mother Nature then sent frost which hurt and followed that with a drought. My annual clovers are toast.

Since I don’t use herbicides, I have been wary of perennial ryegrass. I am intrigued with the high sugar ryegrass. How do you rotate out of that?

Where are you located Bowman? sounds like we have had similar weather this year. I'm in the driftless area of southwest Wisconsin. Spring temperatures were up and down a lot, many frosty mornings in May, a hard freeze around Memorial day, and it's been very dry all spring, we were in a a pretty severe drought but thankfully the past week and a half we've gotten several nice rainfalls and there are more chances of rain in the coming week. Our Winfred and PTT that we planted a week ago on Wednesday are looking good.

we do not use herbicides either. we follow the alfalfa/high sugar ryegrass/red clover with Winfred and PTT. then the next year it gets frost seeded or planted with crimson clover in early spring which then gets worked in late July/early August to plant rye/crimson/radish. the next year the crimson gets worked in when we plant Winfred/PTT again in June. After several years of rotating between Winfred/PTT and rye/crimson/radish it gets planted in early August again with alfalfa/HSRG/red clover which remains for several years before rotating through the others again. At any given time we always have about 1/3rd or so of our plots in the alfalfa/HSRG/red clover and the rest is divided between the Winfred/PTT and rye/crimson/radish as I explained in posts above. One of our Winfred/PTT plots that we just seeded a week ago was in alfalfa/high sugar ryegrass the past 4 or 5 years and after taking 1st crop hay off it, we chisel plowed and soil finished it to prepare for seeding with the grain drill. The grain drill is an old John Deere/VanBrunt (Spelling??) style which basically just drops the seed onto the surface which was chisel plowed and soil finished just prior to seeding. We pull a cultipacker over it after that, but I don't think it's really too necessary because any 1/2" rain will bury the seed just enough and get it to germinate. The packer does help press the seed in and firm the soil and that helps with retaining soil moisture somewhat. The other plot we planted a week ago with Winfred/PTT was basically weedy last year and this spring because we planted rye/rutabagas as I posted about in earlier posts and it was a failure since the rutabagas (aka swedes) grow so slow and without using herbicides the weeds took over and we never did anything with that plot after that last year. It would have been good to mow it and plant the rye/crimson/radish mix there last August, but we ran out of time so we just ignored it.

 

[Kooch]

I agree. I’m interested in the high sugar rye grass too. My place is hours and hours away from home and I don’t have a tractor. Everything I’ve done so far has been no till broadcast, spray and drag.

I’m hoping to get out of the annual food plot game for a while. My soil is not good enough for alfalfa so I have used trefoil with success, along with Alsike and medium red clover.

Everything I read says rye grass is bad. Yes I know there is a difference between the rye grass and cereal rye. I use the latter a lot. Despite common legend saying rye grass is bad, I see a lot of mixes, like from deer creek seed, that have the high sugar rye.

Do the deer eat that or is it just in there to soak up the nitrogen and battle the “worse” grasses that want to grow in the legume plot?

I’m in far Northern MN big woods country.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[bornagain62511]

the high sugar ryegrass makes beautiful hay and I seeded a pasture with it 7 years ago and it's still going strong. It survived a brutal winter with 2 nights around -40F.

It's hard to tell for sure how much the deer feed on it because I've never planted it alone and the deer love the alfalfa that I have planted with the HSRG. But I think the deer do feed on it some, especially in late fall and winter. Then again, they could be eating the alfalfa instead of the HSRG. only way to tell how much they feed on it would be to plant a field in pure HSRG but I don't want to do that.

the field that we just planted with Winfred/PTT which was in alfalfa/HSRG for the past 5 years or so had mostly converted to HSRG. most of the alfalfa died out during that brutal winter. the WInfred/PTT in that field are coming up nicely with minimal weed competition. The HSRG was good and keeping it weed free, as well as cutting it for hay 2 or 3 times a year.

 

[Bowman]

Where are you located Bowman? sounds like we have had similar weather this year. I'm in the driftless area of southwest Wisconsin. Spring temperatures were up and down a lot, many frosty mornings in May, a hard freeze around Memorial day, and it's been very dry all spring, we were in a a pretty severe drought but thankfully the past week and a half we've gotten several nice rainfalls and there are more chances of rain in the coming week. Our Winfred and PTT that we planted a week ago on Wednesday are looking good.

we do not use herbicides either. we follow the alfalfa/high sugar ryegrass/red clover with Winfred and PTT. then the next year it gets frost seeded or planted with crimson clover in early spring which then gets worked in late July/early August to plant rye/crimson/radish. the next year the crimson gets worked in when we plant Winfred/PTT again in June. After several years of rotating between Winfred/PTT and rye/crimson/radish it gets planted in early August again with alfalfa/HSRG/red clover which remains for several years before rotating through the others again. At any given time we always have about 1/3rd or so of our plots in the alfalfa/HSRG/red clover and the rest is divided between the Winfred/PTT and rye/crimson/radish as I explained in posts above. One of our Winfred/PTT plots that we just seeded a week ago was in alfalfa/high sugar ryegrass the past 4 or 5 years and after taking 1st crop hay off it, we chisel plowed and soil finished it to prepare for seeding with the grain drill. The grain drill is an old John Deere/VanBrunt (Spelling??) style which basically just drops the seed onto the surface which was chisel plowed and soil finished just prior to seeding. We pull a cultipacker over it after that, but I don't think it's really too necessary because any 1/2" rain will bury the seed just enough and get it to germinate. The packer does help press the seed in and firm the soil and that helps with retaining soil moisture somewhat. The other plot we planted a week ago with Winfred/PTT was basically weedy last year and this spring because we planted rye/rutabagas as I posted about in earlier posts and it was a failure since the rutabagas (aka swedes) grow so slow and without using herbicides the weeds took over and we never did anything with that plot after that last year. It would have been good to mow it and plant the rye/crimson/radish mix there last August, but we ran out of time so we just ignored it.

 

[Bowman]

Northern lower peninsula of Michigan. I read about Forage Collards growing as you described the Winfred. Did not attempt because of weather. Collards will not set seed until undergoing vernalization in Winter. I have planted Winfred before but never got growth like you as I am on sand. Conventional planting dates are too late to get that much growth. I am really surprised that you get that much coverage with such a low seeding rate. Finally getting some rain as I type.

 

[bornagain62511]

Northern lower peninsula of Michigan. I read about Forage Collards growing as you described the Winfred. Did not attempt because of weather. Collards will not set seed until undergoing vernalization in Winter. I have planted Winfred before but never got growth like you as I am on sand. Conventional planting dates are too late to get that much growth. I am really surprised that you get that much coverage with such a low seeding rate. Finally getting some rain as I type.

that far north I'd suggest planting Winfred in mid to late May. here in southwest Wisconsin I aim for mid June and if anything I'd plant earlier rather than later in our neck of the woods. Winfred grows much faster than rutabagas and kale, but it is a longer season brassica compared to PTT, radish, and dwarf essex rape so planting earlier than those varieties is a must if you want to get it's full growing potential.

 

[bornagain62511]

and after a second thought, it does seem like the deer like to feed on the high sugar ryegrass because we have 2 plots that are both about 2 acres I can watch both fields from my house.. one of them is a mix of alfalfa and red clover with no HSRG and the other 2 acres is alfalfa with HSRG and the deer feed in the plot with the HSRG a lot more than the other plot...and even though they are close to one another, I would expect deer traffic to be higher in the plot without HSRG because of their location....yet they feed far more in the plot with the HSRG....there might be a higher percentage of alfalfa in the plot that has HSRG, so that might be the reason they feed on it more than the plot with only alfalfa and red clover.....but there is a good amount of alfalfa in the plot without HSRG, and it has red clover too which the deer like....so it seems to me like the deer do like to feed on the HSRG.....but I can't know for sure, just an educated observational guess

 

[bornagain62511]

Here's a photo of the Winfred and purple top turnips we planted June 15th which I posted about earlier in this thread. Deer have been feeding on it a lot all summer and fall. I was using a grain drill that made it difficult to seed it at the rate I wanted, so it got planted thicker than I wanted and the turnips and Winfred were a bit stunted because of that. Average size of the turnips is about baseball size, but many of the plants didn't even form bulbs because it was planted too thick. It got kinda weedy mid summer and that stunted things quite a bit too. The winfred never got nearly as tall as it has in the past, but there's still a lot of food here. This is about 1/3 of the acreage we planted like this on June 15th with Winfred and PTT.

 

[ruskbucks]

Here's a photo of the Winfred and purple top turnips we planted June 15th which I posted about earlier in this thread. Deer have been feeding on it a lot all summer and fall. I was using a grain drill that made it difficult to seed it at the rate I wanted, so it got planted thicker than I wanted and the turnips and Winfred were a bit stunted because of that. Average size of the turnips is about baseball size, but many of the plants didn't even form bulbs because it was planted too thick. It got kinda weedy mid summer and that stunted things quite a bit too. The winfred never got nearly as tall as it has in the past, but there's still a lot of food here. This is about 1/3 of the acreage we planted like this on June 15th with Winfred and PTT.


View attachment 39398

Good looking plot. I keep planting my brassicas earlier and earlier in northern WI. It seems most suggest planting late July or August. I wasn't getting the growth that late. I planted late June this year and turnips and rape were huge. Have you ever had rape bolting on you planted that early? My father in law always planted his rape and raddish in spring.( just always had to go against the grain) his rape would be all stems and flowers. Raddish made seed pods almost like beans. He was happy because the deer were eating the pods.