Cereal Rye vs Wheat Question

[Tree Spud]

How happy have you been with the Switch for wildlife?

Very happy. Great bedding cover for deer, good escape cover off food plots for does being chased by bucks, good cover & feeding area for turkey chicks. Also stands up very well in winter time to snow.

 

[TreeDaddy]

I am going to plant my cereal much later than I normally have in the past. I usually try to plant late August or early September. I don't get any deer using it whatsoever. I am thinking that by holding off about 3-4 weeks could change that. I am going to plan on spreading seed late September into early October this year. We'll see what happens.

If I seed any earlier than October, i get foodplots for army worms........

bill

 

[paleopoint]

This has been an informative thread with many different perspectives on these cereals.
I can sample some of these ideas on my own deer-dirt in about 3 weeks as I begin planting cereals.

I plant quite a bit of rye, and too....winter wheat.
I just started planting clover (medium red) with rye last September. I was quite impressed with the result. Lotsa bio-mass in both the rye and the clover. And, most importantly, lotsa deer usage....from October of last year to just yesterday.

But, I have long favored winter wheat (soft red is grown in my area agriculturally) over rye. Experiment after experiment over 20yrs has shown me that deer will prefer the wheat....when planted side by side with rye. They will eat wheat first. They will eat wheat most completely. In the evening, more animals will be in the wheat than in the rye.

OK, having said that......rye is the the vanilla ice cream at the kid's birthday party.
Meaning, all the chocolate will be eaten first ... till there is no more. But no kid will turn down a vanilla cone once the chocolate is gone.
My rye will get well used by deer. Only just a little bit later, after the wheat has been reduced.

Still, I am increasing my rye plantings this year at the expense of my wheat plantings. The allelopathic feature has great appeal to me. Plus the rye biomass also is a weed inhibitor, more so than wheat.

Another note on wheat: Everything eats wheat seeds. Everything ---all birds, squirrels, box turtles, woodchucks, deer, etc. etc. I've seen 'em all in my wheat. The seed heads clearly are a favored food for critters. I will put in maybe two acres of wheat. By about July 10/12th the heads are drooping and certainly look ripe, though about a week away from the local farmers combining their commercial crop. But in 5 or 6 days my wheat heads will disappear. Almost completely. It is a favorite spot for spotting my summer deer and what the antler crop looks like. But that wheat crop is nearly totally consumed.

Rye? Nearly nothing eats ripe rye. Well, turkeys will once the seeds are starting to tumble off the head. But most of my ripe rye stays uneaten. I suspect it must be the awns.

 

[yoderjac]

This has been an informative thread with many different perspectives on these cereals.
I can sample some of these ideas on my own deer-dirt in about 3 weeks as I begin planting cereals.

I plant quite a bit of rye, and too....winter wheat.
I just started planting clover (medium red) with rye last September. I was quite impressed with the result. Lotsa bio-mass in both the rye and the clover. And, most importantly, lotsa deer usage....from October of last year to just yesterday.

But, I have long favored winter wheat (soft red is grown in my area agriculturally) over rye. Experiment after experiment over 20yrs has shown me that deer will prefer the wheat....when planted side by side with rye. They will eat wheat first. They will eat wheat most completely. In the evening, more animals will be in the wheat than in the rye.

OK, having said that......rye is the the vanilla ice cream at the kid's birthday party.
Meaning, all the chocolate will be eaten first ... till there is no more. But no kid will turn down a vanilla cone once the chocolate is gone.
My rye will get well used by deer. Only just a little bit later, after the wheat has been reduced.

Still, I am increasing my rye plantings this year at the expense of my wheat plantings. The allelopathic feature has great appeal to me. Plus the rye biomass also is a weed inhibitor, more so than wheat.

Another note on wheat: Everything eats wheat seeds. Everything ---all birds, squirrels, box turtles, woodchucks, deer, etc. etc. I've seen 'em all in my wheat. The seed heads clearly are a favored food for critters. I will put in maybe two acres of wheat. By about July 10/12th the heads are drooping and certainly look ripe, though about a week away from the local farmers combining their commercial crop. But in 5 or 6 days my wheat heads will disappear. Almost completely. It is a favorite spot for spotting my summer deer and what the antler crop looks like. But that wheat crop is nearly totally consumed.

Rye? Nearly nothing eats ripe rye. Well, turkeys will once the seeds are starting to tumble off the head. But most of my ripe rye stays uneaten. I suspect it must be the awns.

Not here. Each cereal has it's own peak period when it is slightly preferred, but for my deer cereal is cereal. For my soil and weed control WR is king. Use is driven so much more by hunting pressure here that the difference between cereal grains is down in the noise.

 

[Foggy47]

This has been an informative thread with many different perspectives on these cereals.
I can sample some of these ideas on my own deer-dirt in about 3 weeks as I begin planting cereals.

I plant quite a bit of rye, and too....winter wheat.
I just started planting clover (medium red) with rye last September. I was quite impressed with the result. Lotsa bio-mass in both the rye and the clover. And, most importantly, lotsa deer usage....from October of last year to just yesterday.

But, I have long favored winter wheat (soft red is grown in my area agriculturally) over rye. Experiment after experiment over 20yrs has shown me that deer will prefer the wheat....when planted side by side with rye. They will eat wheat first. They will eat wheat most completely. In the evening, more animals will be in the wheat than in the rye.

OK, having said that......rye is the the vanilla ice cream at the kid's birthday party.
Meaning, all the chocolate will be eaten first ... till there is no more. But no kid will turn down a vanilla cone once the chocolate is gone.
My rye will get well used by deer. Only just a little bit later, after the wheat has been reduced.

Still, I am increasing my rye plantings this year at the expense of my wheat plantings. The allelopathic feature has great appeal to me. Plus the rye biomass also is a weed inhibitor, more so than wheat.

Another note on wheat: Everything eats wheat seeds. Everything ---all birds, squirrels, box turtles, woodchucks, deer, etc. etc. I've seen 'em all in my wheat. The seed heads clearly are a favored food for critters. I will put in maybe two acres of wheat. By about July 10/12th the heads are drooping and certainly look ripe, though about a week away from the local farmers combining their commercial crop. But in 5 or 6 days my wheat heads will disappear. Almost completely. It is a favorite spot for spotting my summer deer and what the antler crop looks like. But that wheat crop is nearly totally consumed.

Rye? Nearly nothing eats ripe rye. Well, turkeys will once the seeds are starting to tumble off the head. But most of my ripe rye stays uneaten. I suspect it must be the awns.

I drill Winter Rye in late August or early September. It will grow to about 8" high in fall......and the deer here LOVE the tender young rye. Then in Spring.....the cereal Rye is the very first thing to be green and very appealing to the deer here. After other things become available....the rye becomes less palatable to my deer.....but it has done its job during the fall gun season and again in spring when nourishing food is really needed. It then becomes biomass for my needs.....and the allopathic properties will keep weeds away while my clovers provide the needed nutrients.

What is not to like???

 

[buckdeer1]

I broadcast wheat in my soybeans right before a rain about the time they start dropping leaves.My wheat does help control weeds and they are greatly reduced right up until I mow in spring.I have never tried rye but do plant some Real World oats and they are browsed very heavy.Brassicas and turnips I plant where i don't want deer to go if I have a wide spot in plot.Now for this year beans are 6 inches tall but i will leave and hope it rains.They won't produce pods but could be worse.We are baling most of the ag beans around and starting baling milo tomorrow.Glad I bought crop insurance

 

[Wild Thing]

I prefer rye over wheat here also but I do plant wheat from time to time. I just mixed up a smorgasbord of mostly rye, and leftover wheat, oats and barley and drilled it into my alfalfa last night - still have 2 acres to plant this morning before we get rain this afternoon. The drought weather up until recently has kept the alfalfa fairly short already this year but I mowed it a little shorter prior to planting. This is year 3 on the alfalfa and I will be rotating it into brassicas next year so I wanted to get some cereal grains in it to balance the C:N ratio and give me something for a cover crop for next year. And...I won't mind if the deer feed on it until then.

I drilled it at 75#/acre which should give me some good thatch to plant my brassicas into next year. And for those of you wondering if I calibrated my drill first...no I didn't! LOL. Straight cereal grains for a cover crop is no big deal if there are a few pounds per acre difference so in this case I did not take the time to calibrate. I checked my previous notes where I have planted cereal grains at various rates in the past and found that the recommended setting of 45 (Drive 2 and Seed Cup 2) would give me 75#/acre of rye which was right in line with my previous experience.

Unfortunately, when I was done planting last night I got off the tractor to switch my lockout hub to the transport mode and found that I had broken it off somewhere while planting. As far as I know it is still engaged so I shouldn't have any trouble planting today but I am obviously going to want to fix it. Anyone else had this issue before? It is a Land Pride 606NT.

About 225# - just about right for 3 acres...

 

[Catscratch]

This has been an informative thread with many different perspectives on these cereals.
I can sample some of these ideas on my own deer-dirt in about 3 weeks as I begin planting cereals.

I plant quite a bit of rye, and too....winter wheat.
I just started planting clover (medium red) with rye last September. I was quite impressed with the result. Lotsa bio-mass in both the rye and the clover. And, most importantly, lotsa deer usage....from October of last year to just yesterday.

But, I have long favored winter wheat (soft red is grown in my area agriculturally) over rye. Experiment after experiment over 20yrs has shown me that deer will prefer the wheat....when planted side by side with rye. They will eat wheat first. They will eat wheat most completely. In the evening, more animals will be in the wheat than in the rye.

OK, having said that......rye is the the vanilla ice cream at the kid's birthday party.
Meaning, all the chocolate will be eaten first ... till there is no more. But no kid will turn down a vanilla cone once the chocolate is gone.
My rye will get well used by deer. Only just a little bit later, after the wheat has been reduced.

Still, I am increasing my rye plantings this year at the expense of my wheat plantings. The allelopathic feature has great appeal to me. Plus the rye biomass also is a weed inhibitor, more so than wheat.

Another note on wheat: Everything eats wheat seeds. Everything ---all birds, squirrels, box turtles, woodchucks, deer, etc. etc. I've seen 'em all in my wheat. The seed heads clearly are a favored food for critters. I will put in maybe two acres of wheat. By about July 10/12th the heads are drooping and certainly look ripe, though about a week away from the local farmers combining their commercial crop. But in 5 or 6 days my wheat heads will disappear. Almost completely. It is a favorite spot for spotting my summer deer and what the antler crop looks like. But that wheat crop is nearly totally consumed.

Rye? Nearly nothing eats ripe rye. Well, turkeys will once the seeds are starting to tumble off the head. But most of my ripe rye stays uneaten. I suspect it must be the awns.

Pretty much the exact same experience as I've had with the two (including the couple of decades of side by side plots).

 

[chucker66]

I have never tried wheat so I'm not sure if the deer prefer it on my property or not. I do know that Rye will germinate just about anywhere and I have started all my plots with rye first to build the soil and the biomass. Plus its a smaller seed that works well for no till. I just finished drilling with an old conventional drill some rye and radishes into my mowed clover. I am anxious to see what happens as we have had about 1 1/2 inches of rain since I did that. I think mixing some radishes in there will bring the deer in early and the rye is still green well into November and this is in NW WIs, zone 3b

 

[Wild Thing]

Unfortunately, when I was done planting last night I got off the tractor to switch my lockout hub to the transport mode and found that I had broken it off somewhere while planting. As far as I know it is still engaged so I shouldn't have any trouble planting today but I am obviously going to want to fix it. Anyone else had this issue before? It is a Land Pride 606NT.

Upon closer inspection this morning I found that I did not break the lockout hub mechanism - only lost the retainer pin. Whew! What a relief that was. Will have to find something to replace it with or order a new one.

I did get my last 2 acres drilled this morning and we got 2/10ths inch of rain this afternoon. Should have rye coming up soon.

 

[omicron1792]

Unless I get around to planting some travel corridors or clover "strips" I am done using my drill this year. I drilled my fall cover crops earlier this year because I wanted most of the mix (clovers, brassicas, radish, buckwheat) to get a little jump start...but that timing is still too early for cereal grains if I want them to be palatable for early archery season. It was somewhat of a compromise...I only included 30#/acre of cereal grains in the mix (10# each of Oats, Wheat and Rye). Sometime around Labor Day I will broadcast another 50#/acre or so of rye over the top of the cover crop. Yes, it is a little more work than drilling it all at once but I want to see how it works out. Time will tell.

Best wishes for a successful surgery and speedy recovery for your wife Foggy.

How did it work out drilling early then broadcasting more grains later? I go back and forth on this.

 

[Diesel5610]

I go back and forth on this also and I am interested in the report. Wild Things reports are a great resource, especially since finally getting our drill.

 

[omicron1792]

I go back and forth on this also and I am interested in the report. Wild Things reports are a great resource, especially since finally getting our drill.

I have a nice drill also. So the thought of using the drill first then just broadcasting later feels wrong. I bought the drill to have the best implement for planting, so to not use is seems wrong.

 

[yoderjac]

I have a nice drill also. So the thought of using the drill first then just broadcasting later feels wrong. I bought the drill to have the best implement for planting, so to not use is seems wrong.

I like to use the best tool for the job. I don't have a big expensive no-till drill, just a little Kasco 4' no-till versadrill. When I'm planting large seeded crops like bean, corn, sunflowers, and such, it is the best tool. When I'm planting crops that germinate well when surface broadcast on my soils, I find surface broadcasting much faster. Perhaps that is because of my equipment size, I don't know. I have a 10' cultipacker, so I can surface broadcast and cultipack much faster and with better results than I can drill.

I'd say, figure out what works best for each situation, and do that.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Wind Gypsy]

No issue surface broadcasting rye over a prior drilled mix because pulling a drill over it is only going to damage the nice existing stand that was drilled.

 

[Foggy47]

We had 7" of snow over the weekend.....followed by some rains that quickly took care of most of the snow cover. The pic below is one of many I have with multiple deer using my rye and clover plots which I no-tilled last fall. I have about 10 acres of similar plots. Right now I am just elated that some of my deer survived a hard winter and that the fall planted plots are providing some much needed nutrition at this time. I drilled the rye and more clover in late August.

I have not seen this ground since it started snowing last December......an I am in AZ for two more weeks......working on my golf game. I expect the clover and rye to provide for the deer into late June. Hoping the maturing rye will provide fawning cover.....and the clover will remain relatively weed free until I get back to MN. I do not plan to plant any crops until July......when I will terminate the rye and some clover for some Brassica plots and also for some vertical cover plots with sorghum/sudan grass, sun hemp, millet, and Egyptian wheat (etc). Hoping to break up some of the bigger plots to provide a bit more security during daylight hours.

 

[SwampCat]

I have a nice drill also. So the thought of using the drill first then just broadcasting later feels wrong. I bought the drill to have the best implement for planting, so to not use is seems wrong.

I have a hand crank seeder, a utv mounted electric seeder, a one row planter, a 500 lb pto spreader, and an 84” Woods Seeder. I use them all - every year - and sometimes I scatter a little seed by hand. No seeder does it all. Even with what I had, I just had to borrow a pendulum spreader to plant a pollinator mix. Our game and fish department would not put their native seed drill in what I was planting.

 

[Foggy47]

I have a hand crank seeder, a utv mounted electric seeder, a one row planter, a 500 lb pto spreader, and an 84” Woods Seeder. I use them all - every year - and sometimes I scatter a little seed by hand. No seeder does it all. Even with what I had, I just had to borrow a pendulum spreader to plant a pollinator mix. Our game and fish department would not put their native seed drill in what I was planting.

I have a two row, John Deere 71 planter that I have used for corn and beans. I've sold it now that I have a drill......and I really dont intend to plant very many row crops going forward. Like You, I use a 3 Point PTO spreader, and I have a Herd GT77 12 volt, Spin spreader. I can mount that Herd to the front or rear receivers on my UTV and I now have a 2" reciever on a plate that mounts on my front end loader that I bought from Titan. Also use a Solo spin spreader and other spin spreaders.

I believe I will use that receiver on my loader quite a bit in fall.....as I can then lift the seeder high above taller crops and broadcast the seeds (clovers and Winter Rye) to settle into high biomass foliage.

 

[Brian662]

We had 7" of snow over the weekend.....followed by some rains that quickly took care of most of the snow cover. The pic below is one of many I have with multiple deer using my rye and clover plots which I no-tilled last fall. I have about 10 acres of similar plots. Right now I am just elated that some of my deer survived a hard winter and that the fall planted plots are providing some much needed nutrition at this time. I drilled the rye and more clover in late August.

I have not seen this ground since it started snowing last December......an I am in AZ for two more weeks......working on my golf game. I expect the clover and rye to provide for the deer into late June. Hoping the maturing rye will provide fawning cover.....and the clover will remain relatively weed free until I get back to MN. I do not plan to plant any crops until July......when I will terminate the rye and some clover for some Brassica plots and also for some vertical cover plots with sorghum/sudan grass, sun hemp, millet, and Egyptian wheat (etc). Hoping to break up some of the bigger plots to provide a bit more security during daylight hours.
View attachment 52020

Looking good Foggy!