Last fall's winter rye plot

[Peeps]

I planted WR last year and the deer hammered it then and in the spring. I tried frost seeding clover into the plot this spring. I attached pics of what it looks like now. The clover looks alittle sparse in my thinking. There are also some small grass and small weeds in the plot. Not sure if I should weed wack and mow the rye down after it seeds out and then nuke the plot to start over or should I let it go dormant, seed in more rye and clover in August in hopes of the clover taking off.

 

[Peeps]

Here's the clover.

 

[SD51555]

That's a good looking stand of rye! I'm looking forward to what the team says about this one. I don't have the expertise to chime in this time.

 

[scott44]

I like to have a clover strip in my plots so I might broadcast a little more clover into that strip and mow it or roll it now to leave a heavy mulch layer. I usually put my rye into brassicas and have mowed and lightly disced the rye in mid July and broadcast my brassicas then cultipacked. Most of my plots have 3 strips on them. clover, brassicas and a cereal mix and rotate the brassicas and cereal mix every year. I really like the cereal grains for a fall mix and plant them around Labor Day

Here's a pic of one of my plots last fall, right to left. clover, cereal grain mix and brassicas, cereal mix in back also.

 

[SD51555]

Some modern deer have no idea how good they have it nowadays. Can you imagine what their ancestors of 50 years ago would have thought of all this food being laid out on the table vs what they had to do to survive?

 

[mikmaze]

my ultimate goal of 10% plot land is almost within reach, 200 acres, with 17 acres of plots, farmer has a 26 acre cornfield that I do not count as he leaves it barren for the winter. I add an acre of ww to it though if he gets his corn off in time.

 

[bat man]

I left a bunch of rye this year for 'edge' and 'screen'. Did some hinged bedding right at the plot edge with rye as the confidence to try get bucks to walk in the plots and scent check the bedding. Let you know how it worked post season.

I also scratched dirt through some rye and broadcast beans, and sprayed roundup 2 weeks later (last week). Bean germ was great and it will be fun to see what happens.

Plots are great, but not the golden ticket. They seem the answer but end up as a starting point.

 

[West Branch]

View attachment 5602 I planted WR last year and the deer hammered it then and in the spring. I tried frost seeding clover into the plot this spring. I attached pics of what it looks like now. The clover looks alittle sparse in my thinking. There are also some small grass and small weeds in the plot. Not sure if I should weed wack and mow the rye down after it seeds out and then nuke the plot to start over or should I let it go dormant, seed in more rye and clover in August in hopes of the clover taking off.

I think if you let the rye go to seed and then weed wack it for free seed and throw in some more clover at that time it should go pretty far with establishing clover and next spring it should take off nicely. I planted this plot August 9th last year with a mix of rye, clovers, and brassica. Rye and brassica took off nicely in the fall and back on June 14th I went to check it out and decided to mow it. There was 6"-18" clover in a lot of the plot, sorry no close ups. Looking forward to see what it looks like around 4th of July.

 

[wiscwhip]

Great looking rye plot Peeps. In looking at the closeup pic, you could easily just walk that plot with a hand crank spreader with more clover seed and broadcast it into the standing rye and walk away, the clover seed should do just fine and the rye will reseed itself when it matures, leaving just standing stalks with a carpet of clover underneath. If you choose to add some brassicas to the plot, I would wait until the rye seed is ready to drop on it's own, then broadcast the clover/brassica seed into the standing rye and mow it about 6" high, the brassicas will likely start out better with the mulch down at ground level holding in moisture and then take off once they get above the stubble. Keep us informed.

 

[bat man]

I would wait until the rye seed is ready to drop on it's own, .

When will this rye drop on its own?

 

[wiscwhip]

In WC WI and SE MN, it is usually ready for harvest around 2nd or 3rd week of July, can't say for sure when it would be ready in Peeps neck of the woods, but I would assume it would be about the same general timeframe.

 

[wiscwhip]

Stu, all we did was roll it down like that many times on the beach, mainly because we had no real way to cut down that 3' rye, at least when I could convince the old man not to plow and disc it. Never really got the clover going good underneath the rye thatch, due to the porosity of that sand, super low OM, and the shallow roots of the seedling clover, but we never had an issue getting the rye to reseed and the brassicas to take off. We usually didn't spray either, unless we saw sandburs starting to take off, as the rye stalks would stay down after they were mature and broken by the rolling process. I don't know of any plotters that have one, but those roller/crimper implements are really efficient at this. If a guy had an old steel lawn roller, some 3/8" X 2" steel flat bar, and a stick welder you could make one up in a few hours.

 

[dipper]

Rye is turning yellow already in central wi. It will stand up a couple months, I don't think your edge idea is horrible batman, but I wouldn't count on the rye being real pretty, but it will give you some edge effect.

 

[bat man]

Rye is turning yellow already in central wi. It will stand up a couple months, I don't think your edge idea is horrible batman, but I wouldn't count on the rye being real pretty, but it will give you some edge effect.

If I spread some brassica in mid august and let the rye seed fall will I have rye growing in September?

 

[wiscwhip]

If I spread some brassica in mid august and let the rye seed fall will I have rye growing in September?

I've not had much rye re-gen by just letting the old rye stand. If you cultipack, roll, mow, or lightly disk...then you get re-gen

I think it depends on the situation. Many times you can lose a lot of seed to birds if it is easily accessible and getting it down to thatch level by rolling or mowing will help with that. We had decent regen with it standing, but I'm sure it would have been better with the seed at ground level. We left it stand for cover. I have noticed that the regen takes place over a longer period when standing, as it does not all drop and sprout at the same time, it make take some time before it all reaches the ground and germinates.

 

[Peeps]

3-4' was about normal for rye on Dad's old place too. I've got it over my head here and most of it is right around 6'. Even on some in-woods plots I've got 5'+ rye

The rye in my photo is over 5' tall. I hope it provided a good hiding space for a fawn or two.

 

[sandbur]

I think if you let the rye go to seed and then weed wack it for free seed and throw in some more clover at that time it should go pretty far with establishing clover and next spring it should take off nicely. I planted this plot August 9th last year with a mix of rye, clovers, and brassica. Rye and brassica took off nicely in the fall and back on June 14th I went to check it out and decided to mow it. There was 6"-18" clover in a lot of the plot, sorry no close ups. Looking forward to see what it looks like around 4th of July.





I hope you have a stand straight ahead int he above picture. I could easily see a buck wandering out of the tamarack swamp in Nov.

 

[sandbur]

I'm thinking about doing this with a couple rye plots, but instead of mowing them I think I'll cultipack and spray (zero to very little clover made it through last winter)....then hope for some good rains.

My clover stands came through OK. Not sure why being you have better soil than me.

 

[West Branch]

I hope you have a stand straight ahead int he above picture. I could easily see a buck wandering out of the tamarack swamp in Nov.

That is exactly where a stand is at! :D Swamp is over 3/4 mile east to west and almost a 1/4 mile north to south. Per trail camera we should have been hunting it Nov 5-6 last year, a couple day time buck pictures. The plot is in the NW corner of a 17 acre field and blocked off by trees on three sides. Saw deer every sit including a buck in the big field on firearms opener at dusk... but only shot opportunities were does and fawns during firearms and archery. A fat little button buck hung out in the plot for 2+ hours on firearms opener, it looked like momma got taken away in the day or two prior to that.

 

[dipper]

If I spread some brassica in mid august and let the rye seed fall will I have rye growing in September?

Discing is best, the deeper you get the less rye you will have. Dragging it real good with a good drag is second. With rolling, u need a lot of moisture. Rye will germinate suspended in the air if it gets moisture.
Never mowed, dragged and cultipacked, but I'd bet it would turn out pretty good.
I like the drag and roll because my properties are 20 miles apart, and it's so much pissing around hauling equipment for 2 acres. I can get really nice plots with my 4 wheeler and save a lot of time to do stuff that's more fun. I like playing farmer, but I prefer drinking beer and catching pissed of salmon.