What are you doing with your rye?

[bueller]

I know that many of us planted rye last fall as we do most years. What are your plans for the rye this year? I have three plots with rye and my plans are to spray them with gly in late May. I will then roll, cut, or lightly drag (no tilling) and seed buckwheat into the plots.

edit... I accidentially posted the poll before adding all the choices I wanted.

• Allowing it to mature while clover establishes below

 

[scott44]

Allowing it to mature and broadcasting my brassicas into it ( mid July ) and then rolling it down, spraying and killing the clover under the rye while rolling. I've done this the last couple years and it's worked good.

 

[bueller]

Allowing it to mature and broadcasting my brassicas into it ( mid July ) and then rolling it down, spraying and killing the clover under the rye while rolling. I've done this the last couple years and it's worked good.

That has worked very well for me too. I didn't seed much clover with my rye last year so over the next couple weeks the deer activity on my plots will fall off as the rye matures. Food is king around here, mostly wooded vs farmland, so I see great use out of my summer plots hence the reason for terminating the rye and planting buckwheat.

 

[shawnv]

I'm no spray on my farm so I'll grow some now and till up later when I plant my beans or and other cereal grain/brassica plots.

 

[Bill]

Letting it mature as much as possible. Drilling in beans, spray then roll.

 

[SmallChunk]

I'm leaving it and no-tilling corn into mine. Once the corn grows a bit, I will burn the weeds off. I didn't get a very good germ last fall, so it isn't very thick.

 

[Catscratch]

Going to spray it this weekend (if the wind dies down), broadcast strips of buckwheat and millet into it after it yellows, and then mow.

 

[WTNUT]

When I plant a clover plot, I always add rye and or oats. For nearly every plot prior to this year, I have allowed the rye to mature and go to seed before mowing the plot. That allows the seed to lay there until late August when it germinates and I have a rye and clover plot. It is a good combo because in most years my clover starts to lay down due to frost in early November. Then I still have rye through the entire winter and into the spring. HOWEVER, last fall I planted some clover plots that did not do well because of the drought. I have sprayed my rye this year to allow my clover to grow and little better. When you allow the rye to go to seed it creates quite a canopy over the clover. Plus I have a new not till drill so it will be easy for me to add rye this fall.

 

[bueller]

Looks like we are about 50% terminating 50% allowing to mature. They both have their benefits depending on what your plans are. Pretty awesome that one of the cheapest seeds to plant, and easiest to grow, is so valuable in our plans.