Why I plant cereal grains

[j-bird]

I was out and about today on my place and saw something I have seen before, but it caught my eye more this time than before. I have a side by side as to why I plant cereal grains.

Below is a clover plot right next to my radish and rye - notice how the clover plot is still very dormant, while the rye is greener.


The low spot with the water is a place I have considered a water hole, but I think I am going to stay back in the treeline.

Below is the rest of the cereal plot. It might be hard to see in the pic, but it was easy to see first hand. left was a rye/radish mix and the right is a winter wheat turnip mix. The radishes has some bulbs still solid the turnips are all mush.

The rye was greener than the wheat - I hope to see how the deer prefer one over the other.

 

[dipper]

J your pictures are also why I try to plant everything together.

 

[j-bird]

J your pictures are also why I try to plant everything together.

Dipper - this was sort of a small trial to see which would do better. Wheat is much more common in my area from a farming perspective. I was and still am curious as to which the deer actually prefer. Just by looking it appears the rye is doing better. I'm going to put exclusion cages on them and see if I can get some more info. I know the rye is better for my soil, but if the deer won't eat it - well it's something I just have to consider. This plot will get tilled under and planted to corn and/or soybeans near memorial day. The same thing was true for the radish vs turnips as I had never planted radish before, but had minimal use of turnips in the past.

Still learning what the deer like - isn't that what it's all about?

 

[Bowsnbucks]

We have the same " comparison planting " set-up at camp to see which plots the deer prefer. Like yours J-bird, we're comparing WW to WR. In the late fall, the rye was getting the most attention, FWIW. I'm anxious to see after the snow melts and things start to green up.

 

[dipper]

Absolutely, that's nice of u to share, but that's why I have them growing all at once

 

[j-bird]

Absolutely, that's nice of u to share, but that's why I have them growing all at once

With the soil benefits of rye I wanted to try it, but I had no idea how the deer would utilize it. Rye is very uncommon around here from an ag perspective so the deer are not familiar with it. I wanted a side by side to help give me some info and feedback. I prefer to plant what the deer want. Just last night I saw the deer still working for spilled corn in the cut corn field even though the rye and wheat are just a few hundred yards away - of and it was 70+ degrees outside!

I don't think my deer have read the same books I have - they seem to do their own thing and not stick to the script!

 

[dipper]

The cover cropping benefits of rye are inflated and the qualities of wheat and oats are not given enough credit. Let some oats grow to maturity and and try to dig it up. If those roots aren't massive biomass I don't know what is. Sure they might not be quite as large as rye roots, and they might not scavenge nutrients just as well.
I've been saying this a long time, and you already quoted half of it. Just like the deer, we don't have to follow rules like a farmer does. We are food plotters so with these types of crops we don't have to follow any rules.
I'd grow wheat in a heart beat over rye if the deer preferred it. Again, that's why I grow it all together, check out the dipper rotation thread. It's super easy to grow these cover crops like a food plotter, and the deer love the buffet.

 

[dipper]

Can't see why not, I've never planted it alone. The eat my cocktail.

 

[j-bird]

Mine will get turned under before it goes to seed - it will get planted into a spring planted in corn or soybeans. I will then overseed it in late summer with a cereal grain/brassica mix. This was my first exp with rye and I hope I can see which the deer prefer from a forage perspective before that happens. I just didn't expect to see a visual diff, but that is why I try different things.

 

[Don'tWorryIHuggedItFirst]

Rye overseeded into our soybeans.

 

[j-bird]

just a follow up here. It's now mid may and oh what a difference between the rye and wheat. The rye is nearly twice as tall as the wheat but both are growing seed heads now. Just lik ebefore - rye on the left and wheat on the right. The rye is waist high or taller. So the rye will create more shade and provide a better sense of cover more quickly - this was my first use of rye and I have been pretty happy with it.

Both rye and wheat also provide great support for any winter peas that survive. This pic is in the wheat and you can also see some of the PTT seed stems forming as well.


All this will get mowed and tilled under in prep for my annual plots.

 

[j-bird]

Well over the holiday weekend I did what I set-out to do. I took the above and mowed, tilled and planted. Turned all that vegetation into soil nutrients. I learned a few things along the way.

#1 - NEVER let the cereal grains mature - at least in my case with the equipment I have! The rye got to at least 4' tall and provided cover and reduced weeds and was support for what AWP/frostmaster peas survived. However mowing it down wasn't enough.

#2 - The tiller HATES the rye! The tiller had one hell of a time incorporating clippings into the soil. Looking back I should have plowed it under and then tilled or found a different way to address the cereal grains. Maybe spraying a week or two prior would have helped. I was tilling at the slowest ground speed I could. I spent hours pulling the wrapped stalks out of the shaft of the tiller as well :mad:.

#3 - The planter HATES the rye! Well because of the above the old school planter I have had a hell of a time doing its thing without all the stalks balling up and causing issues.

The best plot is below and there was no rye planted and the wheat was much shorter and wasn't planted as heavily either. What I had may have created a lot of organic matter in my soil, but I paid for it this year. Live and learn!

This plot is about a 1/4 acre. As it sits in the picture - to the left is my perennial clover plot with 3 caged chestnut trees planted last year, one of my home-made shooting houses in the distance, and the ag field full of fresh young soybeans further in the distance and to the right. Now all I need is some rain to get the corn going!

I love the tiller - it does a real nice jobs with soil prep - far better than I can get with a plow and a couple of passes with a disc.

 

[SD51555]

I wonder too if you wouldn't have had an easier time had your thatch been dry. I haven't experienced the massive thatch that is mature rye yet, but i continue to kick it around in my head. I'm pondering a low rate of rye mixed with Brassica this year to hopefully enable more brassica tonnage and less risk for a thatch problem next year if we let it go.

 

[dipper]

Cutting it a couple times would of made tilling it do able

 

[foggy]

I had to learn "the hard way" to run my rotary cutter over the rye before tilling.

Note: An electric Sawzall is the easiest way to remove wound-up crops or brush from your tiller.....second is a loper. But the best bet is to prevent it via roundup application a week or so prior......and then follow with a rotary cutter.

 

[phil@thesidehill]

yeah....take this worth a grain of salt because I dont have a tractor or any implements whatsoever so my planting methodology and experience is much different than yours....but I think possibly a mowing at 2 weeks prior to planting, followed by spraying at a week out, and then tillage might make it easier to deal with. I think if the rye is mowed ahead of time the thatch will have had time to start to dry out and break down, and then a spraying will have zapped anything left from the mowing and given it a chance to start to brown down. i think "green" rye thatch is probably just too difficult to work with, but that a "brown" rye thatch is most likely much easier to incorporate using more conventional tillage methods.

 

[dipper]

Research indicates Worms can easily consume 2 tons of organic materiAl/ acre a yeAr. A robust population of worms is a huge benefit to the soil for multiple reasons. Plus they will get rid of your organic material, and make it 100% fertilizer. I think we as humans believe we are the ones who have to control everything. We don't, and there are more beneficial alternatives to tillage. All that hard work and tear to your equipment, when worms could have gotten rid of your thatch. To each their own, I work smarter not harder, but that's me.