Winter Cereal Rye

May 15 2013

Root Pit Reveals 40″ Cereal Rye Roots

I am blessed to hear from farmers around the world about their cover cropping adventures. One young man, Brian Scott, from Carroll County, Indiana has generously shared his information with me again this spring. This post is Brian’s report from early May, 2013. To see Brian’s photographs, click here.

We dug a few pits in our field today that has about 40 acres of cereal rye and another 40 of annual ryegrass. The cereal rye had a pretty good stand, but the ryegrass didn’t do so well over the winter. Looks like we may not be the only farm with that problem this year?

Anyway I was pretty excited for our first year cover cropping that we found cereal rye roots down to 40″ today! And we hit the water table below that since everything is still relatively wet from all the rain. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more roots if we could have dug down deeper. That was on pretty good soil that used to have manure applied every year until about 7 years ago when we got out of the hog business.

The ryegrass was on ground with much more clay near the surface, but I was glad to see we had roots down 2 feet where we did get a decent stand.

Both covers were sprayed today. I think I would have liked to keep the cereal rye a bit longer, but with rain in the forecast we didn’t want it getting out of control if we got soaked again and couldn’t spray. These were all seeded into standing corn on 9/19/2012. In all we had about 200 acres of cover this year and have plans to seed at least 400 in the fall!

Thanks Brian! And to everyone who have been sending info…watch for it to be on the blog soon. Thanks to all who are sharing their stories.

May 08 2013

Cover Crops: Buy One Year, Get Another Year Free

Surprise! That's what our reaction was to the volunteer annual ryegrass growing in our fields nearly 18 months after they were sown. — Surprise! That’s what our reaction was to the volunteer annual ryegrass growing in our fields nearly 18 months after they were sown.

Almost two years to the day I posted an article about Killing Tall Annual Ryegrass.

The problem of a wet and chilly 2011 has resurfaced an ugly head to be a wet and COLD spring of 2013. But over the past week or so temperatures have warmed into the 70’s and 80’s with cover crop annual ryegrass and winter cereal rye having grown tall in some areas of the Midwest. Producers need to kill their cover crops as soon as possible to comply with RMA regulations.

What about the surprise cover crops?

In a previous post I wrote about dormant seed in cover crop species on our home farm.

I showed how radishes were present in soybean fields and how annual ryegrass was coming up even after there was residual herbicide and burndown herbicide applied.

Now here we are in the spring and we have a few new surprises. Fall 2011 planted annual ryegrass and even fall planted winter cereal rye are now growing in the spring of 2013. These cover crops were fully terminated in the spring and summer of 2012; there was effective weed control. So dormant seed has germinated and now grown a full 15-18 months after it was seeded. So yes, cover crops can become weeds.

(But remember, cover crops also suppress weeds.)

So what does this matter?

We have the benefit of a “thin” cover crop and we did not have to pay seed cost or application cost for the second year. In our farming situation it is not a big deal. We terminated all of our cover crops and weeds with a “hot” chemical mix. It is a mix similar to what we used in our no-till fields prior to glyphosate coming on the market. However, if we were growing wheat or oats or barley for grain and straw it could be a problem. Thankfully there are now chemicals to use in cereal crops to eliminate annual ryegrass. I hear reports that Jamie Scott from northern Indiana has seen excellent results with this practice.

We have less winter annual weeds where we have the “volunteer” cover crops and I’m confident our soil health is better where we have the cover crops.

What do we do now?

We enjoy the benefit that we have from the cover crop (even though it is a sparse stand) and we watch to make sure we do not have any cover crops coming back before harvest. The cover crops are now dead and a residual herbicide is applied. Now we wait to plant the corn and soybeans and scout for any additional dormant seed to germinate and grow. A clean harvest is important to all producers. Our goal is to use the information from our own farm to make sure that farmers understand the rewards that cover crops bring and also the risk that comes with the reward. The risk is not huge and it is manageable, but it is risk none-the-less.

This volunteer annual ryegrass was terminated before heading out but it was jointed and would have made a great forage plant. — This volunteer annual ryegrass was terminated before heading out but it was jointed and would have made a great forage crop.

Volunteer Winter Cereal Rye was also growing in the old plot area. The cover crop was terminated well before the corn will be planted.

Feb 03 2012

Grazing Cover Crops

In early December, 2011 I visited two farms in Kosciusko County Indiana (NE IN) where producers had intentionally planted cover crops after their wheat was harvested for the purpose of grazing cattle and improving soil. One of the producers planted a mixture that was featured in this blog. His Oats/Cereal Rye/Turnip mixture looked beautiful and it appears he will have more feed than he needs to get the cattle through December without feeding much hay! Only a severe ice storm or exceptionally wet soil would seem to prevent that from happening. Here is a video my wife and I took from this field.

Just down the road a different farmer planted a different mixture. His pastures were decimated by the summer drought and over grazing. Frankly I would not have recommended the mixture he planted…only because I was not sure how the cattle would graze cover crop radishes. His mixture was 3# Appin turnips and 3# of GroundHog cover crop radishes. That was all…When my new farmer friend drove me by the field I did not see the cattle…and even then I was noticing a lot of bare soil (the area between all of the brassicas) and was longing to see oats or some grass species out in the field with the brassicas. Then we found the gent that planted the field. He was ecstatic! The cattle were grazing both the turnips and radishes very well. His cattle had great body condition and his feed bill was way down. My only recommendation was that he feed dry hay to the cattle along with the brassicas so that they would not end up with some health issues (acidosis, foundering, etc…). Brassicas should not make up more than 30-35% of the diet for cattle and he was at over 80%. Watch a video from this field.

Mrs. Robison in a cover crop filed of radishes and turnips — Here is my wife in the field of cover crop radishes and Appin Turnips on Dec 6, 2011. Note the uncovered soil...that is just another reason to add oats and or cereal rye or annual ryegrass to this mixture.

Mostly eaten cover crop turnip bulb — The cattle needed more fiber in their diet so they ate a significant amount of turnip bulbs. They ate far fewer radish tubers than turnip tubers.

Grazed cover crop radish tuber — The cattle needed more fiber in their diet so they ate a significant amount of turnip bulbs. They ate far fewer radish tubers than turnip tubers.

It is very important to include fiber in the diet of the cattle when grazing turnips and radishes. The forage quality of the brassica is too high for the cattle to have a healthy rumen. If the producer that planted only the brassicas had fed straw or lower quality dry grass hay the cattle would have been healthier. I believe that is why the cattle were eating so many bulbs…they needed more fiber.

Straw next to brassica cover crop field — This line of straw bales were used for bedding in the barns instead of feed for the cattle in the brassica field.

Sep 28 2011

Cover Crop Cereal Rye: Is there a (bad) connection with Goss’s Wilt in corn?

Cover crop cereal rye has been getting some “bad press” over the past month. It has been suggested that there is a connection with cover crop rye and Goss’s Wilt in corn (cereal rye making the Goss’s Wilt disease worse in corn).

I have talked to a few agronomists who had never heard of cover crop rye being a host for Goss’s Wilt, so I did my normal Google search to see what I could find out.

Some corn hybrids ARE susceptible to Goss’s Wilt. Some have greater levels of resistance. Here is a publication from The University of Nebraska that shows the severity of Goss’s Wilt. This disease is a real problem in the Corn Belt and there are many frustrated farmers that have Goss’s Wilt on their corn.

I also discovered that cereal rye is more of a deterrent to Goss’s Wilt, rather than a “cause.” By using cereal grains in between corn crops the Goss’s Wilt bacterium population is greatly reduced. Cereal rye is actually an excellent choice for a cover crop to help reduce the risk of Goss’s Wilt.

To reduce Goss’s Wilt it would be wise to consider the following steps:

use resistant corn hybrids
use a cover crop between continuous corn crops
control foxtail, barnyardgrass, shattercane, and other known hosts
rotate to soybeans, dry beans, alfalfa, small grains, or other non-host crops

For an excellent article on this topic by Sarah Carlson at Practical Farmers of Iowa, click here. You can reach Sarah at sarah@practicalfarmers.org

Sep 15 2011

Photo Diary – Soybeans planted into a Cereal Rye cover crop – part 3

My cover cropping and no-till friend Dave from Central Indiana has allowed us to look in at his farming operation this year. (Did you notice I have friends named Dave who plant cover crops?) – In previous posts Dave has shared about his no-till planting and spraying soybeans into cover crop cereal rye and later he shared about the progress the beans were making in the rye cover crop. Dave has a knack for photography and farming and I greatly appreciate that Dave is willing to share his thoughts and experiences with all of us. Below is the note Dave sent me about his cover crops and his no-till soybeans. (I am using this with Dave’s permission).

I thought it would be a good idea to snap some final pictures of the soybeans behind my house that were no-tilled into Cereal Rye before we harvested them. It has been very exciting to watch this on-going experiment this season. I am optimistic that this field will yield very well. Since the last photos that I sent you in early July, I foliar fed the field on July 29th, but never had to go back in to spray with Roundup for weed control since the burndown application I made six days after planting. There are a very few random weeds in the field, but nothing of any significance. One negative observation with this field has been that the soybeans got very tall and thus have lodged in some of the darker ground. I planted them at 180,000 seeds / acre in 15″ rows not knowing how they would emerge through that heavy cereal rye cover. Next year I will likely use this same cereal rye cover strategy ahead of soybeans on a much larger scale but will probably back the planting population back to around 120,000 – 135,000 seeds / acre. I also might consider, depending upon the growing season, using Cobra Herbicide at a late vegetative stage to help control the soybean height and also trigger an immune response to help against White Mold. I could see White Mold being a potential problem with this system because of the very heavy residue cover not allowing enough air movement into the canopy. I will probably try to harvest this field next week sometime.

I asked Dave if he saw white mold this year and he replied “I didn’t see a white mold issue this year because the weather turned off very hot and dry. I think if we have average temperatures and average or above average moisture during a growing season, white mold could be a possible problem with this system.”

Now for the photos that Dave sent…

Beautiful soybeans, weed-free, no-till planted into a cereal rye cover crop

The soybeans are lodging a bit in the darker soils but over-all this field looks awesome! I was speaking at a cover crop meeting this past summer at Purdue University and I mentioned Dave and this “trial” he was doing and a gentleman came up to me after the meeting and he told me he knew Dave. He told me that Dave is “the best” farmer he has ever met! It’s obvious that Dave is an “elite” farmer!

Root Pit Reveals 40″ Cereal Rye Roots