What is this?

I planted winter peas, kale, oats, winter rye, crimson clover, and radish.

I think I’m smart enough to narrow it down to oats or rye. But the red is throwing me. It’s starting to turn green in the one picture.

pretty sure that is the winter rye....oat seeds are more pointy than winter rye, WR similar to almost like inside of sunflower in shape which appears like in 2nd photo the seed it is germinating from.

Why is it red? Is that normal? I’ve never planted winter rye before.

It's rye all right. Nothing to worry about. Nothing wrong with it besides the germination from broadcasting being less than ideal and it's struggling for nutrients, at this particular stage until it can get better roots in the ground it's got a phosphorus deficiency. It'll look like this just shortly, and this was broadcast several weeks ago.

What you really need is a good soaking rain to get your broadcast seed started better.

Another .10 of an inch expected Sunday but not much after that. I have 50 pounds of rye on standby to top this or another field off if this dry weather continues. The brassicas sprouted but the peas are still rooting or haven’t germinated yet. But the rye is shooting up everywhere.

It’s rye and it’s normal. It’s always that color when it germinates. It will be green soon.

cutman said:

It’s rye and it’s normal. It’s always that color when it germinates. It will be green soon.

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Good to know, I threw some oats and rye in my garden today so I can see what I should be looking for. Like I said I’ve never planted anything except BOB seeds so these cereal grains are all new to me.

Well it looks like the deer found the rye.

I haven’t had any deer in the plot since that picture. Maybe the deer were browsing something else. Or maybe there is just better food at the moment. When do deer normally start browsing winter rye?

Read up on fallow syndrome.

When there is a fallow period (period of no living plants) your beneficial fungi die. They are/were the conduit that delivers soil phosphorus to plant roots.

https://ipm.missouri.edu/IPCM/2019/...elop around the,nutrients, primarily P and Zn.

https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/purple_leaves_on_wheat_explained

(this is quite a leap to be relevant to this thread, but I really like talking about this project.)

I did an expansion on my food plot this summer and I was expecting to see some purple in my rye, but didn't, and I think it was just luck.

I had a spot next to my plot that was low (held water, stumps, holes, lots of brush, just awful). I flattened all the brush last winter.


It was a lot of tag alder, which is a natural host for both forms of beneficial fungi. I then dug a hole right next to it and used the dirt to bury all the brush, which also filled the holes, covered the stumps, and raised me up outta the water. Where I took the dirt was also all tag alder. By the time I came back for the first pic the new shallow pond was already full. I went down about 2' to try and keep it somewhat topsoil.


Came up primarily rye with a mix of about every other damn thing that exists as far as perennials and annuals go. Looks a little gnarly right now, but after a late summer mowing next year and a little time for sticks to lay down, it should look like the one I did last year.


This is the one I did last year. Dug a water hole, used the dirt to raise up a low spot and expand the plot. In this spot I went small and deep. I had to quit when the clay got so bad it wouldn't come out of the excavator bucket.

How long does it take for fallow syndrome to occur? Is it a day, a week, a month, a year? The first article talks about something not being planted the previous year. Those articles are prime examples of why throw and mow, and no till is ideal. Something I plan on using here on out.

Now, I did have buckwheat in this field and I prematurely, by my fall planting date, disked it under. But planted the buckwheat to early in the Spring, so I have volunteer buckwheat growing from the mature plants I disked. Which I’m not complaining about. I also did a throw and mow, with rye as part of the mix, that went from buckwheat and sunflowers to the fall planting. So that will be interesting to see if it has a better nutrient intake then the disked field. I just don’t know if I’ll be there in the time frame to see purple growth vs a green growth since the original rye I posted about turned green only a 2 days later.

jlane35 said:

How long does it take for fallow syndrome to occur? Is it a day, a week, a month, a year? The first article talks about something not being planted the previous year. Those articles are prime examples of why throw and mow, and no till is ideal. Something I plan on using here on out.

Now, I did have buckwheat in this field and I prematurely, by my fall planting date, disked it under. But planted the buckwheat to early in the Spring, so I have volunteer buckwheat growing from the mature plants I disked. Which I’m not complaining about. I also did a throw and mow, with rye as part of the mix, that went from buckwheat and sunflowers to the fall planting. So that will be interesting to see if it has a better nutrient intake then the disked field. I just don’t know if I’ll be there in the time frame to see purple growth vs a green growth since the original rye I posted about turned green only a 2 days later.

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You don’t have fallow syndrome. Rye germinates and grows too quickly for its own good - that’s why we love it. It grows up before it grows down and then turns nice and green when the roots catch up.

My soil is so full of phosphorus that I’ve never had to add an ounce to it. Every field and every soil test has it off the charts high, yet my rye is always purple when it germinates. I also have been practicing no-till for years and never have bare dirt.