I've had this discussion a time or two... or ten. I see little use at all. Wheat on the other hand is used a ton. Guys up north (far enough that they can't grow wheat) say winter rye gets hammered. My belief is that if you can grow both, wheat will be preferred. Wheat has the same soil building attributes as rye but does lack the chemical weed suppression of rye. The claim that wheat needs fertilizer while rye doesn't stems from wheat farmers needing to make grain. Wheat grows just fine and stays green all winter (in the right zones) without nitrogen inputs. If I could post pics I would show you some awnless wheat that I grow. It works well in my system and gets hammered.
My deer won’t dig for rye, triticale or clover when the snow is more than 10” or so. We got 30” last week and deer are digging for brassicas, in the corn and using browse.
I've planted rye in new ground i've broken, and it's gotten good attention up to a certain point, and then the deer are just done with it sometime in late November it seems.So we got our first big snowfall of the year last week. The deer aren’t utilizing the winter rye and digging like I thought they would. What is everyone else’s experience with winter/snow usage?
I've planted rye in new ground i've broken, and it's gotten good attention up to a certain point, and then the deer are just done with it sometime in late November it seems.
The word snow is pronounced with a silent S, like \ 'Nō!What is snow?
bill
You're a man after my own heart. I've never heard it put that way, but that's about exactly what rye is for me; a little bit of rye covereth a host of food plot sins. And don't forget the oats, they are also a "mother sauce" species. What Rye is to fall food plots, oats are to spring plots. When I'm baffled with what to put in a fall field I always go to rye, and when I'm not sure what to plant in the spring, I always go to oats. AllenRye covers all my many food plotting sins..........the mother sauce of every mix/combination of seed
bill