Rye vs oats vs winter wheat

jlane35

Well-Known Member
I’m having a tough time distinguishing winter rye, oats, and winter wheat from each other in my throw and mow plot. Does anyone have a good way of explaining to me which is which?

I’m seeing lots of grass like growth. I’m just not sure which is doing best, germination wise, for my area. So I know for future plantings.
 
I can tell the difference, but I dont know that I can tell you clearly what that difference is, plus, different strains look different. Rye tends to be just a tad more spindly and spiral shaped, with a slightly bluish tinge to the green as it gets bigger. Wheat is a wider blade, darker green, looks more like quackgrass. Oats is a slightly wider blade than rye, halfway between the two. Look online at young wheat, rye, oat seedlings images.
 
I can tell the difference, but I dont know that I can tell you clearly what that difference is, plus, different strains look different. Rye tends to be just a tad more spindly and spiral shaped, with a slightly bluish tinge to the green as it gets bigger. Wheat is a wider blade, darker green, looks more like quackgrass. Oats is a slightly wider blade than rye, halfway between the two. Look online at young wheat, rye, oat seedlings images.

Thank you, that helps. I threw some seed in my garden to see if I can distinguish the difference. It’s starting to sprout now. I guess I’ll get better with time. But when I was looking at my plot I was excited to see the growth but I couldn’t tell my cousin what was growing.
 
The rye we plant each year has a purple tint the first week or so out of the ground.
 
Thank you, that helps. I threw some seed in my garden to see if I can distinguish the difference. It’s starting to sprout now. I guess I’ll get better with time. But when I was looking at my plot I was excited to see the growth but I couldn’t tell my cousin what was growing.

dig a plant up and see which seed is attached
 
https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/crop...general-agronomy/identifying-cereal-seedlings

Identifying cereal seedlings

Cereals growing in the field at the seedling stage may need to be identified by:

  • spray contractors needing to make sure of the plant species before advising on spraying for weed control with currently registered herbicides
  • land valuers and surveyors completing cereal production forecasts often need to identify cereals at the early growth stages
  • farmers with potential wild oat problems in their crop differentiating wild oats from cultivated oats or other cereals to determine whether they should spray their crops
In order to identify different cereal species, close observation of the seedlings at the junction of the leaf-sheath and leaf-blade is required.

The following features help to distinguish the different cereal species.

Ligule
The ligule is a projecting flap or collar located at the junction of the leaf-blade and leaf-sheath. The ligule prevents water entering inside the leaf-sheath where it might be retained and cause rotting.

Auricle
The auricles are located at the lower end of the leaf-blade, where it meets the leaf-sheath. They may be extended as a pair of claw-like projections. Auricles are most obvious on barley and are absent in oats.

Leaf-blade
The leaf-blade of cereals is twisted or curled. When viewed from above these twists are either clockwise or anti-clockwise.

Key identification of common cereal seedlings
cerealseedlings.jpg


Oat:

  • auricles absent, leaf-sheath and blade hairless (scattered hair on some varieties)
  • ligule medium length
  • leaf-blades twist anticlockwise
Barley:

  • auricles long, slender and hairless
  • leaf-sheath and blade usually hairless
  • scattered hairs on some varieties
  • ligule of medium length
  • leaf blades twist clockwise
Rye:

  • auricles very short and hairless
  • leaf-sheath and blade have an inconsistent degree of hairiness
  • ligule short
  • leaf-blades twist clockwise
Wheat:

  • auricles blunt and hairy
  • leaf-sheath and blade always hairy
  • ligule of medium length
  • leaf blades twist clockwise
Triticale:

  • auricles blunt and hairy
  • leaf-sheath and blade hairy
  • ligule of medium length
  • leaf-blades twist clockwise
Wheat and triticale are difficult to distinguish since their vegetative characters are similar. Removal of the seedling from the soil and observation of the grain shell may be a means of distinguishing wheat from triticale.

Wheat grain shells tend to be lighter in colour than triticale. Wheat shells are oval — triticale grain shells are oblong.

Wild oat
The common wild oat, a significant weed of cereal crops, cannot be distinguished from cultivated oats during vegetative growth. Wild oat seed however can be distinguished from the cultivated oat.

Wild oat grain is usually darker, may retain its awn and is hairy at the base of the husk. The husk of cultivated oats is hairless.

An easy way to identify all oats from other cereals is to observe the twist of their leaves. When viewed from above, the oat leaf has an anti-clockwise curl. The leaves of other cereals curl clockwise.
 
Deer will eat the wheat but not the rye... :)

(that's a joke per my stance on wheat being a better attractant than rye that some of you are familiar with). I bought cereals for my fall plots last week, not a single rye seed in there.
 
I can only tell come spring/early summer.....oats are dead, wheat is about knee high and rye is nearly waist high! So I am not much help.
 
Deer will eat the wheat but not the rye... :)

(that's a joke per my stance on wheat being a better attractant than rye that some of you are familiar with). I bought cereals for my fall plots last week, not a single rye seed in there.
Yea but has anyone in KS ever planted anything but wheat, and maybe corn?? Just my onsite observation. LOL.

And am I the only one that found those grain ID pictures kinda sexy?? Been lonely 6 mo in these here mountains.
 
Yea but has anyone in KS ever planted anything but wheat, and maybe corn?? Just my onsite observation. LOL.

And am I the only one that found those grain ID pictures kinda sexy?? Been lonely 6 mo in these here mountains.

:) I've planted rye for a lot of years, didn't order any this year. My part of the planet is mostly grass and beans. Probably several square miles of grass for every acre of beans. Corn does pop up once in a while though. I've settled into Awnless Wheat for the heavy lifting in plots. Deer don't eat rye. Doesn't take much imagination to make those grain ID pics almost porn...
 
:) I've planted rye for a lot of years, didn't order any this year. My part of the planet is mostly grass and beans. Probably several square miles of grass for every acre of beans. Corn does pop up once in a while though. I've settled into Awnless Wheat for the heavy lifting in plots. Deer don't eat rye. Doesn't take much imagination to make those grain ID pics almost porn...

Well unless I can figure out the difference I won’t know what the deer are eating.
 
Well unless I can figure out the difference I won’t know what the deer are eating.
I've been somewhat of a smartass on your thread. To tell the truth I can see a difference between the two, but don't exactly know how to describe it. Rye has a somewhat bluish tint to it when it gets taller and the heads look a lot different after that, but I'm not sure about the shorter fall and winter stages. After looking at the ID pic that BenAllGood posted I would be studying the auricles pretty closely.

Do you have any seed left over? Maybe something in the bed or floor of your truck? I plant some extra seed in the flowerbed or a pot to know what I'm looking for when it sprouts. This has been a pretty useful practice for me, especially when planting new stuff.
 
I struggle with diff early on but if you look you can see oats tend to be wider leaf width. And for me, rye has purplish tint when growing, but that may be my regional seed. But if you look close, your rye shows some of that. Come next spring, oats will be gone, rye will be first green up. And wheat will make for some of the prettiest fields you can see. But don't tell Catscratch I said that.
 
Back
Top