Winter Rye Great cover crop and cheap feed source Adam Kleiss @moo4isu on Twitter
Jul 16, 2015
Reasons to plant cover crops
• Decrease soil erosion on fields that are bare
• Fight compaction
• Increase soil organic matter
• Source of cheap feed
• Government program payments
• Increase total revenue/acre
Broadcast seed
• In dry years germination from unincorporated seed
• Still can achieve goal of holding soil
• Not recommended if you want to harvest the rye in the spring
• Lower yield
• Needs to be done before September 15
Expected Results
• 3 tons per acre of dry matter if harvested at boot stage
• If heads come out the yield can increase up to 5 tons per acre
– Lower quality of feed
– This could end up being in mid June
How to Kill
• If harvested at boot stage the rye will come back
• We plant into harvested field and let the rye green up before we spray
• If harvested after heads are out we only spray once
Expected Yields
• 15 years of experience has given us a lot of yield variation
• Corn yield drag is mostly due to plant date
– Late planted
– Best Silage corn is late maturity
• Soybean yield drag is minimal
Downfalls
• Increased insect pressure
• Timely herbicide application is important
• Small window for harvest and planting– You can now legally insure the next crop if rye is
harvested
– Well drained soils are important
– Wet springs are terrible• 2012 was a dream
• 2013 was a nightmare
• 2014 was ok
Profit
• Boot stage 3 tons of dm/acre• Seeding cost
– Fertilizer $60/acre– Drill and one pass of tillage $28/acre– Seed 2 bushels/acre x $16/bushel– Feed value $150/ton– Harvest cost
• Chopping and packing $15/ton• Cutting $15/acre
• Total cost of $170/acre• Total revenue of $450/acre
More tons
• Headed out yield of 4.5 tons dm/acre
• Seeding cost of $60/acre
• Fertilizer cost of $60/acre
• Harvest cost of $60/acre
• Value per ton of crop $100/ton
• Total value $270/acre
• Later planting date of next crop also leads to risk of lower yield
2013 Soybean Yields
• 2013 yield results
– May 27 beans 57 bu/acre
– June 10 beans 53 bu/acre
– June 17 beans 48 bu/acre
• No till and till had no difference in yield
• It was wet while we were planting
2014 Yield Results
• 61 bushels per acre for soybeans
• 158 bushels per acre corn planted May 31
– Average corn yield this year was 161
– Average soybean yield was 63
• Very hot and dry when we planted so we couldn’t no till like we would have preferred
• We had to soil finish the rye to break through the crust that had developed
Beck’s Hybrids
• Beck’s has done some good research with planting cover crops
• Good data of different Nitrogen Application rates that prove the nitrogen scavenging ability of rye
• They offer different crop mixes
Sources
• Feed Values derived by Dwayne Gibbs vita-plus nutritionist
• Seed cost from Hall Roberts seed Postville, Iowa
• Harvest and seeding cost from Iowa State University custom rate survey