Current Season

There are two fields for the 2009 crop I will feature. One was an old wheat stubble field that had manure hauled on during the summer. I disc chiseled this field due to some recent tiling. After tilling and land leveling this field I broadcast on 12 pounds of annual ryegrass with 150 pounds 21-0-0-24 on the 25th of September. I used a Phoenix rotary harrow to incorporate the annual ryegrass mixture. This field will be no-tilled come spring.




The other field was soybean stubble that received the same mixture of annual ryegrass and fertilizer on the 25th of September. I used the Phoenix rotary harrow to incorporate the annual ryegrass. I followed with my strip till operation. This year the seed had not germinated yet, and I didn’t know if I would get a bare strip. As you can see in the pictures the strip is clean.



Unfortunately there wasn’t much rain this fall and November was pretty cool. Consequently there wasn’t a lot of growth to the annual ryegrass this fall. We’ll have to see whether it over winters.




When spreading the annual ryegrass with a spinner spreader your passes should be on 40’ and then double back and split the middles. The annual ryegrass is so light it doesn’t throw farther than 20’. Any granular carrier can be used. I use ammonium sulfate fertilizer to get the sulfur.
I’ve used pell lime and potash also.





A drill with a grass seeder attachment can also be used to plant the seed directly into the soil. You will get a quicker stand establishment, but it comes at a higher machinery and labor cost.

Aerial seeding is an option prior to harvest. I will show examples of this coming into next fall. It also can be pretty expensive.

My seeding rates are a little less than is usually recommended but that’s where I’ve found my comfort zone. The experts recommend about 20 pounds per acre of annual ryegrass.

YOU HAVE TO EXPERIENCE THE RESULTS

Trying Annual Ryegrass

The fall of 2005 was my first try with annual ryegrass. I broadcast about 22 pounds of Saddle Pro brand with 150 pounds of 21-0-0-24 fertilizer. This was spread after soybean harvest on 9-26-2005. I use a Phoenix rotary harrow to slightly incorporate the seed. It received rain that same night after seeding. That fall it was warm and I got nice growth. In fact it never went dormant that winter. In mid January a root dig revealed that the roots were down to a depth of 12 inches.














First try at Annual Rye-grass. Seeded fall 2005 at 20 lbs.

As I spread liquid hog manure on it in December and again in February the annual ryegrass greened up noticeably each time.

The fall of 2006 was colder and wet. I seeded about 15 pounds of annual ryegrass with fertilizer again. It was later though (10-05-2006). It sprouted and got a fine hair like shoot, but it froze out this winter and none survived.

In the summer of 2007, I seeded the annual ryegrass after wheat harvest on 8-31-2007. This was done after hauling manure from barns and pits. This year the rate was 12 pounds per acre and again with 21-0-0-24 fertilizer. There was nice growth (6 inches) going into fall. That winter was open and cold and the annual ryegrass froze out. Vary little survived by spring. Due to earlier seeding, and growth well into December the rooting depth was still there.

Annual Rye-grass seeded after wheat stubble, September 2007.

I had tried strip tillage back about 1997 and never did get to plant a crop of corn on them. I tried it in wheat stubble without killing volunteer wheat and weeds in the fall. By spring the strips were grown over with volunteer wheat and were impossible to follow, especially without any type of guidance.

Starting in the fall of 2007 I made strips in bean ground that was planted to corn in 2008. This was done with a rented tractor and Remlinger 6 row strip till tool bar. The tractor also had RTK and auto steer guidance. This was necessary as I plant with a 12 row planter and the strips had to be accurate enough to match.

Spring Planting, 2008

I also used cereal rye as a cover crop that fall on one field that I made the strips in. Cereal rye is a lot tougher and can be seeded later and still grow late into the fall. I’ve never seen it freeze out over the winter. A broadcast seeding with fertilizer is all that is needed to establish a stand. As there was about two weeks between the seeding date and the day I made the strips, the cereal rye was already emerging. The strip till operation took everything out of the row and left the middles with a live cover. The next spring I had a nice clean dry spot to plant into. This was just one years experience but I liked what I saw and did try it again for the fall of 2008. This time I used annual ryegrass.

Cereal Rye with Strips

Cereal Rye with Strips, sprayed 4-23

After May 1st Planting, 2008

History

Here’s a little history.

On and off since the late 1980’s I’ve been using cereal rye, wheat, and oats for cover crops. Some when I still used conventional tillage. I would plant cereal rye after wheat harvest into the field that would be receiving manure until the next spring. Then it was tilled under and planted to corn. After purchasing my first no-till drill a (JD750) I planted different cover crops after corn stalks that were going to soybeans the next spring. This worked well as soybeans are more forgiving than corn.

As I switched to more no-till corn I started planting directly into standing cereal rye cover. Sometimes it was too thick and caused problems with seed placement. One time it got too big (taller than the tractor) due to a wet spring. This was actually easier to plant into because the straw had a stem to it and kinked over as you ran the planter over it. I planted by the first week of June.

The worst failure I had was corn no-tilled into an old alfalfa stand that had grown to about a foot tall. It also had some orchard grass. The top soil moisture was depleted and it didn’t rain for two weeks after planting. In the mean time mice were having a treat of corn kernels.

The reason my first cover crops were so big was that I sprayed my burn down with the planter as I planted the crop. This sometimes wasn’t the right thing to do. I have since purchased a Spra-Coupe to do separate spraying.

Present day I’ve moved away from no-till corn to strip till. I don’t know if this was a move backwards yet. Time will tell.

It’s still possible to do strips and have a cover crop established. I’ve been working more with annual ryegrass and some cereal rye the last couple of years.

Introduction

This is posted by Gene Witte. I’m currently serving on the SWCD board. Now that we have a web site I wanted to use it as a tool to show my year long experience with annual ryegrass cover, and the tools and methods used to manage it.

I will try to do monthly updates during the season as points of interest occur.

MOTIVATION!

A person has to have a desire or need to try something different. A person also has to follow through with enough effort to make it work correctly.

Mine came from an experience of plowing up a grass pasture that was no longer needed. The ground was so mellow, even the clay knobs fell right apart. This changed after three years of doing conventional tillage. The clay knobs became harder, gullies started to form due to increased water runoff.

I’ve noticed the same thing happen when I bulldozed out a fence row to make two small fields one big one. For the first three years the crops over the fence row were noticeably bigger as compared to the rest of the field.

Thus my term FENCE ROW DIRT is what I want to strive for over all my acreage. This is why I have such an interest in cover crops.

Cover crops and limited tillage will help us as farmers to get closer to FENCE ROW DIRT.

Cover crops also protect the soil surface from direct sunlight and the impact of rain. This increases the time earthworms and other soil organisms have to do there job of breaking down crop residue.

With increased organic matter there is more water holding capacity. A higher level of stored carbon is also maintained. This than can lead to a reduced need for commercial fertilizer. Who wouldn’t appreciate that today?

From an erosion standpoint you get more infiltration and less runoff.