Tag Archives: management of annual ryegrass

Check out the Ryegrass Videos – lots of great info for beginners!

Some years back, the Oregon Ryegrass Commission produced a series of nine videos that detail aspects of growing annual ryegrass as a cover crop.

Here are the links to the first videos in the two series:

Once you view the first, the YouTube site will list the others in the series. You’ll get great basic information as well as helpful tips from cover crop experts and growers who have mastered the management aspects of this cover crop.

Learn how annual ryegrass benefits soil health, then how that translates into profits at the end of the year, with better production for corn and soybeans.

A Wrinkle on Early Harvest to Get Cover Crops in

There are still a few fields in which corn and beans were not harvested from last fall…too much rain. In some cases, growers chose to harvest earlier, however, when the corn had about 27% moisture, rather when it dried out to about 20%. Doing so, this past year, meant a higher yield, but increased the cost to dry the corn out. But, it also meant that those growers had a better chance of planting a cover crop.

Difficulty with planting cover crops last fall may encourage even more to try interseeding, that is, planting a cover crop like annual ryegrass in late spring, when corn is already a foot high or so. This new method has been tested in southern Canada and, in the past couple of years, in the northern Corn Belt. While there is much more testing to do, some have seen an increase in corn yield with the spring cover crop planting.

Annual Ryegrass: Part of New Adaptive Management Strategy

ARG in Quebec - November photoAdaptive management. Fancy title, basically meaning “be on top of developing situations in your fields and be  ready for a Plan B”.

Many farmers already fit that definition to a TEE. When it comes to growing successful cover crops, however, many have had to up their  game.

Cameron Mills, for example, was ready to seed his annual ryegrass cover crop seed in the fall, with a high-clearance sprayer adapted to plant cover crops. The late harvest, complicated by a wet fall, foiled his Plan A. His Plan B was a phone call to a nearby pilot to fly on the annual ryegrass seed.

Mills farms in Walton, IN, and has been a consistent cover cropper since 2005. His experience has put him on the front edge of cover crop field research. For example, he has studied the impact of annual ryegrass on extra nitrogen in the field. Accordingly, he’s reduced his input of N by 30 lb/ac and it hasn’t impacted yield. The following is from an article in Western Farmer Stockman

“In 2012, Mills layered in 170 lbs. of N per acre. Thanks in large part to his healthy no-till/cover-crop soil, he harvested a 165 bushel corn crop despite the severe drought.”

He said he believes he can trim that further, and Dan Towery agrees. Towery, an independent cover crop advisor and immediate past president of SWCS, said (in the same article) that, “after five years of continuous use of cover crops, farmers can typically cut N rates by an average of 50 lbs per acre for the crop year.” The savings will easily cover the cost of cover crop planting, he added.

The experience of others certainly helps those newer to cover cropping, and then having your own experience with cover crops will build confidence towards having your own Adaptive Management Strategy.

As Towery advises with adaptive management, “go slow and pay attention.”

Annual Ryegrass Forage in the Fall and Spring

Click here to access an article from a Missouri dairy specialist who advises planting forage crops in the fall to supplement feed stocks with healthy grasses and grain foliage.

Extension agent Ted Probert said, “Annuals are useful in extending the grazing season into late fall and early winter and can also provide the earliest available spring grazing. Small grains including wheat, rye, triticale and oats are old standbys for annual forage production,” he said.

He also advised livestock owners to consider annual ryegrass as another species to consider for winter annual forage production.

“Ryegrass is not as early as cereal rye regarding spring grazing but will usually start growth earlier than most perennial pasture species.” An advantage of annual ryegrass, he said, is that it’s productive life into the spring as a forage is longer than winter annuals.

But, if you’re also using the annual ryegrass as a cover crop, planning to follow it with, say, a corn or bean crop, naturally you’ll want to terminate the annual ryegrass a couple of weeks in advance of spring planting of cash crops. Click here to view the annual ryegrass management guide for more details of that.

 

 

Planting Annual Ryegrass into Knee High Corn

Interseeding Cover Crops in the Northern US

In recent years, growers and agronomists in Canadian Province of Quebec have been creating a “game changer” in agriculture, with the addition of cover crops, according to Dan Towery. In northern latitudes, with shorter growing seasons, cover crops haven’t been practical because of the small window of growing time after harvest in which cover crops could establish before winter.

By planting annual ryegrass into knee-high corn in the late spring, however, cover crops can now get established before the corn’s growth shades the cover crop. The ryegrass lies near dormant all summer, thus not competing for moisture. After harvest, the cover crop then resumes growth until cold weather and snow send it back into dormancy. Then, in the spring, the annual ryegrass is killed before the field is again planted in corn or beans.

The results are touted in an article published in Corn Guide earlier this year.

http://ryegrasscovercrop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2014-Canada-Corn-Guide-ARG-seeding-in-springtime.pdf

This spring, Towery is working with a number of growers in a variety of locations in the upper Midwest to see if the same technique will work. Planting a couple of acres at each location will yield some important data – about whether the annual ryegrass can survive throughout the summer in the upper Midwest, where temperatures are hotter and often with less rainfall than in southern Canada. Crop yield differences will also be noted, to see if ryegrass pulls too much moisture from the soil and thus reduces corn yield.

 

Looking at Crimson Clover in Cover Crop Mix with Annual Ryegrass

 

Looking at Crimson Clover in Cover Crop Mix with Annual Ryegrass

Crimson clover’s peak potential to fix Nitrogen is just before it blooms. It can fix the most nitrogen (up to 135b/ac) in the soil at that time. But in a normal weather year, Central Midwest growers would terminate the crimson clover in mid April, ahead of planting corn. This is well before bloom, thus limiting the amount of N actually produced.

This spring, being so late, Indiana grower Mike Starkey decided to leave the cover crop on his field a month longer than normal. The cover crop mix was crimson clover, annual ryegrass, Austrian winter pea and dicon radish. As you can see in the photos below (5/19/14), the clover is in full bloom. Purdue University students were there taking samples on the 80 acre parcel to determine the N content.

2014 Starkey cover crop mix - Purdue sampling crew2014 Starkey Cover Crop Mix - CC WP and ARG

While many in the Midwest experienced a tough cover crop year because of the harsh winter, this parcel fared well due to the tree line which acted as a windbreak.  A minus 20 to minus 30 degree windchill with no snow cover seems to be the threshold at which winterkill occurs.  Many areas had significant snow but the wind blew the snow off of some areas.

Annual Ryegrass – Manage it Properly

Managing annual ryegrass is not rocket science…but it is all about science. Therefore, being precise about the process of killing the cover crop is important.

In prior posts, you’ve learned about the timing, the weather, the proper mix of glyphosate, adding AMS and balancing the water hardness with citric acid if needed. Some add a surfactant and even 2,4-D for better control and to get rid of other broadleaf weeds at the same time.

By now, you may have seen already whether one full-rate application of glyphosate was enough. Inspecting the field a week after the first application is smart. Look closely. Any sign of green warrants another application.

After your corn or soybean crop emerges, you can control any annual ryegrass escapes with a labeled rate of Accent Q, Steadfast Q, or Option, but best control is obtained with these products when temperatures are above 70 degrees.

For more information, check out the website or download a comprehensive four-page brochure.

Killing Annual Ryegrass – Part 2

Annual ryegrass is a vigorous plant. Planted last summer or fall, the roots can be established to more than 5 feet into the soil. So, even if there’s only 6 – 8 inches of top growth, treat annual ryegrass as a mature plant. Successful control of annual ryegrass with glyphosate or other herbicides depends on:

  • Using full herbicide rates
  • Spraying during favorable weather conditions
  • Using good spraying practices.

Click here for a free brochure: Annual Ryegrass Management

Click here to go to the Annual Ryegrass website, for more detail on management.

Controlling annual ryegrass in the spring is best done:

  • In warm weather
  • When the ryegrass is actively growing.

Annual ryegrass can be a challenge to control if the herbicide is applied when:

  • There is cool, cloudy and wet weather, or
  • When the ryegrass has reached the joint growth stage (stem elongation).

Timing – Control (burndown) of the annual ryegrass cover crop:

  • Is most successful when the plant is small, 4-8” in height
  • Annual ryegrass is more difficult to control after the first node has developed
  • Burndown occurs before the middle of April

 

Annual Ryegrass Touted in SARE Cover Crop Videos

In a series of videos produced by Sustainable Ag Research & Education (SARE): called Cover Crop Innovators, Midwest farmers talk about their experience with annual ryegrass and other cover crops.Click here for the whole series:

Or, click here to see the video on Indiana farmer Jamie Scott

Click here to see the video on Indiana farmer Dan DeSutter

Killing Annual Ryegrass – Be Precise for Success

At every trade show and field day, we hear the story (thankfully, fewer times each year) about how “hard it is to kill annual ryegrass.” Invariably, when you ask a couple of specific questions, the problem becomes very clear. “In some things about agriculture, you can cut corners and not cause too many problems,” said Dan Towery. “With annual ryegrass, you’re asking for trouble if you deviate from a strict management protocol.”

So, the first question Dan asks people who have trouble with annual ryegrass management:

  • Did you add AMS (ammonium sulfate) to the tank water and agitate it BEFORE adding the glyphosate?

Ammonium sulfate is a surfactant, whose purpose is to improve retention on the leaf surface and increase movement of the herbicide from the leaf surface into the leaf. AMS also softens “hard” water, helping to nullify the impact of naturally-occurring magnesium and calcium.

WIthout AMS, the minerals in water will compromise the effectiveness of glyphosate.Adding AMS helps the translocation of glyphosate to the annual ryegrass.

  • What time of day was the glyphosate sprayed on the annual ryegrass cover crop?

Proper translocation of glyphosate into the plant tissue depends on the air temperature, the weather and what time of day you apply it. For more specific information on this particular aspect, click here to take you to the annual ryegrass website.