Rye in my deer plots

After nearly 10 years of plowing and discing then planting a Big Rack Mix of seed the weeds had completely taken over my deer plots. So much that I basically got nothing to attract deer in 2016.

So last spring (2017) I did not plow or plant but in mid June that year - with advice from this board - I did a glyphosphate burn off. That August I disced up the plots very well and broadcast in some rye.
We were blessed with some good rains after that.

In September I was disappointed with the germination rate but by that time of year it's too late to start over. The deer did hit the plots but there wasn't a lot there for them.

In spring of this year the rye really came back in strong. More and thicker than last year. Early too. My tennant up there said as soon as the snow receded the rye was coming up and the deer were hitting it hard. Probably they were happy to get some fresh, early greens after a winter of eating brush.

In August of this year just as the rye ripened and was falling off the stalk I bush hogged it all down and disced it back in.

We got good rain again and boy did it come back strong. I have two good stands of fresh greens for the deer. My wife and I sat in the blind for a while last weekend. It was really interesting to watch the deer eating. We saw 7 deer and it was like they were chowing down big mouthfulls of the stuff and couldn't seem to get enough of it.

I'm assuming it will winter over again and come back next spring.

I don't know what I'll do then but I'm thinking a guy could keep this routine going for several years.

One thing about it is that both plots that were completely covered with weeds in 2016 are essentially weed free now. I guess the rye has dominated and choked out everything else.
So for you other plotters here I think a good, cheap way to get sort of a perennial deer plot - if you bush hog it and disc it back in - is to try some rye in late summer.

By the way, the opener is 5 weeks from yesterday.

Conventional wisdom for years has been that under the right conditions of plenty of moisture and cool temperatures grass will crowd weeds out. Under dry hot conditions the weeds will get the upper hand. Recent years of heat and drought in the northeast has favored the weeds.

Over seed some Crimson clover it'll seed out and come back the next year sometimes too.Weeds most of the time are a symptom of what is wrong of what is wrong with the soil.

Agree. Wet summer, we burnt down 35 acres with Round Up and 24d-ester. Waited two weeks and planted timothy, orchard grass, red clover and alsike clover. That mixture is doing very well and see few weeds.

Considering there are 3 types of rye it behooves someone to explain what rye they are talking about or at least use the scientific names.

Lolium multiflorum (annual ryegrass)
Lolium perenne (perennial ryegrass)
Secale cereale (winter rye)

The first one is a annual ryegrass grown mostly in the south in the winter.
It is seeded in the fall to give green grass over the winter.
Germinates real fast and cattle love it.

The second one is a perennial ryegrass that will come back every year.
Mixed in with other grass seed sold in bags because it has fast germination.
It is also a cool season grass that will die in the summer heat of the deep south.

The third one is not really a grass.
This is rye grain much like wheat.
It is a annual grown for its grain crop.
One of its best benefits is weed control, which winter rye excels at due to that horticultural super power known as "allelopathy," i.e., the ability to inhibit the germination of the seeds of competing plants.
This can work as a disadvantage if you use it as a cover crop and then try to plant other seed right behind it.
In a cover crop situation if you time your cutting it will come back.
If you cut it to early before it goes to seed it will regrow trying to produce a crop (its main objective in life)
If you cut it late after it has gone to seed without harvesting the crop it will reseed itself.

It sounds like you have the third rye cereal grain growing and it has reseeded itself.

Any farmer I know when they say Rye are referring to cereal Rye the grain,if they mean Rye Grass they say Rye Grass.Must be a regional thing.

And there is a "God Forbid" GMO rye: Jumbo Rye.

If you want Rye, try the Jumbo. It will blow you away. Said to be an annual but I'm not sure about that. May know this spring since I didn't plant any a few weeks ago when I put out my Austrian Field Peas.......and really glad I decided to plant when I did. Been nothing but rain and sprouts since and with my black clay, ainta gonna get any machinery back on the field till late spring...if then.

I think what they raise in N MN is rye grass, for lawn seed, they raise a lot of it and I understand it's a good money crop. And, the planting and harvest is July-July, so it doesn't interfere with other crops, and the deer love it. 85 were counted in one field last fall.

Thanks John.
It is the cereal grain type.
If I owned an AC Allcrop or similar
I could have harvested a few hundred? pounds of grain off an acre and a half of plots.

I always plant rye in mine. I tried other food plot blends and the only thing they did was make my wallet lighter. I planed my rye the end of Aug this year and it was up in 3 days. We got 2 days of rain and warm weather the day after I planted it. It is being mowed off by the deer. My grandson and I sat by one of them last weekend for the youth hunt and saw over 20 deer in one set. One other thing I planted last year was forage radishs. The deer kept it mowed down to the ground. When I get a lot of weeds I used the moldboard plow and that takes care of them. I usually disk mine down when it goes to seed and it reseeds itself but I replant every other year

(quoted from post at 05:24:08 09/30/18) Considering there are 3 types of rye it behooves someone to explain what rye they are talking about or at least use the scientific names.

Lolium multiflorum (annual ryegrass)
Lolium perenne (perennial ryegrass)
Secale cereale (winter rye)

The first one is a annual ryegrass grown mostly in the south in the winter.
It is seeded in the fall to give green grass over the winter.
Germinates real fast and cattle love it.

The second one is a perennial ryegrass that will come back every year.
Mixed in with other grass seed sold in bags because it has fast germination.
It is also a cool season grass that will die in the summer heat of the deep south.

The third one is not really a grass.
This is rye grain much like wheat.
It is a annual grown for its grain crop.
One of its best benefits is weed control, which winter rye excels at due to that horticultural super power known as "allelopathy," i.e., the ability to inhibit the germination of the seeds of competing plants.
This can work as a disadvantage if you use it as a cover crop and then try to plant other seed right behind it.
In a cover crop situation if you time your cutting it will come back.
If you cut it to early before it goes to seed it will regrow trying to produce a crop (its main objective in life)
If you cut it late after it has gone to seed without harvesting the crop it will reseed itself.

It sounds like you have the third rye cereal grain growing and it has reseeded itself.

Click to expand...

John, not someone, YOU, LOL.

For grain is all I know of. Neighbor years ago fed out a lot of hogs on it.

Jerry, oats is another inexpensive forage, as is winter wheat, both are cost effective to plant in mid to late summer for a fall food plot.

Some shots from mine in years past.
1st one is oats, planted late august, taken a month later. They do like the oat grass, but it does fade once cold, but they still browse the area still.

2nd one is a plot I put Plot Spike in, seedbed, then the following spring it came up nice, just needed to keep it mowed. It's an enjoyable hobby, but lately I have no time to plant, so I just keep the plots mowed and there is a lot of good natural forage, quite a bit of clover in a couple of plots and they are browsing all the areas I have kept cut regularly this season.

Rye has a herbicide like activity in the soil.

My oldest brother has been helping with seeding rye in southern Minnesota. Air service. Said they do it on corn fields prior to harvest to control erosion.

I've found oats are the best in deer plots,then wheat,then rye to attract deer.

Oats work great. It's been years now, but when my long time friend and farmer was growing oats for grain and straw, the fields afterwards, were heavy with deer. Re-growth, grain that germinated, saw lots of deer and a lot more buck in the area.

It's inexpensive to grow and easy to sow.