Winter Rye versus Winter Wheat

[Lickcreek]

Those studies were done years ago on in which they used northern ryes and tested them in the south and the rye performed poorly in all aspects, hence the commonly quoted disparaging comments about rye.

In years since however new varieties of rye including Wrens Abruzzi for the south vastly improved ryes in palatability and crude protein levels that exceed all other cereals.

In reality...I observe wild whitetails moving from rye to oats to rye to oats and they eat it all to the ground evenly...guess they haven't read the "book"...

[smsmith]

Originally Posted by Daver_IA

I agree and would add this...semi-green alfalfa in January and turnip bulbs in February to the most preferred food source by month club.

Not here at home. I had an awful lot of big and small turnips rot this year. My herd is down considerably, and this leads me to believe that in previous years the turnips were eaten not out of "favoritism" but rather necessity. Once the competition for native (and non native) browse was reduced the deer appeared to favor it over the turnips.

[CaveCreek]

Darn the luck, now I am going to have to try several varieties of Rye also. Not even sure that's possible in my location. I always have to get it ordered in If I want Elbon Rye. If I ask for another variety, I'm afraid they might kick me out the door.

[CaveCreek]

Not here at home. I had an awful lot of big and small turnips rot this year. My herd is down considerably, and this leads me to believe that in previous years the turnips were eaten not out of "favoritism" but rather necessity. Once the competition for native (and non native) browse was reduced the deer appeared to favor it over the turnips

Oh no! Stuart,

Your herd may have fallen victim to brassica toxicity!

[smsmith]

That's probably it CC

Those damn brassicas are so toxic the deers' dead bodies just disappeared upon dying. Poof!

[dgallow]

Originally Posted by Soybean Man

When testing side by side plots, you should always either randomize the crops in reps or plant them perpendicular to the point of entry in the field by deer and replicate. Randomization and replication is always best, because you can bet the back corner by the woods will always see the most traffic. This supports your plot vs. plot method of different brands, because it is more of a site preference than a product preference. This also reduces environmental effects such as soil type changes, fertility differences, sunlight, drainage, etc....... Trying to reduce and eliminate variability is the reason.

You would bring 'experimental design' into this! Was Chuck on your committe too?

"Completetly randomized block design with a 3X3X2 factorial arrangement of treatments"....those flash backs are not fun!

I had fun with it though by being the jerk in semiar who would ask, Could you please explain that 3-way interaction?'

Alright Mr LC:

I'm gonna run documented articles stating otherwise to the winter grain qualities just for argument sake. Down south, rye has not often been touted as the more palatable forage.

Here's 1) from Noble foundation, simple statement:
Cattle grazing studies show that oats are more palatable than wheat, wheat is more palatable than rye, and rye is more palatable than barley.
http://www.noble.org/ag/forage/horseforage/page6.html

Before tooting the Noble horn too hard, you may want to reference Hubbell's research in Batesville. It sings a different tune! http://beefstockerusa.org/research/a...mGrnForage.pdf

Story in Brief
Seventy-two preconditioned, crossbred steers (average BW = 400 lb) were placed on 2-acre pastures containing various small-grain forage from October 23, 2000 until March 20, 2001 at a stocking density of 600 lb beef per acre.
The pastures were seeded to 1) Delta King 9027 soft red winter wheat, 2) Elbon rye, 3) Bob Oats, 4) Marshall ryegrass, 5) Delta King 9027 wheat plus Elbon rye, 6) Delta King 9027 wheat plus Marshall ryegrass, 7) Elbon rye plus Marshall ryegrass and 8) Delta King 9027 wheat plus Elbon rye plus Marshall ryegrass. These treatments were replicated three times. Pastures were covered with ice from December 21 until January 24. Steers were fed bermudagrass hay during this period. No differences occurred in average daily gain (ADG), total gain (TG) or gain per acre (G/A) from October
until December 19. However, from January 25 until March 20, pastures which contained rye produced significantly (P< 0.05) greater ADG, TG and G/A then did those which did not contain rye. Bob oats suffered severe winter kill and
could not be grazed from January 25 to March 20. Regrowth of wheat and ryegrass was severely delayed compared to rye. These data suggest that rye is much more winter hardy, especially if ice covered for an extended time, than wheat, oats or ryegrass.

Note from the intro, that stocker performance did not differ among treatments in a prior companion study during a mild fall and winter. Not the first time our research has conflicted with Noble.

Most of our nasty winter weather comes in the form of ice, freezing rain and sleet....I'll take the rye!

[CaveCreek]

Oh Gallow, I wasn't just intending to toot Noble's horn, their one documtentation was just the first readily available. Its funny when you have found so many other documents (previously), but then can't find them when you are wanting to share with others.

Rye's biggest attribute that I will always agree to down in my part of the country is its cold tolerance, and actual ability to grow during that cold period. Personally, I think for winter pasture for livestock, I would grow separate stands of rye and oats, in my location, moving to the rye, when the oat dormany starts setting in. On plowed ground, I would also be implementing use of ryegrass somewhere in the equation. But that's for cattle not deer, so I'll stop here.

As for that randomized block junk! It's cool if each actuall subset is large enough, and maybe with larger seed its okay,

But Buddy there are some messed up results coming from one of the annual clover/legume trials going on down here in texas. With those small blocks come complexity in keepin seed where it should be. Especially small seed that has a tendency to reseed from the previous yr. I have walked through the plots and often identified that the largest variety percentage inside the plots were not what was supposedly planted there. The results being absolutely worthless in many cases. Yep, You gotta have compressed air and a vaccum on the tractor to keep from plot contamination (when working with small seed). Oh well, those of that have been on site (well some of us) realize that anyway.

[CaveCreek]

It's almost as bad as the statistical researchers statement of "no significant difference" in varieties, even though a 1,000# variation existed, and total avg. production was 3,500#.

Some statistics I do not understand. And you couldn't make me understand it, if I don't agree with it. Especially if its not correct.

A sidenote, Anyone seen the "Congressional" Credit Cards runnin around out there?

[dgallow]

Honestly, for small grain food plots and fall forage availablity, the statistics do not matter and will likely always be non significant unless a variety which just doesn't 'fit' is planted. This is illustrated in the Noble link which LC posted previously. http://www.noble.org/Ag/Forage/0102R...es/table1.html Yield across treatments on 12/11 averaged 327 lb of dry matter per ac with a CV of 69. Without getting into the math, this indicates that forage yield between treatments would have to vary by > 450 lbs per acre for 5% statistical significance. Keep in mind those years were dry summers/fall as the normal planting time is Sept rather than Oct with a first frost date of early to mid-Nov, this explains low overall yields in Dec for all varieties. Lockett wheat and Dallas oat were obviously poor fall forage choices for those conditions, planting dates and that area.

What matters for deer use in fall and winter.....
If one has planted small grain varieties adaptable to an area at the correct time (6-8 weeks before frost), all should achieve a 6-8" sward height by the time deer use begins. Futher, deer should use the forage fully by grazing available forage to a short stubble height. Predicting winter weather severity would be nice, but isn't possible. Having cereal rye 'insurance' makes sense as few grazing plants survive ice (Hubbell's study demonstrates this clearly).

What matters for soil building etc.....
First is high spring tonnage. In a mild winter, all small grains may give you that but rye certainly will even in normal or harsh winters. This yeilds a predictable OM supply to return to the soil every spring. Second is N scavenging, soil improvement, weed suppression, and continued deer food. Rye and clover are king and queen in this regard!

[Daver_IA]

Originally Posted by smsmith

Not here at home. I had an awful lot of big and small turnips rot this year. My herd is down considerably, and this leads me to believe that in previous years the turnips were eaten not out of "favoritism" but rather necessity. Once the competition for native (and non native) browse was reduced the deer appeared to favor it over the turnips.

Curious...I definitely had deer coming to my turnip field in November to mainly eat the tops at that time. In addition to seeing deer in the field, there was a fair amount of tracks/sign present in and around the turnip field at that time. I also shot a couple of does there that were on their way to that field. There were other food options present in the area too and it wasn't as if all of the deer were coming to the turnips, but they were being used.

That being said, they didn't really start on the bulbs until later, probably mid to late December and I don't really remember them digging for bulbs too much until late January/February. (I'll try to pay more attention to the timing of preferences this year. )

So maybe they have a different preference level for the tops v. the bulbs and they really don't go after the underground, frozen bulbs so much until other, more preferable food sources are tapped out. I too did have some bulbs left uneaten at the end of the winter, but probably 80%+ were dug up and devoured.