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Cereal Grains and cover crops

10hunter said:
I planted mine yesterday. Supposed to rain Monday or Tuesday. Would much rather be on the early side than too late. Have had too many times where I ve waited until first week of Sept. and then no rain for a few weeks and poor results. Last few years I have watched the forecast and tried to plant before a rain for both Brassicas and cereal grains with great results.
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Looking at first of September going to hopefully be able to work all my brassica plots up and replant to oats, wheat, and rye. Brassicas are toast.
 
I just planted brassicas and come first part of sept, I'll put rye, wheat, peas in where I missed brassicas
 
Supposed to be good chances of rain across Iowa next Sat nite. I have had same thing happen around first of Sept,,plant rye ,,and rain stops. Sept / Oct, typically a dryer time of yr,,but this yr who knows? To be on safe side,,plant a little early with Rye,,and if it gets too tall, just mow it back,,or in my case,,Whip it back. Guess better safe than having seed just sit there on dry surface...
 
I'm curious on others opinion on this. I have matured rye from a plot last year that I meant to rotate to brassicas this summer. I did not get that done so I plan on doing the rye mix for one more year. Do you think I need to add more rye again or will the matured rye re-seed itself when I till it under?
 
My beans are getting hammered and I'd like to broadcast into them so I have a food source after leaf drop. Would rye and clover work best?
 
I would go with rye unless you don't want to mess with killing it next spring. We've done that for a couple of years and it really adds a lot of tilth to your soil. Besides feeding your deer.
 
If u broadcast- make sure there's sunlight hitting floor. I assume u r saying they are "hammered" meaning there's a lot of exposure of dirt because beans are not canopying because being eaten. Which is good for interseeding.
Here is IDEAL- not saying u need "ideal" but this is it.....
Spray soybeans to kill any weeds. Then, put around 100-200 lbs of treated urea per acre spread. Or regular urea right before a rain. If it were me- I'd do half an area in rye & half an area in radishes. U could add clover in rye if u want clover there next yr or want to fix N for corn or anything else later.
The minimum requirements: u need open sunlight to seed when germinate & u need as few weeds as possible.
 
By hammered I mean the plants are at most 12 inches tall and will have one to two pods when mature. Lots of sunlight finding some dirt.
 
Would rye, oat, and peas be very water tolerant? We have some bottom ground that we plot that has went under water the last two years and I'm curious as to what would be water tolerant for this plot? Clover perhaps?

Last year was beans and they bounced back but it seems like the brassicas we planted this year did not tolerate the water and will most likely not produce.
 
water: white clover & alsike clover.
Rye, peas, etc most likely later if things dry out and no massive rains. I've literally had years (last year) where I drilled beans, flooded, tried turnips & radish- flooded. Put in rye, oats & clover 2 times because first time got too wet. 4th time I planted the area I finally had better luck with weather. End goal on that is my Ag ground there will be in crp there but was just extra space I tried making use of.
But yes, alsike is best wet area clover followed by white & the mixes will work if u r lucky with weather. Bad enough floods will kill anything period so have back up plan if u have bad luck.
 
Sligh1 said:
water: white clover & alsike clover.
Rye, peas, etc most likely later if things dry out and no massive rains. I've literally had years (last year) where I drilled beans, flooded, tried turnips & radish- flooded. Put in rye, oats & clover 2 times because first time got too wet. 4th time I planted the area I finally had better luck with weather. End goal on that is my Ag ground there will be in crp there but was just extra space I tried making use of.
But yes, alsike is best wet area clover followed by white & the mixes will work if u r lucky with weather. Bad enough floods will kill anything period so have back up plan if u have bad luck.
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Thanks for the input! Maybe what is best is to plant clover next spring and see how things go. Worst case I can always til under and plant beans. They have flooded before and came back without any problem.

What I have learned for sure is that brassicas do not do well in super wet conditions.

Food plotting is a humbling hobby, always hard to say what the weather will do.
 
If I do my rye plots this weekend will it be to early for NE Iowa or should I wait until the weekend of the 5th? I don't want it to get to tall before the cold weather. Thank You.
 
I planted mine this past weekend, rye oats and peas...I know they are calling for early frost this year...I figure with a month of growing it can't get that tall
 
I'm going to plant mine this weekend...weather pending.

Not going to put any urea on it this year either. Grew too fast for the plot size and deer herd last year, had to mow it once. It is following well fertilized brassicas last year and oats and annual clovers this year that did well. Dbltree always said if your oats and annual clovers look good then you don't need to fertilize for the switchover to the cereal mix.
 
Thanks guys. I will at least get two of mine completed. For those of you using peas in the mix which ones are you using? Thank you.
 
I used Austrian winter peas and windham winter peas...but I would bet if you could only find field peas they would work just fine
 
So I found out today I won't be able to get my brassica plots disced. If I just spray and kill everything and broadcast into it will rye and oats grow OK?
 
I'm fairly certain rye is like clover that it will grow broadcasted...but I believe oats don't do as well until under dirt...what about broadcasting and using an ATV and harrow? I think that would give you a better seed to soil contact
 
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