Planting Corn into Cereal Rye

Is planting corn into cereal rye a mistake? After reasonable success in previous years, we’re doing another experiment on 17 acres of pure cereal rye. This winter we grazed the cow herd on the cover crop (they ate it down to nothing) and we fed round bales in areas prone to erosion (only when the ground was completely frozen). Now the rye has fully recovered and is nearing maturity.

Today, we are evaluating the success of our efforts to prevent erosion, planting corn directly into the living cover crop, and following the planter with a roller crimper. Even though the rye is close to maturity, the roller crimper by itself will not kill it. In the next few days, we will chemically terminate the cover crop to ensure there is no competition for the emerging corn plants.

Mature cereal rye has a high carbon to nitrogen (C:N) ratio which could cause nitrogen tie-up as the corn begins to grow. This is where the biology consuming the cover crop steals nitrogen from the corn plants. When this happens, the young corn plants will determine their environment is too harsh and automatically limit their production potential. To minimize our risk of nitrogen tie-up and help our corn get a good start, we will apply 28-0-0-5 in the next week.

You may enjoy this video if you want to:

• Apply the principles of soil health on your farms

• Plant green into mature living cover crop

• Reduce erosion and loss of nutrients

• Increase beneficial soil biology

• Increase earthworm populations

• Increase soil organic matter

• Learn more about regenerative agriculture