Rye

Lowland1

Member
Mixed Farmer
It’s a bit like the wheat we grow in Kenya with awns to keep the birds off. This year i am growing Rye in England for Ryvita at Bardney we’ve grown it on an off for years 4 stone an acre seedrate and it grows very tall so lots of straw. We also grew a lot of Triticale when we had pigs it yielded well and gave lots of straw but if you don’t mill yourself it’s hard to sell.
4959C8C6-8E66-4BFB-937A-116A5061434D.jpeg
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
If I gave you some round bales of rye straw to unwind over winter I bet you would never want to see the back of them again lol.
baled some rye straw, once, little bales, you couldn't drive slow enough, for baler or sledge. Round bales fine if baled slowly, definitely not fine unrolling in winter, 4/5 foot lengths tightly wrapped, were hellish
used to grow forage rye, for early bite, grew quickly, and could be taller than us.
Have been growing hybrid rye, for early silage, successfully.
 
baled some rye straw, once, little bales, you couldn't drive slow enough, for baler or sledge. Round bales fine if baled slowly, definitely not fine unrolling in winter, 4/5 foot lengths tightly wrapped, were hellish
used to grow forage rye, for early bite, grew quickly, and could be taller than us.
Have been growing hybrid rye, for early silage, successfully.
I bailed rye straw last year for neighbour he had no problems with it as had knives of the round baler engaged to chop it yes had to go slow as it was a massive row
 
chopped the straw is fine,
and Ive found sheep will eat it more than other straws in bedding - I got given some 5ft rounds that were unwanted for the reasons above - 4 to 5ft stems packed hard and tight,
Put in a feeder with brewers grains on top of the bale soaking through and the bale took about a week to be eaten up by 120 ewes on average grass, - Its a useful filler and helped eek out that patch of ground a month longer than would of otherwise lasted.
 
What feed value is the grain from rye? If I baled the straw myself I could chop it, would it be OK, or better sticking with barley?
And same questions for triticale?
Varies abit from crop to crop as alot is bred for high sugars at the wholecrop stage for AD - at this stage its more similar to Maize from what Ive been told, but was told to stick to barley if I wanted consistency in feed.
The wholecrop bales put condition onto thin hill ewes very quick from personal experience, faster than good dairy grass and grain.
 

benny6910

Member
Arable Farmer
I know the farmers who rents the fields your talking about, I’m fairly sure they will put it through there beef cattle. They do have a a d plant but I’m sure they said they’ll roll it and finish the beef cattle on it.
 
What feed value is the grain from rye? If I baled the straw myself I could chop it, would it be OK, or better sticking with barley?
And same questions for triticale?

Triticale is supposedly superior to wheat or barley because of it's amino acid profile. I shouldn't think you will get quite the same starch yield as with a crop of wheat but the increased straw/bulk may compensate for this I guess.

Don't let anyone tell you rye and triticale are disease resistant and need no fungicide... There are also some restrictions on which herbicides you can use but it's not a massive issue. Rye and triticale down here do not enjoy being drilled into wet mud in my experience.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
we did 9 acres this year, but grass, min til, w/wold, idea was to get 2 cuts, then maize, when we wanted to bale and wrap 1st cut, couldn't find a baler/wrapper, to early, or given up. Our contactor was silaging the next wk, so left it for him, 1 wk turned into 2,,,,,,,, Having said that, we could have got 2 cuts, but we only did 1 plus grazing.
I do not see any problem with it, we are quite used to double cropping, we may try w/w or ryegrass, with w/vetch, this year, after w/wheat. You just need to make sure, you use an early ripening maize variety, here, would happily plant IRG or w/wold up to mid october, it might be better sown late, or to much autumn growth.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.1%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.2%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,287
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top