Hybrid Rye

Jsmith2211

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Somerset
Hello again.

We are looking into doing hybrid rye this spring on some fairly light land (in places its heavy but overall its quite sandy). 30 acre rented block that my father is very keen on renting out to potatoes - which doesnt do the soil any good in my opinion. We like the look of rye because its fairly cheap to grow and gives a decent yield with decent straw. I see a few people on here have grown spring sewn hybrid rye before, any input on this? I've heared agrii dont have the best varieties (our agronomy is all done by agrii and they supply the seed and spraying etc) so can anybody reccomend any good modern varieties and where to get hold of them?

thanks in advance.
 

DRC

Member
Not sure there’s any spring sown varieties. All ours is autumn drilled.
I did look at this as I thought a spring hybrid rye whole crop , would fit in with a good paying option in stewardship .
 

Jsmith2211

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Somerset
Not sure there’s any spring sown varieties. All ours is autumn drilled.
I did look at this as I thought a spring hybrid rye whole crop , would fit in with a good paying option in stewardship .
Saw someone on here was talking about spring hybrid rye for combining, so im pretty sure it exists. Dont see why there wouldnt be any as theres spring wheat barley oats etc.
 

robbie

Member
BASIS
Are you sure it was spring hybrid????
Spring conventional rye quite possibly but the short growing season of a spring crop wouldn't allow time for any "hybridness" to show.
 

DRC

Member
Saw someone on here was talking about spring hybrid rye for combining, so im pretty sure it exists. Dont see why there wouldnt be any as theres spring wheat barley oats etc.
I looked hard at it and made enquiries but no one sold hybrid spring rye , unless things have changed recently
 

Jsmith2211

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Somerset
I had another look at the post i thought was mentioning spring hybrid rye... turns out i had read it wrong and it was sewn in the autumn but the post was made in the spring. My mistake. Looking at the KWS page looks like there arent any spring hybrids. Seems odd that nobody has made one yet? Perhaps as it isnt as popular as some other crops the money hasn't been invested into it?
Friend of mine grew winter rye on some sandy loam. Got a poor yield of ergot infested low bushel weight crap. Just sayin.
i think the hybrid is a totally different beast to the normal rye. Also i have been told the older varieties suffer more from ergot than the newer varieties do. Will have to see if we grow it next year.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Friend of mine grew winter rye on some sandy loam. Got a poor yield of ergot infested low bushel weight crap. Just sayin.
Was offered a similar golden opportunity on contract. Seed seemed pretty expensive at £40 an acre then crop sale price something like £22 per ton below feed wheat. If it’s got ergot in it then you stand the cleaning cost.
Err.. no thanks.
 

Jsmith2211

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Somerset
Just as an aside why is it that high risk crops always have the most expensive seed?
Only in farming.
Probably because high risk high return. The high risk crops are also usually the ones that you can make a lot of money off of (if they work right) so the seed companies want their share...
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Dunno. For me high risk has often meant less return and more aggravation on average than good old winter wheat.
We grew rye for a few years on contract for those crisp bread people till the haulage to Poole killed it. Yielded alright, didn’t suffer mineral shortages due to big root mass but tended to get to 7 foot tall and went over was an edge of seat, drum wrapping combining nightmare and it was a bit below feed wheat which was a slap in the face considering it was for human consumption. Only in farming would that be considered a good deal.
 

Jsmith2211

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Somerset
Dunno. For me high risk has often meant less return and more aggravation on average than good old winter wheat.
We grew rye for a few years on contract for those crisp bread people till the haulage to Poole killed it. Yielded alright, didn’t suffer mineral shortages due to big root mass but tended to get to 7 foot tall and went over was an edge of seat, drum wrapping combining nightmare and it was a bit below feed wheat which was a slap in the face considering it was for human consumption. Only in farming would that be considered a good deal.
Was hard to combine? I was imaginging rye wouldnt be too hard as it would be nice and tall (unlike the peas we tried this year - that was an edge of the seat "am i going to combine a massive rock" job). Also you'd get a nice bit of straw off it it. For us i think it could work well as we mill all of our grain ourselves - so long as it doesnt get ergot.
 

DRC

Member
A few pics from previous years
Harvested 30th June , fodder crop drilled and pictured in Sept. cattle strip grazed it in October
7DF9C23F-29A0-4B95-B1D3-48A48E496225.jpeg
F3A9171E-0866-47A9-8668-1E81FDE88382.jpeg
FE8E736B-60C7-4315-B3C4-DCE9114A47F2.jpeg
18A7FC71-10CC-4704-AE1B-5076B354CC30.jpeg
 

robbie

Member
BASIS
Was hard to combine? I was imaginging rye wouldnt be too hard as it would be nice and tall (unlike the peas we tried this year - that was an edge of the seat "am i going to combine a massive rock" job). Also you'd get a nice bit of straw off it it. For us i think it could work well as we mill all of our grain ourselves - so long as it doesnt get ergot.
If you need something spring sown and don't want barley or wheat then spring triticale could be worth a look, similar yields to spring barley and more straw.


I've been offered winter hybrid rye contracts but I really can't get enthusiastic about then. The rye replaces wheat in pig and poultry rations and is supposed to be a better feed yet they won't pay wheat money for it. If it's better than wheat in the ration then surly they should pay more for it not less.
 

Chieftain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Depends what you want out of it really. For straw purposes I doubt you can get much better because it's high yielding and good quality unlike wheat. On sand where barley and wheat struggle for moisture it's great for it's drought resistance too. In that period in early spring where it didn't rain for over a month, ours was only starting to yellow off a bit in the last week but it soon recovered with some water on it.

Grain's really the side product, feed standard stuff is really the best bet if you can use it yourself too.

Probably not the ideal crop as a spring variety really because you want it standing and dry. It's like rope if it starts getting tangled together and a small combine simply wouldn't be able to process it if it was damp with how much volume is going in.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
If you need something spring sown and don't want barley or wheat then spring triticale could be worth a look, similar yields to spring barley and more straw.


I've been offered winter hybrid rye contracts but I really can't get enthusiastic about then. The rye replaces wheat in pig and poultry rations and is supposed to be a better feed yet they won't pay wheat money for it. If it's better than wheat in the ration then surly they should pay more for it not less.
That was my point. Why is rye grain at a discount to wheat when it’s supposedly a premium product? Why is seed much more expensive?
Can’t comment on the whole crop forage or AD aspect.
It’s easy to combine if it stays upright. If it goes flat it’s a nightmare in my experience but it was years ago with an MF525. Would only go one way. If it went in head first it wrapped round the drum an rear beater.
 

robbie

Member
BASIS
That reminds me of a story an old ex farmer in the village told me, they had a MF 780 and when cutting rye, which in those days was 7 foot tall according to him. They would take the drive chain of the sails and have it set at a height where it would roll the rye flat away from then as they traveled up the field.
Heads first and it would wrap around the drum and stall the combine before you could stop.
 

Jsmith2211

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Somerset
That reminds me of a story an old ex farmer in the village told me, they had a MF 780 and when cutting rye, which in those days was 7 foot tall according to him. They would take the drive chain of the sails and have it set at a height where it would roll the rye flat away from then as they traveled up the field.
Heads first and it would wrap around the drum and stall the combine before you could stop.
Must’ve been a good belt to stall the combine. We’ve a tx 34, only clogged it once this last year and was in the oats. Was a damp day and they were a bit green in the bottom (forecast was crap so wanted to get them in) just on the outside round I got a bit carried away and took some massive great thistles in from the hedge, that tangled with the coochy rubbish and undergrown weeds was too much for the belt. Didn’t slow the engine much so perhaps ought to check the belt driving the drum.
 

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