Cultivation

Silage and Haylage — Rye

Secale cereale L.

Harvesting rye for forage requires cutting at the flag leaf stage, as nutritional value and digestibility decrease rapidly once heading begins.

In the reference 28 varieties crop Rye, where this is mentioned in the description.

The optimal time for mowing rye to obtain premium-quality forage is the flag leaf stage. Due to extremely high spring growth rates, where daily growth can reach 10 cm, the harvest window is very limited. Delaying the harvest toward the milk-dough stage of grain maturity results in a sharp drop in protein and energy content, as well as reduced palatability due to tissue coarsening and the development of awns.

The technology for producing rye haylage involves wilting the mowed mass to a moisture content of 40–55%, which allows for achieving high energy density in the product. When producing silage, the biomass is chopped without prior wilting. Hybrid rye at an early cutting stage possesses high neutral detergent fiber digestibility, which allows its use in the rations of high-producing cows as an alternative to corn.

Rye is often used as an early-cut cover crop, which allows for effective field utilization for subsequent sowing. To increase the nutritional value of the forage, mixed cropping of rye with hairy vetch is practiced, which additionally enriches the mass with protein. Modern rye hybrids are characterized by high resilience from spring tillering to mowing, which minimizes the need for chemical crop protection treatments.

General information about the subject — on the page Silage and haylage.

Sources8

Varieties of Rye mentioned in the description

Selection based on the description text, not on official evaluation: these data are absent from registers. For specific variety details, please refer to its profile.