Cereal Rye Variety Trial 2019

Cereal rye has recently gained attention as a winter cover crop in corn-soybean production systems. Seeded in the fall, cereal rye will grow before going into winter dormancy and resume growth early the following spring. Because cereal rye is harvested for grain in mid- to late-July, field management options for the remainder of the season are numerous. These include establishment of a perennial forage or summer cover crop, as well as an opportunity for mid-season manure application. In 2019, the average cereal rye yield for Minnesota was 39 bushels/acre and for Wisconsin was 34 bushels/acre, according to the USDA-National Agricultural Statistics Service (no such recent data is available for Iowa). Recent cereal rye variety trials conducted by the University of Minnesota, however, reported an average yield of 77 bushels/acre.