With only two more hybrid rye field days coming up, farmers should RSVP now.

Two upcoming field days (Rose Creek, Minnesota, and East Troy, Wisconsin) will showcase the power of hybrid winter rye for feed, forage, and food/distillation markets.

This is not your grandfather’s cereal rye.

The Hybrid Rye Field Days will demonstrate how farmers can integrate hybrid rye into their cash-crop rotations as a third crop with triple the yield potential of traditional rye varieties. Traditional winter rye yields 30 – 60 bushels per acre, but hybrid rye varieties can yield three times more than open-pollinated varieties. It is not uncommon to hear reports of 100 – 140 bushels per acre yields on hybrid rye.

Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) has been working with farmers to study nutritional benefits of incorporating hybrid rye into hog rations.

With its low input management, hybrid rye is a crop that lets farmers spread our their workload. It’s planted after corn harvest (when most fall field work is already completed) using their existing seed drills or Brillion seeders. It’s then harvested in July or August – typically “slower” periods for crop farmers – which even allows enough time to establish another cover crop in the rye stubble.

KWS, who developed a line of high-yielding hybrid rye varieties, is teaming up with Albert Lea Seed for four local hybrid rye producers for a series of on-farm days to describe the basics of growing hybrid rye, finding markets for grain, chopping for ryelage, and feeding livestock with small grains.

A light rye-themed lunch will be provided at these events, so please RSVP. Click the event links below to view directions and to RSVP.