Throw and roll

I tried a new to me method this year for a fall food plot. In the spring I planted winter rye in this plot at home. It grew to about 16-18″ and nice and thick and really kept the weeds at bay, which is part of the reason I did it. I had a real issue with red root pigweed in this plot last year and it is glyphosate resistant. Rye is allelopathic, which means it inhibits germination of weed seeds. It definitely works.

On July 10th I spread brassica( radish, rape) into the standing rye, rolled it with the cultipacker and then sprayed it with gly. The result is dead rye thatch covering the brassica seed keeping the moisture in and continuing to keep the weeds at bay. The brassica is just starting to come up now, mostly in the center of the plot. I also tried this in 2 plots at the farm were we have sandy soil. I am hoping for big success with it up there. I don’t have any pics from the farm, but here is the plot at home.

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Have you seen the Goliath crimper they use on Growing Deer TV? That would be sweet to have but a regular roller works as you found out. I think the ultimate would be a roller and no till drill. Then you really wouldn’t have to work the soil up and have weed issues like you get with freshly tilled soil.
DT

Yes, I have seen those crimpers, but the stem on rye and oats gets pretty brittle and all you need to do is roll it and it stays down.

I am actually going to try the no till next year on corn. I have a plot that is pretty sandy. It’s in beans now. This fall I am going to broadcast winter rye into the beans. Next spring the rye will come up and I am going to run my planter right in the rye planting corn without tilling, then do this same thing, roll the rye and spray gly. Corn will come up right thru the rye thatch and I should have a perfect weed barrier and something to keep the moisture in, all while adding organic matter to the soil. Rye is a wonderful thing. I am a little excited about this if you can’t tell.

I was going to do the exact same thing.
DT

how amny hours of sun does that plot get? brassicas seem to need full sun to thrive.

it gets sun all day down the middle and limited on the edges to 4-5 hours

I’m going to try this same experiment, but seeding red clover into rolled down mature rye that is now ripe. My theory is I probably won’t get the same weed surpression, but I hope to get a good fall plot of rye and clover going just in time for the season.

I don’t have a roller, my game play is just to set the discs straight and cut it down. We’ll see how it works.

Grouse

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

I’m going to try this same experiment, but seeding red clover into rolled down mature rye that is now ripe. My theory is I probably won’t get the same weed surpression, but I hope to get a good fall plot of rye and clover going just in time for the season.

I don’t have a roller, my game play is just to set the discs straight and cut it down. We’ll see how it works.

Grouse

a cutipacker would give much better seed/soil contac of course. I’ve found that broadcasting the larger grain/radish seeds and fert., then light discing > cultipack>seed clover(any small seeds) and culti packing again gives me the best results.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

I’m going to try this same experiment, but seeding red clover into rolled down mature rye that is now ripe. My theory is I probably won’t get the same weed surpression, but I hope to get a good fall plot of rye and clover going just in time for the season.

I don’t have a roller, my game play is just to set the discs straight and cut it down. We’ll see how it works.

Grouse

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

I’m going to try this same experiment, but seeding red clover into rolled down mature rye that is now ripe. My theory is I probably won’t get the same weed surpression, but I hope to get a good fall plot of rye and clover going just in time for the season.

I don’t have a roller, my game play is just to set the discs straight and cut it down. We’ll see how it works.

Grouse

here is the progress so far on the throw and roll plots at the farm. I didn’t get the seed spread very even, so there isn’t much growth on the edges, but the middle of both plots look great and there are zero weeds coming up thru that thick thatch. I am pretty happy with them.

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Brassica is doing fantastic with the throw roll and spray method. I haven’t had brassica this good in 5 plus years. Now if I could just get the dang deer to eat brassica at home

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Wow! If your fussy, spoiled Metro deer won’t eat that, it’s time to go out and have a talk with them. Tell them you’ll import some starving, wolf-weary deer from Northern MN that will appreciate that brassicas. That’ll learn ’em.

Grouse