Marshall Ryegrass - Comments or Advice Welcome

Was thinking about supplementing my dry food plots with some Marshall Ryegrass since they aren't doing as well due to lack of rain. I've heard that Marshall rye will come up later. Was wondering what is everybody's experience with marshall rye and whether deer like it. Please comment.

They'll eat it, but this late I'd go with wheat unless you are way down south.

Friends don't let friends plant rye! Don't know what will grow now,I'd stay away from rye. My $.02

They'll eat it and it has a superior root system for drought tolerance compared to the cereal grains.

They've been munching on it pretty hard here the past few weeks.

P.S. There's no difference in the nutritional content between Gulf, Marshall, & Passarel ryegrass. (according to my forage test results)

The only difference that I've found is the latter two stays green about 2-3 weeks longer in the Spring.

The problem with rye grass is that it will continue to come up where you plant it year after year. It will out compete anything else you try and plant there later. I would stay away from ryegrass for that reason. We just planted a late plot with rye grain (elbon rye). Rye grain grows just as easily as ryegrass without the problems and is more preferred over ryegrass. Wheat will also do fine this time of year and is highly preferred by wildlife.

If this is true, why am I forced to buy 40-50 bags of Gulf Annual Ryegrass each year to plant in the same pastures year in and year out? If I skip a year planting ryegrass, I have no grazing.

Ryegrass is a high protein, easily digested grass as is the cereal grains. Wheat, Oats, and Rye.

Ryegrass is very compatable with clovers and other legumes.

About 10 years ago, I ran out of Gulf Annual Ryegrass seed while planting and finished off a 25 acre field with some leftover Oats (a Coker variety). I'm guessing 4-5 acres were Oats.

The whole field was fertilized and limed the exact same way. I got to watch this field closely as it was next to my house.

There was no preference between the two by deer or cows.

If Annual Ryegrass was such a problem in re-seeding every year, I would never be disking food plots. I'd just drill in some clover on top of it and be done..

Shuter,does yours ever "go to seed" in the summer? I get confused between the two. And I think our Co-op has given me the wrong stuff, when I tell them I want the kind that will not reseed. So now I don't take the chance.

Yes. "Going to seed" is any plants whole purpose in life. Even the Hybrid grasses that have no viable seed "go to seed". Here Annual Ryegrass "goes to seed" at the end of May, first part of June.

And a smattering of those seed will come up next Fall. But not to the extent that it is a problem in choking out the other species, as some wildly claim.

If you want none to come up next year, all you have to do it bush hog it down just before the seed matures...........

K

We have had good luck some years just breaking the fields and fertilizing the volunteer rye grass. Our deer love it if the ph and fertilizer is correct.

I've been told you will go to hell if you plant it. I'm not risking it.

I think there is some confusion about ryegrass. Just because you have Ryegrass in a field, doesn't mean it was ever planted by man in that field. We have a "wild" strain of Ryegrass, in north AL anyways. The wild Ryegrass is Italian Ryegrass. It is a prolific seeder and will produce enough seed to overtake a field in a few years. We have it in every hay field we have. We spray our hayfields almost every year to kill it. It takes years to get rid of it in a field, even when spraying it with glyphosate ever year. Those seeds can lay dormant for years and years.

We plant ryegrass for grazing every year. It doesn't get much of a chance to go to seed.