Wonder why you don't hear of many guys planting this for food plots? I have been using for 5 years now and the deer absolutely love it. The protein content (25%) is roughly twice that of wheat or oats and its cold tolerant.Plus you can seed at a rate of 25-30lbs per acre with minimal ground prep.

Thoughts?

Price maybe. Lot of folks prefer clovers. You are right though most folks don't think about it much.

It reseeds it's self and IMO is invasive. It will take over your plots. OK for sowing roads and such.

Rye grass is not as high on the prefered food list as you think. Will they eat it, sure, but offered other plantings they seem to prefer them more. Its really hard to get rid of once established and will choke out other plantings. Crude protein levels are closer to 20%.

The deer in my area of Lowndes County love it. I have been planting 20 plots a year on same property for 16 years. I tested every imaginable forage. They even like the Marshall Rye over Buck Forage oats. Also never had a problem with it taking over. I mix it with Durana clover and the deer wont stay out of it.

There is a big difference between Rye and Rye Grass. Like 2 Dogs said, Rye Grass is bad for everything but stabilization IMO. Get a perennial stand of it established on purpose or by accident and it's virtually impossible to kill out. I know that a single application of gly will kill what is growing but it will come right back up the next time it's disked, and again, and again.

I've seen deer eat it on the side of the road where it's been sown after road work was completed, so I know they eat it. That being said, I prefer to follow the advice of guys like Dr. Craig Harper who have studied food plots for lengthy amounts of time. Most of the advice I've read suggests that it creates more problems than it solves. I've read lots of negative reviews on how ryegrass performs with clover. A lot of people suggest that it grows tall and shades out most of the clover, but those people may not have the deer density we do. If you have pics of your clover doing well in the spring, I'd be curious to see them. I'm not against trying something new if I have reason to believe it works.

I planted wheat, oats, crimson clover, and Marshall Rye grass on a gas line last year. The rye grass sure didn't crowd the clover at all, clover was over a foot tall by spring.

Hell my crimson clover get knee high by may-June. But I screwed up and planted rye grass years ago trying to hold rds and it washed into a field. Now I can get rid of it.

I planted about 150 acres of rye grass (broadcast) a few weeks ago. Planted 3 different varities. Marshall, Nelson, and a 3rd I can't remember. It was a U of Florida seed. Different fields or split fields. This guy I planted for could not care less about a deer. He leases the hunting out. He swears the deer will walk though the hunters food plots and other rye grass to get to the Nelson. I don't know but 1 thing: They killed some fine bucks on that Nelson. But it is $$$.

We use to plant annual rye grass every year. The deer loved it and never had a problem with it taking over our plots.

If you do nothing to it, let it go to seed, then disk and plant more for a few years in a row, it'll be thick as hair on a dogs back. I had the stuff, I bush hogged it about May , then two sprayings with strong gly. I'll never plant one grain of it again in a plot.

Fresh vegative Gulf Rye has a crude protien of %15 & when i put ammonia nitrate to it I can't keep the deer beat out of it. That said I almost always plant oats & wheat but with this years drought I will only have Gulf growing.

As far as either Cereal or Annual being a problem... apples and oranges as food, but as a weed they are both about the same in my opinion. I have used both as a cover crop and if you let it seed you're in trouble. If you try and kill it short you'll miss some. Best is to spray it at about 12" and you'll kill it pretty easy in the spring. But best to kill it then.

Probably not a big deal in a food plot that just get's a winter mix every year, but can be a real pain otherwise.

Yea, it will come up in your truck bed, but you won't see me planting it.

if anything the rye growing tall with help the clover, my matured oats and rye that shaded the clover are the only thing that kept my white clover alive through the 75 day drought

personally I wouldn't put it in my primary foodplots,, but,, I think it would be an excellent tool for road beds in pines, cutover edges, hide away spots in hardwoods next to bedding, etc where it would be hard to get "good" forage to normally grow (aka throw-n-grow)
my 2cts

If the deer eat it the first year you plant it, won't they eat it when it re-seeds next year? Could you not treat it like clover and just mow and fertilize and have a green field year after year without replanting?

You could, if thats all you wanted in your plot. Its not for me.

I've had Marshall rg in my fields before. I'd see some grass being eaten, but a lot of what I was seeing was clover and radishes they were picking out.

Done well with ryegrass but most of my fields were planted every year. It just depends on what's available. Clover is better but more expensive and harder to establish in year round fields. There is a spray who name escapes me that will take grass out but won't harm the clover as we have used it.if clover gets steamy they won't eat it, just like other forages.