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Cover Crops: Winter Rye After Corn Silage

Summary

This video provides an introduction to the practice of fall planting winter cereal rye as a conservation cover crop following harvest of corn silage to help prevent soil erosion and nutrient runoff. The video focuses on using the rye as an early season forage crop the following spring. Determination of "boot stage," the development stage of rye where forage yield and quality are optimized, is demonstrated. Harvest of rye as forage in mid to late May, in southern Wisconsin, generally allows subsequent planting of a full season crop such as corn, soybeans or alfalfa seeding.