Forage 2025 | Winter Rye: Grazing, Forage and Feed
Mahlstedt Ranch, Inc. is a fifth-generation operation located in northeastern Montana between Glendive and Circle. George and Jeanie Mahlstedt run the ranch with their daughter, Tana and her husband Ross Canen, and Canens’ three daughters, Tienna, Alexis and Corinne.
“I’m the fifth generation and we have three generations currently working on our farm/ranch east of Circle,” Alexis Canen said. “We raise Salers cross cattle, Quarter Horses, dryland small grains, hay, and camelina.”
The family has been planting rye since the fall of 2020.
“We’ve been in a drought since 2017 and were in desperate need of tonnage of any kind to feed,” shared Alexis Canen. “Rye makes a good early crop that you can always spray out and plant a late season crop behind.”
The family has found winter rye compares favorably with other more common forage crops for both grazing and haying.
“It always seems to do pretty well,” Canen said. “We don’t spray or plant it with any fertilizer and it makes a decent crop. We have gotten one second cutting on alfalfa in my life, but if rye gets any moisture it will keep growing back. If we graze it early and then move the cows off we can get at least one cutting off it. Also, grasshoppers tend to go for the rye last as it matures before they do in the spring.”
Rye holds the advantage of early growth, providing an early spring grazing season option on the Mahlstedt Ranch.
“Getting the cows on rye in the spring gives our native grasses a chance to grow before we have to put cows out and that increases the productivity of the entire place,” Canen said. “The longer it keeps raining in the spring, the longer you can graze it and extend all your pasture grazing farther into the fall. We were grazing cows till late January this year.”
On the flip side, rye bolts very quickly when it matures.
“It can be hard to balance a max yield and a good graze,” Canen said. “It is also hard to kill and keep out of the other crops.”
In particular, wheat and rye need careful management.
“We were ready for crops other than wheat when we started planting rye, but if trying to do both you have to have a several year rotation, be vigilant about cleaning out equipment and separating planting and harvest of wheat and rye with another crop,” Canen said.
The Mahlstedt ranch cattle had a bit of a learning curve when it came to grazing the rye.
“The first year was a bit of a disaster,” Canen said. “Everyone said to get the cows on it before it bolts, but it bolted way sooner than we thought it would. The cows hated it and were breaking out everywhere. We ended up haying what hadn’t been trampled just to clean off the field.”
This was disappointing, to say the least. But then, the following January, the cows learned to really like the hay. The next spring we got them on the rye earlier and then they kept breaking back in when we tried to move them off. This will make our fourth year grazing rye and I have noticed that the younger cows/heifers will graze it longer and seem to like it more than the older cows so there is something to be said for training them to like it!”
Canen said that understanding the grazing habits of their cattle helped them understand utilization patterns.
“They tend to graze it in the late evenings and early mornings,” she said. “When the dew burns off, the cows leave the field so if you’re checking them on summer afternoons and never see any cows on the field it does not mean they aren’t eating it. We had some head out that we winter grazed totally ripe and the cows moved across it like a stripper header just taking the grain heads and leaving tons of stubble to catch snow. That was fun to see, but I doubt it would have worked till this year.”
Rye is proving itself a dependable feed source even in dry and challenging years, and with moisture, exceptionally productive. They don’t feed it to their horses, but feed some screenings to pigs and chickens.
“Last year we got rain till July so the rye just kept growing back,” Canen said. “We ended up making three to five passes with cattle and haying on all the rye fields this year.”
Jerry Volesky, Professor and Range and Forage Specialist with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln also weighed in on using rye as a forage crop.
“A great feature about rye is that it begins growth very early in the spring and does grow very rapidly,” Volesky said. ”This makes it an excellent spring grazing forage. It is even ready before any other cool-season grass pasture. It can also be cut for hay or ensiled.”
Rye performs comparably with other winter annual crops such as wheat and triticale, both in productivity and quality.
“Again, a main advantage is its earliness of rapid growth. It also is very winter hardy,” Volesky said.
Winter rye can be planted with other species.
“Rye can be used in a mixture with other species such as vetch,” Volesky said. “It could also be mixed with the other winter annuals. In a mix of wheat and rye for example, a benefit would be the potential to have the very early grazing of the rye and the somewhat later grazing of the wheat.”
One of rye’s strengths, that can sometimes be a drawback if not managed carefully, it the crop’s aptitude for reseeding itself.
“Rye does have the potential to volunteer and that can be an issue if wheat for grain is to be grown in that field in the future,” Volesky said.
Pete Sexton, South Dakota State University Associate Professor and Southeast Research Farm Supervisor said that winter rye is gaining momentum as both a forage and feed crop. In eastern South Dakota, Sexton said interest is growing in planting rye as a grain crop or a cover crop.
“Some people raise rye as a grain crop and after harvest follow this with a cover crop blend that also includes rye as a strong component in the mix. They can then graze the cover crop in the fall, and graze rye regrowth in the spring, before going to another crop, typically soybeans.” he said. “They get two grazing cycles out of it this way.”
Alternatively, some producers are choosing to seed rye after corn harvest in October, then cut the rye for silage the following May and seed a second crop into the stubble. This proves just a little more risky than the former method in a dry year.
“There’s no residue left after making silage, and rye uses a lot of moisture during its early, rapid growth period, so in a dry year you might get a pretty poor second crop following rye silage,” Sexton said.
SDSU has tested soybeans, corn and forage sorghum as crops following rye silage, and Sexton said the forage sorghum definitely performed the best in drought conditions.
“On the other hand, when you have good moisture soybeans work great,” he said. “Following rye silage with a second crop is very moisture dependent, and involves more risk. More residue is left when you graze rye so you have lower risk in dry years with grazing versus cutting it for silage.”
Rye’s potential as a grain crop is expanding, particularly as newer hybrid rye varieties are producing greater yields than the open pollinated varieties that preceded them. In six seasons of rye variety trials conducted at the Southeast Farm, the hybrid lines on average have shown 23.9 bushels per acre greater yield compared to the average of the open-pollinated lines evaluated. Rye is also extremely competitive and provides effective weed control in the field.
“When we plant rye at our research farm, as long as we have a good stand we don’t need herbicides,” Sexton said. “Rye does a great job suppressing weeds, and has value in a corn and soybean rotation by providing this benefit for the following crop.”
Rye also holds the potential to provide grazing or straw if either is needed.
“You have to be on it early because it grows really fast in May and can get away from you,” Sexton said. “The quality goes down quickly once it hits the boot stage, so you don’t want to let it get past that before you cut it for forage.”
Zach Smith and Warren Rusche, SDSU Animal Science researchers, have been experimenting with feeding rye at the Southeast research farm, and Sexton said they have found that cattle do very well on it as long as it is not more than 20 percent of the ration.
“Cattle did well on rye early in the feeding period in their study,” he said. “It has more fiber in it than some other grains and this may help their digestion when starting them on feed.”
When cattle get a little older and are growing faster, rye can still be included but not as their only grain source.
“Rye doesn’t have as much energy per pound as corn does,” Sexton said. “For a finishing ration, cattle did well on up to 20 percent rye but showed slower growth rates at higher levels of rye in the diet.”
High nitrate levels are not usually an issue when harvesting rye as a forage crop. Ergot in rye is an issue producers should be aware of when feeding rye to cattle. A field should be scouted for ergot prior to harvest, and grain can be tested for ergot compound levels if there is a concern. Samples can be sent to the NDSU Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Fargo to be tested for ergot alkaloids.
“Ergot is a vascular constrictor; it messes with an animal’s circulation if levels are too high, and can cause miscarriages. This is something to keep an eye on,” Sexton said.
There’s a lot of potential for winter rye as an annual grazing forage crop, and it can be a valuable livestock feed grain as well as a cereal grain for human consumption.
“People are seeing more benefit in it as a cover crop; hopefully this will contribute to a strong seed market for rye in the future,” Sexton said. “From an agronomy point of view, relative to wheat it handles stress well, overwinters well, is more disease resistant, has a better tolerance for a wide range of pH in soils, grows quickly in the spring, and is competitive with weeds. For this same reason it is a contamination issue in wheat, so a person doesn’t want to mix the two. In the corn and soybean world, we’re seeing more herbicide resistant weeds develop, rye is a good tool to have in the tool box. How well the markets for rye seed and feed will develop is the big question. If these markets gain strength, I think we’ll see a continued expansion of rye production in our area.”
