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Rye is a relatively unknown crop for Irish tillage farmers. The crop grows very tall and is generally associated with drier climates or moisture-stressed land.
It has many potential uses, with pig feed and rye bread among the best known. In more recent times, it has made a bit of a comeback for use in anaerobic digestion plants, where its bulk is the driver, and the same crop is used for wholecrop forage. It is also now being grown for distilling to make rye whiskey.
Over the past few years, one can see plots of rye growing at many of the seed company research sites. They all report an interest, but, as yet, not enough to get excited about.
But down at Seedtech recently, Tim O’Donovan told me that he has a few merchants who are now willing to assemble a small quantity to take a look at the crop and begin to form an opinion. We in Ireland currently grow 475ha of the crop.
In its favour
While Tim has come to see potential in the crop, his singular advice to anyone would be to have a definite market before you grow it – sound and sensible advice. After that, the story has become increasingly positive in Tim’s eyes.
Click below to hear more of what Tim O'Donovan had to say about rye.
A big plus for the crop in Tim’s opinion is its relative tolerance to both take-all and BYDV. These can be potentially big issues in a sector where weather is such a dominating factor.
While winter oilseed rape can be drilled from mid-August, Tim sees rye as being suitable for drilling from mid-September onwards with a seeding rate of 200 seeds/m2.
While the crop can cope with the higher risk of both BYDV and take-all associated with early drilling, grass weeds can still be a huge risk. However, its aggressive growth and huge canopy and height (1.6m is likely) mean that all grass weeds have difficulty coping within the crop. There may also be direct antagonism from the crop to the weeds.
The modern crop is a hybrid and that confers greater aggressiveness. Both the conventional crop and the hybrid are aggressive feeders and can cope well with lower fertility. It can also cope well with dryness which has become more of an issue here in recent years.
Concerns
The crop has tall straw and height is a risk factor that worried Tim for a while. But now he is happy that with sensible growth regulation using slightly higher rates, he has seen this crop stay standing in particularly challenging weather conditions.
It may break down eventually, he said, but this happens well above the ground (a bit like oats) so the crop can dry out and it is easy to get the combine blade beneath the heads at harvest.
Another big concern relates to the risk of ergot in the crop. While other cereals are self-crossing, rye is out-crossing.
This means that each flower that makes a grain will be fertilised by pollen from another flower. And the fact that the flowers must open to be fertilised leaves them open to invasion by ergot, a fungal disease that is highly toxic to humans and animals. This is huge risk.
However, the technical processes used in the production of the hybrid seed acts in an indirect way to minimise the risk of infection. This has helped to virtually prevent this problem from appearing in plots and crops to date, but it is important to be aware of this risk.
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