Getting more use out of an acre while also building soil health can be a worthwhile combination, especially when feed costs are tight. Annual ryegrass offers a way to do both, producing forage during a window when corn and alfalfa aren’t growing while adding another layer of protection and nutrient capture to the cropping system.
For the right cropping system, annual ryegrass can be an affordable dual-purpose option. The cool-season grass establishes quickly and can produce highly digestible forage when harvested at the right maturity.
Quality is the Attraction
Annual ryegrass isn’t necessarily the crop to choose when maximum dry matter is the only goal. Its strength is forage quality, particularly when it is harvested young and leafy.
Dan Undersander, former UW-Madison Extension forage agronomist, describes ryegrass as a high-quality forage that establishes quickly and can produce good yields when temperatures are cool and moisture is adequate.
“Ryegrasses are excellent, high-quality forage, establishing rapidly and producing good yield in the seeding year if cool temperatures (50 to 75°F) exist and adequate moisture is available,” he says.
He also stresses the importance of harvesting the crop before it becomes too mature.
“Heading reduces quality unless plants are harvested prior to seed head emergence,” he notes
Harvesting around the boot stage can help capture the crop before heading causes fiber to increase and digestibility to decline. The goal shouldn’t be to grow the largest stand possible, but to harvest the crop while it is still high-quality feed.
Making an Acre Work Harder
The economics can pencil out better when the same acres serve more than one purpose. Lisa A. Holden, former Penn State Extension associate professor of dairy science, says double cropping can provide an additional economic benefit to dairies by producing more forage from the same land base.
The return isn’t guaranteed, though. Seed, planting, fertility, harvest and termination all add to the cost, so the crop needs to produce enough useful forage to justify the expense.
In a four-farm case study, only one farm had a low enough cost of production for double cropping to provide a positive economic impact. The other three farms had lower yields or less desirable forage, which pushed their cost per ton higher than the market price for comparable forages.
For annual ryegrass, the same calculation applies. Its value comes from combining a forage harvest with the other benefits the crop provides, rather than simply looking at tons of forage produced.
An Option After Alfalfa
Annual ryegrass can also fill a specific need when an alfalfa stand doesn’t make it through the winter. Replanting alfalfa into the same field isn’t always a good option because of autotoxicity, leaving producers looking for another crop to provide forage while the field rotates away from alfalfa.
University of Minnesota research evaluated annual forage crops in fields following alfalfa winterkill and found annual ryegrass offered a good combination of yield and forage quality while making use of nitrogen left behind by the previous alfalfa stand.
The researchers also looked at adding nitrogen to the annual forage and found little to no economic benefit. Nitrogen left in the soil from the alfalfa generally provided enough fertility for the annual forage crop.
This can make annual ryegrass particularly useful when a farmer needs to get productive forage from a field after an alfalfa stand is lost without immediately adding another large fertilizer expense.
Fit Matters
Getting annual ryegrass established can be one of the biggest challenges. The crop needs adequate moisture and the right planting window, which can make it difficult to establish after some summer-harvested crops.
A dry fall following corn silage can leave little opportunity to establish a strong stand before winter. Annual ryegrass may fit better following winter wheat or spring cereal grains, where planting conditions can be more favorable.
Winter survival adds another variable, particularly across the Northeast and northern Midwest. A farmer may plant annual ryegrass expecting a spring forage harvest and end up with a thin stand after a difficult winter.
This makes flexibility important. If the crop comes through winter well, it can be harvested for forage. If the stand is poor, delaying the next crop for a marginal forage harvest may not make economic sense.
Harvest and Termination Go Together
Spring harvest can create another challenge because the crop needs to be harvested at the right maturity and moisture without pushing back the next crop. Penn State Extension describes wet spring conditions as a “tremendous challenge” for getting double-cropped forage harvested at the right moisture and quality.
Waiting for fields to dry can allow the crop to become more mature, while harvesting too wet can create fermentation and storage concerns. Soil conditions also can affect how quickly the next crop can be planted.
Termination needs to be part of the plan from the beginning. Annual ryegrass needs active regrowth for effective herbicide control, and confirmed glyphosate-resistant populations in New York add another concern for farmers relying on glyphosate alone.
Certified seed, field scouting and a well-planned termination program can help reduce the risk of carrying annual ryegrass into the next crop. The goal is to get useful forage from the crop without creating a bigger problem for the following season.
Finding the Fit
While annual ryegrass won’t replace corn silage or alfalfa, it’s value comes from the niche it can fill, particularly when a farm can use a relatively short growing window to produce another source of digestible forage.
For some farms, it could provide an option following alfalfa winterkill. For others, it may fit as a planned forage between crops.
Either way, the goal isn’t simply to grow annual ryegrass. It is to produce enough good-quality feed, at a cost that makes sense, while still protecting the soil and getting the next crop planted on time.
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