Terry Ward, of La Porte City, plants a four-year rotation of corn, soybeans, oats and hay – and double crops with cereal rye followed by soybeans while maintaining 51 to 60 bushel per acre harvests. Terry, with his wife Rachel, hosted a PFI field day on June 4 to discuss ryelage harvest. Terry’s 37 acres of rye will be chopped as soon as the field dries out and packed into a silo.
Whatever doesn’t fit will then be baled dry. The neighboring dairy cows benefit – it’s chopped and mixed into the dairy rations and the dry bales are fed to heifers, dry cows or turned into bedding. Dick Blough, Terry’s dairy farming neighbor commented, “It’s a high-quality forage when taken off just before boot stage; the cows milk just as well as when they’re eating alfalfa.”
