Cereal Rye

Hi. I'm Matt Metzger, the Forage Specialist with Millborn Seeds.
We're here today with a little bit of a unique video. You know most of these videos we shoot, we're out in a field of something green and growing. But we're coming at ya know with the end product on something and that product is rye.
You've heard the talk on rye. More and more people are starting to use it, especially livestock guys because they are really able to utilize it. And this is an example of it.
Here we have a bag of rye that was chopped for silage. To give you a background this rye was planted in the fall of 2016 after corn silage. And then in the spring of 2017, around the middle of May, this rye was cut down and chopped and put in this bag.
The rye, when it was cut, the producer said it was about late boot stage. The first few seed heads were starting to pop. So that's kind of the optimal stage if you're shooting for quality with rye. If you want to max out your tonnage you let it mature a little further.
On the note of quality, the producer also gave me the lab analysis and the we came out at 15.3% crude protein. So really nice crude protein level on this. Relative feed value was over 100. And the RFQ was in the 160's.
So rye can definitely make good feed if you utilize it correctly. If you just want a high amount of roughage, I'd say let it mature. Then you still chop it, put it in a bag, and have a good source of fiber for your cattle.
But the plan is to put this in a TMR for replacement heifers and it should them keep a nice good condition going into their first breeding season.
Kind of a different take on things. A lot of times, us seed guys we're talking about something that's green and growing. But we're also the Forage guys, so we're coming at you with the final product and here it is. It's a pretty nice looking bag of rye silage and it's going to feed really well.
I'm Matt Metzger, Forage Specialist with Millborn Seeds and thanks for watching.
For more information, please visit www.millbornsee...