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Central MN | Although I grow a fair amount of Rye, I am not an expert on the Alleopathic affects of the plant. I can only make observations and have in fact noticed a somewhat lessoned ability of Rye to "suppress" weeds lately. The weeds I have noticed increased pressure from "here" are mostly non-grass types. For this reason Steve, I find your comment very interesting. I have never before heard the statement that Rye's Alleopathic influence was limited to grass type plants. My recent observations would seem to agree with this. Do you have any references to more specific information about Rye's Alleopathic suppression of weed growth? I would be interested in more information on the subject to assist in my efforts to control weeds in my Rye stands that I wish to harvest for grain. Historically, we have always swathed the stands prior to threashing which pretty much eliminates the problems of green weed material during harvest. However, recently we have been straight cutting and are finding weeds to be a significant hinderance. Last year was quite wet and we noticed a pretty fair amount of Smartweed, White Cockle and Ragweed. It also did not take long after plant maturity to notice a lot of grasses such as crab grass, foxtail and quack grass starting to grow agressively.
One thing I can say for certain is that Rye's alleopathic influence stops very abruptly once it dies. And also that Rye is really only successfull in "suppressing" weed growth while not really "killing" weeds. My uneducated guess would be that Rye would not hinder initial germination but most likely would have a very suppressing effect on other plants. It stands to reason however, that one cannot assume that Rye can suppress all other species of plants. | |
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will living cereal rye affect dry bean germination
