First, do you have any knowledge that the earlier planted rye will be taller/head out quicker in following spring?    That seems to be the critical issue--------------we will NOT be able to sow rye prior to mid-Nov..........just won't happen, with the needed fall field work........and frankly, will happen more towards last week in Nov at earliest.  If that puts the heading out into late May--------which it appears to do-------then no-tilling the soy------for us-------gets real scary, given the weather (rain) during last few years at that point in time.

Second, the use of the cultimulcher is a good idea........had not thought about that........as compared to big-a....d roller..............but, what do you do with respect to the rye in the wheel tracks?  What we saw was that if there was not some type of mechanism to bend over the stalk, ie crimp the stalk------as compared to merely bending over the whole rye plant to the ground like a wheel does---------then the rye would not be killed, it would merely get a little water and sun and be standing again, sowing its little seeds, which become a real weed in competition with the soybeans.

Third, using the rotovator---------you indicated that you rotovated twice, and then were going to use the field cultivator ahead of planter.  We found that the rotovating was so slooooooow (3.5---4mph), that we ran the field cultivators much ahead of the rotovators----maybe even twice, allowing the first flush of weeds to be MOSTLY killed, and then the rotovators just ahead of the planters-------like a few hours if we could time it so-------so that the rotovators would eliminate the clods where the white weeds seem to like to start.  In other words, the rotovators were reduced to merely being used for weed control, grinding clods where the weeds were hiding.......no "tillage" work was required from them...........and we still ran only 2" deep, so the corn seed would be placed at just deeper (2.5) than the "plow pan" created by the rotovator.

Our last experiment with no-tilling soy into standing rye was    A. planting into standing rye using no-till coulters, then          B. using a 30ft cutter bar to cut off the rye about a foot from ground after rye started heading out-----------killed the rye------and allowed us into the field 2 weeks ahead of when we would have been there had we had to wait for rolling/planting at same time .  BUT, there still was just not enough cover from the standing stalks and the cut rye to shade the weeds.......still ended up with weedy mess...........20-22 bu.............using 2-3 bu rye.

I wonder if that experiment would work better if we did not already have a bank of weeds built up from prior years............

If you don't mind, keep me posted.  I am going corn/corn just because of the inability to raise soy that would gross as much per acre as corn.........our nutrients etc are pretty much the same for both, so we can swing either direction depending upon the planting timing.  I would like to put soy back into the mix.

BTW, I thought you were in WI.............instead you're planting in IL??? 

EDIT----------sorry Joel-------------WESTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY------ding dong......