Paul, I think they are talking about a Falling Numbers test. It measures the soundness of small grain for sprout damage. The grian may not show any sprouts, but could have started the germ process and degraded it's quality/useablity.

Something I have done in the past that made the failing wheat (not rye, but should be the same) to make grade, was to run it trhough an auger 4 times. I had some visible sprouts on the wheat kernals - the augering cleaned it up. Brought sample down to elevator and it passed - The way I understand the testing process, it really shouldn't have mattered . . . but it passed. Oh, the reason I ran it through the auger 4 times? Once to unload the semi, into my gravity boxes. From gravity boxes into bin and from bin to gravity boxes again (cause the trucker needed the truck unloaded now and it wouldn't fit in the bin site for unloading) and then to truck. This was all with in a month. Maybe the tester didn't do a good enough job testing, but it seemed to work . . . .

You may want to have them test the rye again . . .

Some info on how falling numbers test works . . . .

http://www.ncw.wsu.edu/agronomy/documents/FallingNumbers.doc

http://www.udel.edu/FREC/PUBS/ER06-02.pdf

http://www.northern-crops.com/technical/fallingnumber.htm