Our veterans, for the most part, prefer rye.  Georgia plants more rye acres than any other state, and those acres have increased since we started strip tilling into it.  Most goes for cattle winiter grazing, but a lot of acres go to cover.

Back to cover crops and corn, rye, or wheat. Keep in mind that I am in the DEEP SOUTH, and we farm the sandy soils of the Coastal Plain; some of what we do will work anywhere, but some won't, and I don't intend to talk like you guys aren't smart enough to know that.:

• We harvest corn in mid August to mid September. Most years first frost is around Nov 10, with first freeze in early December.  We usually have a pretty good crop of volunteer corn cover by then. A lot of folks spray 2,4-D on that in early February, give or take, some years the only "burn down", and plant corn again in March.  If cotton or peanuts, the REAL burndown has to follow this in April. This is just about as good for cover as rye.
• Rye, again, comments above, is high on the list for preferred cover. This year, rye seed supply is tight and expensive, and the cattle boys have less options than the cover crop boys, so most of the supply is going that way. As I said above, the root system is great for our sandy compaction-prone soils, and the cover lasts so much longer into the growing season.
  
• We plant SRWW varieties, and they really do well for cover.  Yest, they are a little harder to kill, but by the time we are planting the bulk of our cotton and peanut crops in mid-May, it's a good cover. We spray it, and while there may even be a little green in the stalk, it's days left that way are very limited. What I like about the stalks of wheat here is that it does not lodge as badly down here, and the the strip till machine parts the stand well as we plant back through. Most producers learn on wheat, and then go to rye.