Many farmers with unseeded acres this spring due to flooding are now considering fall rye to get a crop growing on that land.
At Ag in Motion, the FP Genetics crop plots featured a sign saying, “Got unseeded acres? Let’s chat fall rye.”
FP Genetics was the first company to bring hybrid fall rye to Canada more than a decade ago.
Chad Yanchycki, sales manager for FP Genetics, says unseeded acreage has increased the interest in fall rye, regardless of the variety a producer chooses.
The interest especially comes after heavy rainfalls in parts of Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
"We've had a lot of inquiries from growers from different retail networks that are looking at options to fill that, just to suck up some moisture and fall rye is an awesome option for that." he said.
For producers seeding fall rye following the harvest of another crop, canola is considered ideal because the stubble traps snow and insulates the fall rye.
However, Yanchycki notes that pod shatter resistance in canola has led to more straight combining meaning canola may not be off the field soon enough.
The hard part with that is straight cut canola and the later it gets, kind of pushes you into some of those windows that's on the later seeding for rye," he said. "Your optimal window is August 25th to September 10th is optimal, and then you've got until the end of September pretty much to seed it."
He notes a lot of growers put in fall rye after harvesting peas.
"We've seen massive success with it and we're seeing more of it in Manitoba, parts of eastern Saskatchewan where growers are going after peas." Yanchycki said.
"The biggest thing with that is just trash management. You want to make sure that you're making sure that trash is cleaned up and you're not just knifing that seed underneath all of that trash in the field."
FP Genetics has released an open pollinated fall rye variety called Bebop, where producers can save their own seed by paying a trailing royalty of about $5 an acre.
Bebop has significantly better yield than the traditional open pollinated varieties, but not as good as the hybrids.
