Plant winter rye in the garden in fall and till in early Spring with tractor and rear mounted roto-tiller. No Spring here just a lot of rain. Thinking of mowing with riding mower. Not sure if it might speed up the soil drying process or do damage to value of rye for soil. Way to wet for a 50 hp tractor.

Around guys like to keep alive up to planting time if they can as the living plant helps to remove moisture out of the ground helping to dry it out faster. If you kill it the dead material actually slows the drying process. But you don't want the plant making seed either.

Winter rye grows rapidly in the spring and will remove a lot of water from the soil, maybe too much if your soil is well drained or it gets dry. Also rye has a natural allelopathic influence on other plants and so you want the roots killed when you plant other crops. Tillage, fairly deep tillage usually works good but on a large scale for farmers most spray the winter rye to kill it. Several dairy farmers let it grow until they take it for forage and then kill it and plant corn silage etc.
Mowing should not change the value of the crop and can start the decomposition process earlier for you with the weather delays. We have those delays here as well, wet, raining again and the next couple days and clay soil next to Lake Michigan make for a real late planting season here.

Bryce

I do like cover crops, but I am no expert on the subject.

Thanks. Raining again this am.

Cereal rye is planted around here generally before soybeans. Several guys bale it off wet and most just spray it and plant into it. Most around here is already headed out and about 4-5' tall. Some guys will probably not like the amount of growth this year due to the excessive rain but it will all add more carbon back into the cycle.

Everything above is correct from my experience. When rye is matured to the soft dough stage it is drinking a lot of water to fill that head and your growing season will dictate whether or not you take for grain, hay, or green manure it. If you ever get to the stage of no-tilling your garden into it, you will want to consider killing it a little earlier. The Lignin (plant cell polymers) build-up in the stem will take a lot longer to decompose than if it is buried in the soil with tillage. We can discuss the merits of both some other time --- I have done each system for 6-8 years and like each in the right place. On the smaller gardens here the guys are rolling heavy 4 X 4's over the stems to kill the rye when the stem starts to bolt. The larger garden no-tillers are spraying the rye at 8-12 inches in height. Production farmers (mostly feedlot and feed grain corn-soybean producers) take the rye for haylage and then till and plant a shorter season corn ----- BUT ONLY where they can irrigate with center pivots as the rye has used a lot of soil moisture and the tillage dries the soil even more. I don't know when you harvest or your growing season but if you want to try planting oats immediately after you pick your sweet corn or tomatoes you will get some fall growth, weed control, nutrient scavenging and hopefully 12-18 " of height before Ma Nature kills it for you with a freeze and then you can decide on any or no tillage in the spring.... my take

Thanks for the help. I should have mentioned my garden is only 1.3 acres , tiled drained and I’m Certified Organic. Not looking to start a fight here but it’s where the money is here. Still raining!

I like certified organic.

Knowing now that it is organic I would not do the winter rye. Rye will continue to to grow even after tillage some times but may not be an issue for you. Planting oats or a forage oat in the fall say mid-September should give you 6-8 inches of vegetative cover that when it freezes will be dead. When grasses freeze the leaves flatten and the cover lays on the soil. This will give you ground cover and some mulch to plant into if you want to in the spring with no toxicity etc. and w/o any chemicals which is a concern for you.

Bryce