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  • From: Marlin Burkholder <burkholders AT glenecofarm.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Rye and plastic mulch
  • Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 16:27:41 -0400

Title: Re: [Market-farming] Rye and plastic mulch
Pam,
You gave such an educated answer to Beth.  It seems like more than “two cents” worth.
Christine Burkholder


On 10/15/11 5:42 PM, "Pam Dawling" <pam AT twinoaks.org> wrote:

Beth (Rehoboth Homestead, Peru NY) said:
"We had some pretty bad weed control failures this year.  I had borrowed a
plastic mulch layer last spring and used old landscape cloth between the
mulch rows - that worked great!  I am planning on buying a bed
shaper/plastic mulch layer and using it a lot next year where we had the
weeds (potatoes, early carrots, early beets, and where the seeds blew in).
It is getting really late to plant rye, but I'd sure like to have a cover
crop on.  My concern is whether I can mow/till the rye fairly early (when it
would tend to regrow), and if the plastic mulch will kill the rye and I can
tp in after a couple weeks.  I could let the rye grow between the rows for
weed control even (maybe?). If this is a big mistake, I'd appreciate being warned."

Beth, you are talking about winter rye (cereal rye) and not annual rye, yes? It is very cold hardy, but I don't know if it is too late to plant in your location. You could go to the SARE website and check out their book on cover crops - it's all online. If you sow late and the plants are small, the risk is that the soil is not protected enough and will erode. Apart from that, I guess it wouldn't matter too much that you don't get tons of biomass from it in the spring, as it sounds like that isn't one of your goals here. It does regrow if mowed before it heads up. But if you cover with black plastic it might be dissuaded. Will the mowed stems puncture the plastic though? I think tilling would be a better choice than mowing.

Another feature to be aware of is the allelopathy of rye - it puts out a chemical that inhibits small seeds from sprouting, for about 3 weeks after it's disked under. But if you are transplanting, that shouldn't be a problem...

That's my two cents

Pam Dawling, Twin Oaks, Louisa, VA zone 7


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