Grass ID: Rye?

Hey guys,

Blue grass four to six feet with a band where the leaf grows and eventually bends off of the stalk about a foot up.

Stung me hard picking it yesterday.

Pics are of dry stalks from yesterday and have lost their color.

Thanks!
Guarren

Guarren, a picture of the grass in situ would be better for ID. It does look like winter rye or a wild variation of it. The awns can be quite sharp...a natural protective measure against being eaten as seed is setting. You should collect all the seed you can and grow a patch of it later in the autumn......

Neal Foley wrote:Guarren, a picture of the grass in situ would be better for ID.

Here's one:


It's got a strong blue tint to it.
At first I thought barley which I did plant last year, I think. Rye probably makes more sense.

Rye whiskey, Rye whiskey, rye whiskey I cry
If I don't drink rye whiskey I'll live till I die..

That's it--rye. A pretty blue that fades to a tawny gold when it dries and is ready for harvest. It is allopathic to weeds and most annual seed for 3 or more weeks when cut for green mulch. I learned the hard way..... The following year I got my garden in later because of a rye cover crop which I couldn't get in to cut because it was too wet. When it was dry I could have planted the garden but had to wait for the rye effect to dwindle.

Thanks.
So should I chop & drop now or wait till the seeds are ripe? It's not in the garden. It's in a former paddock that I'm converting to a food forest.

Cj Verde wrote:Thanks.
So should I chop & drop now or wait till the seeds are ripe? It's not in the garden. It's in a former paddock that I'm converting to a food forest.

I'd collect the seed! I try to save grain seed whenever I can if it's appropriate. You can keep expanding your patch each year and then either use it for cover croo or livestock feed... Best suited to chickens, though, because without combining it in some way the awns are bothersome to most critters. When I have space I quite often grow a patch of barley or rye, like in an orchard understory, and then harvest it with a scythe and shook it. When it's dry I store it in the chicken/brooding house rafters and in the winter I use it for bedding/feed--seed heads, straw and all. This works pretty good for piglet bedding in the spring too.