Cool-Season Grasses

Description
Italian ryegrass (IRG) is a cool-season biannual plant that requires vernalization (a period of cold and reduced day length) to initiate heading. IRG is extremely high yielding and is typically the highest quality, most-digestible grass of all. Its low cost and ease of seeding make it an excellent choice as either a nurse crop for other species or a great short-term forage in all Upper Midwest growing zones.

IRG is often used as a nurse when seeding alfalfa, tall fescue, orchardgrass and meadow fescue, with only about 2 pounds of IRG required. IRG makes excellent haylage or baleage, but it does not dry well for hay.

Management
Successful use of IRG requires aggressive management and high fertility. If there are a lot of nutrients on a farm, IRG can be a good choice to utilize and recycle those nutrients. It can be easily used to extend thinning alfalfa or mixed stands for one more year, resulting in high yields of excellent quality forage without the hassle of a total stand renovation.

With its soft leaves, clear stands of IRG are better suited to mechanical harvest with a discbine than a sicklebar. IRG also needs to be stored horizontally rather than in a vertical silo. It would be very
difficult to fill and to empty. Having IRG mixed with other grasses or legumes alleviates these problems.

When IRG is sown in spring, very few seedheads will be observed throughout the seeding year. If IRG is fall sown, the plants will head profusely the following spring.

Establishment
IRG is very fast to establish, making it ideal for a spring nurse crop with other more perennial grasses. Planting depth should be 0.25 to 0.50 inch. Broadcast sowing into thin stands can sometimes be successful, but no-till drilling is the recommended method to thicken existing stands. Depending on the time of planting and conditions, the first harvest can come as early as 50 to 60 days after planting, and the first pasturing can take place in about six weeks or when the plant cannot be pulled from the ground.