Forage Rye Multiple Trait Improvement.

Rye (Secale cereale L.) is an important component of winter pasture systems for livestock in the US southern region. This small grain forage crop is more tolerant to Al⁺³ toxicity in acid soils compared to most other cool-season annual forages and rye is highly productive in late winter and early spring. Important traits for new forage rye cultivars include: Al⁺³ tolerance; winter forage yield; late spring forage yield; seed production; and grazing tolerance. Spaced plants of the rye germplasm line, Tenn 4062, were evaluated for forage potential and seed production in 2012 at Overton, TX. Fifteen half-sib lines from this population with high seed production were bulked to form the experimental cultivar TXRYE-12. Forage yield trials were conducted at Overton in 2013 and 2014 with TXRYE-12 compared to Elbon and Maton forage rye. No improvement in either winter or late spring forage yield was noted for TXRYE-12 relative to either Elbon or Maton. Twenty-seven half-sib rye lines were evaluated in 2014 for late spring regrowth after grazing using a scoring system of 1 to 9 (9 = no regrowth and 1 = best regrowth). Five rye lines were identified with excellent regrowth and will be used as breeding lines in future studies.