Evaluation of Winter Rye Accessions for Agronomic Traits in the Southeastern USA.

Our objective was to evaluate winter rye (Secale cereale L.) lines for agronomic traits which might be useful in developing a new cover crop variety of winter rye. Eighty USDA-NPGS accessions of winter rye, including ‘Wrens Abruzzi’, were transplanted to 3 replicates on a sandy loam soil at the Field Crops Unit of EV Smith Research Center, Shorter, AL, USA in the fall of 2006.  Measured agronomic traits included cold tolerance, days to anthesis, days to physiological maturity, tillering, plant height, and inflorescence and seed traits. Drought terminated physiological development early for some accessions during this first year of data collection.