It's not really mowing my rye. I seeded rye right into my soybeans with my grain drill Labor Day weekend. The rye is coming along very well.
But what I want to do is go through it with a brush hog and mow the beans to break up the pods. The rye is almost as tall as the beans and may get mowed a bit. Will this hurt the rye?

There should be no need to mow the beans unless you are in a hurry for them to be on the ground. Most soybeans pods will shatter on their own as they become dry. Ask a soybean farmer.

Mowing the rye will not do it any good, but won't harm it either. Trampling the rye down by whatever you mow with (tire tracks) will do the most harm.

A good freeze will pop the beans, why do you want to mow them, leave it all for the game if they are food plots, the birds will get the beans later, What is your reason for doing it this way, We are combining beans now and they are yielding good.

I was told that I needed to break the pods open because of a sharp point on the pod that detered the deer from eating them. I was told that if I mowed them to break open the pod the deer would hit them harder in the late season for the beans themselves.
The beans are not for harvest, only for the deer, so I don't care either way if the pods burst on their own or if I have to break them open with a brush hog or flail chopper.
It has frozen a couple times up there already and the pods show no signs of opening. How long does it take?
Brian

Brian -

If you haven't yet - don't mow the beans. The deer will eat them pods & all - when they are brown - and when the shatter. In the south - sometimes they mow & even disk to get a new plot going with the seeds - That works GREAT - unless you are in the north - and the next frost wipes out the whole crop.

Mowing the Rye - wont hurt nothing though - in fact - if you planted Rye early - and the crop gets above 8-10" - then I would suggest mowing for rye - deer will hardly touch it if it gets stalky.

FH

The frost has already killed off the beans and all the leaves have fallen off the stems. The rye has grown well and the deer are hitting it pretty hard and keeping it down better than I thought.
So if I don't need to break open the pods, I won't.
It got down to 21 degrees the night before last. That's COLD!
Brian
Fh, can I send you some pics?