Corn silage is often grown in the Upper Midwest to provide feed for cattle.� Silage harvest, however, does not leave enough crop residue to adequately protect the soil from erosion and can reduce soil organic matter.� Winter cover crops planted after silage harvest and after other crops in the cropping system can provide erosion protection and help to maintain soil organic matter.� A 5-yr experiment was conducted in central Iowa to determine the amount of shoot biomass that is produced by a rye winter cover crop planted after corn silage harvest and the effect of a rye winter cover crop on soybean and corn silage yield.� Averaged over 5 yr, a rye winter cover crop produced 2.94 Mg ha^-1 of shoot biomass following corn silage compared with 1.28 Mg ha^-1 following soybean.� Undoubtedly, the earlier planting date of the rye cover crop following corn silage contributed to the difference in biomass.� Previous studies had shown a grain yield decrease when corn followed a rye winter cover crop.� Similarly, in this study, corn grain yield was 0.3 Mg ha^-1 less following a rye cover crop (12.1 Mg ha^-1 vs.12.4 Mg ha^-1).� Corn silage biomass and soybean grain yield, however, were not reduced in this study.� Corn silage biomass averaged over 4 yr was 16.9 Mg ha^-1 either with or without a cover crop.� Soybean grain yield averaged over 4 yr following a rye cover crop was 3.6 Mg ha^-1 compared with 3.7 Mg ha^-1 without a cover crop.� This study indicates that a rye winter cover crop can produce substantial shoot biomass following corn silage harvest and that corn silage and soybean yields following a rye winter cover crop are not reduced.