During the first week of April I was in several root pits in northwest Indiana and boy did we find plenty of interesting factoids! I was assisted by Eileen Kladivko from Purdue University on one day and Barry Fisher, Indiana NRCS State Agronomist, on another day. What We Found in the Cover Crop Root Pits […]
Cover Crop Root Pits Reveal Plenty Read More »
My wife Sally must love me…or at least she is observant to see how cover crops are improving the soil in our family gardens. Over the nearly 19 years we have lived in our home we have had a garden where we often have raised vegetables for the Hispanic families that we minister to. A
Cover crops for gardens – and my wife, the cover cropping queen! Read More »
Robison Farms in the Greenwood, Indiana area have been no-till farming since the late 1960’s. The field that these videos were taken from has been no-tilled for approximately 20 consecutive years. With the wet spring of 2011 the gentleman that now does the field work for dad decided to chisel plow and disk most of
Earthworm Population Corn Field Experiment Read More »
I had a “see it to believe it” moment in late August near Stryker, Ohio (Williams County – NW Ohio). A very long and deep root pit had been dug as Frank Gibbs (Ohio NRCS Resource Soil Scientist) was looking for the tile in a continuous no-till corn field. I’m thankful that the tile was
66″ No-Till Corn Roots Following Cover Crops Read More »
Crimson clover is a real jewel among the cover crop species. Crimson clover is an excellent producer of nitrogen and there are some newer varieties on the market that are very winterhardy even into Michigan. Dr. Eileen Kladivko measured how much nitrogen was produced by crimson clover in a test plot in western Indiana. What
Crimson Clover; a jewel among the cover crop legumes Read More »
Earthworms are exceptionally valuable builders of healthy, fertile topsoil. Jill Clapperton stated that a good sign of a healthy topsoil was that a “shovel-full of soil” should have 8 earthworms in it. In my field diggings I have found anywhere from ZERO to 10 erathworms per shovel-full. I found 10 in crimson clover, 8 in
Earthworms…valuable resource on farm ground Read More »