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Aug 27 2013

Cover Crop Field Day Set in Blooming Prairie, MN

PileDriver at Hagan Farms 2 33 days — This Radish was planted in late July 2013 and after 33 days has tremendous growth. This mix included oats and crimson clover and radishes.

Cover Crops will be the main topic of discussion on September 4, 2013 at a cover crop field day and meeting in Blooming Prairie, MN. I have the privilege of speaking at this event as we look at cover crops on prevented plant acres. We will also look at what cover crops work best in the upper Midwest. We will be on Brad Hagan’s family farm and possibly look at Dale Ramsey’s farm too. Please note that we will be looking in root pits (where the action really is)!

I received this note from Legacy Seeds representative Andrew Heath about the field day/meeting:

“We plan on structuring the event much like an open house with designated times where you will be able to address the crowd. We will start the event at 10 am and have you speak from 11 to 11:45 and again at 1 to 1:45. There will also be transportation to the cover crop plot and some of the field that you, TJ, Brad and I visited earlier with root pits dug. This will happen from 12 to 1 and 2 to 3.”

I have seen the plots and have added photos here on this post to entice you to come if you are in the region.

As a side note, Hagan farms will be no-tilling corn into these fields in 2014. We’ll follow-up on these fields next spring and see how these fields compare to others that did not have a cover on them.

This prevent plant field had plenty of nitrogen from manure to capture. Hagan farms used a hybrid brassica and spring barley to secure the nitrogen and Berseem clover to produce more N and provide better soil health.

Aug 02 2013

Cover Crops to the Rescue!

A Huge Problem

Brad, TJ, and Andrew inspecting on of Brads many cover crop fields that were planted in July 2013.on prevented planting acres. — Brad, TJ, and Andrew inspecting one of Brads many cover crop fields that were planted in July 2013 on prevented planting acres.

Recently I was in Minnesota with Brad Hagen, T.J. Kartes, and Andrew Heath looking at Brad’s 1,000+ acres or cover crops. Brad had not intended on planting any of theses acres to cover crops in July, 2013…his intentions were to plant them in August or early September. But spring 2013 rains and floods kept Brad from planting corn or soybeans on most of his 1,700 acres near Ellendale, MN (about an hour SW of Rochester, MN ). Brad attended a cover crop meeting TJ set up for me to speak at on behalf of Legacy Seeds last March and as I spoke I could see Brad’s mind working. When the spring rains came so did phone calls from Brad to TJ and from TJ to Andrew or me (or both)…”what can I do to build soil during this disaster?” was the theme of the weekly (if not daily) phone conversations.

You can seemingly look for miles without seeing a cash crop planted in some areas of SE Minnesota

Cover Crops to the Rescue!

Brad’s goals are to build soil and to scavenge nitrogen from his hog operation and build nitrogen with legumes. Realizing that we would plant in early-mid July and not in mid-late August we all understood that we did not want to have to mow to remove seed heads if at all possible – so we left Radishes out of the mix. We also realized that we wanted to use a “summer” clover, so we used Berseem Clover for it’s excellent growth and N producing ability. We chose Oats as the grass in most fields and then we added a twist, Pasja or Vivant Hybrid Brassica. I have worked with Pasja for over 10 years and rarely ever saw it produce a seed head in the summer or fall. While Pasja (nor Vivant) have a big tuber like a Radish they do have the ability to scavenge a tremendous amount of nitrogen and earthworms dwell around their roots.

Brad Hagen looking at his Pasja Hybrid Brassica and Berseem clover. These are brand new species to Brad. This field was planted 10 days before the photo was taken.

In some later July (and soon to be mid-August) planted fields we chose to use Spring Barley and Crimson Clover along with PileDriver Radishes and Appin Turnips. TJ and Brad requested this mix so we’d get later fall growth, deeper penetration through compacted soils (Radish vs. Pasja/Vivant) and excellent N production from the Crimson clover. Spring Barley was available and many folks in Kentucky have told me that barley makes the soil “sweet” (whatever that means). From experience I know that soil after Barley is quite mellow.

Early August Report

From what I saw on August 1 I was very impressed! As other folks in the region were planting straight Oats or possibly a few were adding Radishes very few other folks seemed to totally share Brad’s goals. Brad told me that he is doing these cover crops because he wants to build his soil and because he wants his 7 year old son to have better soil to farm when he grows up and farms his place like Brad does with his father. I’ll have more photos in a month or so. I believe Andrew, Brad and TJ will plan a field day for September. It’s beautiful country near the Hagen farm…it probably will be worth the drive in September to meet Brad and his family. They’re pretty special folks…

Take a look at my You Tube channel “covercropdave” to watch an interview I have with Brad and TJ.

This beautiful stand of cover crops was planted July 2, 2013 at Brad's dad's place not far from the hog barns. If you sniff this photo real hard you can smell the hogs! — This beautiful stand of cover crops was planted July 2, 2013 at Brad’s dad’s place not far from the hog barns. If you sniff this photo real hard you can smell the hogs!

Jul 28 2013

Cover Crop and Forage Meeting Aug 14, 2013

On August 14, 2013 the University of Wisconsin is holding an Agronomy Field Day at the Marshfield Ag Research Station. The line-up of speakers looks outstanding and CEU credits are available for Certified Crop Advisers.

I will be speaking out at the cover crop plots looking at how we can use cover crops as forages and benefit the soil at the same time.

KY Forages April 2011 041 — An Annual Ryegrass cover crop can make excellent dairy quality baleage/silage in the fall if planting after wheat. It also is a fabulous scavenger of N and P with deep roots.

For past blog posts on using cover crops for forages looks here and here.

Jul 16 2013

Cover Crop Field Day July 22-23, 2013

This looks like a Fantastic Field Day in Emporia, Kansas. Gail Fuller sent me the info and I believe this will be well worth the time and investment to attend if at all possible. There is a great line-up of speakers!

Here is the note from Gail about the event held last year…

Last year I had organic producers, long and short term No-tillers, conventional tillers, ranchers and agency people from 10 states and 2 country’s, so it will be a very diverse crowd. It will center around “farming in natures image” or eco-farming with sessions focused on symbiotic relationships within the system. Plant to plant, microbe to plant, insect to plant, etc. Livestock will be included as they are an important part of a system. It will all be tied to healthier food, and healthier living.

Thanks Again!
Gail

Jul 08 2013

Results of Farmer Cover Crop Survey Conducted by SARE and CTIC

Folks,

If you want to see how cover crops provide a very good ROI across a wide geographic region then this report is for you! Thanks to Rob Meyers from SARE and the folks at CTIC for conducting and publishing this survey. It helps me to see that the results on our home farm (and many of your farms too) were duplicated over a broad area.

Cover crops REALLY help with yield :) — Cover crops REALLY help with increasing yield 🙂 (BTW, we are NOT really standing up.)

Here is Rob’s e-mail. Check out the link to see the whole report.

We are releasing today the results of a farmer survey on cover crops that was conducted by SARE and the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) this past winter. A majority of the surveys were completed by farmers attending Midwest conferences this past winter but we also had some respondents to the online version of the survey from across the U.S. The survey analysis and report development was completed by CTIC under a contract from North Central Region SARE. Questions on the survey were developed with the input of MCCC steering committee members. The report is available online at: http://www.northcentralsare.org/CoverCropsSurvey

Key findings included the following:

During the fall of 2012, corn planted after cover crops had a 9.6% increase in yield compared to side-by-side fields with no cover crops. Likewise, soybean yields were improved 11.6% following cover crops.
In the hardest hit drought areas of the Corn Belt, yield differences were even larger, with an 11.0% yield increase for corn and a 14.3% increase for soybeans.
Surveyed farmers are rapidly increasing acreage of cover crops used, with an average of 303 acres of cover crops per farm planted in 2012 and farmers intending to plant an average of 421 acres of cover crops in 2013. Total acreage of cover crops among farmers surveyed increased 350% from 2008 to 2012.
Farmers identified improved soil health as a key overall benefit from cover crops. Reduction in soil compaction, improved nutrient management, and reduced soil erosion were other key benefits cited for cover crops. As one of the surveyed farmers commented, “Cover crops are just part of a systems approach that builds a healthy soil, higher yields, and cleaner water.”
Farmers are willing to pay an average (median) amount of $25 per acre for cover crop seed and an additional $15 per acre for establishment costs (either for their own cost of planting or to hire a contractor to do the seeding of the cover crop).

Please help us distribute this information to your colleagues and farmers in your region.

Rob Myers, Ph.D.
Regional Director – Extension Programs
North Central Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE)
University of Missouri
238 Ag Engineering Bldg.
Columbia, MO 65211-5200
Phone 573-882-1547
Email myersrob@missouri.edu
Web http://www.northcentralsare.org/

Cover Crop Field Day Set in Blooming Prairie, MN