Learning about the benefits of planting cover crops.
Over the past few weeks I have heard from countless farmers in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, and Iowa that are considering taking prevented planting on all or parts of their farms. Growers Edge just published an excellent piece Prevented Planting Guidelines.
Also see my articles on Prevented Planting Row Crop Acres – Which Cover Crops Can Help? and Summer Annual Grasses for Cover Crops for Prevented Planting Acres that may also be helpful.
Almost two years to the day I posted an article about Killing Tall Annual Ryegrass.
The problem of a wet and chilly 2011 has resurfaced an ugly head to be a wet and COLD spring of 2013. But over the past week or so temperatures have warmed into the 70’s and 80’s with cover crop annual ryegrass and winter cereal rye having grown tall in some areas of the Midwest. Producers need to kill their cover crops as soon as possible to comply with RMA regulations.
In a previous post I wrote about dormant seed in cover crop species on our home farm.
I showed how radishes were present in soybean fields and how annual ryegrass was coming up even after there was residual herbicide and burndown herbicide applied.
Now here we are in the spring and we have a few new surprises. Fall 2011 planted annual ryegrass and even fall planted winter cereal rye are now growing in the spring of 2013. These cover crops were fully terminated in the spring and summer of 2012; there was effective weed control. So dormant seed has germinated and now grown a full 15-18 months after it was seeded. So yes, cover crops can become weeds.
(But remember, cover crops also suppress weeds.)
We have the benefit of a “thin” cover crop and we did not have to pay seed cost or application cost for the second year. In our farming situation it is not a big deal. We terminated all of our cover crops and weeds with a “hot” chemical mix. It is a mix similar to what we used in our no-till fields prior to glyphosate coming on the market. However, if we were growing wheat or oats or barley for grain and straw it could be a problem. Thankfully there are now chemicals to use in cereal crops to eliminate annual ryegrass. I hear reports that Jamie Scott from northern Indiana has seen excellent results with this practice.
We have less winter annual weeds where we have the “volunteer” cover crops and I’m confident our soil health is better where we have the cover crops.
We enjoy the benefit that we have from the cover crop (even though it is a sparse stand) and we watch to make sure we do not have any cover crops coming back before harvest. The cover crops are now dead and a residual herbicide is applied. Now we wait to plant the corn and soybeans and scout for any additional dormant seed to germinate and grow. A clean harvest is important to all producers. Our goal is to use the information from our own farm to make sure that farmers understand the rewards that cover crops bring and also the risk that comes with the reward. The risk is not huge and it is manageable, but it is risk none-the-less.
Cover Crops and Crop Insurance issues seem to be heading to a collision course again this spring in much of the Midwest. In the Corn Belt wet fields have prevented planting with less than 10% of the corn planted by May 5 across the major corn producing states. In the Upper Midwest and even into Oklahoma and Arkansas 2-19″ of snow fell the first week of May. Dairy farmers are desperate for forage and up to 75% of the alfalfa in Wisconsin and Minnesota winterkilled. Many of those dairy farmers planted cover crop Winter Cereal Rye with hopes of harvesting Ryelage this spring to get some emergency feed after the devastating drought of 2012.
But the cold wet spring (coldest on record in USA since 1975) may have farmers in a pinch with RMA again despite the Special Provisions for cover crops to the common crop insurance policy for the 2013 cropping year. As of May 8, 2013 the Rye is only around 10″ tall in most of Wisconsin…certainly not ready for harvest by the May 10 RMA cut-off for harvesting and still attaining crop insurance. Even in Indiana the cover crops are ‘exploding” into head after an exceptionally slow start to spring. The fact that these fields are not full of winter annuals that are headed out like neighboring fields should be applauded…so should fields with cover crops be penalized? It appears that farmers in the Upper Midwest have to choose between feed and crop insurance. In much of the Corn Belt the fields are still plenty wet. It is interesting that in some states the fields full of weeds qualify for crop insurance…yet fields with cover crops that have seed heads (instead of weeds with seed heads) do not qualify for cover crops. Go figure.
Please check with your crop insurance agent to see what regulations apply to you.
In September 2011 I posted about an Ohio farmer that planted into “out of control” peas and shared about his story of how the field was looking pre-harvest. I have recently visited with Dave (the producer) and he shared the information that a number of you asked for…and also surprising yield data. Dave farms with his father-in-law Ron in Mercer County, Ohio near Rockford (NW Ohio).
Here are Dave’s observations and the 2010-2011 field history:
Peas that survived – and other weeds, wheat, clover, etc. – were sprayed (after a wet, wet spring) on June 2, 2011.
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Herbicide/Insecticide Mix: (rates per acre)
20 gal Water
Alliance – .2 gal (1 gal/100 gal water)
Roundup WeatherMax – 44oz
Weedone 650 – 1pt
PowerLock Surfactant – 6oz
Baythroid (insecticide) – 2oz
Corn was planted on June 3, 2011.
Additional Fertilizer applied (in addition to nutrients from manure and N from peas)
20 gal/ac 10-34-0 starter fertilizer with 1qt/ac zinc
40 gal/ac 28-0-0 side dress with Agrotain N stabilizer
Results
Weigh wagon test showed 215 bu dry yield. Dave guesses the whole field average was between 200-215 dry (he has no scales at home to check weight of entire crop).
Dave also thinks that the yield was 10-15 bu better that most of their other corn (w/o manure and w/o cover crops).
All things considered…the wettest spring in Eastern Corn Belt History, late planting date, planting into 3+ foot tall peas, < 1″ of rain in the month of July (with 22 days 90 degrees or more), a wet fall that delayed harvest..and the result was over 200 bushels/acre. I’d take that everyday for that part of Ohio, and so will Dave and his father-in-law Ron.
Other observations from Dave:
Positives:
Better soil structure
Deeper root penetration by corn roots
Great seedbed to plant into
Great soil cover after cover crop was killed
Better water retention thru the dry months
Nutrients saved from hog manure
Negatives:
Too much growth in wet spring
Took a lot of time to plant due to pea growth
Thanks Dave for sharing your story!
My good friend David from Mercer County, Ohio is a great cover crop advocate. Over the past few years he and his father-in-law have begun planting cover crops after their wheat crop is harvested. The first year he planted oats and cover crop radish and this past year they planted a mixture called N-Vest® Groundbreaker Mix (a mixture of Austrian winter peas and cover crop radishes). The summer of 2010 set some records for being exceptionally dry. Neither the peas nor radish grew the way anyone hoped for, but David did find radish roots around 20 inches deep. The peas were less than spectacular but still acceptable for as dry as it was.
As I have reported in several previous posts, the weather in NW Ohio and the Eastern Corn Belt was the wettest in 120 plus years of keeping records. The Austrian winter peas and volunteer wheat over-wintered. In early May David was convinced that they would no-till directly into that “mix.” But the rain came and came often! By early June the peas had grown quite a bit, like up to four feet tall…and that is what they no-tilled into. Actually, David said it was the “most mellow soil” he planted into all spring.
I joke that David was nearly written out of the family will when he started no-till planting his corn! The neighbors were all watching but David persevered and kept planting…even though it was not as easy or as early as he hoped it would be. A few days later David e-mailed me more photos…and then a week later more photos…
So now the neighbors are wondering about this David “kid” that married into this operation. Maybe he is not as foolish as they thought earlier in the spring! Exactly four weeks after planting the corn was over “knee high by the 4th of July” and now the neighbors are asking what that cover crop was!
But the dry summer of 2010 was now being duplicated by another dry summer and the summer of 2011 has been much hotter than 2010. So how has the no-till corn fared during these challenging conditions? Very well, actually.
So will David plant cover crops again? Yes! In fact they are already in the ground and waiting for rain to emerge. David has been very excited all the way through this process as he has been confident he is doing the right thing for his soil and the future of his farming operation. Thanks to David for providing the photos and information to encourage all of us that cover crops are an exciting option that we should all consider.