Plant Cover Crops

Learning about the benefits of planting cover crops.

Cover Crop Roots

Root Pit Reveals 40″ Cereal Rye Roots

Rye Pit

I am blessed to hear from farmers around the world about their cover cropping adventures.  One young man, Brian Scott, from Carroll County, Indiana has generously shared his information with me again this spring.  This post is Brian’s report from early May, 2013.  To see Brian’s photographs, click here.

We dug a few pits in our field today that has about 40 acres of cereal rye and another 40 of annual ryegrass. The cereal rye had a pretty good stand, but the ryegrass didn’t do so well over the winter.  Looks like we may not be the only farm with that problem this year?

Anyway I was pretty excited for our first year cover cropping that we found cereal rye roots down to 40″ today!  And we hit the water table below that since everything is still relatively wet from all the rain.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see more roots if we could have dug down deeper.  That was on pretty good soil that used to have manure applied every year until about 7 years ago when we got out of the hog business.

The ryegrass was on ground with much more clay near the surface, but I was glad to see we had roots down 2 feet where we did get a decent stand.

Both covers were sprayed today.  I think I would have liked to keep the cereal rye a bit longer, but with rain in the forecast we didn’t want it getting out of control if we got soaked again and couldn’t spray.  These were all seeded into standing corn on 9/19/2012.  In all we had about 200 acres of cover this year and have plans to seed at least 400 in the fall!

Thanks Brian!  And to everyone who have been sending info…watch for it to be on the blog soon.  Thanks to all who are sharing their stories.

Cover Crop Root Pits Reveal Plenty

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

We found several night crawlers and smaller worms as well in each pit we were in
  • Earthworms galore, especially where we had radishes and/or crimson clover. But the earthworms were plentiful in all cover crop species.
  • Earthworm channels 48″ deep in a field that had been long term no-till with one year of cover crop annual ryegrass/radish mix (planted after soybeans).
  • Roots from two different  crops in the same root zone/earthworm channel (soybeans and cover crop roots) over 30″ deep.
  • Earthworm eggs where radishes had decayed.
  • Soybean nodules 26″ deep on roots that went 44″ deep (long term no-till field – 10 years).
  • Annual ryegrass roots that were not as deep following corn as they were following soybeans (less N available for them to grow as vigorously).
  • Canola or oilseed rape in fields where bin run oats had been planted instead of seed oats.
  • Continued evidence of compaction. One year of cover crops does not eliminate all compaction issues (though roots from cover crops did penetrate through the compaction).
  • Radish and radish roots that were 34″ deep last fall were found at 40″ deep this spring (though dead).
  • Living radishes. Several radishes survived the Indiana winter (very mild winter), especially where they were protected by crimson clover and annual ryegrass.
  • 20 earthworm channels and 5 earthworms in an area 8″ by 8″ square at 6 inches deep (in a mixture of annual ryegrass, crimson clover, and cover crop radishes).
  • 700 acres of oats and radishes looking very different in the spring than it did in the fall!  (Click the links to see the different videos)

Miscellaneous Notes from the Cover Crop Root Pits

The farmer from our first cover crop root pit dig on April 4th reported that he saw less visible drought stress where they had long term no-till and cover crops, attributing the healthier plants to increased root depth.

We saw several fields of cereal rye after corn stalks being grazed by beef cattle.

Barry Fisher encouraged everyone to “expand your farm vertically.” In other words, don’t just keep buying/renting more land. Instead, put cover crop roots down deeper to create better land where you farm – and get more yield.

Be sure to control your annual ryegrass instead of waiting on the crimson clover to grow taller.  Much of the ryegrass was 10-12″ tall with the crimson clover at 6-8″ tall.

Farmers are becoming more creative with cover crop applications and types, and they are finding success – not surprising!

 

Other than the "extra goodies" from the VNS oats, this field was ready to plant without herbicide in the spring.
We saw several fields where cattle were grazing cereal rye planted into corn stalks.
Cereal rye in one row and crimson clover and Appin turnips in the other row (mixed together).

 

One of the joys of working with farmers is the excitement I see on their faces when they "get it" about soil health. There were several excited farmers again this spring.
We found several earthworm eggs around the decayed radish holes.
We found roots from soybeans and annual ryegrass in the same root zone/earthworm channel.

Short Cover Crops Put Down Deep Roots

Many cover crops were planted in September and even into early October in much of the Midwest in 2011.  Some of those cover crops are not very advanced in their growth by mid-November. Does this mean that they are useless or worthless?  As I often say in meetings or at field days…”always take a shovel with you.”  You will likely be surprised!

I have been in several root pits this fall and also have dug up dozens of cover crop plants.  One of my goals in the field is to measure roots on species like annual ryegrass, cover crop radishes, oats, cereal rye, Austrian winter peas, rape, kale, cowpwea, Hairy Vetch, Phacelia, turnips, and crimson clover.  Some of the cover crops were in fields that were long term no-till and some were conventionally tilled.

So what have I found so far?

  • Four inch tall Annual Ryegrass with 21″ deep roots

    Very little top growth does not mean very little root growth. This radish had well over 12" of root depth.
  • 15″ deep radish roots that had 2″ tall tops and a “pencil” sized tuber
  • 12″ deep crimson clover roots under a 2″ tall top (with many nodules)
  • 35″ deep roots on oats that had 20-25″ tall top growth (prevented planting situation planted in early September)
  • 30″ deep roots on radishes that had 20-25″ tall top growth and 2-3″ diameter tubers (prevented planting situation planted in early September)
  • 12″ deep roots under 18″ tall Austrian Winter Peas (planted in late August after wheat)
  • 20″ deep cereal rye roots with 6″ tall top growth (planted in late August after wheat)

While it would be nice to have more top growth, what’s below the soil surface is impressive.  As I learned from Dr. Eileen Kladivko from Purdue University nearly 8 years ago…it’s what is below the surface that really counts for most farmers.

Earthworms were abundant in the cover crop soils, but not so much in the non-cover cropped fields.  Another factor that was impressive was the amount of roots…or the density of the root mass in the soil, even on the short cover crops.

So why does this matter?  If we are to have better soil structure we need living roots.  If we are to have better erosion control we need living roots.  If we are to scavenge nutrients, we need scavenging roots.  In fact, the roots are what gives us the vast majority of the positive benefits most producers find with their cover crops.  Cover crops farmers can’t be “windshield” farmers…they need to have their shovel with them…and when they see the roots, that’s when cover crops get the most exciting to them…and me.

 

It's hard to believe it but this short crimson clover had roots over 12" deep. The roots had many nodules on them as well.

 

These cover crops were flown into a seed corn field in NW Indiana in early September. Both the radish and annual ryegrass had roots over 20" deep.

 

There were many earthworms in most of the cover crop fields and in cover crop plots, especially when compared to areas without cover crops.

Cover crops for gardens – and my wife, the cover cropping queen!

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 few years ago we had nearly 50 chili plants of various types (Jalapeno, Serrano, Habanero, etc…) and we raised several bountiful crops.  But we found that after raising these crops that we had few if any earthworms and our soil was becoming more compacted year after year.  We decided to put the gardening on hold in some plots as we look to improve our soil.  Just as last year, Sally planted different cover crops in August into some garden plots.  I need to explain, these plots are in the front of our house…right near the road!  My wife is a pretty bold cover crop user (and a good advertiser as well).

This Austrian Winter pea and cover crop radish mix fill one garden patch.

Why would she plant cover crops in our gardens?  The main reasons are to enhance the soil quality with earthworms and to reduce soil compaction.    Sally is a pretty “eco-friendly” gal as she recycles everything and she knows the value of taking care of the soil.  What we have found in the past 12 months is an increase in our earthworm population and several more roots in the soil to help build organic matter.  I expect that we will have some veggies in these garden plots next year.  I’m confident that Sally is doing the right thing by improving our soils…even if it is only a few square feet at a time!

 

A mixture of turnips, cover crop radish, and crimson clover is helping build the soil in my wife's garden plots.
The front of the Robison "Agronomy farm" house in Winona Lake, IN. Note that Sally let's me have a "Cliveden pasture green" house too! It must be love!

 

Earthworm Population Corn Field Experiment

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 the farm where my brother lives.  Thankfully the area where the cover crop plots were was not tilled.  In mid-August I decided to dig around in the field where the cover crop plots were and in areas where the field was tilled (again, it had been no-till for approximately 20 consecutive years).  Dad tells me that in those 20 years the organic matter has increased by at least one (1) percent.  So the soil on this farm should be pretty healthy.  In 2010 the soybeans averaged around 55 bu/acre in a very dry year.

Earthworms are a good indicator of soil health. Erarthworms enhance soil health as well.

I have included three different videos where I am taking earthworm counts in this post and I believe you will find them very interesting.

The first video is of earthworm channels in no-till where we had annual ryegrass as a cover crop.

The second video is taken in an area of the field where I counted earthworm channels where we had no cover crop in the tilled soil.

The third video is where I counted earthworm channels in no-till where we had a cereal rye cover crop.

Observations:

  • There were always more earthworms in no-till with cover crops (watch the videos to see how many more…).
  • There were more earthworms in the tilled soil than I anticipated.
  • The corn looked healthier (with somewhat larger ears) in no-till and with cover crops than in the tilled w/o cover crops area.
  • There were more earthworms where there was no-till w/o cover crops than in tilled area w/o cover crops.