Plant Cover Crops

Learning about the benefits of planting cover crops.

corn

Cover Crop Cereal Rye: Is there a (bad) connection with Goss’s Wilt in corn?

Goss's Wilt is becoming quite a problem in the US Corn Belt.

Cover crop cereal rye has been getting some “bad press” over the past month. It has been suggested that there is a connection with cover crop rye and Goss’s Wilt in corn (cereal rye making the Goss’s Wilt disease worse in corn).

I have talked to a few agronomists who had never heard of cover crop rye being a host for Goss’s Wilt, so I did my normal Google search to see what I could find out.

Some corn hybrids ARE susceptible to Goss’s Wilt. Some have greater levels of resistance.  Here is a publication from The University of Nebraska that shows the severity of Goss’s Wilt.  This disease is a real problem in the Corn Belt and there are many frustrated farmers that have Goss’s Wilt on their corn.

I also discovered that cereal rye is more of a deterrent to Goss’s Wilt, rather than a “cause.”  By using cereal grains in between corn crops the Goss’s Wilt bacterium population is greatly reduced.  Cereal rye is actually an excellent choice for a cover crop to help reduce the risk of Goss’s Wilt.

To reduce Goss’s Wilt it would be wise to consider the following steps:

  • use resistant corn hybrids
  • use a cover crop between continuous corn crops
  • control foxtail, barnyardgrass, shattercane, and other known hosts
  • rotate to soybeans, dry beans, alfalfa, small grains, or other non-host crops

For an excellent article on this topic by Sarah Carlson at Practical Farmers of Iowa, click here. You can reach Sarah at sarah@practicalfarmers.org

 

 

 

 

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.

66″ No-Till Corn Roots Following Cover Crops

This is not a scene from a horror flick...it's a scene from Frank Gibb's experiment showing that smoke was coming up from the tile drains over 200 feet from the tile entry point.

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 not easily found because we found pretty remarkable “things” going on in the soil beneath the soil.  What were those “things” we found?

Watch the Frank Gibbs video to see how special cover crops and no-till make a tough soil a healthy soil!  Frank does some pretty incredible work that shows the value of having a healthy soil.  Now, watch this second video of the smoke test results.  I have seen this test three times and NEVER seen it this awesome!

  • corn roots and earthworm channels up to 5 1/2 feet deep on no-till corn
  • top soil approximately 3 feet deep on top of lake bed soil
  • smoke from Frank’s “smoke test” coming up from 34″ deep over 200 feet away from the entry point

Frank says in the video that often times that the corn roots would “be turning out” when they hit the lake bed soil.  But because of cover crops and no-till the earthworms had plenty to eat for much of the year and the soil was very healthy compared to similar soil types in NW Ohio.  Obviously these roots did not “turn out”…they kept going down all the way to over 5 feet deep!