Plant Cover Crops

Learning about the benefits of planting cover crops.

cover crop mixes

Cover Crops and Bears?

Radishes, Crimson Clover, and Bears

Walking in cover crop fields in northern Indiana is easy compared to doing it northern Wisconsin.

In northern Indiana my main issue is tripping over large radish tubers sticking out of the ground.

In northern Wisconsin my main issue was that plus watching out for bears. I’m not talking about the Chicago Bears…but real live black bears!  Although I did not see any while conducting cover crop field days near Coleman, WI on October 18, 2012, hearing the stories about the bears raising havoc while AgVentures Co-op employees were harvesting corn plots made me quite nervous.

The cover crop plot was fabulous. There were 5 different mixes to observe plus straight radishes planted at 8#/acre.  The cooperator plans on taking yield tests over each different cover crop mix in his 2013 corn crop.  If he is able to do that I’ll keep you informed of the results.

This cover crop plot near Coleman, WI had beautiful radishes with large tubers – and thankfully NO bears!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The radishes were from 1″ to 3″ in diameter and quite deeply rooted. There was manure applied after wheat harvest so the radishes were “well fed”.

 

 

 

Cover Crop Field Day Set at Robison Farms

CISCO Seeds, Robison Farms, and Dougherty Fertilizer are sponsoring a Cover Crop Field Day and Root Dig at the Greenwood, Indiana farm. If you’ve not had an opportunity to see cover crops in a real life farm setting, this will be a great meeting for you . There will be multiple species available to look at and expert agronomists on hand to answer questions.

 

When:

Wednesday, November 30, 2011 from 2-4 P.M.

Location:

Corner of Five Point Road (300 East) and Main Street (Rocklane Road) east of Greenwood, IN

Contact:

If you have questions or need further information contact  Don Robison at donrobison@ciscoseeds.com or 317-357-7013

  • Rain or shine we will have a gathering (call if the weather is bad for “plan B”)

 

Cover Crop Field Day Highlights

Come see ten different mixes and/or species of cover crops in a large plot setting.
  • 1100’ lineal feet of cover crop plots
  • 10 different mixes or straight species shown
  • guaranteed weather! (not saying what kind)
  • working with NRCS, SWCD, and Dougherty Fertilizer
  • root digs (weather contingent)
  • Cover Crop Agronomists on hand for tours and Q/A sessions
  • See over 150 acres of various Cover Crops withing 1/2 mile of plots

 

Purpose of the cover crop field day

To see different species of cover crops in a real to life situation. This was a soybean field that had the cover crops applied over the top of the standing crop at roughly 50% leaf drop.

 

Species You Will See

 

  • Radishes
  • Turnips
  • Crimson Clover
  • Oats
  • Winter Rye
  • Annual Ryegrass
  • Austrian Winter Peas
  • Several Mixes including the above species

 

 

 

Directions:

From Indianapolis

  • Take I-65 South to Exit 99. Turn Left at end of ramp and travel 1.5 miles east to the plots

From Louisville

  • Take I-65 North to Exit 99. Turn Right at end of ramp and travel 1.5 miles east to the plots

From Columbus, OH

  • Take I-70 West to Indianapolis, follow 465 South to I-65 South to Exit 99. Turn Left at end of ramp and travel 1.5 miles east to the plots

From Terre Haute

  • Take I-70 East to Indianapolis, follow 465 South to I-65 South to Exit 99. Turn Left at end of ramp and travel 1.5 miles east to the plots

 

Just down the road we plan on digging another pit where Annual Ryegrass and Appin Turnips were applied after hog manure was knifed in after wheat.

Cover Crop plots in December-What can we tell now?

The first day of December brought the first day of snow in northern Indiana.  After the inch or so of snow and some Arctic air the cover crops are shutting down.  Over the past three weeks we received around 5″ of rain so the cover crops were actually growing fairly well heading into December.  Now the question is, what can we tell in December as the cover crops are shutting down.  My answer is “plenty”!

Now that the radish tops are wilting and the peas and annual ryegrass are falling closer to the soil surface you can see the radish tubers more easily.  From the radish tubers I believe we can now see how much nitrogen is being produced from the crimson clover and Austrian winter peas.  Now, this is NOT scientific…but it is pretty obvious that the radishes were considerably larger where there was more crimson clover.  I’ll be posting videos so you can make the observation for yourself.

For your information, the Mixes we are looking at on this post have similar species (different varieties) at different rates/species in the mix.  The first video has more annual ryegrass than the mix in the second video.  The second mix has more crimson clover and also one more pound per acre of the radishes,  So the big difference is in the amount of clover in the mixture.

Now, I’m not saying one mix is better than the other.  It really depends on what your goals are.  In mix #1 there are more deeper roots because of the annual ryegrass.  In mix #2 there appears to be quite a but more Nitrogen being produced (therefore larger radishes-even though there are more radishes to feed).  Mix #2 has approximately 10# of Bruiser annual ryegrass, 7# of AU Robin Crimson Clover, and 3# of GroundHog Radish.  Mix #1 has approximately 15# of Bounty Annual Ryegrass, 3# of crimson clover (I don’t know if it is VNS or a variety)  and 2# of Tillage Radish per acre.  Both mixes have outstanding radishes, outstanding annual ryegrass and I know mix #2 has an outstanding crimson clover.  So it’s not like one good mix and one bad mix…both are good.

So, which mix do you want?  Do you want more nitrogen?   Or do you choose less nitrogen but 5# more annual ryegrass for additional deep roots?  Let me know what you are looking for!