Plant Cover Crops

Learning about the benefits of planting cover crops.

cover crop radish varieties

Radish / Pea Mix Video

I have been visiting a  farm in eastern Whitley County Indiana over the past month and have seen a few fields of an Austrian Winter Pea/Radish mixture.  These fields were wheat fields that had dairy manure knifed into them after they had been harvested and deep tilled.  The video shows what a great stand the farmer got and the growth of the radishes!  We found one plant that had a 28+” deep tuber/tap root.  That’s how much was in the soil!  At 4″ below the soil surface I found where there had been quite a bit of compaction.  The radish was “crumpled” or “wrinkled” at the 4″ depth range.  Out of the 15 radishes we dug up only one radish had not bored through the compaction layer.

This GroundHog radish had a 28+" deep tuber/tap root.
The Austrian Winter Peas were growing very prostrate in this field. When I lifted the plants up they measure over 12" tall to up to almost knee high.
The radishes showed where there was compaction that caused some wrinkling of the tuber. The tubers grew through that compaction which shows the powerful ability of the cover crop radish.

Cover Crop Radishes – differences in varieties

On May 29th I planted 6 different cover crop radish varieties in a plot.  In those 16 days we’ve had good moisture, and I did apply some 30-0-5 fertilizer around 60 days ago (with slow release N).  I had to thin the plots to have 1 radish per 4″ (recommended distance between radishes by those who seem to know those things).  I am doing this experiment for three different Oregon companies that sell cover crop radishes.  I have this same experiment going on in Michigan, central Indiana, and NW Ohio.

The goal…to identify the “best” cover crop radish.  I hope that by planting in spring and late summer,  we will be able to choose the radish variety/selection that works best for cover cropping in the Midwest.

I brought 4 varieties up from the plots to show the differences after 16 days.  2 varieties have nice long tubers already.  The other two have some catching up to do!  I have a feeling that they never will.  I’ll keep you posted!

Radish plot 016
cover crop radish plot...16 days old (and needing weeded!).
Radish plot 017
4 different varieties of "cover crop radish." 1 on far left I'll call "Stubby;" 2 just to the left of the stick look promising so far; 1 just to right of the stick I'll call "Shorty;" and the far right selection also looks very promising. all 16 days after planting.