“Planting this corn field was like planting into a garden” said my friend Dave. He has been a ‘cover cropper” for six years now. This year Dave no-tilled approximately 50% of his acres. Dave is one of the most innovative guys I know…but he’s also “cautious”; he does not want to lose money! That’s why […]
Photo diary- Corn after a cover crop (after corn) Read More »
The Crimson clover had dense roots and we found a number of them at over 40″ deep. At cover crop field days over the past few weeks many interesting aspects of cover crops were revealed. One reminder about cover crops; it is NOT what is above ground that is the best indicator of success. Please
Cover Crops underground…I was not disappointed, I was a bit surprised! Read More »
As I take phone calls and conduct meetings I ask producers if they want to have the cover crop they are choosing to overwinter or die during the winter. I’d guess that the answer as split 50/50. The biggest reason for wanting the cover crop to die is that producers don’t want to have “to
What if a cover crop dies over the winter…was it still valuable? Read More »
This question keeps coming up on a regular basis in cover crop meetings….”where is my nitrogen?”
There are a number of things we know:
* Legumes produce N and some of that N is available for the next crop.
“Where is my nitrogen?” Read More »
In this post we look at two more videos of mixes on December 2, 2010. This first mix in this session is of Austrian Winter Peas and GroundHog Radishes. The seeding rate is 30# Peas and 5# of Radish per acre. The main thing we observe in this plot is the larger radishes than we
Cover Crop plots in December-What can we tell now? part 2 Read More »
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
Cover Crop plots in December-What can we tell now? Read More »
The video below shows the value of Crimson Clover in a cover crop setting. Crimson clover has been tested and shown to produce as much as 140#/N after it has been planted after wheat. The plots in this video were planted around July 29, 2010 by the Jasper and Newton County SWCD folks (Thanks Dan
Big Radish fed by Crimson Clover Read More »