Plant Cover Crops

Learning about the benefits of planting cover crops.

no-till

Cover Crops and Ray the Soil guy

Ray Archuleta and I after we spoke at the Southern Indiana Grazing Conference on soil health and cover crops.

Over the past three years I have had the privilege of speaking at a number of meetings when Ray Archuleta is also on the agenda.  Ray is a tremendous source of knowledge and information on soil health and how cover crops and no-till help improve soil health.  Ray is an “expert” in every sense of the word in his field.  His passion is evidenced each time I hear him speak…and every time I hear him I learn something new too.  Ray works for the NRCS and he travels “everywhere”…at least it seems that way as we cross paths pretty often!  Click here to see Ray’s website. I believe you will find very helpful as you consider the health of your soil and how to improve it.

If you ever have an opportunity to hear Ray speak…DO NOT miss it!

 

Planting into “Out of Control” Peas – The Rest of the Story

In September 2011 I posted about an Ohio farmer that planted into “out of control” peas and shared about his story of how the field was looking pre-harvest.  I have recently visited with Dave (the producer) and he shared the information that a number of you asked for…and also surprising yield data. Dave farms with his father-in-law Ron in Mercer County, Ohio near Rockford (NW Ohio).

Sometimes it takes courage to farm with cover crops! Dave and his father-in-law Ron planted with confidence as the ground was "very mellow" compared to other ground without a cover crop.

Here are Dave’s observations and the 2010-2011 field history:

  • Hog Manure applied late summer of 2010 – 5000 gal/ac
  • No other fall fertilizer
  • N-Vest Groundbreaker Mix (Austrian Winter Peas and GroundHog Radish) planted Labor Day weekend 2010

Peas that survived – and other weeds, wheat, clover, etc. – were sprayed (after a wet, wet spring) on June 2, 2011.

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Herbicide/Insecticide Mix: (rates per acre)
20 gal Water
Alliance – .2 gal   (1 gal/100 gal water)
Roundup WeatherMax – 44oz
Weedone 650 – 1pt
PowerLock Surfactant – 6oz
Baythroid (insecticide) – 2oz

Corn was planted on June 3, 2011.

Additional Fertilizer applied (in addition to nutrients from manure and N from peas)

20 gal/ac 10-34-0 starter fertilizer with 1qt/ac zinc

40 gal/ac 28-0-0 side dress with Agrotain N stabilizer

Results

Even though several acres in the area were too wet to plant this field of peas was in great shape as you can see the row closed "perfectly" behind the planter.

Weigh wagon test showed 215 bu dry yield.  Dave guesses the whole field average was between 200-215 dry (he has no scales at home to check weight of entire crop).
Dave also thinks that the yield was 10-15 bu better that most of their other corn (w/o manure and w/o cover crops).

The seed placement of this no-till planting into the peas was "near-perfect".

All things considered…the wettest spring in Eastern Corn Belt History, late planting date, planting into 3+ foot tall peas, < 1″ of rain in the month of July (with 22 days 90 degrees or more), a wet fall that delayed harvest..and the result was over  200 bushels/acre.  I’d take that everyday for that part of Ohio, and so will Dave and his father-in-law Ron.

The roots on the peas were massive by early June. Don't expect this in most years but this certainly did not hinder planting, getting a good stand, or attaining a very high yield!

Other observations from Dave:

Positives:

Better soil structure

Deeper root penetration by corn roots

Great seedbed to plant into

Great soil cover after cover crop was killed

Better water retention thru the dry months

Nutrients saved from hog manure

Negatives:

Too much growth in wet spring

Took a lot of time to plant due to pea growth

 

Thanks Dave for sharing your story!

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.

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!