I am blessed to hear from farmers around the world about their cover cropping adventures. One young man, Brian Scott, from Carroll County, Indiana has generously shared his information with me again this spring. This post is Brian’s report from early May, 2013. To see Brian’s photographs, click here. We dug a few pits in […]
Root Pit Reveals 40″ Cereal Rye Roots Read More »
Almost two years to the day I posted an article about Killing Tall Annual Ryegrass. The problem of a wet and chilly 2011 has resurfaced an ugly head to be a wet and COLD spring of 2013. But over the past week or so temperatures have warmed into the 70’s and 80’s with cover crop
Cover Crops: Buy One Year, Get Another Year Free Read More »
UPDATE FROM RMA–Haying and Grazing of a Cover Crop – FINAL – 5-8-13 Cover Crops and Crop Insurance on Collision Course again? Cover Crops and Crop Insurance issues seem to be heading to a collision course again this spring in much of the Midwest. In the Corn Belt wet fields have prevented planting with less
Cover Crops and Crop Insurance – Spring Reminders Read More »
Cover crops are working in Iowa! While that may not mean much to my eastern corn belt friends it means a lot in Iowa and the upper Midwest. Working with Sarah Carlson from Practical Farmers of Iowa and Tom Kaspar from ARS at Ames, Iowa, we’ve been attempting to identify what cover crops will be
Cover Crops are Working in Iowa Read More »
If you spend any time at all in cover crop meetings, you may have heard that it’s a good idea to add 20-50# of Nitrogen per acre to your cover crop – if you don’t have a legume in the mix or you don’t have manure available. You also probably heard (or participated in) the grumbling
Fertilizing Cover Crops & Planting Legumes After Soybeans Read More »
Sarah Carlson from Practical Farmers of Iowa reminded me that cover cropping north of I-80 is different than cover cropping in northern Indiana. She’s right. But how different is it, and why is it different? Sarah is quoted in a very good article in Corn and Soybean Digest that helps explain the differences. Several farmers
Cover Cropping North of I-80 After Corn & Soybeans – A Whole New World? Read More »
In late September of 2011 I was walking in our family corn field in central Indiana–in the pouring rain. Following the wettest spring in the eastern corn belt in 100 years we had a summertime drought that saw less than 2 inches in July and August combined. In that same time period we had 32
Cover Crops Enhance Water Infiltration/Percolation Read More »
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
Cover Crop Field Day Set at Robison Farms Read More »