Winter Cereal Rye

May 15 2013

Root Pit Reveals 40″ Cereal Rye Roots

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 our field today that has about 40 acres of cereal rye and another 40 of annual ryegrass. The cereal rye had a pretty good stand, but the ryegrass didn’t do so well over the winter. Looks like we may not be the only farm with that problem this year?

Anyway I was pretty excited for our first year cover cropping that we found cereal rye roots down to 40″ today! And we hit the water table below that since everything is still relatively wet from all the rain. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more roots if we could have dug down deeper. That was on pretty good soil that used to have manure applied every year until about 7 years ago when we got out of the hog business.

The ryegrass was on ground with much more clay near the surface, but I was glad to see we had roots down 2 feet where we did get a decent stand.

Both covers were sprayed today. I think I would have liked to keep the cereal rye a bit longer, but with rain in the forecast we didn’t want it getting out of control if we got soaked again and couldn’t spray. These were all seeded into standing corn on 9/19/2012. In all we had about 200 acres of cover this year and have plans to seed at least 400 in the fall!

Thanks Brian! And to everyone who have been sending info…watch for it to be on the blog soon. Thanks to all who are sharing their stories.

May 08 2013

Cover Crops: Buy One Year, Get Another Year Free

Surprise! That's what our reaction was to the volunteer annual ryegrass growing in our fields nearly 18 months after they were sown. — Surprise! That’s what our reaction was to the volunteer annual ryegrass growing in our fields nearly 18 months after they were sown.

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 annual ryegrass and winter cereal rye having grown tall in some areas of the Midwest. Producers need to kill their cover crops as soon as possible to comply with RMA regulations.

What about the surprise cover crops?

In a previous post I wrote about dormant seed in cover crop species on our home farm.

I showed how radishes were present in soybean fields and how annual ryegrass was coming up even after there was residual herbicide and burndown herbicide applied.

Now here we are in the spring and we have a few new surprises. Fall 2011 planted annual ryegrass and even fall planted winter cereal rye are now growing in the spring of 2013. These cover crops were fully terminated in the spring and summer of 2012; there was effective weed control. So dormant seed has germinated and now grown a full 15-18 months after it was seeded. So yes, cover crops can become weeds.

(But remember, cover crops also suppress weeds.)

So what does this matter?

We have the benefit of a “thin” cover crop and we did not have to pay seed cost or application cost for the second year. In our farming situation it is not a big deal. We terminated all of our cover crops and weeds with a “hot” chemical mix. It is a mix similar to what we used in our no-till fields prior to glyphosate coming on the market. However, if we were growing wheat or oats or barley for grain and straw it could be a problem. Thankfully there are now chemicals to use in cereal crops to eliminate annual ryegrass. I hear reports that Jamie Scott from northern Indiana has seen excellent results with this practice.

We have less winter annual weeds where we have the “volunteer” cover crops and I’m confident our soil health is better where we have the cover crops.

What do we do now?

We enjoy the benefit that we have from the cover crop (even though it is a sparse stand) and we watch to make sure we do not have any cover crops coming back before harvest. The cover crops are now dead and a residual herbicide is applied. Now we wait to plant the corn and soybeans and scout for any additional dormant seed to germinate and grow. A clean harvest is important to all producers. Our goal is to use the information from our own farm to make sure that farmers understand the rewards that cover crops bring and also the risk that comes with the reward. The risk is not huge and it is manageable, but it is risk none-the-less.

This volunteer annual ryegrass was terminated before heading out but it was jointed and would have made a great forage plant. — This volunteer annual ryegrass was terminated before heading out but it was jointed and would have made a great forage crop.

Volunteer Winter Cereal Rye was also growing in the old plot area. The cover crop was terminated well before the corn will be planted.

May 08 2013

Cover Crops and Crop Insurance – Spring Reminders

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 than 10% of the corn planted by May 5 across the major corn producing states. In the Upper Midwest and even into Oklahoma and Arkansas 2-19″ of snow fell the first week of May. Dairy farmers are desperate for forage and up to 75% of the alfalfa in Wisconsin and Minnesota winterkilled. Many of those dairy farmers planted cover crop Winter Cereal Rye with hopes of harvesting Ryelage this spring to get some emergency feed after the devastating drought of 2012.

The cold, wet spring of 2013 is causing problems

But the cold wet spring (coldest on record in USA since 1975) may have farmers in a pinch with RMA again despite the Special Provisions for cover crops to the common crop insurance policy for the 2013 cropping year. As of May 8, 2013 the Rye is only around 10″ tall in most of Wisconsin…certainly not ready for harvest by the May 10 RMA cut-off for harvesting and still attaining crop insurance. Even in Indiana the cover crops are ‘exploding” into head after an exceptionally slow start to spring. The fact that these fields are not full of winter annuals that are headed out like neighboring fields should be applauded…so should fields with cover crops be penalized? It appears that farmers in the Upper Midwest have to choose between feed and crop insurance. In much of the Corn Belt the fields are still plenty wet. It is interesting that in some states the fields full of weeds qualify for crop insurance…yet fields with cover crops that have seed heads (instead of weeds with seed heads) do not qualify for cover crops. Go figure.

Please check with your crop insurance agent to see what regulations apply to you.

This field of Winter Cereal rye grew tremendously in very late April and early May. Now it is headed out. Doed this field qualify for crop insurance? — This field of Winter Cereal rye grew tremendously in very late April and early May. Now it is headed out. Does this field qualify for crop insurance?

Should farmers be penalized in a wet and cold year for growing a cover crop instead of having a field of winter annual weeds? Common sense says that a cover crop is better for agriculture than weeds.

Mar 21 2013

Cover Crops are Working in Iowa

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 most compatible with common Iowa farming practices – in particular the use of longer season corn hybrids and soybean varieties, as well as an abundance of corn after corn (CAC) management strategies. Establishing cover crops like radishes and annual ryegrass into these situations hasn’t proved to be easy.

Aerial application of cover crops (annual ryegrass, crimson clover, radishes, etc.) into corn in Ohio and Indiana has been very successful. However, in Iowa it has not worked with quite as much success. Cereal rye may actually be the best alternative. While it may seem a bit “simple” to plant mainly cereal rye most years, there are significant benefits to using cover crop rye in a corn after corn scenario, mainly because it has been shown to reduce Goss’s wilt.

September 5, 2011 planted Annual Ryegrass compared to Winter Cereal Rye in central Iowa in April 2012. Note the dramatic difference in winterhardiness. — September 5, 2011 planted Annual Ryegrass compared to Winter Cereal Rye in central Iowa in April 2012. Note the dramatic difference in winterhardiness even after a very mild winter.

Sarah commented that besides using more winterhardy species for greater success, it is also very important to not interseed the cover crops into green corn or green soybeans. She says, “Pushing radishes with aerial seeding into a dense, dark corn or soybean canopy is unsuccessful.”

But if the right cover crop is used in Iowa and managed well then covers work very well! Rod Swoboda from Wallaces Farmer published an article written by Sarah Carlson reflecting work that was overseen in Iowa by PFI.

Dec 29 2012

Fertilizing Cover Crops & Planting Legumes After Soybeans

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 that predictably starts from the crowd. Who wants to fertilize a crop that they will not harvest?

While it’s true that producers will not “harvest” the cover crops, they will have healthier cover crops which should lead to healthier soils and healthier profits.

Manure as the No-Brainer

Obviously if manure is available it is a smart move to put manure where you will have or already have cover crops. We know from research that cover crops can hold as much as 90% of the nutrients from manure applications.

We have also know that where manure is applied without a cover crop being present (even if worked in) we can lose a significant amount of nutrients into ground water or as surface run-off.

What About Adding Commercial Fertilizer?

The Radishes on the left had manure applied and those on the right did not have any additional nitrogen applied.

But, what if there is no manure to apply and for some reason you do not want to include a legume in your system?

Is it worth applying 50# of nitrogen to produce a cover crop?

Let’s look at what we think we know:

Pages 22-24 of Managing Cover Crops Profitably provide formulas to figure out the value of using cover crops as a green manure in a cover crop system – whether with legumes, manure, or fertilized.

Look especially at the section on “Potential losses” to see that there can be nitrogen losses even in this scenario.

Cover crop experts say to count on 50% of the N captured or N produced by a cover crop to be available to the next cash crop.

It appears that adding a grass with legumes or brassicas will help “slow down” the release of the N in the spring making it more slowly released to the next crop.

Here is a photo of the Ingham County Michigan Cover Crop Plot. Where there was a legume in the mixture there was considerably more growth and earthworm activity

What can we expect if we plant a cover crop and we don’t add more nitrogen?

How will that cover crop do?

I will utilize work that Dan Hudson did when he was an Extension educator in Ingham County Michigan in cover crop plots he planted back three or four years ago.

Radish tubers are considerably smaller and the roots appear to not be as deep (I have not dug a root pit in this scenario).
Grasses have a more shallow root system in forage settings when fertility is lacking.
The cover crops were pale green.
The “hungry” grass cover crops had less earthworm activity than in the grass + legume mix plots.
“Hungry” radishes and turnips had much less tuber and top growth, thus sequestering less nutrients (one of their main functions).
Winterhardiness on cover crops is potentially not as good when the cover crop is undernourished.

What can we expect after soybeans?

Do we need a legume in the cover crop mix following the beans or is having a grass and/or brassica to sequester the N from the soybeans good enough?

Let’s investigate the difference between adding a legume to a cover crop mix following soybeans compared to planting scavengers only. The charts are from our family farm trials. The charts show the chlorophyll readings of the corn in the year following the soybeans (and then following a cover crop).

It is important to look at the “Y” axis as each chart is slightly different in how it shows the top reading.

When Austrian Winter Peas were added to a scavenger (Radishes) the chlorophyll readings were very favorable compared to the no cover crop check plot and plots with just scavengers.

Just like the peas gave us an advantage over the no cover crop check the crimson clover showed very favorably. — Just like the peas gave us an advantage over the no cover crop check and scavengers, the crimson clover also showed very favorably.

While the Oats and Radish showed exceptionally favorable in the early part of the season the plot are "ran out of gas" as the corn was pollinating. — While the Oats and Radish showed exceptionally favorable in the early part of the season the plot “ran out of gas” as the season progressed.

Straight Winter Cereal Rye was impressive early season but also did not fare as well against the check as the mixes with legumes.

As we looked at the yield of the corn in these plots we saw a considerable difference – suggesting that even after soybeans we might want to add a legume to improve the corn yield the following year.

Yields from the different cover crop plots shown above were:

Check Plot 105.24 bu/ac

Winter Cereal Rye 126.86 bu/ac

Oats and Radish 138.79 bu/ac

Crimson Clover + Radish 153.99 bu/ac

AW Peas + Radish 164.82 bu/ac

Conclusion

All indicators seem to point that adding manure, a legume, or additional N might very well pay off when planting a cover crop, even after soybeans. However, adding a nitrogen source is not necessarily vital to having a successful cover crop system. I would suggest that you try different scenarios on your own farm and in your own system and see what works best for you.