Annual Ryegrass – the Germ Seed of Cover Crop Adoption in the US – Part 5

Learning by Doing; Importance of Innovators and Early Adopters – Part 1

When Nick Bowers joined the Oregon Ryegrass Commission, he was a third-generation family member to do so. His grandfather was among the founders of the Commission, a grower-funded group that promotes use of ryegrass in a variety of ways. It’s strictly a volunteer gig.

When Nick joined, he probably had no idea that he was about to become a leader and champion of cover crops in the Midwest. He didn’t know that in doing so, he would be helping to build quality back into depleted soil, where the bulk of corn and soybeans in the US are grown. Maybe he was surprised that it would result in a new business for him, in addition to his family farm. “And,” he said, “I would never have guessed in 2000 that by 2020 all but 10 percent of my farm would be in no-till.”

As the Chair of the Commission, Nick was there when the idea hatched to test annual ryegrass as a cover crop in the Midwest. He and other Oregon seed growers donated annual ryegrass seed they’d grown to help jumpstart the project. That initiative is now 25 years old and continues to bring market development and research of cover crops to new audiences.

Nick was among the first Oregon seed growers to visit the Midwest, along with Commission administrator Bryan Ostlund. There came dozens more trips as the years went by. “It was at a time I could easily travel, when my kids were younger and in school,” Nick said. “There were years when I was back east for a week a month,” he added. Nick, other growers and a career extension agent from Oregon State University, Mark Mellbye, were committed to seeing the project through and introducing it properly. “Mark was immensely helpful, both in Oregon and the Midwest,” Nick said. “It wasn’t about sales, but about research, field trials and education. I think our collective effort helped a lot, because you had university agronomists and even competing growers from Oregon emphasizing the same things over and over. It helped build credibility in the Oregon seed industry,” he added.

Nick recalls that, in the first few years of effort, Oregon growers sent only a few truckloads of annual ryegrass seed to growers in the Midwest. “It was tough finding people willing to try it out,” simply because it was novel, and it was a risk that successful farmers didn’t see a need to take. And I had quite a time of finding a proper storage facility for the seed we didn’t use right away,” he added. In fact, during one of his annual trips, Nick remembers noticing that a few pallets of seed had been broken into by mice and it had to be re-bagged. All of that changed as people began to find annual ryegrass easier than they thought to integrate into their no-till operation.

Nick said that initial success with “innovators” was important, because “early adopters” keep an eye on innovators, who were pretty excited at the results they were getting with annual ryegrass: erosion control, weed suppression, saving on nitrogen fertilizer and noticing a bump in yields.  Once the early adopters began buying seed, the sales of annual ryegrass began to multiply quickly. Some of them became seed distributors for Oregon growers. More importantly, they became the next tier of experienced trainers and educators. The cover crop revolution was growing roots.

In the next chapter, Nick and others will talk about the kind of “hands-on” work Oregon growers did to get cover crops accepted in the Midwest.