Category Archives: Dan’s Digs

Retrofitting Equipment for Cover Crop Seeding

When corn was knee high this spring, a growing number of producers tried “interseeding” annual ryegrass into the cash corp. We’ve talked about interseeding before and will continue to cover it as we gain more experience in field trials throughout the northern cornbelt.

Interseeding means planting annual ryegrass, or another cover crop seed, into standing corn early in the season, in this case June. The practice has become quite popular in southern Canada, above the Great Lakes.

In this photo, a grower has mounted a Gandy linear seeder on an old rotary harrow, with some of its tines removed. In this case, the grower was able to cover about 20 feet in one pass. The retrofit cost him about $11,000.

So far, only a small number of cover crop advocates in the US have tried interseeding, but more education about how and where to plant will entice others to try it too. The advice at this point is that if you’re located north of I-70 or, roughly, north of Indianapolis, you have a good chance of interseeding being profitable.

The reason a cover crop like annual ryegrass will work in those conditions are these:

Planted in the spring, even if wet like this year, annual ryegrass will germinate under the foliage of immature corn.
Later, with corn shading the ground beneath, the annual ryegrass will go semi-dormant.
After harvest this fall, the added light will jumpstart the cover crop again and, with established roots from the spring, the ryegrass will have a better chance of weathering a difficult Midwest winter.

There are some distinct advantages of this kind of cover cropping system. First is timing. Fall time is often busy with harvest activities, hence cover crop seeding can get left until too late. Or, even if aeriel seeding into standing corn, if the Midwest is experiencing dry weather, cover crops can struggle to get established in the fall.

But there are also cautions about this type of cover cropping. First, if the summer is dry, the combination of no light and no water for the young cover crop, it can perish in the field before corn is harvested. Secondly, there are still questions about whether this kind of crop would jeopardize a farmer being able to qualify for insurance payments, should there be a crop failure because of drought, say.

Successful Tips for Cover Crops

In a recent article on Ag.com by Edith Munro, Dan Towery offered these tips for cover crop success.

Cover crop decisions can be initially overwhelming. “Details – especially timing – are critical,” says Dan Towery, president of Ag Conservation Solutions and Soil and Water Conservation Society.

Here are five questions and tips Towery gives to guide you if you are considering a cover crop.

1. What do you want to accomplish with a cover crop?
Cover crops offer a range of possible benefits that include:
• Reducing erosion.
• Reducing soil compaction.
• Scavenging nitrogen.
• Fixing nitrogen.
• Increasing organic matter.
• Improving weed control.
• Increasing water infiltration.
• Improving soil biological activity.
• Matching goals with cover crop selection is essential.

Selecting a maximum of three is the first step to narrowing the list of cover
crops to consider.

2. How will you plant it and when?
Planting method and timing are key interrelated decisions. Traditionally, the best seed-to-soil contact comes from drilling, but that must occur after harvest. In the Upper Midwest, seeding that late limits the cover crop options.

3. What will follow the cover crop in your rotation?
Since some cover crops tie up nitrogen, it is especially important to consider the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of the covers being considered if the following crop will be corn.

4. Which cover crop will you plant?
Multiple options are available depending on location. Consider using the Midwest Cover Crop Council’s Cover Crop Decision Tool.

The tool provides customized guidance for Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, Ontario, and Wisconsin. It allows you to plug location, cash crop, planting and harvest dates, and cover crop objectives to narrow the list of cover crop choices that match your specific conditions.

Two books offer more detailed information:

Managing Cover Crops Profitably (Third Edition), published by the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program (sare.org)
Cover Crops Field Guide, from the Midwest Cover Crops Council.

5. How will you terminate your cover crop?
Towery recommends planning early and killing the tougher cover crops early. Some cover crops will winterkill on their own, and some may be easy to kill. Others may require following fairly specific instructions to terminate.

Once you have completed your initial research and have decided on a potential list of cover crops, Towery recommends planting a small trial plot to become familiar with various cover crop traits.

“It can be as small as 10×10 feet. Look for opportunities where you can watch how your cover crops do through a fall-winter-spring cycle,” he suggests. “A sweet corn patch is good, or if you have a small wheat or corn silage field.”

Success with cover crops requires a systems approach, Towery says. “The reason some growers can make cover crops work but their neighbors can’t isn’t complex. It’s all about attention to details and timing.

“Doing the homework minimizes unpleasant surprises. You must complete all the steps for success,” he says.

Soil Health Partnership Promotes Cover Crops

The Soil Health Partnership is into its second full year, developing a network of farms in the Midwest that continue to innovate management practices. The Partnership is a combination of effort funded by Monsanto and the Walton Foundation and organized through the National Corn Growers Association. Click here for their website.

The aim is to lessen drainage of field nutrients into waterways leading eventually to the Gulf of Mexico. The strategies include nutrient management and cover crops, including annual ryegrass. The research on these 100 plus farms will continue to expand, and participating growers are starting with small acreage – 20 to 80 acres. “Cover crops are critical,” said Dan Towery, who is a consultant to the project. He said that threats of legal action by some Iowa counties against farmers allowing excessive nitrates leach into waterways is creating added urgency.

Cover Crop Market News – Oregon and Midwest

The Winter 2015 edition of Oregon Seed magazine discusses the trend in cover crop seed sales in the Midwest. The quote is from Dan Towery, an independent cover crop consultant and longtime conservation tillage educator.

For his part, Mike Plumer said that the 2014 dip doesn’t mean a decline in cover crop seed sales or the expansion of the practice of cover cropping. Plumer is another pioneer cover crop researcher and educator, formerly with the University of Indiana Extension Service.

Cover Crops – Annual Ryegrass Sales Grow Even in Bad Weather

Cover cropping continues to grow in popularity and in acreage simply because it builds soil quality, improves yields and adds to profits.

That mother nature doesn’t always cooperate hasn’t diminished the appetite for producers seeking to get on the most popular new farming trend in a half century.

In a presentation a couple years ago, cover crop pioneer Mike Plumer, showed the reasons why cover crops are increasingly important as a farm management tool, particularly in the Midwest. Mono-culture crops have starved the soil of nutrients while sending immense quantities of soil into nearby waterways, eventually contributing to hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the Earth’s largest known dead zones due to heavy pollution from farm runoff into the Mississippi river.

Beginning in 1995, the Oregon Ryegrass Commission, working with Plumer and a handfull of farmers, began to experiment with annual ryegrass in barren cornfields over winter. Since then, Oregon growers have created more winter hardy annual ryegrass grass varieties, as well as finding other cover crops, like radish and crimson clover.

Though the percentage of farm acreage in the Midwest committed to cover crops is still below 10 percent, it’s impressive that cover crops now cover millions of acres of corn and soybean acres, building soil quality, preventing erosion and improving production yields.

This past fall, seed dealers and distributors were ready. But the wet conditions and late harvest prevented some from getting the fields planted, according to Dan Towery, another cover crop consultant and colleague of Plumer.

For those times, farmers are increasingly going to new methods of planting cover crops: flown onto standing crops late in the season, for example, or broadcast with modified high-clearance sprayers equipped with seeders. Still others are trying a novel approach called interseeding, where annual ryegrass is planted in the SPRINGTIME, rather than the fall. Click here to find out more about that program.

Russian Livestock Plan Calls for Cover Crops

Russia has moved into mega farming of livestock, and a lot of American advisers have helped them along the way. Here’s an article segment from Beef magazine, from its June 2014 issue. The article introduces readers to Miratorg, a “vertically integrated” company owned by two shareholders (experienced ranchers) with mind-boggling expansion plans, aided by a hungry government.

In the aerial photo, below, one of 30 pasture/feed lots owned by Miratorg, this one hosting a population of up to 49,000 head. Miratorg’s slaughter plant is located about a mile away.

Miratorg 1 resized.jpg

“Miratorg is the leading investor in the Russian agribusiness industry. It’s the largest meat producer and supplier in the Russian market, thanks to its high-performing vertically integrated agribusiness holding that took a leading position in production, processing, logistic supplies and sales of agricultural products.

In a recent inquiry from Mark Dodd, a Purdue trained agronomist/consultant working for Miratorg, he wanted to know about cover crops. Here’s a part of his description of the farm operation at Bryansk…at about the same latitude in Russia as North Dakota.

“I am an agronomist here in Russia, the largest ag project in the world. over 200,000 angus cows with calves, and not enough pastures, not enough forages, 1 million acres of crops, and I am trying to do everything possible to find different solutions to this problem. Interseeding [of cover crops], double crop after triticale or wheat harvest (July 10), [with the] first frost on about 0ct. 15. Sandy based soils, poor pH,(but applying lime finally) usually good rainfall, had drought this year. Miratorg has its own slaughter plants, and over 500 grocery stores, largest employer in Russia, over 30,000 people.. People are still very poor and some are starving here. I need some help with advice.”

Miratorg 3 resized.jpg

Dan Towery, a well regarded US agronomist and cover crop consultant for the Oregon Ryegrass Commission, has contacted Mark…and begun to tell him about the cover crop successes in the US and Canada, with annual ryegrass and others. We’ll let you know more about those discussions soon.

Interseeding Annual Ryegrass and other Cover Crops

Interseeding of annual ryegrass has been successful for the past five years in southern Quebec and continues to increase in use there, according to Dan Towery. Interseeding is the practice of planting a cover crop when the corn is about V4-V6 stage (about knee high). Annual ryegrass has been the go-to cover crop but crimson clover and even daikon radish have also been successful.

By the time the annual ryegrass has reached about 4-6 inches, the corn has grown sufficiently to shade it out. Without sufficient sunlight, the cover crop’s growth stops and it goes dormant. Once the corn starts drying down and sunlight reaches the annual ryegrass, it will begin growing again. This method of seeding allows additional root and top growth, and a better chance of surviving the winter, especially in Northern Corn Belt.

Towery and a few others have been watching this interseeding experiment carefully. In the past year, he interseeded annual ryegrass plots in various locations from central Michigan south to central Indiana.

“Corn went in late and the cover crop seed was broadcast a little later than normal by the calendar. However, the warm, rainy period in mid June provided excellent conditions for germination and very good stands resulted in all plots,” Dan said.

Upon checking plots in September there was a good stand on half of the plots but there was no cover crops on the other half. It’s possible that the annual ryegrass will return when it gets full sun (maybe). Residual herbicides need to be selected carefully so as not to affect germination.

Several years of additional plot work will undoubtedly yield further information as to the best management practice with interseeding, and whether it’s a good bet for the Northern Corn Belt. Towery also cautioned that interseeding is currently in conflict with RMA rules for crop insurance. They don’t want farmers trying to collect crop insurance if, for instance, the interseeded cover crop is blamed for a reduction in corn yield.

In the meantime, he said he’ll collect data on the yields on plots where surviving interseeded cover crops are located. He suggested that, as with any new farm practice, producers should proceed in this endeavor with caution and only on small plots.

Penn State faculty have developed an interseeder which drills the cover crop seed when corn is knee high. Click here for more on that equipment: http://extension.psu.edu/plants/crops/soil-management/cover-crops/interseeder-applicator

Annual Ryegrass Seed Dealers List Update

See below for a list of participating Oregon annual ryegrass seed growers, who grow annual ryegrass varieties tested and proven effective in Midwest locations, particularly for winter hardiness.

The list has changed somewhat from last year. And this year, the varieties that have been tested for effectiveness in the Midwest are also listed. For a copy of the one-page flyer of the list, click here.

To go to the grower’s websites, click on the company name:

COMPANY WEBSITE VARIETY (2014)
Ampac Seed Company Bruiser
Cover Crop Solutions Tillage RootMaxTM
Grassland Oregon    Lonestar
KB Seed Solutions    KB Supreme, KB Royal
Lewis Seed Company   King
OreGrow Seeds, Inc. Winter Hawk
Saddle Butte Ag   Bounty, Assist
Smith Seed Service Ed, Marshall

Note: This is not an exhaustive list of growers or seed varieties.
Check our website for updates: ryegrasscovercrop.com/resources/publications

Planting Annual Ryegrass – Tips for Success

The last blog post discussed the best planting dates for annual ryegrass, depending on whether you drill or broadcast with plane or high clearance equipment.

Many others are broadcasting annual ryegrass seed (after corn harvest) mixed in with manure slurry. This is a great solution for those raising livestock, looking for a way to recycle manure and a great source of nutrients for the young grass.

In some places, with ideal conditions, you can get a bit of grazing or a cutting before the end of the year. Otherwise, the return out of dormancy next spring will allow a grazing or cutting of annual ryegrass.

Using annual ryegrass as a forage – whether grazed or haylage – can provide additional savings on livestock feed, while providing a high quality food.

Here’s a link to a video on the application of annual ryegrass seed with a manure slurry.

Get Your Annual Ryegrass Seed Soon

Last year, with the growth in use of cover crops, seed suppliers seemed to find themselves low on seed when July and August came around. While supplies seem stable now, it would be a good idea to lock in your order soon.

Some apply it themselves, whether the old fashioned way, with a drill. In fact, that’s the surest way to get good soil to seed contact. But more often, growers are opting for aerial applications, whether by plane or with high clearance equipment retrofitted with a seeding boom. Both of these applications predate harvest, so as to get annual ryegrass on the ground with lots of time for optimum growth in the fall. Click here for a page of info on planting.

Here’s a link to a page with most of Oregon’s annual ryegrass seed growers. Many of them also grow other cover crop seed too, whether crimson clover or radish or another. Most, if not all, have staff available for free consulting. Many also have sales and crop consultants living in the Midwest.

One thing to ask the grower, or seed dealer: has this seed been grown successfully in the Midwest as a cover crop? This is a question that will get at two variables…the first – is it winter hardy? And the second – have you had any trouble killing the crop in the spring?

Aerial Seeding

Ryegrass Cover Crop

A Cover Crop that Builds Soil and Boosts Production