Category Archives: Soil Quality

CTIC Report Highlights Gains in Use of Cover Crops including Annual Ryegrass

Of more than 2000 farmers who responded to a Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC), 88% say they use cover crops. Of that group, about 65% say they use cover crop mixes that include annual ryegrass. Click here to see the report online.

Reading the whole report is worth the effort, because it has tons of good information about the growing use of cover crops. Here are a few highlights.

Modest yield gains were again seen: 1.3% in corn, 3.8% in soybeans. For the first time, data was collected about the yield gain in wheat, when cover crops were used. The bump was 2.8%.
The average acreage planted in cover crops increased, too, topping 400 acres. Respondents said they planned to increase that size to more than 450 acres next year, an increase of about 17%.
Most farmers, in fact 75% of those answering the survey, said they planted their cover crop seed personally. The same number also said that they planted in the fall, after harvest.
A number to watch: 27% said they “interseeded” in 2016, planting cover crop into standing corn in the late spring, in conjunction with their side-dress or later.
Another relatively new practice: planting crops into spring annual ryegrass and other cover crops, soon to be terminated. Almost 40% said they tried the practice last year and report that it helps control weeds as well as manage soil moisture
Cover crop mixes were rated the highest as a way to control weeds

The main reasons farmers claimed for using cover crops: soil health and improving yield consistency. Most said cover crops helped even from the first year of use.

Non-users (12% of survey respondents) said they were interested in cover crops but wary about the cost and time to plant them, worried about the crops becoming a weed problem, and thinking it might not pencil out economically. They did say, however, that they’re interested in tracking the use of cover crops and learning more about them, and would probably begin the practice if the cost share programs continue.

Future blogs on this site will go into more detail about some of these points mentioned above.

Carbon Sequestration and Annual Ryegrass Cover Crop Acreage

Conservation tillage, in the best sense, includes cover crops. In addition to enriching the soil, cover crops literally inhale carbon dioxide from the air and use it for plant growth. What isn’t used for growth is eventually released back into the soil.

According to the Conservation Technology Information Center (and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization). upwards of ONE THIRD of the carbon emitted in our world (from power plants and internal combustion engines) could be offset if farmers worldwide would all make use of conservation tillage, including cover crops.

Annual ryegrass, as a cover crop, is adept at absorbing carbon and storing it in its massive network of roots. When killed in the spring, the annual ryegrass residue (including the roots) releases its sequestered nitrogen to help fertilize the new corn and beans in the field. At the same time, the carbon in the cover crop is released into the soil, improving the ratio of organic matter and adding to the food source for soil microbiology.

Would Mother Jones be Rolling in Her Grave? Probably not.

Mother Jones (Mary Harris Jones) was loathed by many during her 90 plus years as a tireless advocate for middle class workers. In 1902, already 65 years old, she was named “the most dangerous woman in America” because of her championing of coal mine workers who wanted more safety, better wages and union representation.

So, given her Socialist and anti-corporate leanings, it was a surprise to see a big feature article this year praising the benefits of cover crops in a magazine named after her: Mother Jones.

The article looks at the benefits of annual ryegrass (they called it rye) in battling the polluting effects of farm runoff into Chesapeake Bay. The article quantifies the subsidy to farmers to plant cover crops (up to $90 per acre) but also quantifies the savings.

Check out the whole article here. Mother Jones article on Cover Crops

What is gratifying, other than the value that cover crops bring to agriculture, is the fact that farmers and environmentalists can agree on a lot more than they used to. In fact, environmental groups have become important allies when it comes to conservation tillage practices espoused by the ag industry.

Annual Ryegrass and other Cover Crops – New Tips on Termination

Admittedly, this is late for the 2017 burndown season. And yet, it’s important to share while it’s topical…managing cover crops is a “growing” interest and we’ll keep an eye on posting an update early next year.

Mike Plumer is the key driver for this article, published a couple months ago by No-Till Farmer magazine. It was taken largely from a seminar Mike did at the National No-Till Conference in St. Louis, earlier in the year. Check out the whole article. It has great tips about managing burndown when the cover crop includes annual ryegrass in a “cocktail mix”. It also looks at the issue of annual ryegrass varieties, and how important it is to know the source of the seed. Different varieties emerge from winter dormancy, for example, which provides problems when trying to kill it in a timely fashion.

Finally, Mike’s discussion covers the subject of killing annual ryegrass once it has reached the “joint” stage or beyond, when control with generic glyphosate will not be enough. Click here to see the entire article.

Increase Your ROI 266% with Cover Crops

Some say that in a down economy, planting annual ryegrass or another cover crop is too expensive. The managing editor of No Till Farming magazine just published an article that shows otherwise.

Based on data from Ken Rulon, who farms more than 3000 acres in Arcadia, Indiana, you can’t afford not to plant cover crops. Not only does it protect and build healthy soil, prevent erosion, reduce compaction, increase infiltration of rain and snow melt, boost organic matter and microbial activity….it also boosts profits!

Read the article here, by managing editor Laura Barrera, posted earlier this month.

Annual Ryegrass – Now What?

Ok, so now the annual ryegrass is killed. It’s residue will soon become worm food. The decaying roots will become added food for a rich soil biology. The channels left by the decayed roots will create more friability in the soil…crumbly, pliable, spacious. Moreover, new corn and soybean roots will be able to find their way deeper into the soil profile, where added moisture and nutrients can build a more productive crop this year.

Some who are now contemplating corn planing activity may wish to consider adding a next round of annual ryegrass within a short time thereafter. For years now, producers have been having success with “interseeding” annual ryegrass into their corn, when it is less than knee high (V4- V5 stage).

We will cover this subject more in the coming weeks, but for now you could take a look at the following publications, each covering aspects of the reasons, the methods and the benefits of planting a cover crop in the spring.

Penn State Extension Service article

Univ. of Minnesota Extension

Killing Annual Ryegrass Cover Crops Adds to Soil Organic Matter

Cereal rye is a great cover crop. Sometimes, however, the amount of biomass in the spring creates difficulty for drilling corn seed. The excess vegetation can impede proper planting and can also take moisture out of the soil that crops will need this summer.

Annual ryegrass doesn’t create as much biomass,The residual left by the annual ryegrass after burndown quickly decomposes into the no-till soil. It becomes food for soil critters and microorganisms. And the massive root network slowly decomposes too, building organic matter. The channels created by ryegrass roots become channels for corn roots. The combination of root channels and more organic matter allows better infiltration of rain. but it is important to spray the crop out in a timely fashion.

Corn roots in ARG 6-06 Starkey
Annual ryegrass, if let grow too long, can be more difficult to kill. And letting it go to seed is asking for trouble…nobody wants to contend with a cover crop that gets away.

Last week’s blog discusses the proper guidelines for applying herbicide to kill the cover crop. Here’s a linkto the management guide where those instructions are.

Making a Nitrogen Bank Account with Ryegrass as a Cover Crop

Here’s how Eileen Kladivco put it: Even with well-managed corn and soybean production, there is always some leaching of nitrate that originates either from residual fertilizer N or from the natural decomposition of soil organic matter. Our annual cropping systems are “leaky” because there are long fallow periods between crop maturity in September and the active growth of the next cash crop in May. Most of the net downward flow of water to the drains occurs precisely during this long fallow period, when there is nothing to take up the nitrate.

Eileen is an agronomy department professor at Purdue University, a well-regarded researcher and teacher about soil and making agriculture more profitable. She goes on to say that, Non-legume cover crops will scavenge or “trap” soil nitrate that would otherwise move out of the rootzone into tile drains or groundwater. Cover crops actively take up nitrate during a portion of that fallow season, reducing the losses that occur to tile drains and recycling the nitrogen for later use. To read her Full article – click here.

In another publication, the author talked about the biomass of cover crops. Basically, he said that more biomass generally means more nutrients and organic matter returned to the soil.

The “plant available nitrogen” (PAN) released from a cover crop depends on what cover crop you’re growing and when you terminate the cover crop. As the cover crop plant matures, more nitrogen gets stored in the stems, so in general it’s best to terminate the cover crop before it reaches that stage. With annual ryegrass, terminating it before it reaches 6 or so inches in the spring is important…both to take advantage of the nitrogen available but also to keep the plant from reaching the joint stage.

As soil organisms decompose cover crop residues, part of cover crop is released as carbon dioxide. The rest decomposes and contributes to the soil organic matter…as well as giving up the stored nitrogen for the corn or beans maturing in the same soil.

The high price of nitrogen has growers looking for way to be more efficient. Using annual ryegrass may provide 60-80 lbs of nitrogen per acre. This alone could more than pay for the cost of the seed and planting the cover crop. For more information on annual ryegrass and its capacity as a nitrogen sink, click here.

Satellite Imagery Helping Cover Crop Productivity

GPS and satellite technology have given agriculture a big gift, one that keeps on giving. With precision farming, growers now plant and fertilize based on field data and guidance systems calibrated to deliver the right input to the right locations. Productivity increases faster than costs, or at least that’s the goal.

Even a decade ago, there were only so many satellites and they were expensive to access the data for personal use. But now, nanosatellites scarcely bigger than a lunch pail provide far greater coverage at a fraction of the cost. Their low orbits and high resolution cameras give accurate, full time coverage. More importantly, the type of data available allows for greater application of data synthesized from aerial and ground sources.

Remote sensing is able to detect variability in soil and crop conditions.High-resolution, “multi-spectral” photos help understand what’s going on in the fields, and help reduce crop inputs. Pest and weed control are easier and less expensive. Imagery and field data help growers schedule harvest to maximize yields.

The latest in a new array of these tools is a collaborative effort called OpTIS (Operational Tillage Information System). Combining satellite and various on-the-ground data gathering methods, growers can now access information that allows field-specific tracking of crop residue management, types of tillage and cover crop use and value.

OpTIS uses multi-spectral satellite imagery to measure wintertime vegetation on agricultural fields and combines this information with site-specific knowledge of crop rotations and cover crop management practices. Images taken throughout the year are converted to show estimated cover crop coverage, the amount of cover crop residue, the type or classification of tillage practice, monitoring seasonal changes in cover crop residue and compiling all this with data from the field, the watershed and the wider county level.

According to a presentation by Applied GeoSolutions, LLC, about the OpTIS system, “Proximal sensors and on-farm sampling are used to calibrate imagery interpretation, and hyper-spectral, biophysical models are used to understand the impact of various components of ground cover (vegetation, soils, crop residue, and shadow) on field reflectance. Using these methods, USGS researchers can map cover crop performance at the watershed scale and improve the understanding of conservation outcomes associated with various cover crop management strategies. This information is used by farmers and conservation agencies to promote adaptive management of winter cover crop programs to maximize environmental benefits.”

In a pilot program last year, OpTIS was used in a small number of Indiana watersheds. Based on initial feedback, the program will broaden this season to more sites in that state as well as other sites in Ohio, Illinois, and Iowa, according to Dan Towery, whose work with the Indiana Soil Health Management project intersects with the OrTIS project.

Towery also said that the data available will help growers understand more about their varied soil types, help them gauge the impact of cover crops on building organic matter in the soil, and even better understand how to adjust management practices more accurately based on annual precipitation.

Annual Ryegrass – At the Root of it All

The Dust Bowl crippled the Great Plains states in the 1930s and 40s because of poor soil management in the decades before that.

The mistakes made were partly because of economics – farmers were rewarded for expanding their acreage in order to satisfy the demand for corn and wheat to supply troops in World War I. But the mistakes were also due to the fact that most farmers did not understand the effect of plowing under the native prairie grasses to make room for cash crops. And, after World War II, the popular thing was to make use of the bountiful supply of anhydrous ammonia (high in nitrogen) for supplying the nutrients lost to oxidation and erosion.

Annual ryegrass is akin to those native prairie grasses in at least one respect: they all have very deep roots. And, as you know, it is the roots that protect the soil surface from erosion. Modern agricultural methods include cover cropping, which prevents nutrients from eroding off the property. No more waste of topsoil; less need for adding nutrient inputs to bolster anemic soil.

The other key factor with annual ryegrass’ deep roots is that they seek moisture and nutrients in deeper soil. Roots grow to depths of 6 feet in some places. The benefit is that roots from ryegrass create channels for the corn and soybeans to follow. Once the cover crop is killed in the spring, the roots die and add to the organic matter in the soil, in addition to creating pathways for new rooting crops and infiltration of snow melt and rain.

The annual ryegrass website has tons of good information about growing this cover crop. There are videos, too, and you need only click here. Finally, No-Till Farmer magazine has an article that talks more about the benefits of annual ryegrass.