In February, in Omaha, a cover crop symposium is attracting cover crop innovators, big seed dealers, seed growers and equipment company reps to discuss how to quickly grow the cover crop usage.

Cover crops are now planted on approximately 2 million acres in the Midwest. One of the symposium’s central topic is how to turn that number into 20 million acres in the next couple of decades, or sooner.

The daylong symposium will be telecast live to 200 sites around the US, in hopes that a much larger audience can access the information.

On Feb. 6, Dan Towery will present on soil health and cover crops to the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association in Brodhagen, west of Toronto.

In March, Dan and Hans Kok will present a 2 hour webinar sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency. Their presentation is on how cover crops can impact water quality…largely by keeping soil and nutrients in the fields, less susceptible to erosion. Soil biology can influence yields, Towery said, and cover crops are a key contributor.