Tag Archives: cover crop benefits

Annual Ryegrass – Best Friend of Deep Cover Crops

In Oregon’s Willamette Valley, 90 percent of the world’s seed for annual ryegrass is grown. Because the water table is so high, the roots need not go far for moisture. In the Midwest, it’s a different story, and that was the first major “AHA” of its widespread adoption as a cover crop.

Over the winter, annual ryegrass roots can reach to depths of five feet, although the first year will probably not produce that depth. But over a span of five years, the channels built from successive years of annual ryegrass use will provide new access for deeper growth the next year.

For this and other reasons, Indiana farmer Cameron Mills says annual ryegrass is the best cover crop out there. “Annual ryegrass still gets a fair amount of bad-mouthing,” he said at a recent conference in Oregon, where many of the ryegrass seed growers were in the audience. “The important thing is, you have to keep getting good information out there about annual ryegrass to balance the negative. One thing you hear is that it is hard to manage. Well, that’s not true either, but you do have to manage it carefully.”

Annual ryegrass, he continued, solves a lot of problems, such as erosion, depleted organic matter, compaction, annual weeds and soybean nematodes. But to get it to work for you, you must be flexible about when you apply the seed and when you terminate it.

And as for terminating it, you have to be very conscientious that the herbicide used to terminate it doesn’t remain in the soil very long – commonly referred to as herbicide carryover; otherwise, it could inadvertently retard the growth of the next round of cover cropping. See below, two fields planted on the same day, only a mile apart from one another. One field shows healthy growth, and the herbicides were generic Bicep II and Impact. The other field, where Halex GT was used, is almost barren of cover crop. Mills said that there’s nothing wrong with Halex GT…it’s a great herbicide, but you must pay attention that the herbicide used doesn’t carry over into next year’s cover crop season.

Ray Weil on Cover Crop Benefits

Ray Weil was a guest speaker at the 2017 National No-Tillage Conference in St. Louis. His presentation focused on how cover crops benefit soil nutrient levels not only in topsoils, but in lower depths as well.

Ray is a Univ. of Maryland professor and co-author of Nature and Properties of Soil.

Ray Weil

Here’s a link to the podcast he delivered this year.

Ray’s research has covered how cover crops influence soil nutrient profiles at various depths and optimal planting dates for cover crops, their effects on moisture retention and how compaction influences deep root penetration.