Tag Archives: cover crops

Cattle Ranchers Talk Cover Crops and Forage on Their Feedlots and Farms

Shane and Shawn Tiffany are young, energetic Kansas ranchers, who earned their stripes working for other ranchers before starting their own company in the early 2000s.

Tiffany Cattle Company is small by comparison, but the men have already begun to attract attention for their integrity, attention to detail and innovation.

Next month, Shawn will be a key presenter at the 2019 National Cover Crop Summit, March 20-21, 2019 — a free-to-attend online event featuring a series of seminars by experts across the cover crop spectrum.

It may come as a surprise to some, but the old fashioned feedlot has changed. Ranchers seek pasture grazing to bring healthier diets, as well as lowering their costs for supplemental feed. Shawn’s company raises 32,000 cattle at a time in two locations west of Topeka. They’ve found that cover crops are both sensible and profitable, they also help to rebuild prairie soil depleted from years of tillage and compaction.

In a search of the internet on the subject of cattle and cover crops, there is a surprising diversity in usage throughout the country. Here’s a story from a 1,100 acre ranch/farm in South Dakota, where Jared Namken raises Angus beef. He says rotational grazing allows him to use the entire acreage most of the year, even with heavy snow cover. He says the cattle will dig through the snow to get to the tasty vegetation.

Nancy Peterson and her husband graze cattle on about 4,000 acres of native grasslands in Nebraska, and farm 2,300 acres. They use little to no irrigation and the area is dry; annual precipitation is less than 16 inches.

Getting back to the 2019 National Cover Crop Summit, March 20-21, 2019 , here are some of the other notable presenters:

Steve Groff, Common mindsets for cover croppers, cover crop consultant, Pennsylvania
Tom Cotter, Interseeding cover crops for grazing benefits, f
armer, Minnesota
Paul DeLaune, Extending cover crop benefits in continuous wheat and cotton rotations, Texas A&M Univ.
Rob Myers, How cover crops impact farm profits, SARE/USDA
Erin Silva, Rolling cover crops in no-till systems, Univ. of Wisconsin Organic Ag.
Damon Reabe, Seeding cover crops aerially, even in spring, Cover crop applicator
Chris Teachout, Alternative row spacing and biomass-building with cover crops, farmer, Iowa

Farmer Success Stories with Annual Ryegrass

Over the past 20 years, tens of thousands of farms across the Midwest have quit tillage practices because they harm the soil. Instead, they’ve gone to no-till and cover crops.

To review reasons to switch to cover crops, click here and get a free detailed guide to the benefits.

Here are brief summaries of some who have become champions of annual ryegrass as a cover crop, because it makes both agricultural and economic sense.

Loran Steinlage, West Union, Iowa: “I use annual ryegrass in mixes on critical areas like washouts and Highly Erodible Land.”

John Werries, Chapin, Illinois. “I hate erosion. We think annual ryegrass had the best root system of any cover crop. It’s amazing to see the roots that it puts down.”

Donn Branton, Le Roy, New York. “Cereal rye can really get away from you in the spring. There’s less risk of that with annual ryegrass. And ryegrass has good, deep roots. Compared to cereal rye, annual ryegrass has a lower carbon-to-nitrogen ratio.”

Mike Starkey, Brownsburg, Indiana. “I’ve been using annual ryegrass as my cover crop of choice for at least ten years. Annual ryegrass has the biggest root mass of any cover crop. The roots can go down 36 to 48 inches deep. Those annual ryegrass roots scavenge a lot of nitrogen, which gets released later in the growing season.”

Mike Shuter, Frankton, Indiana. “We have a 110-acre field in a wet area of the county that needs drainage. After seeding it to ryegrass in the fall of 2012, we didn’t lose any corn in 2013. But all of the fields around it had spots that drowned out.”

Matt VanTilburg, Celina, Ohio. “We seed 20,000 acres of ryegrass in mixes a year – several thousand of ours and the rest custom.

Dave Wise, Iowa dairy farmer. “I first tried annual ryegrass in 2011, drilling 40 acres. Now, I seed it on continuous corn ground chopped for silage. In 2014, annual ryegrass seeded on bottom ground took off very well and overwintered well, too.”

How to Pull Nitrogen into Corn with Annual Ryegrass

One of the dozen benefits from planting a cover crop like annual ryegrass is to sequester, or uptake, available nitrogen (N) in the soil. This is accomplished mostly by reducing the amount of N that leaches out of the field over winter and spring.

Annual ryegrass is among the most popular cover crops for a variety of reasons, including erosion-proofing your crop acres. Before that, it germinates easily and grows well in cool weather, whether planted in the fall after corn harvest or interseeded with corn in the spring. If planted in the fall, it maximizes root growth and N uptake before cold weather limits growth. If interseeded, it establishes among knee-high corn then goes dormant in the shade of a corn canopy, then goes to town after fall harvest.

Perhaps the biggest asset of annual ryegrass is the depth of its roots. In no-tilled fields after a few years to work its wonders, ryegrass roots can be found to depths of 4 and 5 feet, far below other cover crops. But even in new-to-cover-crop acres, ryegrass roots can easily sink to 3 feet over the winter, breaking up compaction on the way to accessing nutrients deeper in the profile.

But further savings can be realized when considering that annual ryegrass (and other cover crops) sequester available N in their leaves and roots. Then, once terminated in the spring (with glysophate), the cover crop residue composts in the field, releasing N just when the corn needs it most, in late spring and early summer. With a cover crop like this, you can reduce your input of N fertilizer by up to half, depending on other factors.

Learn more about the benefits of annual ryegrass by clicking here.

Ryegrass, Good for a Climate Goin’ Through Some Changes

Science tends to win out over guesswork. Few would disavow centuries of medical experience in favor of hocus-pocus and suspicions. Similarly, those with decades of working the soil tend to heed the sciences pertinent to agriculture, rather than winging it based on something you heard from your brother-in-law.

So, whether the science of climate change is spot on, there’s little question that weather continues to be a major factor in growing healthy crops. Storms may be getting stronger, so it’s crucial to protect your most valued asset: the soil.

Annual ryegrass protects the soil from erosion throughout the year, because the soil is never fully exposed to the wind and heavy rain. Infiltration of water into the soil is improved, thus increasing the reservoir of moisture for later months. And when flooding does occur, cover crops like annual ryegrass will slow it down, and keep the event from washing out field tiles. Cover crops keep the moisture in the watershed, instead of it washing downstream, carrying precious nutrients.

No-till and cover crops also provide soil integrity, allowing the roots and other organic matter to create an environment of stable health. As a living entity, the soil environment stays in place better when bad weather occurs if you’ve got it covered with a cover crop..

When it turns dry, cover crops tend to reduce oxidation of the soil, and to provide a longer period before the soil dries out. Annual ryegrass roots being far deeper than other cover crops, it’s a safe bet that corn will flourish if annual ryegrass has been in the field for even five years as a cover crop.

Genetic engineering has played a significant role in crop durability and production. Coupled with no-till and cover cropping, agriculture in the Midwest is better equipped to withstand the changes brought on by climate variations, whether for the short term or permanently.

Grass Roots are Important – Whether in Politics or in Cover Crops

This recent election proved again why “grass roots” are important. More than colorful flyers and 30-second ads can ever do, grass roots is where democracy started, and continues to start each election cycle. The more money being thrown at negative advertising has never been higher, and our political divide between “right and left” drives some to think that violence may be the only way forward. We must fight that urge, for practical reasons and for spiritual ones.

Having taken part in “door to door” get-out-the-vote efforts this year, I can say that grass roots democracy brings people together, organizes us around central (hopefully honest) ideals and unifies us towards laudable goals. In one conversation, a guy working on tree pruning asked me about what campaign I was working on. At first, he bristled when he realized I was on “the other side.” Then we talked about values underneath our different opinions: the value of human life, the value of personal choice and the value of freedom. We parted ways, not necessarily any closer politically, but we both found space in out difference to laugh, to shake hands and to find reason to respect the other.

Perhaps It’s instructive that we use grassroots to describe ways humans organize. Divisive politics is like using a ripper…it goes deep but doesn’t add any nutrients in the process. And, if you look at the soil just under the plow blade, you’ll see compaction. To get crops to grow, you have to add more and more inputs to create a healthy crop Divisive politics is the same way. You keep adding money from outside, but it does little to create unity; instead it creates compacted opinions and compacted hearts.Unhealthy and unsustainable.

Using annual ryegrass as a cover crop, you can see a whole different story. Its deep roots bust through old compacted layers and find a treasure of nutrients and moisture below. And the fine web of roots spreading out from the main stem connect in a network with all kinds of life around it. It unifies rather than divides. It includes rather than separates. It shares and creates opportunities for all kinds of healthy life around it. Fewer outside inputs, it becomes sustainable because it works with nature, not against it.

Let us know what stories, or ideas, you have about creating more grassroots efforts where you live. We’ll use the stories in a subsequent blog post.

Recalling a Man Who Put Annual Ryegrass on the Cover Crop Map

Mike Plumer was a guy who made sure he knew what he was talking about before he’d open his mouth. He didn’t tout his academic degrees or his professional experience as much as giving you the benefit of his PERSONAL experience.

When it came to cover crops, Mike was out in front of practically the whole country. With his friend Ralph “Junior” Upton, Mike began to experiment with no-til and cover crops. Junior’s land, hilly with some bottom land and featuring a lot of fragipan layering, was as good a place to start as any.

What Mike and Junior noticed almost right away, back in the early 1990s, was that annual ryegrass was easy to germinate. It tolerates being wet, so the bottom land blossomed. And, though he approached this next step carefully, he saw that annual ryegrass killed easily in the spring, provided you do your homework on killing it properly.

One of the biggest surprises, however, was how deep annual ryegrass roots grow over the winter. Because the seed is raised in Oregon, on wet soils, the roots don’t need to grow deep to flourish. But in the Midwest, the moisture and nutrients are way deep sometimes, and annual ryegrass goes after it.

Thirty years hence, the Midwest continues to adopt cover cropping slowly, but surely. Farmers understand economics, and cover crops make money, in several ways. They improve soil quality, so the harvest is fuller. Annual ryegrass sequesters nitrogen, so you save on fertilizer input. And cover crops store carbon and build organic matter, which makes the land you own that much more valuable when it comes time to sell.

Mike Plumer, may he rest in peace. Who knows, perhaps there’s an Extension Service in heaven, and Mike’s been put to work building healthy futures there, too.

Click here to view a helpful powerpoint presentation Mike put together in his last years.

Nitrogen and Carbon – Two More Benefits of Annual Ryegrass

In the last blog post, we addressed the myth of annual ryegrass being hard to manage. Follow good control procedures and it is not an issue whatsoever.

Two other assets of annual ryegrass: it creates a savings in expenditures for nitrogen during the season, and it adds considerably to the organic matter in your soil, thus boosts your carbon uptake in the soil as well.

First thing: nitrogen is a key to production. In years past, when cultivation was more popular, nitrogen was increasingly important and expensive. Now, with annual ryegrass as a cover crop, you can actually plan on reducing your nitrogen input. Why? Because annual ryegrass sequesters available nitrogen in the soil during it’s growth. Then, when it’s terminated in the spring, the residue gives up the stored nitrogen, often just in time for the new crop of corn. In many cases, having annual ryegrass decaying in the field means reducing or eliminating the nitrogen boost in June.

Secondly, as the annual ryegrass roots decay (after the cover crop is terminated in early spring), the result is more organic matter, which means more carbon sequestered in the soil, plus more food for a health soil biology.

Finally, when the roots decay, it leaves the earth more pliable, easier for rain to infiltrate, and easier for corn roots to follow. Because annual ryegrass roots grow to depths of five feet and more, it allows corn roots to access that same depth, beyond compaction and into more nutrients like P and K.

It’s amazing that cover cropping, despite it’s proven benefits, is still practiced so infrequently. While it’s great to learn that in some states, 10 percent or more of farmers are using cover crops, it’s discouraging that upwards of 90 percent are still relying on older ways: deep ripping of depleted soils and adding more fertilizer than would be needed if cover crops were utilized.

The Myth of Annual Ryegrass as a Cover Crop

They say, “It’s hard to control annual ryegrass”. As myths go, it’s tame. They used to say that “stepping on a crack would break your grandma’s back.” They used to think that spiders were bad luck.

For 20 years now, farmers in the Midwest have been planting annual ryegrass every year and there hasn’t been one example of it “getting away.” There have even been cases where the management guidelines have been ignored, but a second application of herbicide took care of that mistake.

Why do myths persist long after their cautionary value has been used up? Maybe two reasons. First, it takes a long time to turn customs around. Humans have a suspicious streak that dates back to when Saber Toothed Tigers were stalking us for food.

As far as annual ryegrass is concerned, you can believe your neighbor or the old fashioned academic…or you can try it yourself and find out that with modern science, you can dispel this old myth. Annual ryegrass is not hard to control. Click here for more info. 2016 ARG as a Cover Crop – 4 page.

Despite all the success of cover crops, despite endless good media and countless field days, the penetration of cover crops is still less than 10 percent of Midwest farm acreage. Why? Because, as hard as a myth is to dispel, it’s even harder to change habits. And when it comes to tilling the soil, it’s a habit born of generational work in the field and the efforts of corporate chemical companies to continue selling fertilizer.

National Effort to Expand Use of Cover Crops

The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research launched a national effort to expand use of cover crops. Called the Healthy Soils, Thriving Farms initiative, the group includes the USDA as well. It is a collaborative, multi-partner research effort to improve soil health in the United States. It continues the effort to encourage adoption of cover crops as well as develop new cover crop varieties with enhanced soil health-promoting traits.

The research expands into states not commonly practicing cover cropping methods, like

Maryland,
North Carolina,
Oklahoma,
Nebraska and M
issouri. Ideally, the research will begin with

cover crops with the greatest potential to improve soil health in a broad geographic context. Annual ryegrass, small grains, annual legumes and brassicas will be used to start.

As has been demonstrated throughout the Midwest, northeastern US and southern provinces in Canada, cover crops are valuable for these reasons:

Improve soil health.
Mitigate erosion.
Increase crop yields.
Enhance water use efficiency.

For more on the study, here’s a link.

Whipsaw Weather Calls for Prayers…and Cover Crops

The coldest April on record to the hottest May on record…the Midwest can’t catch a break! Now mid-summer, people wonder whether more radical weather or trade and tariff issues will derail the current crops in the field.

Perhaps this is slim solace for those worried about what’s in store from Mother Nature and the Government, but cover crops are one thing that can continue to bring balance and health to farm acreage.

Annual ryegrass, for example, is among the easiest cover crops to establish. Grown in Oregon, in soil known for its wet feet, annual ryegrass is suited to poor soil and poor growing conditions. Likewise, when the weather turns dry, corn roots can access deeper moisture because annual ryegrass has established channels through even hardpan soil.

Thus, to build your soil’s health is the best strategy, so that whatever comes, the productivity and yield on your acreage will be maximized by having a consistent practice of cover cropping.

Ryegrass Cover Crop

A Cover Crop that Builds Soil and Boosts Production