Tag Archives: no-till agriculture

Cover Crops and Organic Matter

Organic matter, a foundational element of health soil, is the key to plant health and consequently human health. Without organic matter, there would be nothing to feed the myriad forms of life that make up healthy soil.

Cultivation of land leads to extreme loss of organic matter. Midwest crop acreage 150 years ago probably had between 4 and 5 percent organic matter. Some acres today have less than 2 percent. Thankfully, with no-till and cover crops, a healthy percentage of organic matter can be regenerated in a decade of careful application of conservation practices including cover crops.

According to crop scientists like John Biernbaum at Michigan State, there are multiple types of organic matter. First, there is the living part which includes plant roots, earthworms and other insects, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and more, Then there are several “dead” parts of organic matter in various stages of decay. Some forms, like plant leaves, stalks and roots, break down in a matter of weeks to months, while other forms like tree trunks, take decades or longer.

Organic matter, in addition to being the primary source of food for the many forms of life in the soil, is also important for the infiltration and retention of moisture. Researchers tell us that each pound of carbon in the soil can retain up to 40 lbs of water.

Cover crops function in a couple of important ways in this cycle. First, they keep the soil in place, preventing erosion. Next, the roots of cover crops exude sugars that feed life below the surface. Finally, they create channels through which rain and snowmelt get deeper into the soil profile.

For more information about growing cover crops, check out this Management Guide.

The Germ Seed of Cover Cropping in the US – Part 14

The Chemical in Ryegrass that Crumbles Fragipan

The hunch that annual ryegrass use was breaking down the fragipan at Junior Upton’s farm in Illinois was like music to Lloyd Murdock’s ears. The University of Kentucky (UK) research team had begun to experiment with different chemicals in the greenhouse and field where he worked at the University of Kentucky’s Princeton farm and in the lab on the main campus.

While they waited for results on field plots of annual ryegrass they planted that year, the UK research team began working with the plant in controlled lab and greenhouse environments. They created extracts made from annual ryegrass roots, as well as from the foliage. “Naturally cemented fragipan clods were placed in a solution of annual ryegrass extract. Thirty days later the size and distribution of the remaining aggregates were determined. As the binding agent in the fragipan is dissolved by the chemical, the fragipan clod begins to fall apart. The greater the dissolution of the binding agent, the smaller the remaining aggregates. Ag related chemicals were also tested but it was annual ryegrass that demonstrated the most significant ability to dissolve the cementing agents biding the fragipan particles,” he said.

Lloyd also made numerous trips to visit Junior’s farm in those years, to authenticate what they were experiencing there, and to apply what was being gleaned. “We’ve known, for example, that some plants do not exert much pressure at the root tip. Annual ryegrass roots tips, on the other hand, exert a high amount of pressure,” Lloyd said. “So those roots will seek out a crack or weak spot in the fragipan and break through there. It doesn’t take many roots getting through to make a difference. And when corn roots follow those same channels the following year, they’re getting access to nutrition and moisture below the fragipan,” he added. The combination of plant chemistry and root pressure has a dramatic effect on fragipan.

The UK team did replicated trials in five Kentucky and Indiana sites. Below, Table 1 shows, in controlled studies, annual ryegrass reduced the thickness of fragipan significantly at each site, allowing more soil depth for crops.

Dave Fischer is a beef producer from Indiana, and it is his Debois County farm mentioned in the table above. Fisher has planted annual ryegrass on his farm for the past eight years. “When I visited his farm last year, I found that he had lowered the fragipan depth by 14 inches and had annual ryegrass roots 29 inches deep,” Lloyd said.

“Those results floored me,” said Fisher in a video on the project. “But at the same time, I had noticed that these fields seemed to not dry out as fast compared to what they used to and to neighboring fields. We were hanging in there a lot longer during drought periods,” he said. “I would plant it just because of the forage, but the addition of breaking up the fragipan has just been super.”

“I’m more excited about this research than any other project I’ve worked on in my 45 years at the University of Kentucky,” Lloyd said in a University news article, “because it can help so many people. It is something that farmers can work into their operations now to increase their yields.”

As he prepared to retire once again, Lloyd said he has been grateful for the Oregon Commission, and others, whose support was crucial for the UK team’s work on annual ryegrass research. “And it looks like others who have noticed our work are picking up where we’ve left off,” he said with a smile. “Claire Phillips, who received her PhD from Oregon State University and has been a soil scientist for the USDA in Iowa for six years, as well as Dr. Dan Olk and Dr. Dana Dinnes are interested in continuing the work we began. And, likewise, John Pike, an agronomist at Southern Illinois University, has also expressed interest in helping to further the research of fragipan and to continue promoting the use of annual ryegrass as a cover crop.”

The Germ Seed of Cover Cropping in the US – Part 13

Annual Ryegrass…When “Breaking Up is Hard to Do”

An “aha” moment began this 14-part series, and it’s fitting we end it with another aha moment!

Dr. Lloyd Murdock has spent many of his productive years at the University of Kentucky as a soils and crop specialist. The link in the previous sentence summarizes a decades long effort that has earned Lloyd a well-deserved reputation as one of America’s “pioneers of no-till agriculture.”

“I had retired in 2012,” Lloyd recalled, “but specifically returned part time the following year to focus research on how to eliminate, or at least reduce, a deep layer of cemented soil called fragipan. Of course, during his career, Lloyd was aware of the seemingly intractable fragipan problem. “But with all the other things I was involved with, I didn’t have enough time. So, when I returned in 2013, I involved a soil chemist, soil pedologist and another agronomist and we set about doing lab, greenhouse and field testing on how to break up that cemented layer.” The breakthrough project is described in a lengthy report published last year by the University of Kentucky.

Fragipan soils are present in almost a third of the US, running from east Texas northeast into New York and parts of New England. In Kentucky alone, it hampers agriculture on 2.7 million acres. Fragipan is almost like bedrock in places, beginning anywhere from 18 to 32 inches below the soil surface. The layer becomes cement-like because of an iron-associated aluminosilicate that binds soil together tightly and restricts water penetration and root growth. Crops grown on these soils have limited soil depth, below which crop roots cannot go. Furthermore, in wet weather, fragipan prevents proper drainage. Topsoil gets saturated and squeezes out oxygen, increases the loss of nitrogen, delays planting, and increases the chances of even more soil compaction with any new tractor traffic.

In the 40 years he was researching and teaching the benefits of no-till, Lloyd said he recalled how people were addressing fragipan. “I was involved in early experiments injecting lime or other chemicals into the pan on 30-inch centers, hoping to break it down,” he said. “I was aware of field trials at other universities using deep mechanical rippers to break up the fragipan. But in a short time, the soil would reconfigure and harden once again. It was quite expensive and none of it proved effective.”

Then in 2014, through the Oregon Ryegrass Commission, Lloyd was introduced to Mike Plumer, another pioneer in conservation agriculture who had been working on contract to the Commission since the early 2000s. It was he who had begun to quantify the value of annual ryegrass as a cover crop. Inadvertently, at Ralph “Junior” Upton’s farm in southern Illinois, they stumbled on the discovery of annual ryegrass’ deep roots. And in the process, they saw how ryegrass roots seemed to be growing into the fragipan on Junior’s compacted acreage.

“Everything happened by accident,” Junior said. “When I started, I only had about 5 inches of topsoil before I would hit the fragipan. I was trying to get through dry weather. I got a grant and started studying no-till and cover crops. Then a representative of Oregon Ryegrass Commission asked me to try annual ryegrass as a cover crop.”

“They’d stumbled onto something really big,” Lloyd said. “Thankfully, Mike and Junior kept good records on their annual ryegrass work. They found that after a few years, the corn production on the acres Junior planted annual ryegrass began to outproduce fields without it. When they started tracking progress on those fields in the early 2000s, he and Mike determined that Junior’s acreage was producing 10 to 20 bushels per acre less than the average in that county. Today, those same acres are producing 40 bushels per acre more than the county average.

The Germ Seed of Cover Crop Adoption in the US – Part 11

One Helping Hand Deserves Another

Jamie Scott, a 3^rd generation Indiana farmer now in his mid-40s, grew up having heard about no-till and cover crops from his dad and grandad. As you may have read in earlier posts, no-till was barely on Midwest farmers’ radar screen in the 1980s, and cover cropping was even more of a rarity.

The Scotts had not adopted the practice vigorously at that time, and conventional tillage still ruled the day on their farm and most others farms as well. Nonetheless, the Scotts were not averse to it, which made a big difference. “My granddad would hand-sow clover or plant cereal rye with a spreader after harvest on certain plots,” Jamie said. “And I remember my dad telling me about his buying the farm next door in 1976. The previous owner, like my grandad, had also used cover crops. My dad was amazed to learn the difference between that neighbor’s fields and some of ours. Where he had consistently used cover crops, the organic matter was at or just above 4.0, compared to tilled acreage like ours which in places was as low as 2.5. That got my dad’s attention!”

It wasn’t until after attending a couple of ag conferences in 2002, though, that Jamie and his dad began to get serious with no-till and cover crops on their 2000 acres northwest of Fort Wayne. He visited the Oregon Ryegrass booth at the National No-Till Conference that year, and the Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, talking with Oregon grass seed growers Larry Venell and Don Wirth. “They were skeptical that I would be able get annual ryegrass to winter over that far north,” Jamie chuckled. “Back then, they thought annual ryegrass wouldn’t stand up to winter weather much north of I-70,” he added, “and we’re 125 miles north of there! One of the things that was helpful at the time was that they didn’t try to cover up what they didn’t know about ryegrass as a cover crop and how to manage it in this environment.”

Jamie Scott, Indiana farmer and cover crop advisor – https://www.no-tillfarmer.com/articles/7463-no-tiller-discusses-rotation-and-cover-crop-strategies

Fast forward to 2021. The entire Scott farm acreage is in no-till and cover crops. Jamie has become a regional expert on cover crops and oversees application and management of cover crop seed on more than 100,000 acres a year in his area. “If it weren’t for the Oregon Commission, and guys like Mike Plumer and Dan Towery to help me out, I probably wouldn’t be working with cover crops at all,” he said. “Their knowledge and willingness to come out to work through it with me was crucial.”

Their first year, after the corn and beans had come off the fields, Jamie and his dad Jim put in about 40 acres of annual ryegrass. “In that first year, the seed had three varieties in the same bag,” he said, “and this was before they had figured out which varieties were the hardiest. So, our results were mixed,” he added. “One corn field looked great, another was so-so, and the bean field we planted too late with annual ryegrass looked like nothing happened at all. But, the next spring, it turned out that even in the bean field, the ryegrass had sent out a lot of roots and we got benefits without much top growth. And in each of those fields, production was improved over fields where no cover crops were planted. We were sold after that,” he said. “In fact, I was driving by the bean field with an agronomist the following year, and he noticed without my saying anything that the beans where annual ryegrass had been planted looked greener and healthier.”

“I’ve come to understand that as stresses increase, like droughts, the greater are the benefits of cover crops,” Jamie added. “Take for example the deep rooting of annual ryegrass. It creates root channels that are used by corn plants to access moisture far deeper than otherwise. In dry years the difference in yield between cover-cropped acres and those in conventional tillage is remarkable.”

“The knowledge we lost in the 20^th Century about no-till and cover crops is coming back,” Jamie continued. “After generations of nothing but deeper and deeper tillage, we’re becoming more conservation-minded as an industry. We’ve come to appreciate the connection between cover crops, soil health and crop production. On our property, we’ve gradually built the organic matter back up, and it has more than paid for itself in healthier soil and better production.

The Germ Seed of Cover Crop Adoption in the US – Part 9

Remember this bumper sticker: Every Day is Earth Day for Farmers?

It was a reminder to tree-huggers who, since the first Earth Day (1970), had been wagging their fingers at farmers for being “bad for the environment.” Farmers, for their part, have been equally suspicious of environmentalists for wanting to restrict farm livelihoods with unrealistic government regulations.

Given that animosity and suspicion, it seemed unlikely that a partnership might ever form between farmers and environmentalists. But that is exactly what happened in the early 2000s, after The Nature Conservancy (TNC) had identified the Tippecanoe River watershed in Indiana among its top 10 priorities in America, in terms of threats to aquatic wildlife. They showed how sediment in the runoff from fields adjacent to the Tippecanoe River were killing freshwater mussels and other aquatic species in northwestern Indiana’s watershed.

Dan Towery, who by then worked as a Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) agronomist and educator for the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) in West Lafayette, Indiana, witnessed the historic partnership in real time. An Illinois native and graduate from Western Illinois University and, later, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Dan had started his professional agronomy career in 1980, with NRCS.

Recalling those earlier days, Dan said the early ‘80s was when no-tilling began to attract the attention of agronomists and innovative growers. Given the erosion problems and loss of organic matter since the 1950s, people awoke to the value of no-till, and leaving plant residue on the soil after planting. Besides reducing erosion, no-till farming also reduces the number of tillage trips, thereby reducing fuel consumption as well as soil compaction. Likewise, it sets the stage for increasing organic matter and healthier soil biology, leaving soil intact and decomposing plants to be consumed by earthworms, fungi, and healthy bacteria.

Dan credits Larry Clemons, a conservation organizer for Indiana TNC, with the skills to bring together a diverse partnership to address the problem of freshwater pollution. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management was included, as were various land trust and environmental organizations, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Purdue University, corporations, and landowners, some whose activities impacted the river’s health. By the time Dan started at CTIC, it was already part of that effort. It was he who suggested the use of annual ryegrass as part of TNC’s plan to reduce runoff from fields.

Dan was introduced to the Oregon Ryegrass Commission administrator, Bryan Ostlund, in 2004 when Bryan was in the Midwest meeting with Mike Plumer and a number of growers, looking at early cover crop test plots on small farm acreage, using annual ryegrass.

By then, annual ryegrass had demonstrated its worthiness as a cover crop, and that was one of the primary ways in which TNC addressed agricultural impacts to the Tippecanoe. Buffer strips planted along the river eliminated most of the riverbank collapse. Cover crops in adjacent fields reduced or eliminated soil. But more importantly, it kept agricultural products (fertilizer, chemicals, animal waste) from leaching into nearby waterways. Since then, continued conservation efforts have begun to make progress in cleaning up the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico.

Towery formed his own company in 2006 – Ag Conservation Solutions – and became a contractor for the Ryegrass Commission, collaborating closely with Mike Plumer. Working solo and as part of a team, Dan and Mike worked passionately, if not tirelessly, as advisors, facilitators, educators, and networkers. Sadly, Plumer died in 2017, and Dan continues his work to this day.

In terms of their outreach and education, both Dan and Mike were active in organizations – both ag and conservation related – that helped define best practices. Some of their advocacy work helped stimulate more financial incentives for those reluctant to try cover crops. Some of their work helped to shape environmental and ag policy, including the annual Farm Bill passed by Congress.

Even as a good teacher, Dan has also been the first to admit that his success has hinged on his ability to listen and to learn. “And among the greatest teachers,” he said, “are those that live the closest to the soil.” It is in that respect that Dan has come to be a champion of “regenerative agriculture.”

Cover Crops and COVID

Change is hard, and COVID shows us again how adapting to a new regimen is necessary for human survival.

Conventional farming is another example. For decades, farms became more productive by adding more acreage, more equipment and more chemistry.

Conservation tillage may be the equivalent of mask-wearing, social distancing and immunization requirements during this pandemic. It’s tough medicine. It’s aggravating and inconvenient. And the older we are, the more reluctant we may be to embrace those new ways.

Walking in the woods, while often relaxing, is also a way to see how change is normal in nature. Fallen timber, once upright and vibrant, are now “nurse logs” for a host of microorganisms, fauna and flora that rely on the decay of carbon in the tree for new life in so many forms.

Cover crops are like nurse logs in that way. When the cover crop is eliminated, the residual top growth and decaying roots become organic matter, the life blood of other forms of life.

When soil becomes naturally healthy again, when no-till and cover cropping allow the myriad life forms to return, the crops grown in that improved soil will pay dividends.

That’s why younger farmers are embracing new methods with gusto. Just as we old timers did in our day, the younger men and women are not afraid of hard work, nor are they afraid of change. They’re in it for the long haul, and they know their investment in cover crops and regenerative agriculture methodology will pay off for them and their children.

The great thing about regenerative ag is that it will also pay off for the rest of us…everybody up and down the food chain.

Don’t Adopt – Adapt Instead

The days are long over for merely taking in what some trade show educator tells you and then applying it to your farm! You’ve learned how to take the guess work out of some of the things that used to be stumpers. Even taking your neighbor’s word for it comes with a grain of salt anymore, because the nature and condition of each farm acre is different.

Computers, GPS and soil testing have aided in our understanding of crop behavior, including what’s going on underground. In recent years, knowing the importance of microbiology in crop production has helped to improve soil health while also improving a farm’s balance sheet.

Cover crops provide residue (carbon) on the surface that keeps weeds down, releases stored nitrogen up to the next crop, and prevents soil heating, thus promoting a healthy environment for microbes, bacteria and fungi in the topsoil. The roots of old, terminated cover crops continue to give up food for biological life while adding to the organic matter of the soil.

While there are enough success stories out there to feel confident that cover crops are not a big risk. After all, many thousands have tried annual ryegrass and other cover crops, including cereal rye, and decided after a few years that they were going ALL IN, planting 100 percent of their acres in cover crops.

Regardless of what others did, however, starting out with a cover crop for the first time is a challenge. So, most transitioning to conservation tillage start with a small chunk of land before committing to plant the whole farm that way.

Once you see what changes occur on that test acreage, you’ll find out that managing annual ryegrass and other covers is not exceedingly difficult. You’ll also discover that the benefits, the savings and the profits warrant a bigger commitment.

Green under White – The Ideal Winter Color Scheme involves Cover Crops

As winter approaches, the fields now stripped of corn and beans ought to have a cover of green before the snow flies.

First, and foremost, if winter snow comes late or not enough, your soil can be stripped from your property, and you can expect to lose both fertility and productivity as a result. Wind, rain, melt and freeze and run off can be devastating.

A cover crop provides a blanket of protection from the ravages of winter. Annual ryegrass doubles its benefit by protecting the surface while restructuring the soil profile below. It has a massive root system that adds organic matter to the soil. Moreover, it sends roots deep into the soil to 6 feet, through compacted layers, and provides channels for next year’s corn to follow.

With a cover crop in place, even without snow, the greenery will protect the soil from an infestation of annual weeds over the winter, as well as prevent erosion next spring. When you get rid of the cover crop, with glyphosate, the residual biomass left by the annual ryegrass or other cover crop will continue to decay and feed the corn or beans the stored nitrogen in the residue. That helps to reduce the amount of money you’ll have to spend sidedressing your crop with extra nitrogen in June.

Here’s a link to a number of helpful tips for starting and managing annual ryegrass as a cover crop. Please contact us if you have questions.

Annual Ryegrass in Cover Crop News

Annual ryegrass has been part of a revolution in American agriculture for the past 25 years. Farmers found that no-till is kinder to the soil and that cover crops make soil richer and more productive.

In the past two decades, innovative farmers, research agronomists and Oregon seed growers have worked to improve the ryegrass seed so that it is more reliable, easier to grow and easier to manage. New varieties developed in Oregon now withstand tough winters as well as drought conditions. And, as you’ll see in these attached articles, the innovation continues to thrive.

The Capital Press recently reported about “interseeding” annual ryegrass into spring corn. Click here to read what they’ve discovered.

Click here for a general overview of planting and managing annual ryegrass.

Click here to look at how to integrate annual ryegrass into a forage operation, seeding the cover crop while applying nitrogen-rich manure.

And for those new to planting annual ryegrass as a cover crop, take a look at this site, brought to you by the Oregon Annual Ryegrass state commission, run by those who grow and sell the seed that is helping to transform farm soil in the Midwest, New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, as well as farms in southern Canadian provinces.

Annual Ryegrass – The Best Defense is a Good Offense

Ok, so the use of this cliche, “the best defense is a good offense” won’t stand up in today’s rough and tumble world of sports. Imagine the Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban or Clemson’s Dabo Swinney trying that strategy in the BCS Championship Bowl!

But, in agriculture, a good defense kind of creates its own offense. Take cover crops, for example, and annual ryegrass specifically.

Planting ryegrass in the fall gives the rich topsoil a chance to relax…no worries of some offensive wind and rushing water eroding it away.
No worries about compacted soil continuing to starve corn roots opportunity to access deeper nutrient-rich soil beneath the compacted layer.
The residue left over when the cover crop is eliminated in the spring (particularly true with annual ryegrass) is food both for the active soil biology, but also feeds the corn next year, because it soaks up excess nitrogen in the soil and gives it back when corn needs it most, next June.
The decaying root structure of annual ryegrass also plays an important role in building organic matter in the soil. It feeds the microbes and insects, plus it leaves channels where corn roots can grow deeper the following year
AnnuaL ryegrass roots also discourage the overpopulation of soybean cyst nematodes which damage that crop

As the country, and the world continue to grapple with the impact of violent weather, cover crops provide some defense from soil degradation, and contribute to storing more carbon dioxide in the soil instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.

The best of all worlds, cover crops increase farm productivity and profits. And there’ll be no argument about creating a profit while you’re also contributing to the health of our soil, air and water resources.

Ryegrass Cover Crop

A Cover Crop that Builds Soil and Boosts Production