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Annual Ryegrass at Commodity Classic – Feb 28

Annual ryegrass is among the most popular cover crops. As such, it will be among the key elements in a Cover Crop learning session at the Commodity Classic this year, in San Antonio, TX. The session will cover both the trend in cover crop use nationally, but also specifics on how to make cover crops work for your acreage.

The Conservation Technology Information Center and DuPont Pioneer are sponsoring the session. Here’s a link to a full story and details about attending

The learning center session, “Cover Your Assets: Improve Productivity, Efficiency and Soil with Cover Crops,” will take place Feb. 28 at 1:45 p.m. in the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, Room 217BC.

The presenters include Mike Plumer and Jamie Scott, both of whom have been long time annual ryegrass advocates. Mike worked for decades for the U. of IL as an Extension Educator. Jamie is an Indiana farmer, whose business now includes providing annual ryegrass seed flown onto about 60,000 acres each year.

Additional experts are Rob Myers, regional director of extension programs for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s North Central Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program and  Karen Scanlon, CTIC executive director, who will moderate the session.

“Cover crops are an exciting topic that continues to gain the spotlight,” Scanlon said.

Annual Ryegrass Seeded into Springtime Corn!


Yes, you read correctly…farmers in Quebec, Canada began experimenting, 5 years ago, with spring seeding annual ryegrass into new corn…when the plants showed between 4 and 6 leaves.

Apparently, the annual ryegrass goes dormant when the corn canopy closes over in June, leaving the grass in shade until harvest. After harvest, sunlight sets the annual ryegrass growing again like gangbusters. According to a new article in Corn Guide, the grass soaks up residual N, P, and K going into winter. The author reports, also, that even in early years, farmers see a bump in corn production from the addition of annual ryegrass. See the full article here.

ARG in Quebec - November photo

 

Cover Crop Learning Opportunities this Winter

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.

Interseeding Annual Ryegrass in New Corn?

Quebec, Canada. Who’d have thought about planting cover crops there?

Daniel Briere, an agronomist with Plant Production Quebec, works with local farmers on a novel way to plant annual ryegrass – late in the spring, about six weeks after corn has emerged and reached knee height. Using modified high clearance equipment, the annual ryegrass sprouts in spring weather and then goes dormant in summertime, when the grass is shaded by corn.

ARG in Quebec - Spring Planted Cover Crop

After corn is harvested, the annual ryegrass is already very well established, able to grow until freezing weather, when cold and snow send the crop into dormancy again. Saddlebutte Ag, an Oregon seed grower, has provided the hearty annual ryegrass seed for the past four or five years, as the project has grown. Dan Towery, Midwest adviser on cover crops and President of the Soil & Water Conservation Society, has followed the project the past few years and said: “It could be a game changer for cover crop planting. I’m impressed. But I have to say, if you’re new to planting cover crops, wait on trying this…or try it on a small plot. It’s unclear how spring seeding of annual ryegrass will play out in the Midwest.

ARG in Quebec - November photo

Annual Ryegrass in Winter: What’s Goin’ On Down There?

With the frigid weather in the Midwest this winter, it may be that the top growth of your annual ryegrass is looking poorly. Without any snow cover, freezing temperatures can suck the moisture and life out of any plant.

But don’t despair just yet. In past winters, what looked like a total winterkill in January turned out to be a false alarm. Whether the crop survives depends on whether the crown of the plant was still viable. If the crop was planted in a timely fashion, and the annual ryegrass got enough time to establish well, the chances are better for its survival.

Assuming that the annual ryegrass is dormant on the surface, it’s amazing to realize that throughout the winter, the roots continue to grow. In some years and in some soils, the roots can grow to more than FIVE FEET DEEP. In doing so, the roots break through compacted soils, creating channels that the corn and soybean roots will later follow.Corn roots in ARG 6-06 Starkey

New Year, New Cover Crop for You?

Some may have formed this New Year’s resolution back in the summer: to give annual ryegrass a try as a cover crop.

As stated by many experts, don’t start too big with something you have little experience with. Cover crops are like driving on the highway, using a rifle for hunting game or playing full-tilt in a new sport – you run a better chance of success if you put your sights low the first year. Here are some tips:

  • Talk to others about their experience with annual ryegrass cover crops. Preferably, talk to a neighbor, who has similar soil condidtions
  • Research your local options for cover crop seed. Ask questions to find out whether your seed dealer is more interested in sales or in conservation tillage
  • Buy a variety of seed that has a track record for success. Specifically, you’ll want a variety that has been used in your area, and one that has shown hardiness for withstanding winter weather.
  • Plant a small parcel the first year, perhaps 10 acres or a bit more
  • Commit to keeping a very close eye on all details of the process: soil type and condition planting date, weather data during the time the cover crop is growing and inputs like nitrogen.

For more info on all these factors, visit our website

Cover Crop Veterans Increase Acreage of Annual Ryegrass in Midwest Corn and Beans

Nick Bowers looked at sales of cover crop seed from his Oregon farm this year and declared “we’re up from last year but the growth has leveled off a bit, compared to previous years.”

“The good news of cover crops has encouraged newcomers to try planting them,” he said. “But with adverse weather in the Midwest, corn and beans came off the field 2 – 3 weeks late this year. That means getting a cover crop on before cold weather was more of a risk, and I think that’s what held newcomers off somewhat,” he theorized.

Bowers has witnessed the phenomenal growth in sales of annual ryegrass and other cover crops as an Oregon grower. Before he and his partner began direct sales to the Midwest, he was involved in years of on-farm research as a member of the Oregon Ryegrass Seed Growers Commission. It was the Commission’s early and consistent cover crop education and promotion that helped to launch the current boom in cover crop use, he said. During those years, he and other Oregon grass seed growers donated tons of seed and thousands of hours of their time, working with cooperating farmers in Illinois and Indiana, to find out how cover crops could positively impact corn and bean production there.

“Those more accustomed to planting cover crops weren’t phased by the late harvest this year,” he continued. “They applied the seed – most often by plane – into standing corn and beans, then hoped that rain would take care of the rest.”

Based on contact with his Midwest customers, Bowers said that it appears that annual ryegrass and other cover crops are doing well, even with the weather not being ideal.

He said that while Indiana and Illinois have been leaders in cover crop adoption, other Midwest states are coming along quickly. In January, his partner will be at the Iowa Cover Crop Clinic, in Des Moines, Jan. 27 – 30, in conjunction with the annual Power Show, scheduled for the 28th – 31st.

 

 

Slake Test Demonstrates Cover Crop’s “Sponge” Qualities…and Bio-health

Ray Makenzie of Marcellus, Michigan, found himself with a thousand acres of highly erodible land when he switched from raising outdoor hogs to a confinement system in 1996. He went to no-till and foresees cover crops next year because of a farm demonstration he just attended.

“I am really excited about cover crops and have to get on this for next year,” he said. “I worry about where the land is leading to with our current practices. At the rate we are going, we are not going to leave the next generation with much healthy dirt.”

(Read the whole article by clicking here…No-Till Farmer magazine)

Hans Kok, a partner in the Indiana-based Conservation Cropping System Initiative, spoke on the benefits of cover crops and demonstrated one aspect with the “Slake Test.” ,Side by side soil samples were submerged in water. One sample was tilled soil while the other had not been tilled for several years. The tilled soil crumbled away and disintegrated in the soaking, leaving a murky sediment at the bottom of the beaker.

A second demonstration simulated a 2-inch rainfall over a one-hour period using spray bottles to soak no-till versus tilled soil samples. The tilled sample had runoff containing a high percentage of soil in the collection vessel while the no-tilled soil held together, absorbing the rain like a sponge and leaving only trace amounts of soil runoff in collection containers. Ironically, the soil samples for both demonstrations were taken from fields that were only forty feet apart, so soil type differences were negligent.

A new cooperative effort through the conservation districts in Van Buren, Berrien and Cass counties offered growers the opportunity to aerial seed annual rye grass into standing corn or soybeans at a cost of $32.50 per acre in 2013. Additional farmers who were not members of the cooperative joined the effort, resulting in a total of 1,600 acres seeded on Aug. 28 in the three counties, according to Colleen Forestieri, conservation technician for the Van Buren Conservation District. “Our goal next year is to triple that number to 3,000 acres,” she said.

Cover Crop Acreage Tops 2 Million Acres in Midwest?

In 2005 there were not many cover crops being planted in the Midwest.   Although annual ryegrass had very positive results, management was seen as somewhat complex and there was limited adoption.

Here it is, almost 9 years later, and the cover crop phenomenon continues to impress us all. It’s hard to calculate exactly, but crop consultant and cover crop advocate Dan Towery estimated that upwards of 2 million acres of cover crops were planted last year in the Midwest.

But here’s the astonishing thing. Key players in cover crop development will meet in Omaha in February, 2014. It’s by invite only. And among the agenda items, according to Towery, is to strategize how to increase the acreage in Midwest cover crops by TEN FOLD in the next decade – to 20,000.000 acres! That sounds like a lot until you understand that there over 170 million acres of corn and soybean acreage in the Midwest, according to the Dept. of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the Univ. of Illinois  Urbana – Champaign.

One of Towery’s concerns: even to get to the 20 million acre mark, it may be a challenge to find the seed to plant those acres. Seed farmers in Oregon have increased their acres to match demand of annual ryegrass and other cover crops. But are there enough acres to produce seed for a 10 fold increase? Stay tuned.

ARG Cover Crop Seeded into 6-leaf Standing Corn!

In the cover crop revolution, there have been so many surprises…most have been pleasant…and yet, the surprises keep on coming.

When we started, it was a slam dunk that a cover crop on winter fields would reduce erosion. That was, however, only the tip of the iceberg.

  • Twenty years ago, people were surprised that annual ryegrass would survive a Midwest winter without constant snow cover.
  • Fifteen years ago, the surprise was how deep the roots of annual ryegrass sink into soil (sometimes more than 5 feet), through layers of compaction.
  • Farmers experimenting with annual ryegrass were more recently amazed about annual ryegrass’ ability to sequester N, thereby saving on fertilizer costs.
  • Initially, the “best” method of planting the cover crop was with a drill. Now we find a majority of farmers broadcasting seed from a plane or high clearance spreader.

So, perhaps it should come as no surprise that farmers in Quebec, Canada, have been seeing increased corn and soybean yields when planting annual ryegrass IN THE SPRING, when the corn is up but with only 3 – 6 leaves showing.

Doubters are now becoming believers, and expert cover croppers in the Midwest are being advised to try this out on limited acreage.

Check out this power point presentation from earlier this year, where results of three years of replicated trials in corn and soybean show some convincing evidence that a companion cover crop can actually boost production that same year.

 

http://tinyurl.com/ovod44x