Perhaps you’ve already seen these dozen videos about annual ryegrass, both about how to plant and manage it, but also the benefits of having a cover crop on your soil. Click here if you want to review them...the link here is to the first one, and once on the YouTube channel, you can find the others easily by typing Annual Ryegrass in the search engine.
Here are a couple other videos about annual ryegrass, produced by Dale Strickler.
The advice about using cover crops for the first time is almost written in stone: “Start with a small parcel.”
John Werries, a third generation farmer from Chapin, Illinois, had a few things going for him that allowed him to skip the advice entirely. He talked to some long time cover croppers, he had done a lot of studying and had attended educational forums on cover crop management, and he wasn’t getting any younger. “I was 65 when I started cover crops. I may not have had a decade to experiment on a small scale,” he said.
Together, John, his son Dean and their neighbor, Andy Shireman, formed a cover crop business, Chapin Cover Crops. They went in on the purchase of a 40’ air seeder and air cart, and proceeded in 2012 to plant the entire Werries 3800 acres, over 2000 of Shireman’s acres and 1700 acres of custom seeding.
“You couldn’t have asked for a more perfect year,” he said. “We got an early start, drilling the annual ryegrass (Aug. 22) right behind the combine, and we were done with seeding the acreage by the end of September. After the first seeding, we got about four inches of gentle rain in the span of two days. I’m a private pilot and so it was a joy when, some weeks later, I flew over the property and saw all that solid, dense green!”
John’s land is almost all in corn. He strip tills and so the cover crop was primarily an aide in reducing erosion, especially on the half of his acres that are in rolling hills. “I just hate the idea of erosion,” he said.
The spring of 2013 was a very wet one, with nearly 15 inches in April and May. “I was so impressed with the annual ryegrass,” he said. There was some runoff but absolutely no erosion.”
The other benefit he saw immediately was in corn production. “In 2012, it was a drought year and we had a ‘whole-farm’ average yield of 133 bu/ac,” he recalled. “That was the worst corn harvest since 1988. But a year later, the average in 2013 was 234 bu/ac…a whole 100 bushels per acre better!” Besides the weather, he attributes some of that increase to the nutrients sequestered by the annual rye grass.
The cover crop seeding of fall, 2013, was close to a disaster. “We flew on 1000 acres and drilled the rest, and virtually nothing came up,” he said. “We had a very dry fall followed by a brutal winter, very cold and no snow cover.” But the harvest this fall has been even better average than last year. He attributes some of that to the improvement in soil health from years of strip till corn, no till beans, and at least one successful year of annual rye grass.
This fall, another wet one, has presented difficulties both for harvesting corn and seeding annual ryegrass. Since early August, his farm has gotten more than 17 inches of rain. About two weeks after flying on the first 1000 acres, the area got a hard five inches of rain and John’s farm has seen no erosion. Since then, he’s flown on most of his acres with annual ryegrass and feels cautiously optimistic about the survival of the cover crop this winter.
“I’m now less worried about year to year differences,” he said, “and more focused on the long term. I go out there now and, my gosh, you wouldn’t believe the number of earthworm holes. That’s evidence of better organic matter and less compaction. I tell you,” he added, “there’s no turning me around on cover cropping at this point. It’s a winning solution.”
Last winter’s cover crop season was disappointing, said Nick Bowers, a pioneer in the cover cropping revolution and a partner in the Oregon-based KB Seed Solutions.
Even though newer varieties of annual ryegrass are hardier in tough weather, the winter of 2013/2014 was “the worst in 25 years,” he said. “When you have winter wheat and cereal rye not surviving a winter, you know it’s been severe, and that’s what we saw last year.”
Nonetheless, his sale of cover crop seed hasn’t been hit too badly. And that’s because of two things:
“Those who’ve been in the cover crop program for more than three years are sold…they’ll never quit,” Nick said, “because they’ve seen the benefits in better crop yields and improved soil conditions.”
His advice to new adopters of cover crops has always been to “be cautious, start simple.” He worries that with new government incentives offered, growers will jump in without enough information or experience. He suggests planting small plots of cover crops and check strips, so as to compare results side by side in a field.
But those farmers with whom Nick has been working now for over seven years all tout the virtues of staying with the cover crop effort. “One guy who had years of erosion problems was saying that the water leaving his fields is now cleaner than when it arrived,” he continued. And that’s only the beginning of the benefits, Nick said.
Tim Harrigan, University of Michigan associate professor and agronomist, has developed farm equipment to deliver cover crop seed as part of a tank of manure slurry.
Livestock farmers have excess manure; planting a cover crop creates the perfect way to dispose of the excess nutrients to benefit a newly seeded annual ryegrass cover crop. With a cover crop on the field all winter, it holds the nutrients in the field, in the soil, instead of it leaching into nearby waterways. Then, when the annual ryegrass is terminated in the spring, it has tons of “scavenged” nitrogen to give to the oncoming corn or soybean crop.
Harrigan devised a way to deliver both the seed and the nutrient slurry together in one operation. “Combining several farming operations into one saves farmers time and money, at a time (fall) when we’re pressed to get all these things done,” Harrigan said.
Check out this video of the operation: http://tinyurl.com/5va5n5q
If you use a no-till drill to plant annual ryegrass, you get better seed to soil contact, but the timing becomes crucial because of crop harvest variability. In the past few years, corn and bean harvests have been later and, in some cases, too late to plant annual ryegrass.
Planting with aerial seeding – plane or high-clearance equipment – can be done while corn and beans are still in the field. The seed lies dormant until sufficient rain germinates the cover crop. But because you’re seeding into standing corn or beans, you must use more seed.
The range of effective seeding rates is from about 12 lb/ac to about double that, if you’re broadcasting the seed. Some worry that applying too much seed will make it more difficult planting corn or beans into the cover crop residue the next spring. Thus, those people favor a lighter seeding rate. Even if the annual ryegrass looks thin in its top growth, the deep mat of roots are still doing their job in the soil, they say.
Others say that a heavier seeding rate is good insurance against harsher winters. Those with interest in using annual rygrass for forage will certainly want to plant at the upper rate of application.
In either case, annual ryegrass is among the least costly and most effective of cover crops. The cost for seed and application can easily be made up in the gains in soil health and increased crop production.
For more information about timing and rates of seed application, click here for a comprehensive brochure.
“My cover crop wasn’t green this spring!” Don Wirth’s answer to what sounded to him like a complaint was, “Go dig!”
His point: when annual ryegrass is established in the fall, it quickly sends roots down below a foot, even in fields that haven’t had a cover crop before. (In successive years, annual ryegrass roots can send roots to deeper than 40 inches, even when there’s only a couple of inches of top growth!) It is those roots that help prevent erosion. But that’s only the beginning. Deep rooting breaks up compaction, improves permeability. That’s still only the beginning. The biggest benefit is that cover crops improve soil biology, including a healthy population of earthworms and microorganisms. When that happens, crops thrive, production increases and costs for inputs go down.
A few years ago, he visited a Midwest farm in the spring, where no cover crop was evident on the surface. And yet, walking across the field, Don was able to point out where the annual ryegrass had grown the year before. It was as if a line had been drawn on the land. Cover crops had already begun to change the biology of the soil beneath. “I’m guessing that the field had very low organic matter content, so the addition of even a year’s worth of cover crop will make a significant difference in how the soil looks and feels,” he said.
Wirth, an Oregon grass seed farmer said there is a lot of reliable information now about the value of cover crops. But he heartily suggests that farmers be more informed about the health of their soil. He recommends reading Gary Zimmer’s book Biological Farmer, written in 2000. Here’s a short excerpt from the book’s description:
Biological farming does not mean less production; it means eliminating obstacles to healthy, efficient production. It is a safe and sustainable system designed to keep production up.
Wirth also suggests becoming more in touch with improving your soil’s health. He said starting with an inexpensive Solvita test (about $150) will give you some basics.
The test uses a couple of soil probes loaded with a certain kind of gel that reacts to soil chemistry. Among other things, the Solvita measures carbon dioxide emissions…mostly due to microbial respiration. The level of microbial activity indicates the amount of active organic matter that is being broken down and the amount of nutrients being released.
Measuring year after year will give you a chart of the growth in soil biology and organic matter. Overlay that on a record of crop yields and you’d have pretty convincing evidence about the connection between cover crops,
soil health and profits.
Late Spring Crop Planting
A wet spring and late planting aren’t necessarily a cause for gloomy predictions in the Midwest, according to Dan Towery. “Last year, the corn and beans were planted even later than this year, and there was a record yield…Indiana farmers saw corn increases of 20 bu/ac over the previous record.” But 2013 was also a very cool summer with not stress on the corn during pollination.
As of mid May this year, he said that about 70% of the corn and 30% of the beans have been planted. With a predicted good patch of warm weather ahead, and improved efficiency in planting technology, the crops will be in the ground soon. The risk of late planting is the corn pollination will occur during a hot dry spell, which may then reduce yield significantly, as occurred in 2012.
In general, Dan said there are benefits to “staggering” the dates of planting a bit. He used the analogy of putting all your investment dollars into one stock versus diversifying. “While diversifying may not give you the big payout…if the stock happens to go through the roof…it will give you more chances of modest gains and less risk of losing it all.” So planting all of one’s corn in a week means the potential of the pollination occurring at the same time and if that coincides with a hot spell, then yield take a real hit.
Looking at Crimson Clover in Cover Crop Mix with Annual Ryegrass
Crimson clover’s peak potential to fix Nitrogen is just before it blooms. It can fix the most nitrogen (up to 135b/ac) in the soil at that time. But in a normal weather year, Central Midwest growers would terminate the crimson clover in mid April, ahead of planting corn. This is well before bloom, thus limiting the amount of N actually produced.
This spring, being so late, Indiana grower Mike Starkey decided to leave the cover crop on his field a month longer than normal. The cover crop mix was crimson clover, annual ryegrass, Austrian winter pea and dicon radish. As you can see in the photos below (5/19/14), the clover is in full bloom. Purdue University students were there taking samples on the 80 acre parcel to determine the N content.
While many in the Midwest experienced a tough cover crop year because of the harsh winter, this parcel fared well due to the tree line which acted as a windbreak. A minus 20 to minus 30 degree windchill with no snow cover seems to be the threshold at which winterkill occurs. Many areas had significant snow but the wind blew the snow off of some areas.
Annual ryegrass is a vigorous plant. Planted last summer or fall, the roots can be established to more than 5 feet into the soil. So, even if there’s only 6 – 8 inches of top growth, treat annual ryegrass as a mature plant. Successful control of annual ryegrass with glyphosate or other herbicides depends on:
Click here for a free brochure: Annual Ryegrass Management
Click here to go to the Annual Ryegrass website, for more detail on management.
Controlling annual ryegrass in the spring is best done:
Annual ryegrass can be a challenge to control if the herbicide is applied when:
Timing – Control (burndown) of the annual ryegrass cover crop:
In February, a select group of 300 cover crop experts gathered in Omaha to discuss the prospect of massively enlarging the number of cover crop acres in the Midwest.
At present, there’s an estimated 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 acres of corn and soybean cropland now being improved with cover crops each year. The meeting’s purpose – to explore how to expand that number to 20 million acres in the next six years.
Click here to see presentations of innovative growers who are showing the way how we’ll get there.