Tag Archives: no-till agriculture

New Annual Ryegrass Management Guide for 2016

ARG in Quebec - November photoClick here for the new “Quick Guide” for managing Annual Ryegrass as a cover crop.

In addition to new tips for seeding, the guide also outlines an emerging problem for managing cover crops in the Midwest. Many farmers use residual herbicides in the field to control weeds like marestail and waterhemp.

The lifespan of some of these herbicides extends into the next growing season for cover crops and have been shown to have a “carryover” effect on the success of the cover crop.

In the next post, we’ll outline more details on the types of herbicides to watch out for and how to continue using cover crops, too.

Herbicide Carryover in Cover Crops – New Free Guides

In the past couple of years, there has been increasing concern about the impact of residual herbicides in the field hampering or killing cover crops, including annual ryegrass.

Mike Plumer, a pioneer in the cover crop renaissance in the Midwest, has published a handy guide to specific residual herbicides and his observation about their affect on different cover crops.

Click here for a selection of publications about the herbicide carryover issue..

Dan Towery to Present on Cover Crop Limitations

The 24th Annual National No-Till Conference will take place Jan 6 – 9, 2016 at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Indianapolis. Dan Towery and a close working colleague, Hans Kok, will present on Jan 7th. here’s a description of that classroom event at the show.

“Possibilities and Limitations of Cover Crops: Fixing Tough Conditions.” With the rising popularity of cover crops, no-tillers are finding they may be able to fix many problems in the soil, such as resolving compaction, reducing diseases like pythium by improving the soil’s aggregate stability and controlling certain glyphosate-resistant weeds.

But there are limits to what they can fix and how long it may take, as well as growing conditions, to see results. Hans Kok, coordinator of the Indiana Conservation Cropping Systems Initiative, and Dan Towery, no-till consultant with Ag Conservation Solutions in Lafayette, Ind., will discuss both the possibilities and limitations of cover crops. – See more at: http://www.no-tillfarmer.com/articles/5152?page=2#sthash.68EvKpZY.dpuf

NRCS Funds Expanded Use of Cover Crops

From No-Till Magazine’s managing editor this week, an article about expanded use of federal taxpayer funds for establishing agricultural conservation measures. Click here for the whole article. Below, a portion of that article.

It’s becoming ever more clear that the NRCS believes no-tilling, cover crops and more precise grazing methods will be crucial to shoring up the declining Ogallala aquifer.

And it’s also clear farmers in the southern Plains will continue to feel pressure to reduce or eliminate their dependence on irrigation, or adopt more efficient technology.

The NRCS announced this month that it will invest $8 million in the ongoing Ogallala Aquifer Initiative (OEI) in 2016 to help farmers and ranchers conserve water in the Ogallala’s footprint. This is up from $6.5 million that was spent for 2015.

The NRCS is also adding two new management areas for the OEI:

  • Middle Republican Natural Resource District: The project in southwestern Nebraska addresses groundwater quantity and quality concerns, and will enable participants to voluntarily implement practices to conserve irrigation water and improve groundwater quality.
  • Oklahoma Ogallala Aquifer Initiative: Among other things, this project will help landowners implement conservation practices — including crop residue and tillage management — that decrease water use. One goal is helping farmers convert from irrigated to dryland farming.

The NRCS already has focus areas in Nebraska, New Mexico, Texas, Kansas and Colorado, which you can read more about by clicking here.

The NRCS says it’s continuing to address problems with the aquifer by working with farmers to build soil health through seeding cover crops and implementing no-till practices, which will improve water-holding capacity and buffer roots from higher temperatures.

Farmers increasing cover-crop use

The annual report from the CTIC (Conservation Technology Info Center) published recently is more good news for the soil, the planet and the farmers who employ the cover crop technique. (Click here for the full report, including graphs). The news was reported by www.Agriview.com.

Here’s a paragraph outlining the gains being seen in the Midwest.

“Cover crops are growing in popularity by leaps and bounds among farmers. A recent survey of more than 1,200 growers throughout the United States showed cover crops boosted corn yields in 2014 by an average of 3.66 bushels per acre, or 2.1 percent, and soybean yields by 2.19 bushels or 4.2 percent. Last year was the third-consecutive year that yield boosts from cover crops were recorded by the Conservation Technology Information Center, a public-private partnership in West Lafayette, Indiana.”

“The 2015 survey also recorded a fifth year of steady increase in the average number of acres planted to cover crops by survey respondents, at almost 374,000 acres this year. The average number of cover-crop acres per farm in the annual surveys has nearly tripled over the past five years. The average cover-crop acreage per respondent planting a cover crop was 300 acres in 2015.”

From 1200 respondents, the survey determined that cereal rye and annual ryegrass are still the top cover crop seeds used. Here’s the breakout of use reported by farmers:

“Among cover-crop species, cereal grains and grasses are most popular, planted by 84 percent of cover-crop users. Cereal rye accounted for 44 percent of the total cover-crop acres in 2015. Annual ryegrass was a distant second with about half cereal rye’s acreage. Oats was third, covering 17 percent of respondents’ land in 2015. Triticale and winter barley rounded out the top-five cereal grains and grasses.”

It also appears that brassicas, including radish, turnips, rapeseed and canola, continue to gain in use, especially as the practice of seeding four or more cover crop species together in a mix continues to increase.

Interestingly, the top reason farmers cited use of cover crops was because it aids the improvement of soil health. The CTIC had assumed previously that the main reason was because it improved the chances of better production and, thus, profit.

Midwest Cover Crop Council Helps Soybean Producers with Publication

The Midwest Cover Crop Council is a beneficial site for learning a great deal about specifics on successful cover crops. Click here for their website: Here’s their summary of benefits of cover crops:

WHAT DO COVER CROPS DO FOR THE ENVIRONMENT?
  • Enhance biodiversity
  • Increase soil infiltration, leading to less flooding, leaching, and runoff
  • Create wildlife habitat
  • Attract honey bees and beneficial insects

 

WHAT DO COVER CROPS DO FOR FARMERS?
  • Reduce erosion
  • Improve soil quality, through increases in
    • Porosity (reduced compaction)
    • Soil organic matter
    • Water holding capacity
    • Beneficial microbes
    • Micro- and macro-invertebrates
  • Retain nutrients that would otherwise be lost
  • Add nitrogen through fixation (leguminous cover crops)
  • Combat weeds
  • Break disease cycles

Their new publication is specifically about helping soybean producers introduce cover crops into their rotation. Click here for the whole publication.

An intro paragraph in the publication says that “Interest in cover crops has increased greatly, as increasing numbers of meetings, workshops, and field days about the topic can attest. In 2012, the National Agricultural Statistics Service included cover crops in its census and reported that U.S. farmers planted 10.3 million acres of cover crops in 2012 — in the same year, farmers in the North Central Region (NCR) planted 4.5 million acres of cover crops. Cover crops represent 3.6 percent of total NCR cropland, so they have a long way to go before becoming common and accepted before or after soybeans (or in general).”

Field Day for Cover Crops in Illinois

MO-Matt-Volkman-NRCS-ARG-field-shot.jpgA cover crop field day has been scheduled at two locations in Illinois’ Coe Township, convened by the Rock Island Soil & Water Conservation District.(See below for specifics)

According to an article in the Dispatch-Argus paper in Moline, IL, cover crops continue to prove their value, both in building soil health and improving profits for growers. Here’s a segment of the article (if you want to read the whole thing, click here)

“Cover crops lengthen the growing season of live plant material with many winter annual species like winter wheat, cereal rye and annual ryegrass maintaining live root systems under the soil surface during the winter months providing food for soil microbes to stay active.  Currently, idle crop fields become biological deserts in which soil microbes reduce in population with limited food resources.  Some covers like cereal rye and annual ryegrass also provide biological weed control in crop fields during the early portion of the growing season.  This helps reduce the amount of pesticides that need to be used.”

“Those benefits include reduced soil erosion, enhancement of soil biology through increased microbial activity and the development of higher organic levels, improved water quality from reduced run-off along with the capture of un-used phosphorus and nitrogen making those nutrients available for the next cropping season.”

Location of the field days:

Wed. Nov 5th – DePauw farm, located at 122nd Ave N, in Port Byron, IL.

Thurs. Nov. 6th. – the Anderson Farm located ½ mile east of Sherrard High School or west of the junction of 176th Ave W and 63rd St. W.

For more information and reservations call the Rock Island SWCD office at (309) 764-1486 ext. 3.

Annual Ryegrass Roots – What’s Going on There?

Pioneering cover crop use in the 1990s, University of Illinois Extension educator Mike Plumer discovered something that surprised everybody. Annual ryegrass has a root structure that grows to depths of more than five feet over winter, while the top growth is pretty much dormant.

One of annual ryegrass’ most compelling features is that deep rooting system, because it breaks up compaction of all kinds, and in doing so, it also helps bring nutrients deeper in the soil profile up to the surface. This not only helps crops thrive, it also reduces the amount of nutrient inputs needed.

So, it’s unclear why Cornell and Michigan State universities still have printed information about annual ryegrass stating that annual ryegrass has “a shallow” rooting system.

In fact, the plant DOES have a shallow root mass, which makes  it valuable for preventing erosion. But what they don’t say is that annual ryegrass roots also grow to depths of five feet. And this is equally important, for reasons stated above.

In sum, the combined root mass of annual ryegrass also provide another benefit: helping to build organic matter in depleted soils. Once the plant is terminated, in springtime just before planting corn or soybeans, all that root matter decays and becomes the basis for a healthy population of microorganisms and a more friable soil.

 

soil pit2

 

(In the photo above, growers are inspecting deep channels created by annual ryegrass roots, which allow corn roots more penetration into the soil following those same channels. Thus, corn plants can better tolerate dry weather because they can reach deeper into soil for needed moisture.)

Plumer said that because of long-term tillage practices, plus tiling fields for drainage and not planting cover crops, Midwest soils have lost half or more of their organic matter. The good news is that for every additional percentage point of organic matter you can add back into the soil, you’re adding back about 1000 pounds of nitrogen per acre!

Annual ryegrass and other cover crops help to raise the organic level back up, though it takes years of consistent cover crop use to make up for the decades of less productive management methods including heavy tillage.

Cover Crops in a Semi-Desert? Seems so!

Midvale, Nevada receives less than 5 inches of rain annually. The Klein’s have started a no-till and cover crop experiment that they hope will ultimately do three things:

  • increase organic matter
  • reduce the need for irrigation
  • add substance and permeability to light, compacted soil

Click here for the full article, in No-Till Farmer.

KLEIN3.jpeg

In their first year of cover crop trials, 2013, the first-generation family operation (sugar beets,alfalfa, malt barley, beet seed, sheep and bees) planted a blend of cover crops, in June, to an acre parcel  on the edge of a center-pivot irrigation system.

The mix contained forage corn, sunflowers, sorghum, buckwheat, radishes, turnips, kale and some additional plant species. He seeded it at about 40 pounds per acre and then incorporated it with a harrow.

One thing that surprised them: the cover crop plants dominated other annual weeds and thrived, well into the fall, even after the first frosts. The second surprise: even after that one year, the soil in the acre of cover crop was “much more mellow.” And their sheep found the new crop tasty, which gave the Klein’s another possible source for supplemental forage value.

While tillage seems advantageous in the first year of cover crop planting, the type of equipment can be less aggressive. Eventually, the benefits to the soil will preclude the need for tillage, and far less water, they believe.

“The carrot at the end of that stick is better water infiltration and water-holding capacity. We have a gut feeling we’ll need less irrigation as soil quality improves, although it’s too early to confirm that,” said Richard Klein.

In 2014, the Klein’s planted five fields in cover crops, the largest of which was about 18 acres. By staggering the planting dates and using a GPS, they were better able to determine the best time to plant. This spring, they saw another benefit: the cover crop residue has reduced the impact of frequent seasonal wind storms on soil loss.