Cover Crops

(The 14 plant mix of cover crops in front of the Pine Ridge Farm)

This fall, we did something a little different after harvesting our wheat acres, which was putting in a cover crop.  What is a cover crop?  It is a second crop put in towards the end of the growing season to provide ground cover, hold nutrients in the soil, increase organic matter, and reduce compaction.  All of these things should help our primary crop production in the coming years. 

(Look closely and you will see a be on the sunflower)

These all sound like really great things, so implementing a cover crop program seems like it would be easy, obvious, and immediately cost effective, but that isn't the case.  One obstacle is figuring out how to get the crop into the field, and to come up for a good cover before everything freezes up.  Wheat is harvested at the end of June, so we have plenty of time to haul manure and plant the crop before the ground freezes. It is a good place for us to start and see if it works before we start incorporating it into our other crop programs.  We are not quite done harvesting corn for this year, so to put a cover crop into the corn field we would have to fly it on  sometime in August/September.   

(14 plant mix cover crop in September at the Brigham Farm)

Of course we also have to know what to plant.  There are limitless possibilities of what to put in a cover crop mix based on the desired outcomes, climate, etc.  This year we are trying two mixes.  The first is a mix of 14 different varieties, some each of legumes, grasses, brassicas (root vegetables), and broadleaves.  Of course the stars of the show at least visually are the sunflowers, which are covered in bees and butterflies.  The other mix is 2 varieties- oats and tillage radishes- less expensive and less showy, but should get the job done.   

(It's hard to tell how tall the crops are until you are walking around in them)

All of these plants are supposed to winter kill (die off with the frost) but the grasses and roots will hold the nutrients in and keep the ground covered until they fully break down in the spring.  This should give us better nutrient availability from the manure we put on before planting, and better soil to plant into that will hold more moisture through the summer.  If everything goes as it is supposed to, we won't even have to till into the fields in the spring before planting, although right now that seems hard to believe with how tall and hardy our cover crop looks to be.  

 (View of the ground coverage... and a turnip!)

When we tried a cover crop in the past, we had just planted tillage radishes and they were giant (3 feet long and 4-6 inches in diameter), stunk as they decomposed, and we couldn't see any measurable benefit from having them in the field.  That being said, we may have had a yield boost that was subtle, so we aren't quite sure.  This year we worked with some people experienced with cover crops to choose our mixes and planting dates more carefully.  We also planted in a few different fields that aren't our top performers to see if we can make any improvements.  We won't know until next fall how the crops fair, but right now everyone is excited about the potential for improvement and learning new farming practices.

 (Brian displaying our tillage radishes- much smaller than last time!)