Mentioning cover crops at a farm meeting 10 years ago would have provoked puzzled looks, but these days they are a common topic of conversation.
“Everybody’s talking about it and everybody’s thinking about it. You can go to any no-till conference or workshop and they’re going to talk about the need to use cover crops,” said Jeff Moyer, manager of the research farm at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, which specializes in organic agriculture research.
“We talk about it every day, everywhere because we’re recognizing that the need to cover the soil with something green and growing is paramount.”
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Cover crops, which are grown to enhance and protect the soil, are now widely used in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and California, Moyer said during a Jan. 19 presentation at Ag Days in Brandon.
“Anywhere farmers are interested in no till … we see this working.”
Martin Entz, a plant science professor at the University of Manitoba, said cover crops can work in areas with short growing seasons such as the eastern Prairies.
In field trials in southern Manitoba, Entz has planted red clover and other cover crops following the harvest of winter wheat. He’s concluded there’s enough heat and moisture in the late summer and fall to produce biomass and nitrogen for the soil.
“When things work you can grow a ton (a lot) of nitrogen later in the season,” Entz told a Manitoba North Dakota Zero Tillage Association workshop held in Minot Jan. 11-13.
Moyer began experimenting with cover crops after realizing that most organic farmers till the soil several times a year to control weeds.
“(Which) beats the crap out of their soil,” he said.
Moyer said he knew he would have to build up the soil’s biomass if he wanted to farm no-till and organic, which in turn would smother weeds.
In the early 2000s, Moyer and his colleagues at Rodale developed a front-mounted crimper-roller to knock down cover crops such as hairy vetch. The roller converts the biomass into mulch that blankets the soil.
“It’s free weed management,” he said. “In an organic system, bare soil means weeds.”
He said cover crops may soon become a common farming practice on organic and conventional farms.
“I’m going to say we’re five to 10 years out,” he said.
“Planting cover crops is almost more important than no till (for agronomic benefits).… Cover crops are the real star of the show.”
