Utilizing cover crops is a sort of agronomic “Choose your own adventure” game with many species that can work, for multiple purposes, and various ways to establish and rotate them. The destination of those adventures is generally similar, though: greater soil carbon, improved soil health, less erosion, and reduced nitrate leaching.
Matt Ruark, an extension professor with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explained those benefits on a Badger Crop Connect webinar by pointing to meta-analyses of research studies that have supported each point. And with approximately a million acres of corn grown for silage each summer in his state, the upcoming harvest of that crop provides significant room to capitalize on those advantages. “What an opportunity to get a million acres of cover crops,” said Ruark.
Still, dairy farmers might ask what effects cover crops have on yield of the following crop, and specifically, how fall-applied nitrogen in the form of manure is impacted by cover crops. Ruark and his team investigated this question by comparing plots planted with spring barley that winterkilled or annual ryegrass to one that had no cover. They collected above ground biomass of the cover crop and measured soil composition and grain yield the next year.
Katelyn Allen
Aug. 10, 2023
hoards.com
