I shared this presentation at the IL Regional Tillage Seminar in Milan IL on 1/27/2011. Some edits have been made for increased clarity without the commentary.

1. 2011 IL Regional Tillage Seminar
Cover crops : At the Crossroads
Dr. Joel Gruver
WIU – Agriculture
j-gruver@wiu.edu

2. This is an impressive accomplishment!

3. Yield per unit of N has increased over the last 30 years
?
lbs of grain per lb of N
Some IL farmers consistently harvest more than
75 lbs of grain (1.3 bu) for each lb of N applied

4. So why does
nutrient
pollution from
agriculture
continue to be
such a serious
problem
in IL?

5. Did your farm ever look
like this in 2010?
Dissipate large amounts of ag
chemicals into the environment…
sometimes the consequences are
severe !
http://mckusicklake.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/2007_0327image0001.JPG

6. Could this story be about your farm?
Increasing yield by installing drainage
By Mindy Ward, Missouri Farmer Today
BOONVILLE --- For more than 100 years, the
Hoff family has fought to farm wet areas of their
fields.
For Eddie Hoff, the fourth generation to farm the
creek bottom ground in Cooper County, the loss
of yield and added expense of working the
ground was ultimately affecting his bottom line.
“We were losing 60 to 70 bushels per acre in
some spots,” he says.
We were working the ground over and over. I
just wanted to no-till and save some cost.”
So, he decided to drain the soils with pattern tile.

7. Yield maps
have made
drainage
problems
more
obvious

8. Soil participates in the hydrologic cycle
SPRING
Tile lines
short-circuit the soil
Reduced Runoff + Erosion
Increased
Tile drain
water
Leaching of
Ag Chemicals
water
http://www.greenlandsbluewaters.org/04_Glover.ppt
Gulf of Mexico

9. Artificial drainage in the United States
% of land drained
~ 40% of IL
cropland is tiled
http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/36251500/TheExtentofFarmDrainageintheUnitedStates.pdf

10. We have a serious challenge!
Nitrogen uptake by corn
220 lbs of N / 4 million lbs of water = 0.000055
55 ppm
The EPA drinking water standard is 10 ppm NO3-N

11. Peak uptake > 10 lbs of
N/ac/day for high yield corn

12. Western IL
contains a
lot of soils
that are
prone to
nitrate
leaching

13. Drainage practices should be combined
with practices that reduce leaching
REDUCTION POTENTIAL
combine summer annuals with winter annuals

15. Cover crops
Less loss
Less loss

16. The science is clear - cover crops can reduce nitrate
leaching at lower cost than most other practices!
Bare fallow
Kaspar et al. J. Environ. Qual. 36:1503-1511

17. What is innovation??
$ VS
This type of
innovation must be Home grown innovation
used on millions of that fits your acres
acres to pay for R&D

18. Are you an early adopter?
adopt ≠ adapt
Are you a master adapter?
Farmers that make cover crops work
tend to be master adapters!

19. Have you
attended a
cover crop
field day?
If not, make
plans to
attend one
in 2011

20. If you can’t make it to a field day,
learn about cover crop innovation
through participating in on-line
discussions
How many of you are “Ag Talkers”?

21. What to Look For in A Cover Crop
• Fast germination and emergence
• Competitiveness with weeds
• Tolerance to adverse climatic & soil conditions
• Ease of suppression/residue management
• Fertility/soil quality benefits
• Low-cost
Acceptable cost

22. Matching specific objectives with species
Grazing
brassicas, clovers, small grains, a. ryegrass, sorghum-sudan
Nutrient scavenging/cycling
brassicas, small grains, annual ryegrass
Bio-drilling
brassicas, sugarbeet, sunflower,
sorghum-sudan sweet clover, alfalfa
N-fixation
clovers, vetches, lentil, winter pea, chickling vetch, sun hemp, cowpea,
soybean
Bio-activation/fumigation
brassicas, sorghum-sudan, sun hemp, sesame
Weed suppression
brassicas, sorghum-sudan, cereal rye, buckwheat

23. Cover crops are multi-functional!
Feed
livestock
Cover
Crops
Adapted from Magdoff and Weil (2004)

24. Soybean health experiment – 6 locations across IL
November 2010
Mustard
Rapeseed
Canola
Cereal rye

25. Key considerations
How will I seed the cover crop?
What will soil temperature and moisture conditions be like?
What weather extremes and field traffic must it tolerate?
Will it winterkill in my area?
Should it winterkill, to meet my goals?
What kind of regrowth can I expect?
How will I kill it and plant into it?
Will I have the time to make this work?
What’s my contingency plan—and risks—if the
cover crop doesn’t establish or doesn’t die on schedule?
Do I have the needed equipment and labor?

26. Key considerations
How will I seed the cover crop?
What will soil temperature and moisture conditions be like?
What weather extremes and field traffic must it tolerate?
Will it winterkill in my area?
Be realistic about
Should it winterkill, to meet my goals?
What kind of regrowth can I expect?
potential cover crop
How will I kill it and plant into it?
Will I have the time to make this work?
What’s my contingency plan—and risks—if the
challenges
cover crop doesn’t establish or doesn’t die on schedule?
Do I have the needed equipment and labor?
Start planning today for next fall!

27. Cover crops are
not idiot-proof!
Using cover crops to capture multiple benefits
requires more management
There are few profits in idiot-proof systems

28. Managing cover crops profitably, 3rd edition

32. A lot more cover crops would get planted if we all had a several
month window of opportunity (following small grain harvest),
a good NT drill and an assistant

33. Planters can do an even
better job than a drill

34. “I made two passes in opposite
directions with a JD 1700
MaxEmerge 38 in row planter
with the hitch offset 4 in to one
side. I also moved the drive
gauge wheels on the planter
over 4 in so that they would run
in the row middles to help hold
the planter straight.”
John Hall - Arkansas

35. Continuous NT corn
w/ hairy vetch
Geff, IL - Terry Taylor
We plant a corn that is in the early part of the normal
maturity range for the area. The planting date varies, but
is usually first week of May. If this happens, we can
expect harvest at 25% by 9/15. 15. We then immediately
drill the vetch at 20#/ acre with a JD 1560 drill.
Last year, we planted the corn in June and flew the
vetch on in late Sept. Harvest was late Oct. We got lucky
with all the rain and got a good stand. I do not anticipate
that field looking like the pix by May 1 this year.

36. Spreading cover crop seed with fertilizer

37. Dan DeSutter in IN plants most of his cover crops
with a Salford tool equipped with a Valmar air-seeder.
He also uses a drill when possible.

38. The CC planting methods shown on the
previous slides work well but can only cover a
limited # of acres after harvest in the Corn Belt
Other options are clearly needed!
Student: Which cover crops have you tried? how many acres?
following/preceding which crops?
Joe Nester replied:
We just inter-seeded 14,000 acres of corn and soybeans with annual
ryegrass. We used a helicopter service out of Minnesota to seed it. We
used annual ryegrass a year ago, seeding with drills after wheat and
soybeans, but the planting date was too late to wait after beans. Excellent
where seeded after wheat about Sept. 1. Our experience is limited, but
the idea is really taking off, to hold the soil in place over the winter, keep
nutrients within the field, and help with timely no-till planting in the
spring.

39. Photo from Joe Nester

40. Farmers have been using aerial seeding
to improve post-harvest grazing for a
long time

41. Cliff Schuette’s farm in S IL
Barkant Turnips-3
lbs
Rye 2 Bu
Airplane $8/Acre
Corn 183 Bu/acre
Atrazine 1 lb
Partner April 28

42. Forage brassicas have good cover crop potential
http://www.jennifermackenzie.co.uk/2005/12/bra
ssicas.html
Hunter

43. John Hebert
inspecting
ryegrass
no-till drilled into
corn stubble

44. Set-up for efficient aerial seeding in SE IA
Steve Nebel

45. Steve
Nebel

46. Steve Nebel

47. Don Birky’s
seeder in
Central IL

48. Don and Matt Birky’s unique
highboy with 10 feet and six
inches of clearance could attract
a crowd for its high-rising
maneuvers, but the father-son
team created the special
equipment for a tough job.
The highboy, dubbed High Roller,
was developed to air seed
legumes and other cover crops
into standing corn in August. The
Birkys, who operate On Track
Farming Inc. in rural Gibson City,
put the highboy through its paces
last week.

49. Planting while harvesting

51. Dwayne Beck’s set-up
for planting while
harvesting

53. Combining striptill with cover crops
on Ron Neumiller’s farm

54. Terry Taylor’s new bio-strip-till rig

55. Terry Taylor planted radishes w/ hairy vetch,
crimson clover and Austrian winter peas in fall 2010

56. “I planted the radish with the front
units and the rye with the back
units on a 3500 Kinze. I had to
cobble together a second
transmission for the front units so
I could set the front and rear
units separately. I can't recall
specifics right now of what
sprockets I used”
Harnish farm
Lancaster County, PA

57. November 2010
Radishes planted on the WIU/Allison
Organic Research farm on 30” rows
using milo plates in our corn planter

58. Radish planted in
volunteer cereal rye

61. Visual evidence of biodrilling
Canola root
Rapeseed root

63. Small-seeded legumes and grasses can be
planted using the insecticide boxes of most
corn/soybean planters.
Just like granular insecticides, many of the
small-seeded forages can be accurately
metered directly in-furrow or banded just in
front of the press wheel. Setting the double disk
openers about 1/2” to 3/4” deep and running
the seed in-furrow will give the best seed-to-soil
contact and probably the best chance of
success.

65. New bulletin from Penn State
Red clover can be frost seeded into small
grains in early spring, over seeded into corn
in early-summer and over seeded into
soybeans just before leaf drop.

66. Rig for mid-summer over-seeding into corn in Ontario

68. DB
150-200 bu corn
with 0-20 lbs of
N/ac
Kura clover in WI

69. Competition from
kura clover has been
successfully
managed with
herbicides but strip-
till may be the future
of this system
On-farm innovation is needed!