What You Need to Know About Rain, Inputs and Opportunity in Cover Crops

Fri, 15 Oct 2021 19:54:13 GMT

When he came back to the farm 11 years ago, Brian Scott was determined to protect his family legacy, while still trying new practices. Today, he and his father farm about 2,500 acres of diverse crops in Monticello, Ind.

They grow three kinds of corn: popcorn, waxy and dent, along with wheat and soybean acres. Cover crops, Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) buffers and soon a pollinator plot also live on many of their fields. They’re also 100% no-till.

“When I came back in 2009, we had too many full-time people,” Scott says. “By making changes to use conservation, we’ve cut out a lot of the extra time and labor it takes to farm.”

That doesn’t mean it was always easy. No-till had few curveballs for Scott, but cover crops presented challenges that still require tweaks today.

“The rule of thumb around here is to wait until soybeans have hit about 50% leaf drop to fly in cover crop seed,” Scott explains. “That tends to be in the middle of September, which can be a little late to get the crop established. Now, we’re flying beans on the last week of August, regardless of what the beans look like because that three weeks of heat is more important than being shaded or not.”

It takes tweaks field by field though, because as you move north, the heat dissipates faster and could require an earlier planting date. So, it’s a constant game of wits.

When it rains

The 2019 spring season was especially challenging and forced Scott to try a new practice — perhaps before he was ready to make the leap: planting green. To his surprise, it wasn’t as hard as he thought.

“We planted beans into cereal rye that was only about 4” to 6” tall,” he says “I actually like this better because we’ve had trouble in the past with beans getting too tall when planted into the much-taller rye.”

The cover crops help keep the ground firmer in the spring, too, which means he experiences fewer planting delays. In addition, no-till not only helps with ground firmness, it saves him considerable time.

“We don’t have to have another guy in the tractor in the spring; it’s just me and dad,” Scott says. “I’ll run the planter, and he’ll run seed to me. And in the fall, when guys are rushing to get a tillage pass, sometimes in not so great conditions, we can finish harvest on our terms and start plans for next year.”

Benefits beyond the soil

Obviously one of the main reasons farmers employ conservation practices is to preserve the soil, and he’s seeing that. Scott has less erosion, greater organic matter, better water holding capacity and has even seen yield benefit. In the end though, it has to pay off.

“One place I’ve seen savings is in my herbicide bill,” he says. “I spread about 50 lb. of cereal rye and 50 lb. of potash to get a good pattern — about $18 per acre. I can typically wait until the middle of May to spray a burndown with residual, which means I can often skip my post-emergent herbicide application.”

On top of herbicide savings, he’s saved thousands on fuel by not tilling. Tillage takes high horsepower and a lot of fuel to move the earth — especially conventional tillage. Cutting out that pass means he doesn’t have to buy new tractors from wear and tear, and he can continue to expand the farm because he knows that’s an expense that won’t be there.

“I have two little guys who might want this farm after me — conservation makes sense,” Scott adds. “Plus, it’s good on your checkbook. We’re spending less on inputs than we did before.”

Pollinator Habitat Fits Farmer’s Sandy Soils And Delivers A ROI

Fri, 15 Oct 2021 19:52:51 GMT

This article was written by Brian Scott, an Indiana farmer, blogger https://thefarmerslife.com/ and a Conservation Steward for the America’s Conservation Ag Movement.

Farming sand doesn’t usually produce the most fruitful harvest come fall. Add in a woodland along one border, and the yields on the edges drop even more. A field we once rented but now own is going to have nine of its 23 acres put into a pollinator habitat cover with help from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the Farm Service Agency (FSA), and the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).

Flat, with decent soil on the south side, but with a steep rise to a sand hill on the north side, this field is only partially productive. Since we purchased the farm in 2017, we have yet to plant a crop on the hill. In the rental years we put dollars into seed, fertilizer and weed control. But unless it rained a lot, we wouldn’t see much grain in the combine at harvest due to the sand. Couple that with a meandering, yield-robbing tree line while starting the year planting 60’ wide along the curves on a small, 9-acre patch, and there’s just not a return on investment.

We already participate in CRP. Having enrolled grass buffer strips along most of the drainage ditches running beside our fields, we decided to see what the program offered for our little sand hill. As it turned out, a pollinator habitat practice fit the bill nicely. Two years in the making to get all the stars (and funding) to align, it looks like spring 2021 will see the sand hill seeded to a prescribed pollinator mix. Between the cost share payment for about half the seed which costs quite a few dollars, and the annual CRP payments going forward, we figure our costs will be recouped in year two. By the third year we’ll be making a little money. Certainly, because we are reducing our fertilizer, energy and pesticide costs, more than continued futile attempts to grow corn and soybeans on the beach make little sense.

Pollinator populations have been declining rapidly in recent years. Most of us are familiar with the colony collapse disorder (CCD) that hit honey bee colonies around 2006. The CCD and other factors, such as poor nutrition from loss of foraging habitat and pathogens (particularly varroa mites), have been associated with hive mortality that has averaged around 30% each winter. Less visible but just as important is the sharp decline in native pollinators. Adopting practices that provide nutrition for pollinators addresses one of the factors associated with these declines.

Because pollinators require a food source throughout their foraging season, the CRP pollinator habitat practice requires a seed mix that includes seeds for multiple plants that bloom across the growing season. The minimum seed mix requires seed from three plants that bloom in each of the early, mid- and late-flowering seasons. We choose a more diverse seed mix. It only weighs 25 pounds but includes seed for 24 different flowering plants (see seed list below). This seed mix will also provide habitat for bobwhite quail, pheasant and songbirds.

For our farm, the pollinator habitat practice will work by reducing costs, establishing a year-round cover that protects the soil from erosion, protecting water quality, as well as providing wildlife habitat.

Seed Mix Used:

Graminoid
Little Bluestem
Prairie Dropseed
Sand Lovegrass
Prairie Junegrass
Sideoats Grama

Forbs and Legumes
Frost Aster
Hairy Beardtongue
Spotted Bergamot
Black-Eyed Susan
Tall Blazing Star
Common Evening Primrose
Compass Plant
Gray-Headed Coneflower
White Prairie Clover
Purple Coneflower
Lanceleaf Coreopasis
Field Goldenrod
Stiff Goldenrod
Lead Plant
Wild Lupine
Butterfly Milkweed
Slender Mountain Mint
New Jersey Tea
Purple Prairie Clover
Rasinweed
Round-Headed Bush Clover
Common Spiderwort
Hoary Vervain

Note: We will be following along with Brian’s pollinator habitat as he goes through his first year of implementation. If you are interested in learning more about how NRCS can help you incorporate conservation practices on your land, contact Ethan White, Manager of Farmer Outreach and Engagement at Trust In Food™, a Farm Journal initiative, and he will direct you to the right resource in your state. If you would like to know more about the work Brian is doing with America’s Conservation Ag Movement, go to www.trustinfood.com/americas-conservation-ag-movement/; or, email us at conservationag@farmjournal.com.

Indiana Conservation Agriculture News

What You Need to Know About Rain, Inputs and Opportunity in Cover Crops

Pollinator Habitat Fits Farmer’s Sandy Soils And Delivers A ROI