Cover Crop or Spring Feed

Cover Crop or Spring Feed
Frank Flis

The use of cover crops can provide many benefits. It can:

•    act as weed control
•    relieve or reduce compaction
•    store nutrients
•    control erosion
•    preserve soil organic matter
•    provide additional forage

Deciding which specie or species to use depends on intended use, timing of establishment, and field conditions.

If the need is for additional forage, then winter triticale has the best overall performance.  It has better yield potential, stress tolerance, disease resistance, and it works better for pasture, hay or silage, than winter wheat.  Winter rye may provide high yields, but with less quality than triticale. Knowing your county’s take on available government cover crop programs (different programs incentivize based on different mixing combinations of species) may provide additional financial assistance to go in one direction or the other.  Unfortunately most of these programs would have required a sign up earlier this year. Watch, however, for potential additional programs that might be offered in hard hit drought areas.  Combining Rye /Triticale or Rye/Wheat can also work well as a spring forage solution.

Those looking to improve soil conditions may want to add winter peas, Daikon-Radish, crimson clover, or hairy vetch to improve soil tilth, preserve or gather nutrients, combat compaction, and preserve organic matter.

Proper establishment will yield best results.  As always, soil seed contact is important. The drill will give best results in most cases.  Broadcast seed will require higher seed rates per acre and should have some sort of tillage to get some seed coverage.  Seed depth from ½ -2” is desired for most winter cover crop seeds.  Knowing the seed and mix being used is important to select the correct depth.