Cover Crops

We have tried cover crops on our farm in Eastern Ks. We have seeded cheap wheat after soybean harvest & usually get decent stands. We must apply some fertilizer w/ it to get any growth or you end up w less than you had.  It takes time, money & some years works OK, @ least it increases yields enough to break-even. Other yrs. the best yields will be from a Fall applied burn-down & residual application & have a completely clean field to start w/ @ planting time. It only works for soybeans planted later. Corn is planted early enough, April 1, that clover does not make enough growth in the fall to do any good & it needs to be killed so early that it does nothing.  Radishes are very expensive & after soybean harvest is too late to plant them & get any value from what little growth they can make. It has been a money losing option most years for us. Grant Corley

Dan, I have not totally given up on Cover Crops & I certainly appreciate your help, but I have certainly been discouraged w/ the very limited success We have had w/ them in our operation of trying them for over 10 years this area. I now want to share some of my experiences in regards to some of your answers, not to be a rebuttal, but from experience & some solid reasons why I do not use some cover crops very extensively in our operation.  1.  We have done it in parts of certain fields to compare results.  They have been very mixed leaning more to more failures than to successes.  Wheat drilled into soybean stubble if you are planting back to beans works some years & others it will cost significantly more than you will receive in benefits. A good heavy layer of soybean residue has value & Henbit  is a huge problem here in long term no-til.  You also have to control it in wheat or rye or it will bite you big time.  Wheat mulch for Corn is a disaster in disease carryover as well as keeping too much moisture around corn roots & in some wet springs causing severe nitrogen losses to denitrification.    2.  Earlier maturing soybean varieties  here are nearly a guarenteed 10-15% yield hit & the only way to absorb it is to plant a wheat crop for grain production.  We have to make that back somehow & w/ the mixed results I have seen w/ cover crops, I need some big successes.   Being a seed operation, Cereal Rye is a serious weed in Wheat seed production & it will carry over. We do not want it in our drill or any other equipment as it will destroy a seed wheat business.  We already have enough Round-Up resistant weeds, I do not need another one in annual ryegrass.  3 & 4.   I have drilled the cover crops. Most years w/ dry periods in the fall, there is no other way. Clovers & other legumes planted in the fall do not have enough time to do anything before corn planting time & late planting of corn carries a heavy penalty for yields in most years here.  A fall application of herbicide for a clean seedbed for corn pays big dividends in allowing earlier planting. Trying to establish a cover crop in early harvested corn will be controlled by any residual herbicide necesssary to have a clean cornfield. You really need to read & comply w/ Label restrictions as they are there for a reason.  Carryover in many cases.!! Glyphosates alone no longer do the job to have good weed control in corn or soybeans.  Turnips are probably good, but seed is costly & must be planted early  to be successful in getting any size.  They could be planted after wheat harvest, but that means an income absorbing crop, not an income producing crop as in DC Soybeans, which will leave some roots & residue after they are harvested for an income producing crop.   5.I agree, A Timely burndown is important whether you are killing a few weeds or a cover crop.  6.  A good mulch of nearly any high yielding crop has value, too.  7.  NRCS cost share on cover crops is only available in some Ks. counties.  8. There are a lot of successful No-Tillers in this area & very few are very successful w/ cover crops as most of us are still looking for the proper one, whatever it is. Extension research has not had much success @ finding a real successful one yet.  I know there could be some very significant benefits, if we could find the right one.  We have sold seed for many attempts & so far have had nearly no repeat orders. I do not think I am alone in this problem.  We have tried several different concepts in the area, but real & consistent success has been quite elusive.  9 & 10.  Expectations are that It Must ultimately return more than it costs or it is a "Flash in the Pan" type thing.  Still ready & willing for some Ideas on what species to plant to attain this goal. Again, I have not totally given up on the concept, but are still looking for something that will work well enough to cover costs & leave a little profit most years, instead of maybe 1 out of 5 years.   Grant Corley