Watertown, Wis., no-tiller Tony Peirick has been reaping the benefits of planting green into living cover crops for several years now. And he says he didn’t make any big changes to his planter when he started doing it.

“We don’t even need the no-till coulters anymore. A lot of people think they must have a special planter. Just go slow and add a little extra weight and a lot of times it will go in the ground. You don’t have to spend a lot of extra money for this no-till stuff. Once your soil structure changes then it will be a lot easier to penetrate. It’s not a big cost. Now a days, a lot of these planters are well set up for downforce pressure, which you need to push the unit in the ground. A lot of these planters are capable (of planting green). You can get involved with this, and it works.”

Tony says it’s amazing how much NPK cereal rye gives back when it decomposes. But since it’s such a big consumer of nitrogen (N) when it’s alive, he applies 20 gallons of 28 or 32 with his planter to make sure the corn has enough N to get off to a good start.  

Watch the full version of this episode of Conservation Ag Update.