Early harvest and mild fall make ideal conditions for cover crops
You might see some more green on the field after corn and soybeans leave the field this year. It’s been an unusually warm autumn which makes for pretty good conditions for harvest. One other thing it’s been good for, cover crops. For the uninitiated, cover crops are a crop seeded only as cover for the soil, not necessarily for harvest and sale (although they can be used as seed or forage for livestock). Even though growing cover crops requires extra management, time, and money for seed, they do provide many benefits to farmers as well as communities downstream.
The biggest immediate benefit of cover crops is that they protect fields from erosion due to wind over winter and water in the spring. With less snow cover and larger spring rains in recent years, these erosion concerns are becoming bigger risks to farmers, who can lose several tons of soil from each acre annually, and may struggle with washouts on sloped ground. Cover crops provide an armor for the soil, protecting it from above and even below as the roots provide a framework to hold soil in place during rains. The cover crops also allow the soil to absorb more moisture than bare soils, increasing field resiliency during rains.
Aside from these direct benefits to farmers and landowners, those same actions by the cover crops protect the folks downstream as well. Absorbing more moisture and reducing erosion prevents flooding and sediment-fill in ditches, streams, and roads. Covers also absorb residual fertilizers left on the field, and protect local wells from nitrate leaching according to the University of Minnesota.
Managing a whole new set of crops AFTER the hard work of managing marketed crops can be a real challenge for farmers. But many local farmers are making it work and learning as they go. The Hay River Farmer-Led Watershed Council is a group of farmers in Dunn and St. Croix counties who work together to share knowledge and learn about how their farming practices affect the local watershed.- That doesn’t mean they all farm the same way however, different farmers on the council are trying different ways to plant cover crops. Roger Hanson and his son Neil, in Clear Lake used a planter to drill in rye after their soybean harvest this year. Andy and Don Cormican of Glenwood had a plane fly rye seed over their soybean fields a month before the soybeans were harvested to allow more time for the covers to establish before winter. Stewart Bartz of Bolan-Vale Farms also tried early fall aerial interseeding of covers, but in a different way: he used a remote-controlled drone to apply a multi-species mix of covers to capitalize on the benefits of cover crops for his soil.
One other thing this long fall has provided time for is fall tillage. It can be tempting for farmers to try and get a cultivation pass over the fields now that many are bare. Certainly tillage can make an easier seed bed to plant into. However, it also leaves the soil vulnerable all winter to being carried away by wind or water. For this reason, farmers on the watershed council encourage smart farmers to protect their soil by reducing their tillage, especially in the fall. Leave those fields looking rugged and leave that stubble where it can protect the soil in what some call no-till November.
Jeff Lake of Boyceville agrees with conservation tillage, he is an active Hay River Farmer-Led council member who says he has gone “full-till to no-till” after seeing the effects of no-till on water retention in his fields. The Lake family also uses cover crops to help manage soil fertility and reduce erosion. Jeff will tell you, conservation practices to protect his soil certainly take more work, but he feels strongly that you have to take care of the land for it to take care of you.
If you’re interested in learning more from local farmers about how to smart farmers protect their soil and water with conservation practices, visit farmerledwatershed.org or find the farmer-led councils on facebook.com/farmerledwatershed.
