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Southeast WI | Well I will have 3 years of data on one replicated plot and 4 years on another to post after harvest 2015. I am trying to generate a data set you said doesnt/won't exist. It is important to do that. I started each after a wheat year but I gave up on wheat now so it's only a corn bean rotation - 100% no-till for 10 years (since I began cropping this farm) and 5 years with covers. These are full field scale - not small plot. So far no negatives to covers except in the drought year of 2012 with 11-14 bpa corn yield loss on the covered ground. I figure I should begin to see things shake out at the 5 year mark going forward if there will be differences. Again it is important to generate such numbers if wholesale adoption of these practices will occur. Anecdotal information won't make that happen. Cold hard numbers are like cold hard cash - that does the talking for us.
Like you I put w. rye out after beans for erosion control and my attitude is exactly the same. Soil cannot move and I cannot have a yield decrease following the cover. I'm OK having the cover crop cost not be recovered monetarily right away. | |
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Cover crop $ return?
